Sugar Allergies
Sugar Quiz – Question 9. May cause addiction (once I have some, I want more).
Take the Sugar Quiz before reading this article.
Have You Ever Wondered if You Have Sugar Allergies?
Sugar allergies manifest like sugar addictions. In fact, the terms may be used interchangeably.
Sugar addictions or sugar allergies stem from becoming sensitized to sugar. Sugar allergy, just like any other food sensitivity, physiologically responds as sugar addiction. In other words, once you eat some, you have to have more. Have you ever noticed when eat the abundantly available sweets and candies at Christmas time, you’re driven to keep increasing your consumption of them, and it takes quite a while to settle that desire for sweets back down once you get past the holidays?
Was I ever surprised when a doctor told me in 1983 that I needed to stop eating sugar. I thought,
“Oh, I can get off sugar for a little while to take care of this problem I am having, and then I will be able to go back to eating it.”
Ha! Was I ever fooling myself. When I started eating sugar again, the same old sugar addiction process came back, causing me to want more and more sweets. And I felt lousy again. Sugar so overstressed my adrenal glands that my blood pressure dropped so low that people wondered if I was alive. No wonder I had no energy.
I was also amazingly surprised that once I was off sugar for at least five days, the sugar cravings started subsiding. The physical cravings for sugar actually come under control after stopping the ingestion of sweets for five days because it takes five days for the sugar to get out of your system.
However, our psychological sugar cravings are much harder to get rid of. Our culture has so indoctrinated us that sweets are comforting, they are gifts, and they are acts of love. So, we may continue to experience sugar cravings on an emotional basis. The emotional/psychological sugar cravings probably come from yearnings that we are not even aware of. These yearnings and voids in our lives are best addressed through the spiritual arena.
What are Sugar Allergy Symptoms?
One sugar allergy symptom relates to mood swings. Just ask teachers about the effects of sweets on their students around the holiday time. They are very aware of the hyperactivity it causes.
But a few hours later when the sugar highs drop to the sugar lows, these same students may get pretty grumpy unless they eat some more sweets right away.
The grumpy low symptoms include depression, low energy, irritability, lack of control, and anger. Makes you not want to be around the little darlings at that time.
But these marked sugar highs and lows affect adults too. Have you lived with someone like that? Or are you that someone? Makes relationships difficult at times, doesn’t it?
Be encouraged. There’s hope! You can overcome sugar addiction.
What Can I Do?
Stop eating sugar! Don’t panic. Don’t quit cold turkey. Follow this easy step by step approach developed by Dr. Jo (Bessie Jo Tillman, MD). My patients responded beautifully to this approach that brings sugar cravings under control and so will you.
Take the first step by developing you’re uniquely-you eating plan by following the program in Dr. Jo’s Natural Healing Cookbook.
Review the sugar articles on the right before taking the Sugar Quiz a second time. After reading all of these articles, take the Sugar Quiz again. See if your answers are different.