We know that things like refined sugar cause dopamine spikes that cause people to crave them and consume more. We also know that sugary drinks like soda allow p

We know that things like refined sugar cause dopamine spikes that cause people to crave them and consume more. We also know that sugary drinks like soda allow people to consume a large amount of calories quickly. Those are well established and studied behaviors. What we also know, is that consuming refined sugar as opposed to any other source of calories is not very different outside of lack of nutrition etc. This is long established fact in both human and animal studies for many decades. Which means if there is a difference, it is likely not very pronounced. To willfully ignore hard scientific fact to a point where a person needs to adamantly declare that sugar is akin to alcohol in the damage it does to the body, is a sign of something out of the norm in a person. The second half of my comment was to see if there were studies about people who have this behavior as I find it interesting. This is one of the topics on HN which seem to get comments with extreme views and I was simply asking if people had research on this type of obsession. What is it specifically about diet and nutrition that causes such a visceral, irrational, reaction out of a small subset of people? I am genuinely curious.