I completely agree with this article. I would love to be free from my sugar addiction today. In the past I when I have dieted I completely cut out sweets for a period of time but eventually went back to it.

Now it seems its nearly impossible to say "NO" to my cravings for sweets. I need to lose 30 pounds and my cholesterol is around 240. With the addition of high fructose corn syrup to almost everything we eat, its no wonder we are addicted.

High fructose corn syrup is like 80 times sweeter than sugar, leading us to crave it that much more. They don't call it the Food and Drug Administration for nothing. They are making us sick with the food and promoting drugs to treat the symptoms.

Getting to the root cause of the addiction is key. Any suggestions?

To Wanda K: The only way I was able to control my cravings for sweets was to stop eating "starch". Only for a short 2 to 3 week period, eliminate sugar and starch: no rice, bread, wheat, oat, corn (all grains); no potatoes, corn, dried beans, (all starchy veggies). This should change your body chemistry enough to eliminate your physical cravings. If you still mentaly crave a sweet -- try it. I bet it will taste way too sweet now. After your 2 to 3 weeks of eliminate sugar and starch, start adding starches back as you want. You'll soon figure out which ones put you back over the edge; wheat products do it for me. Basically, you can eat all the non-starchy veggies and meat you want: this way of eating actually decreased the total overall calories I was eating and I lost weight too (without sugar and starch, you don't get as hungry; and get full quicker). Good luck! I never thought I could give up sweets either. Even if you "fall off the wagon", just go back and change your body chemistry again with another 2 to 3 week "diet". I know everyone is different, but it's worth a try. (My father suffered a long and miserable death from diabetes).

What do you love more sweets or life? That is the question. I think it would be very challenging to cut out sugar all together. What I do and has worked for me I read the labels on everything I buy that is prepackaged or processed and the first things I look for are sugars and there various forms. Thaway at least you are concious of the amount of sugar and and there friends. Can't aint never did nothing. Good luck with this life saving change. PEACE

My father ate more sugar than anyone else I ever saw. From the age of about 58 until his death at 77 he was in and out of hospitals. To make matters worse, almost every doctor gave him a prescription, everything from phenobarbitol to demerol and a whole lot of others that I don't know about. A large fraction of his problems were caused by withdrawal symptoms when he changed from one prescription to another. They treated him for heart problems and a host of other problems. This cost the Canadian government health plan a few hundred thousand dollars. Many of the other members of his family are also sensitive to sugar.

Several years after his death I read, in a piece of dead-tree junk mail from Julian Whitaker, about the problems that can be caused by excessive sugar intake. He specifically wrote that a change in the relative proportions of different types of bacteria in the digestive tract changed the proportions of the different types of enzymes and therefore the types of hormones, setting the whole body chemistry off balance. I recognized the symptoms from his description. I immediately cut way back on my sugar intake and started taking probiotics. Instead of costing a few hundred thousand this only costs me 2 or 3 dollars a month.

This improved my mental health enormously. I was also sensitive to sugar and alcohol, having had DTs when I was 26.