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Is Sugar is a drug?

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Sugar also has some effects on opioid pathways within the brain, the same system manipulated by drugs like heroin and morphine (8, 9, 10). This is why highly processed, sugar-laden foods can make (some) people lose control over their consumption. They hijack the same brain pathways as drugs of abuse. read more

Brain scans have confirmed that intermittent sugar consumption affects the brain in ways similar to certain drugs. A highly cited study in the journal Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews found that sugar—as pervasive as it is—meets the criteria for a substance of abuse and may be addictive to those who binge on it. read more

But many things that are not, in fact, necessary for life can stimulate this reward circuitry, including drugs, sugar, fatty foods, and even behaviors such as gambling and exercise, said Dr. Joseph Frascella, director of the division of clinical neuroscience and behavioral research at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. read more

Sugar historians consider the drug comparison to be fitting in part because sugar is one of a handful of “drug foods”, to use Mintz’s term, that came out of the tropics, and on which European empires were built from the 16th century onward – the others being tea, coffee, chocolate, rum and tobacco. read more

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