Sort the Sugar Cravings Webinar
I partnered up with Maya from Mentored by Maya (@MentoredbyMaya) to bring her clients a webinar on the 5th July about the ins and outs of sugar and sugar cravings.
Why are we so addicted to sugar?
Sugar/glucose is an interesting topic because it involves our pleasure and reward pathways – that sweet flavour raises dopamine in just 2 seconds, and guess what? Researchers have found that sugar is indeed more addictive than drugs [1]. In addition, poor sleep, stress, gut dysbiosis i.e. Candida overgrowth can all cause increased cravings.
There are lots of reasons why we should reduce sugar intake. In the last 40 years, diabetes prevalence has quadrupled and is the main cause of blindness, stroke, kidney failure and heart attacks [2]. Excess sugar consumption can cause issues like insulin resistance, increase risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, increase risk of leptin resistance (where hunger signals do not work well) and increase risk of obesity [3]. Excess sugar can also increase production of AGEs (Advanced Glycation End-Products) which are inflammatory chemicals that cause micro-damage in the body [4].
However, it’s not always that easy to kick the sugar habit. In this webinar, I discussed why we have sugar cravings and why it’s not always our fault. Watch the webinar below:
Need further help?
If you have trouble with your health and require help on a deeper level, feel free to book in a discovery call or view my nutrition programmes. As a functional nutritional therapist, I specialise in helping people get to the bottom of their health issues like blood sugar imbalance, insulin resistance, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, fatty-liver disease, strokes and more. I use nutritional and lifestyle strategies to support whatever imbalance is found in your body to promote overall health.
References:
[1] Samaha, A.-N. (2020) ‘Sugar now or cocaine later?’, Neuropsychopharmacology, 46(2), pp. 271–272. doi:10.1038/s41386-020-00836-z.
[2] WHO (2023) Diabetes, World Health Organization. Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/diabetes (Accessed: 14 July 2023).
[3] Huang, Y. et al. (2023) ‘Dietary Sugar Consumption and Health: Umbrella Review’, BMJ [Preprint]. doi:10.1136/bmj-2022-071609.
