Last year, I read “All In,” Billie Jean King’s autobiography. I highly recommend it.
Towards the end of the book, she talks about the time she spent at an eating disorder clinic. While there, she was “fascinated to learn that brain scans show how sugar activates the same neurological pathways as nicotine or cocaine”.
The book is pretty recent, but the experience she had was quite a while ago, so I looked into the claim. The answer is they don’t exactly activate the same pathways, but there is some overlap.
Here are a few bullet points on the subject, edited for clarity, because I am not a science-y person!
- When you consume sugar, dopamine is released, just like with drugs of abuse. This is part of why sweet foods feel rewarding.
- Sugar causes a more modest dopamine release.
- People crave sweets, but it doesn’t cause the same compulsive use and withdrawal patterns as drugs.
- It can feel addictive, but it’s not identical in mechanism or potency to drugs of abuse.
I know some people for whom sugar feels addictive. It’s much easier for them to go cold-turkey on desserts than to try to moderate. And I totally get it. I am very good about my intake of sweets—I read labels and I consume very little added sugar. But, there have been times in the past when I have allowed myself to consume sugar in a way that felt addictive.
In any event, I strongly suggest you are careful about, and in most cases reduce, your sugar consumption. Here are some tips from a prior post of mine.
Be well,
David