Modified post. Read the edit at the buttom.
Now, call me crazy, I don’t think so! I have been an addict and I know how it is to be an addict, but I don’t think sugar is as addictive as cocaine. And I really am frustrated with people who say such things.
This notion that it’s as addictive drives me crazy! I mean, imagine someone gullible who says, well, “I can control my addiction to ice cream, heck I can go without ice cream for months, if it’s as addictive as cocaine, why not give cocaine a chance? It’s not like it’s gonna destroy me or something?” Yeah, I have once been this gullible (when I was younger) and I hate this.
I do crave sugar and I do occasionally (once per week and sometimes twice a month) buy sugary treats/lays packet (5 Indian Rupees, smallest one) to quench that craving, but I refuse to believe that it is as addictive as cocaine or any other drugs. PS: My last lays packet was 45 ago and I am fine, and this is the most addictive substance I have consumed.
I am pretty some people here have been addicted to cocaine (truly no judgement, I hope you are sober now), so what say you?
PS: If you haven’t been addicted to anything drastic as drugs, you are still welcome to chip in.
edit: thank you all for adding greater context.
I realize now that when they talk about sugar, they are not just talking abt lays and ice creams, but sugar in general. I get the studies now. But media is doing a terrible job of reporting on studies.
Also, the media depiction of scientific studies is really the worst. I mean, they make claims which garbage and/or incomplete data or publish articles on studies which make more alarming claims. Also, maybe wait for a consensus before you publish anything, i.e., don’t publish anything which isn’t peer reviewed and replicated multiple times. Yes, your readers might miss out on the latest and greatest, but it isn’t really helpful if the latest and greatest studies in science aren’t peer reviewed and backed up well by data.
I feel like a headline “SUGAR IS AS ADDICTIVE AS COCAINE” can and will be life destroying if you don’t give enough information. I feel like there should be an ethical responsibility to not sensationalize studies, maybe instead of “SUGAR IS AS ADDICTIVE AS COCAINE” give a headline like “Sugar and Addiction, what science says.”
also, https://i.imgur.com/VrBgrjA.png ss of bing chat gpt answering the question.
some articles: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/aug/25/is-sugar-really-as-addictive-as-cocaine-scientists-row-over-effect-on-body-and-brain
https://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/experts-is-sugar-addictive-drug
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/cravings/202209/is-sugar-addictive
https://brainmd.com/blog/what-do-sugar-and-cocaine-have-in-common/
Great question: https://wellsrx.com/comparison-of-traditional-indigenous-diet-and-modern-industrial-diets-and-their-link-to-ascorbate-requirement-and-status
The Inuit’s famously had a very high fat, high protein diet consisting mostly on captured sea creatures.
The life of Stefansson Vilhjalmur is fascinating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilhjalmur_Stefansson
Stefansson documented the fact that the Inuit diet was then consisted about 90% meat and fish. Inuit would often go six to nine months a year eating nothing but fatty meat and fresh fish, which might currently be perceived as a ‘zero carb’ / no-carbohydrate diet. …Stefansson found that he and his fellow explorers of European, Black, and South Sea Islands descent were also “perfectly healthy” on such a diet.
To combat erroneous conventional beliefs about diet, Stefansson and his fellow explorer Karsten Anderson agreed to undertake an official study to demonstrate that they could eat a 100% meat diet in a closely observed laboratory setting for the first several weeks. For the rest of an entire year, paid observers followed them to ensure dietary compliance.
TLDR in one of the first observational society studies of a native ketogenic diet, the explorers reporting the findings embarked on a year long observed diet proving it worked outside of the native population. A really fascinating at one of the early rigorous approaches to dietary research.
We can only rely on observational epidemiological studies of native populations which have low carb diets to make statements about “carbohydrates are not necessary for human life”… but I as the Inuit exist, throughout history, on a very low carb diet, it demonstrates that carbs and sugar are not necessary for human life
I asked for academic sources for a reason nakely because there is a ton of bullshit broscience surrounding keto. Do you have peer reviewed academic sources? Wikipedia and a pharmacy group’s blog aren’t peer reviewed academic sources.
As an aside you might want to look into how much younger Inuits who ate a traditional diet died vs those that ate more plants. It doesn’t support keto as a healthy diet at all by comparison.
I’m sorry your dissatisfied with the sources I could find.
What are you referring to by mortality rates in Intuit children? I’m not familiar with that study
That’s because they aren’t what I asked for though to be fair Im also aware those sources do not exist because we haven’t done those studies.
The fact that the Inuit traditionally have a much shorter lifespan is a fairly well documented fact. It’s really hard living in the Arctic and it is extremely likely that you do need some plants to live a more normal life. You’ll note it’s never academics that bring them up as an example for how keto is “totes healthy” (again we don’t know if it is for decades on end).
Well documented fact, source: trust me bro
After complaining about actual sources.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/82-003-x/2008001/article/10463/4149059-eng.htm
Source on premodern Inuits living substantially shorter lifespans
Obviously I can’t source a negative that there aren’t dietary studies on people with “normal” digestion doing keto for decades. You can try finding them and discovering no e have been done on your own.
Lifespan for literally every group I can think of has gone massively upwards. Any evidence that that’s due to diet in the inuit case? Any evidence that the diets of the people referenced even changed?
It’s in the link I supplied. They talk about how it went from twenty nine years old to seventy from 1930 to now. You want to guess what the biggest change was for Inuit in that time?
Acesss to modern healthcare? The ability to hunt with modern techniques/tools? There’s lots of possibilities which is why we need to study things not just make overarching statements and take them as fact. You’re making enormous assumptions with no evidence, which is what you were complaining about with the other person, even when provided with (admittedly specious, but interesting) evidence.