While the entry notes some well-known harms of sugar, it fails to note a few thing points:
- Sugar withdrawal can be modestly severe, but it's not physiologically habituating, and a couple of weeks of abstinence will get you through the worst of it.
- Quantity, quality, and timing matter. Keeping total carbohydrate low (~50 - 150g day) will minimize much of the effects. Keeping sugars/carbs mostly low-glycemic minimizes the negative impacts. Consuming carbs in the morning or post-exercise (when body stores are naturally depleted) puts them where they can be utilized immediately (liver and muscle glycogen stores, not converted to fats).
- Much of the sugar in the standard American / standard western diet (SAD/SWD) is in the form of hidden, added sugars in processed foods. A teaspoon of added sugar in tea is minimal. The 10 teaspoons in a 12 oz. can of Coke (or any other soft drink) are rather more. Or the sugars in various canned, prepared, baked, or other foods. Make your own food or eat raw / natural / unprepared foods and you'll greatly reduce your sugar intake.
- Exercise, both strength training and cardio, change how your body processes sugar, and greatly reduces the negative effects of same.
> Sugar withdrawal can be modestly severe, but it's not physiologically habituating, and a couple of weeks of abstinence will get you through the worst of it.
Simple carbs spike serotonin levels, and then collapse them soon afterwards. People want to feel good, so they eat more sugar, which leads to another spike. This is by definition addictive!
It is also a vicious cycle. Too much sugar consumption can lead to obesity, which can then lead to depression, and of course sugar is already a person's go to treatment for feeling "down".
When you say obesity can lead to depression, what do you mean? (I'm not asking for a citation or evidence ... rather, just clarification on your meaning).
Do you mean that obese people suffer reduced self-esteem which leads to depression, or do you refer to some kind of bio-chemical linkage? (Or something else entirely?)
Actually, as someone who has treated many people over the past week for heroin withdrawal, I would like to add that heroin withdrawal very very rarely kills people unless they have an underlying medical condition like coronary artery disease that can become worse with stress. On the other hand, alcohol, benzos, and baclofen withdrawal are much more common ways that people die.
While the entry notes some well-known harms of sugar, it fails to note a few thing points:
- Sugar withdrawal can be modestly severe, but it's not physiologically habituating, and a couple of weeks of abstinence will get you through the worst of it.
- Quantity, quality, and timing matter. Keeping total carbohydrate low (~50 - 150g day) will minimize much of the effects. Keeping sugars/carbs mostly low-glycemic minimizes the negative impacts. Consuming carbs in the morning or post-exercise (when body stores are naturally depleted) puts them where they can be utilized immediately (liver and muscle glycogen stores, not converted to fats).
- Much of the sugar in the standard American / standard western diet (SAD/SWD) is in the form of hidden, added sugars in processed foods. A teaspoon of added sugar in tea is minimal. The 10 teaspoons in a 12 oz. can of Coke (or any other soft drink) are rather more. Or the sugars in various canned, prepared, baked, or other foods. Make your own food or eat raw / natural / unprepared foods and you'll greatly reduce your sugar intake.
- Exercise, both strength training and cardio, change how your body processes sugar, and greatly reduces the negative effects of same.
Something's going to kill you. Need not be sugar.
You have agency.