By naturopath Margaret Jasinska

Sugar addiction is a common problem among our patients. They know sugar is bad for their health but feel powerless to stay away from it. There is some debate among healthcare practitioners over whether sugar can actually be addictive or not. This is not going to be an academic article. If you feel like you cannot moderate your consumption of sugar, I’d like to give you strategies to help. Many of our patients have health problems they know are aggravated by sugar, yet they can’t manage to kick it out of their diet.

Research has shown that reducing or eliminating sugar can significantly improve obesity, fatty liver and type 2 diabetes in only 2 weeks. These findings come from a study published in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association.

We all know sugar isn’t good for us, but it’s so hard to stop eating it because it tastes so good. What if you knew the health benefits of quitting sugar begin in only 2 weeks? Would that motivate you to get rid of it from your diet?

When consumed in excess, glucose and fructose can cause significant health problems. Fructose accelerates the conversion of sugar into fat. When you consume glucose, 20 percent is metabolized in your liver and 80 percent throughout the rest of your body. When it comes to fructose, 90 percent is metabolized in your liver and it converts to fat 18.9 times faster than glucose does. So unless you are extremely physically active, if you eat a lot of fructose, your liver will be manufacturing a lot of fat.

According to Dr. Tyree Winters, an osteopathic paediatrician specialising in childhood obesity “Fructose provides no nutritional value and isn’t metabolized in the brain. Your body converts it to fat, but doesn’t recognize that you’ve eaten, so the hunger doesn’t go away. Many young patients tell me they’re always hungry, which makes sense because what they’re eating isn’t helping their bodies function.”

Fructose is the sugar naturally present in fruit, but eating fruit doesn’t cause metabolic problems unless you really overdo it, or you are very insulin resistant and sensitive to sugar. The biggest problem with fructose is that it’s found in nearly all processed foods. Ordinary sugar (called sucrose) is comprised of a glucose molecule joined to a fructose molecule. Therefore any food that contains added sugar is bound to be high in fructose. Liquid fructose, such as found in soda and fruit juice is especially bad because it gets absorbed into the bloodstream so quickly; heads straight to the liver and gets converted into fat.

Sugar can feel addictive and you may feel dreadful in the first few days of quitting it, as your body detoxifies. However, it’s worth it, because your metabolism will heal and you should feel significantly better after the first week.

These strategies should help reduce sugar cravings

Nature Sweet Sugar Substitute

Nature Sweet Sugar Substitute is a 100% natural alternative to sugar. Nature Sweet contains sugar alcohols (known as polyols), which are naturally occurring in many fruits and vegetables. They are sweet like sugar, but are different in the sense that they do not have the harmful health consequences of sugar and do not cause spikes in blood sugar levels, cravings or binge eating. They are suitable for those with diabetes, insulin resistance or those trying to lose weight as they do not promote excess insulin secretion and contain only a fraction of the calories of sugar. Unlike their name suggests, sugar alcohols don’t actually contain any alcohol (ethanol) and definitely cannot make you drunk. They are natural sweet substances derived from plant sources that can be added to food and beverages to make them sweeter.