Sugar is irresistible like a drug. Is it actually addictive?

We’ve all said it, even if we regret it: “There’s always room for dessert.” Turns out, there is a scientific explanation for why we can consume so many sweets compared to other types of foods with a similar number of calories. And because sugars are added in everything from salad dressings to pasta sauce to bread and other processed foods, people tend to eat more of many things than they normally would — without that sugar throwing their satiety center out of whack, said Dr. D. L. Katz, the founding director of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center. “The result is that sugar is in everything.” We like sugar so much that we often call foods steeped in it "addictive" or "like crack," despite this comparison having little to do with substance use disorders. “It can produce signs of craving and withdrawal; it can produce alterations in behavior, and people have this kind of loss of control that comes along with substance use disorder in many cases.” In rodent studies, sugar consumption has been shown to release chemicals in the brain similar to other addictive substances like alcohol or nicotine, including the release of dopamine and endogenous opioids. “ seems to be different in that it is acting more like a drug in the brain than it is a food.” Interestingly, some studies have shown that people with an allele to the dopamine D2 receptor gene are more likely to develop a substance use disorder, including a stronger affinity for sugar.