Sugar more habit forming than cocaine

[Spin Echo]

The article is quite long, so I've just posted the abstract. The whole article can be found here

Background
Refined sugars (e.g., sucrose, fructose) were absent in the diet of most people until very recently in human history. Today overconsumption of diets rich in sugars contributes together with other factors to drive the current obesity epidemic. Overconsumption of sugar-dense foods or beverages is initially motivated by the pleasure of sweet taste and is often compared to drug addiction. Though there are many biological commonalities between sweetened diets and drugs of abuse, the addictive potential of the former relative to the latter is currently unknown.

Methodology/Principal findings
Here we report that when rats were allowed to choose mutually-exclusively between water sweetened with saccharin–an intense calorie-free sweetener–and intravenous cocaine–a highly addictive and harmful substance–the large majority of animals (94%) preferred the sweet taste of saccharin. The preference for saccharin was not attributable to its unnatural ability to induce sweetness without calories because the same preference was also observed with sucrose, a natural sugar. Finally, the preference for saccharin was not surmountable by increasing doses of cocaine and was observed despite either cocaine intoxication, sensitization or intake escalation–the latter being a hallmark of drug addiction.

Conclusions
Our findings clearly demonstrate that intense sweetness can surpass cocaine reward, even in drug-sensitized and -addicted individuals. We speculate that the addictive potential of intense sweetness results from an inborn hypersensitivity to sweet tastants. In most mammals, including rats and humans, sweet receptors evolved in ancestral environments poor in sugars and are thus not adapted to high concentrations of sweet tastants. The supranormal stimulation of these receptors by sugar-rich diets, such as those now widely available in modern societies, would generate a supranormal reward signal in the brain, with the potential to override self-control mechanisms and thus to lead to addiction.

Wow. I thought they did some study years ago where the rats were given the choice between cocaine and food, and the rats ended up starving themselves together because they always chose the coke. Of course, that was probably regular rat food.

[Ariphaos]

Heh, interesting. I knew there was an addiction component but -worse than cocaine-?

Will have to see the peer review first.

[dragon]

Why do you think I've been diagonised with an eating disorder. When some people do relief drinking or smoking I relief eat usually sweets like chocolate.

[Wyrm]

[tinfoil hat]So, all this time, the drug lords of Columbia and Afghanistan were just a distraction from the true enemies of democracy: the corn harvesters and Brazilian sugarcane masters! Clearly we must retool our DEA into the Sugar Enforcement Agency (SEA) to counteract this threat.

/me salutes and munches on a Kit Kat.[/tinfoil hat]

You just know that the fatties are going to be all over this, and again, jealous of us beanpoles whose "fuel gauges" are adjusted properly.

[dragon]

Hell dietitians have been saying for years sugar foods are addictive and bad for you. Hum people sued tobacco firms for selling addictive harmful stuff, wonder how long before someone tries to sue someone over sugar.

[Darth Wong]

Hell dietitians have been saying for years sugar foods are addictive and bad for you. Hum people sued tobacco firms for selling addictive harmful stuff, wonder how long before someone tries to sue someone over sugar.

I thought that the tobacco firms got in trouble for lying about the addictive qualities of their products.

[dragon]

Could be never really followed it. I mean if you were to stupid to figure out with all the doctors and surgeon general saying stuff about it, well I guess you deserve the cancer. Hell look at chain smokers today, they know its bad for ou and still smoke.

[Darth Wong]

Could be never really followed it. I mean if you were to stupid to figure out with all the doctors and surgeon general saying stuff about it, well I guess you deserve the cancer. Hell look at chain smokers today, they know its bad for ou and still smoke.

The stupidity of the scam victim is not an excuse for the scammer. Maybe you had to be an idiot to believe the tobacco industry, but the fact remains that they lied to the public, and were rightfully punished for it.

[Master of Ossus]

Hell dietitians have been saying for years sugar foods are addictive and bad for you. Hum people sued tobacco firms for selling addictive harmful stuff, wonder how long before someone tries to sue someone over sugar.

There have already been multiple lawsuits filed against fast-food restaurants. I can't imagine that sugar will be too far behind.

[Ariphaos]

Hell dietitians have been saying for years sugar foods are addictive and bad for you. Hum people sued tobacco firms for selling addictive harmful stuff, wonder how long before someone tries to sue someone over sugar.

Possibly, but the more appropriate response is to gut the relevant tariffs promoting the current American diet.

[Admiral Valdemar]

You kind've need sugars, though. Tobacco, not so much. The key word here is moderation. It's something lacking from modern society, where everything is in humongous portions all the time. A Snickers a day won't kill you, nor a glass of ice cold OJ.

So I do tire of these knee jerk reactions from the media that work in absolutes. Sugar is BAD. Fat is BAD. Oxygen is BAD. Sure are, so long as you try and replace your bloodstream with only them, at least.

[aerius]

Well I guess it's safe for me to take up a cocaine habit afterall. Since I can eat sugar without getting addicted, and cocaine is less addictive than sugar according to this article, it stands to reason that I should be able to do cocaine without getting hooked. Not that I'm thinking of taking up a coke habit, but it's nice thought.

[Spin Echo]

Will have to see the peer review first.

I was a bit surprised by the fact the article was available open source instead of in a peer reviewed journal. The authors appear to have numerous other papers relating to addiction study published in peer review journals, so one would expect this one would make its way there eventually.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I'll look for this in the company library, they tend to have the major science journals in hard copy and e-copy format. If not this article, then previous works linked to it. I can believe addiction, just not on cocaine scale or for all that many people outside a small susceptible group.

[Spin Echo]

I'll look for this in the company library, they tend to have the major science journals in hard copy and e-copy format. If not this article, then previous works linked to it. I can believe addiction, just not on cocaine scale or for all that many people outside a small susceptible group.

It's not that I haven't been able to find the peer review journal it's in, it's that doesn't appear to have been published in a peer reviewed journal yet. It could be that the PLOS system is similar to arXiv, as a repository for pre-prints.

[ArmorPierce]

Wow. I thought they did some study years ago where the rats were given the choice between cocaine and food, and the rats ended up starving themselves together because they always chose the coke. Of course, that was probably regular rat food.

I remember that there was a study where they stuck an electrode into the pleasure center of the brain and they were given the choice of pressing the button or eating and they chose to continue pressing the button until they died. Perhaps you are thinking of that?