Sugar Is Not A Necessary Nutrient

Sugar is not a nutrient: at best it is an empty food additive, at worst it is an addictive substance.

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Refined sugar is not needed by your body - there is nothing in it that your body needs to survive. There are only a couple of body functions that require glucose (blood sugar), but you don't need to eat sugar to feed these functions. The body can create whatever glucose it needs through gluconeogenesis (source), a process that takes protein from your diet (or from your muscles if need be) and turns it into glucose.

In the FDA's instructions on how to read a nutrition label, they note the following about sugar: "No daily reference value has been established for sugars because no recommendations have been made for the total amount to eat in a day." Sugars are not identified an a nutrient to avoid eating too much of, nor to get enough of; they are simply a blank area in the FDA interpretation.

Sugar is addictive. It hits the same opioid receptors and dopamine centers in your brain that are activated by cocaine and other drugs. Here's an interesting study for you: Intense Sweetness Surpasses Cocaine Reward.

Sugar makes you eat more of it: most foods are a combination of the three main macronutrients: Fat, Protein or Carbohydrate. Protein and Fats are both satiating - they make you feel full. When you have eaten enough, the body's tissues to send the hormonal signal leptin to the brain, indicating you are full and can stop eating. High levels of insulin and insulin resistance block this leptin signal, meaning you continue to eat more than your body needs. Carbohydrates raise insulin, which blocks leptin, therefore carb/sugar consumption causes you to eat more.

For more info, this lecture "Sugar, The Bitter Truth" from Dr. Robert Lustig is a engaging and measured look at what effect sugar consumption has had on our bodies in the last 30 years. Watch below or listen to the audio podcast.

If your body doesn't need sugar to function and eating it is both fattening and addictive, it begs the question, why eat this refined carbohydrate at all?