Parties, anniversaries, weddings, and reunions, all have one thing in common. Other than being fun and engaging, they always have some form of food for their guests. And it’s even more likely that there is a dessert to finish a meal. And to make sweets, we always need sugar in one or the other form. And guess what the National Library of Medicine, puts sugar on par with addictive drugs like opioids or cocaine. Why is that so and is there a reason sugar is addictive? Today let’s learn about the origins of sugar and why it is a “drug”.

Sugar’s Origins

Initially Sugar was developed in Papua New Guinea, were people extracting sugar from the sugar cane they cultivated in their vast lands.But the first chemically refined sugar appeared on the scene in India about 2,500 years ago. From there, this Cane sugar processing method spread east towards China, and west towards Persia and the early Islamic worlds, eventually reaching the Mediterranean in the 13th century.

And slowly the world got to know about sugar but since it was such an expensive commodity, people consumed it very sparingly, about 1.81 kg per year on a average in the 1700’s.But today that number has skyrocketed with  today’s statistics showing that we eat over 60 pounds of sugar, which is about 27.2 kg in a year!

Why is it addictive?

Sugar releases dopamine in your body,which is the chemical that helps you experience pleasure,making you to love eating sweets.In Laboratory Studies  with rats, researchers found that sugar released dopamine in a way similar to drugs. And that’s why when you eat a cupcake or slice of cake, you find a difficult time stopping at one and keep eating until you are full and in the end you are in a “sugar-high”.And guess what, this addiction is more harder to let go than a cocaine addiction!

Should we be worried?

Well it depends on how much you consume.

If you consume excessive amounts of added sugar you could be pretty prone to chronic inflammation and blood pressure, both of which major pathological paths to heart disease. And since  liquid calories are not as filling as calories from solid foods, excessive sugar consumption, especially in sugary beverages, also causes weight gain by deceiving your body into turning off its mechanism for controlling your appetite.

Else, if you eat appropriate amounts without too much at one go, and reduce the amount of sugar you eat on the long-run, you should be good, and won’t easily catch that old-man diabetes.

Conclusion

So reduce how much sugar you take(obviously)! But more importantly reduce the amount of carbonated beverages you drink since they are basically shots of huge amount of sugar , amounts that you should be consuming only in a week, goes down in amount 5 minutes if you drink soda. So your best bet to not fall into addiction and reduce your chances of diabetes, is to consume them only occasionally.(if you can that is :)

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My Blog and me

Hey! It’s Steven! I a high school student who has orbited the sun about 16 times. And this is my blog, where I talk about the internet, science, technology, and the world around us along with a few of my adventures exploring it. I hope you like reading my content, as much as I love creating it!

New post every week ! hopefully :)

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