INTERVIEW - According to Serge Ahmed, research director at CNRS, the abundance of products very rich in added sugars exposes us to a real risk of addiction.
LE FIGARO. - Can we speak of addiction to sugar as to a drug?
"In the United States, Canada or Germany, addiction to sugar affects 5 to 10% of people."
Serge Ahmed. - Absolutely. We must remember what the two kinds of addiction are, one with substance and the other without, that is to say behavioral - such as addiction to video games, compulsive shopping, etc. In both cases, the central element concerns the loss of self-control, which must be identified based on a series of diagnostic criteriA
An addiction is judged to be low when it ticks two to three criteria, moderate from four to five criteria, and severe when six criteria and more are present. For sugar, as well as for alcohol or tobacco, the majority of those affected have a moderate addiction. The question of withdrawal is an important element: going without sugar is not commensurate with withdrawal from alcohol or opiates, but it can vary between individuals.
And above all, our studies and many others have shown that sugar has an addictive potential as great as that of the most addictive drugs in humans - alcohol, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, etc. It is now known that chronic and prolonged consumption of sugar causes - as with other drugs - long-lasting biological changes in the brain.
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