Demystifying Science | Are We Fond of Sugar Against Our Will?

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The question is not yet resolved. Some experts think so, others think not.

For Dana Small, a specialist in the links between metabolism and the brain at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), the theory that a person can be addicted to food, and therefore to sugar, is “still controversial” from a scientific point of view.

One thing is for sure, a diet high in fat and sugar does indeed alter the brain circuits that provide a feeling of satisfaction when we eat.

Is intermittent access to sugar that affects, for example, people who follow yo-yo diets or who suffer from binge eating disorder (“ binge eating “), makes the situation worse? Some animal studies seem to demonstrate this, but proof of a harmful effect on humans remains to be established.

“Intermittent access to sugar is not one of the factors explaining weight gain or obesity,” says the Montreal researcher.

As for the evidence for a withdrawal phenomenon for sugar addiction, as you might experience when you’re addicted to alcohol and stop drinking, it exists, but it’s thin, Small says.

The same circuits

To create addiction, alcohol and drugs use the same neural pathways that stimulate eating and calorie intake. This explains the power of addiction they cause.

“Some researchers believe that food addiction is behind the obesity epidemic,” says Small.

The McGill neurobiologist prefers a broader perspective: rather than being the result of a simple addiction, linked to the neural circuits connected to drug and alcohol addiction, the obesity epidemic results from a general alteration of our cognitive capacities by the “modern food environment”. This includes memory, the ability to reason and the ability to make decisions.

Dana Small believes that talking about sugar addiction is “not helpful” in preventing obesity.

“We all need to eat to survive, and there are ancestral mechanisms to ensure that we ingest enough calories. I think we should reserve the term addiction for activities other than eating that use the same circuitry in the brain as eating.”

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