Beat Your Sugar Addiction NOW!

Sugar addiction is pervasive in modern society and has progressed to the point that in 2009 more than 50 percent of Americans consumed one-half pound of sugar PER DAY -- translating to a whopping 180 pounds of sugar per year!

No longer relegated to the dessert table, sugar is a mainstay in our daily diets, showing up in places you might least expect, like fruit juice, bologna, pretzels, Worcestershire sauce, pickles, canned beans and cheese spread.

Slowly but surely this sweetener has infiltrated just about every processed food source in the modern world, and the more you eat it, the more it will keep you coming back for more.

Is Sugar Really Addictive?

Numerous studies have proven that sugar is indeed an addictive substance, much like illegal drugs.

Sugar triggers production of your brain's natural opioids -- a key to the addiction process. Your brain  essentially becomes addicted to its own opioids as it would to morphine or heroin.

Refined sugar may be even more addictive than cocaine -- one of the most addictive substances currently known.

In one study, an astonishing 94 percent of rats that were allowed to choose mutually-exclusively between sugar water and cocaine chose sugar. Even rats that were addicted to cocaine quickly switched their preference to sugar once it was offered as a choice.

The researchers speculated that the sweet receptors (two protein receptors located on the tongue), which evolved in ancestral times when the diet was very low in sugar, have not adapted to modern times’ high-sugar consumption.

Therefore, the abnormally high stimulation of these receptors by our sugar-rich diets generates excessive reward signals in your brain, which have the potential to override normal self-control mechanisms, and thus lead to addiction.

You can find out more about sugar addiction, including how to overcome the four main sugar addiction types, in Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum’s book Beat Sugar Addiction NOW!

Industry Contributes to the Sweet Temptation

The sugar industry is a shrewd, savvy, well-oiled machine that will hook your children from the youngest ages if you allow it, and has already hooked the majority of the U.S. population.

The two videos below will give you a fascinating introduction into the incredible power of the sugar industry, which many are unaware of.

You know that the tobacco industry has been pushing its addictive cigarettes on the world’s population for decades. If you watch the videos above, you’ll see the striking similarities between big tobacco and the big sugar industry, which is now echoing many of big tobacco’s defense strategies.

Namely, they are denying any connection between their product and the obesity and diabetes epidemics going on in the industrialized world. They also have access to immense power and give generously to both political parties to ensure that their products are protected.

Yet, sugar is one of the biggest enemies you face in your pursuit of a healthy eating program.

The Health Consequences of Sugar Addiction

If you read my newsletter regularly, you know that controlling your insulin and leptin levels is one of the most important things you can do to optimize your health and slow the negative effects of aging -- and avoiding sugar is essential to do this.

Sugar increases both your insulin and leptin levels and decreases receptor sensitivity for these vital hormones. This can lead to:

• High blood pressure and high cholesterol
• Heart disease
• Diabetes
• Weight gain
• Premature aging

There are actually more than 76 ways that sugar can destroy your health. For instance, sugar suppresses your immune system, contributing to allergies, and is responsible for a host of digestive disorders. It also contributes to depression, and its excess consumption is, in fact, associated with many of the chronic diseases in the United States, including cancer.

Sugar even has an impact on your genetic expression. When you eat sugar, your genes turn off controls designed to protect you from heart disease and diabetes, and the impact lasts for two weeks.

Even more concerning, if you eat poorly for a long time, your DNA may become permanently altered, and the effects could be passed on to your children and grandchildren.

You also become “sensitized” to sugar as time goes by, and more sensitive to its toxic effects. According to Dr. Robert J. Johnson, sugar activates its own pathways in your body, and those metabolic pathways become “upregulated.”

In other words, the more sugar you eat, the more effective your body is in absorbing it; and the more you absorb, the more damage you’ll do.

Beware This Particularly Deadly Form of Sugar

It’s important to limit all forms of sugar in your diet, but in the United States sucrose is no longer the sugar of choice. It’s now fructose.

You probably already know that fructose is a sugar, but you may not realize that it’s distinctly different from other sugars. It’s metabolized through very specific pathways that differ from those of glucose, for example, and through its distinct metabolic action, uric acid is generated.

In fact, fructose typically generates uric acid within minutes of ingestion.

When uric acid levels in your body reach 5.5 mg per dl or higher, they are associated with an increased risk for developing high blood pressure, as well as diabetes, obesity and kidney disease.

Uric acid levels are closely tied to fructose consumption, and if you’re consuming too much your levels are likely to be elevated to a dangerous range.

Today, about 25 percent of all Americans consume over 134 grams of fructose a day, according to Dr. Johnson's research. But as a standard recommendation, I strongly advise keeping your TOTAL fructose consumption below 25 grams per day, and limiting your fructose from fruits to 15 grams or less, as it is virtually guaranteed that you will consume “hidden” sources of fructose from most beverages and just about any processed food you might eat.

Breaking Your Sugar Addiction

Again, Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum’s book Beat Sugar Addiction NOW! has some great tips for overcoming your addiction to sugar. I also suggest using tools like the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT); it’s one of the best ways I know to help kick the sugar habit, and it includes a marvelous technique called Turbo Tapping that has helped tens of thousands of people kick their soda habit (the number one source of fructose in the U.S. diet).

From there, I recommend you read through my nutrition plan to learn the foundation of a healthy eating plan, one that will help you to limit sugar naturally, without feeling like you’re hungry or sacrificing flavor.