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Less people would be addicted to sugar if the products they ate included less added sugar. Quite simple.

adrianN 3y ago
Would they still be less addicted to sugar if we replaced it with artificial sweeteners? Is the addiction to the sugar molecule or to sweetness?
- kjksf 3y ago
  The problem really is overconsumption of glucose which creates overproduction of insulin which over time (years) make you fat (overweight or obese), insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Diabetes is basically a state of elevated levels of glucose and insulin in your body which fucks up your metabolism. So addiction to sugar is bad mostly because it causes overconsumption of glucose (sugar is 50% glucose, 50% fructose). And almost everything you buy in grocery store is loaded with sugar: coke, red bull, cereal, all the sweets, cakes, pastries even things like yogurt or ketchup. So in theory if if replaced all the sugar in all the products with this thing and it didn't have harmful effects on the body by itself, then we would greatly reduce the consumption of glucose so it stands to reason we would greatly reduce diabetes. You can still get too much glucose by over consuming carbs (bread, pasta, pizza, rice, tomato, anything with flower) but it's much harder to eat 5 pizzas than to drink 5 liters of coke loaded with sugar.
tourmalinetaco 3y ago
If you make someone addicted to sweetness, then they will crave sweetness in whatever form they can get. Including real and fake sugars. Quite simple.
- kjksf 3y ago
  Most people are already addicted to that. It would still be of great benefit to replace sugar with much smaller amount of protein. Overconsumption of sugar (glucose) leads to diabetes which leads to metabolic / autoimmune issues. Basically it fucks up your body inside. Overconsumption of protein doesn't fuck up your body and it's much harder to over-eat protein that it is to over-eat glucose.
bigfudge 3y ago
They won’t necessarily eat fewer calories though. Not least because they will become accustomed to eating very sweet food. My prediction is that this is likely to worsen the obesity epidemic rather than help it. The solutions to overweight are fairly clear at this point. They involve removing the financial incentives for multinational firms to sell us processed food.
- XorNot 3y ago
  There is no reliable definition of processed or ultra-processed food though. Not one you'd recognise: for example under the NOVA system[1] you can get a lot of weird outcomes. For example pasta is a processed food (though also, bad for you - calorie dense). [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41430-022-01099-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41430-022-01099-1

Would they still be less addicted to sugar if we replaced it with artificial sweeteners? Is the addiction to the sugar molecule or to sweetness?

kjksf 3y ago
The problem really is overconsumption of glucose which creates overproduction of insulin which over time (years) make you fat (overweight or obese), insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Diabetes is basically a state of elevated levels of glucose and insulin in your body which fucks up your metabolism. So addiction to sugar is bad mostly because it causes overconsumption of glucose (sugar is 50% glucose, 50% fructose). And almost everything you buy in grocery store is loaded with sugar: coke, red bull, cereal, all the sweets, cakes, pastries even things like yogurt or ketchup. So in theory if if replaced all the sugar in all the products with this thing and it didn't have harmful effects on the body by itself, then we would greatly reduce the consumption of glucose so it stands to reason we would greatly reduce diabetes. You can still get too much glucose by over consuming carbs (bread, pasta, pizza, rice, tomato, anything with flower) but it's much harder to eat 5 pizzas than to drink 5 liters of coke loaded with sugar.

tourmalinetaco 3y ago

If you make someone addicted to sweetness, then they will crave sweetness in whatever form they can get. Including real and fake sugars. Quite simple.

kjksf 3y ago
Most people are already addicted to that. It would still be of great benefit to replace sugar with much smaller amount of protein. Overconsumption of sugar (glucose) leads to diabetes which leads to metabolic / autoimmune issues. Basically it fucks up your body inside. Overconsumption of protein doesn't fuck up your body and it's much harder to over-eat protein that it is to over-eat glucose.

bigfudge 3y ago

They won’t necessarily eat fewer calories though. Not least because they will become accustomed to eating very sweet food. My prediction is that this is likely to worsen the obesity epidemic rather than help it. The solutions to overweight are fairly clear at this point. They involve removing the financial incentives for multinational firms to sell us processed food.

XorNot 3y ago
There is no reliable definition of processed or ultra-processed food though. Not one you'd recognise: for example under the NOVA system[1] you can get a lot of weird outcomes. For example pasta is a processed food (though also, bad for you - calorie dense). [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41430-022-01099-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41430-022-01099-1