Unlike many other substance use disorders or behavioral compulsions, sugar addiction is often easy to recognize. The most obvious signs of sugar addiction are the consumption of large amounts of foods or beverages laden with sugar. The individual may eat constantly, eat to fight boredom, become hyper and crash. They may even talk about craving sugar after stressful or irritating life experiences.

Sugar consumption can cause a momentary high and a spark of energy in the body. Some studies have suggested that sugar is as addictive as cocaine. People often enjoy the dopamine release that sugar brings. But because of sugar's addictive nature, long-term health effects, such as obesity and diabetes, pose a risk for overuse of sugar. As with other compulsive or behavioral addictions, sugar addiction is a special risk for people with bad moods, anxiety and stress.


In addition, people who suffer from constant fatigue may reach for carbohydrate-rich sugary foods for a boost. Sugar releases endorphins in the body and combines with other chemicals in the body, resulting in a surge of energy. Once a person mentally connects sugar to help provide energy, they can become dependent on it (usually unintentionally). People may crave sugar to balance irritability, emotional lows and other conditions. At this point, there is often little control over eating habits and sugar addiction has developed.


Treatment BeterKlinic

BeterKliniek is the clinic for Integrative Medicine that bridges regular and non-regular medicine.

An van Veen (physician) and Michael van Gils (therapist) look for the cause of a condition or disease. That is where the treatment starts otherwise, as people often say, it is 'carrying water to the sea'. We call this cause medicine. Sometimes it is also desirable to treat the symptoms (at the same time). We call this symptom medicine.

Chronic disorders often have their cause in epi- genetics. You can schedule a free informative telephone consultation (phone number 040-7117337 until 1 p.m.) at BeterKliniek to discuss your symptoms so that we can provide you with further advice.