Sweet temptation

When registered dietitian Jodi Balis cut refined sugar out of her diet six years ago, she felt some lethargy and mental fogginess for the four to five months she kept to the diet.

“I remember the first bite of sugar I had, I couldn’t stop eating it,” says Mrs. Balis, nutrition educator with the University of Maryland Cooperative Extension in Clarksville.

For this reason, Mrs. Balis and other metro-area dietitians and nutritionists advise against eliminating refined sugar, but urge learning to eat it in moderation instead.

“There are other ways to bring more sweets into your life without having to take away the old ones,” Mrs. Balis says.

Moderate amounts of sugar fit into a healthy diet and active lifestyle, says Charles W. Baker, the U.S. Sugar Association’s executive vice president and chief science officer, in an e-mail interview.

“Repeated scientific analyses have proven that diet quality is determined by one’s total diet, not a single diet component like sugar,” says Mr. Baker, who holds a doctorate in biochemistry with a specialty in carbohydrates.

Nevertheless, whether eliminating sugar from the diet leads to withdrawal symptoms is up to debate.

“No food, including sugar, leads to clinically verified withdrawal,” Mr. Baker says. “Foods are not drugs, just like drugs are not foods.”

Research shows, however, that some of the same receptors in the brain triggered by opiates such as heroin and morphine also are triggered by sugar, says Dr. Robynne Chutkan, assistant professor of medicine at the Division of Gastroenterology at Georgetown University Hospital in Northwest. She is medical director of the Digestive Center for Women in Chevy Chase.

Craving sugar is not an addiction, although, as with an addiction, there can be increased intake of sugar over time, withdrawal symptoms when sugar is taken away, and relapse and return to eating it, she says.

Withdrawal symptoms, which last three days to two weeks, can include sugar cravings, irritability, fatigue, low energy level, cold intolerance and mild depression or anxiety, Dr. Chutkan says.

The symptoms are similar to but less intense than symptoms of caffeine withdrawal, says registered dietitian Rosanna Gibbons, consultant dietitian for the University of Maryland Center for Integrative Medicine in Baltimore.

“As blood sugar drops, you almost feel like you’re dropping in an elevator shaft. You can feel fuzzy and hazy,” Mrs. Gibbons says.

Cutting back on sugar can heighten the sensitivity of the taste buds to other flavors, such as sour or savory, she says.

“You can unteach your taste buds to crave supersweetness,” she says. “You can retrain [them] to enjoy moderate levels of sugar over a timeline of several weeks.”

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