This blog is about a deadly drug that’s 100% legal and unregulated. It’s being marketed and sold to every sector of our population, especially our kids. Let’s face it: most of us are addicted to sugar. But like any addictive substance, quitting sugar is easier said than done. Fortunately, recent studies suggest that CBD may be an effective treatment for getting off the sweet stuff and taking back control of our health.
Is Sugar Addictive?
Yes, sugar is an addictive drug. According to The National Institute on Drug Abuse, addiction is “characterized by drug seeking and use that is compulsive, or difficult to control, despite harmful consequences.” One important component of addiction is that it leads to physical changes in the brain that make self-control incredibly difficult.
Sugar triggers a a euphoric dopamine response in our brains. When you consume a lot of sugar over time, the you actually receive less and less pleasure from it. As a result, you need to increase your dose to get the same effects. Inside your brain, there’s a problem with dopamine neurotransmission. In other words, your brain’s reward centers have become imbalanced, which leads to a higher and higher tolerance.
Sugar and Your Health
Let’s look at some of the biggest ways that sugar is damaging our health.
- Heart Disease — the risk of dying from heart disease rises proportionally to the amount of sugar in a person’s diet, according to a recent study published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Excess sugar leads to an overproduction of insulin, which causes high blood pressure, and then heart disease.
- Dementia and Alzheimers — consuming sugar leads to insulin resistance, a condition where your body’s cells stop effectively responding to insulin. This can, in turn, weaken brain function and impair your ability to clear neurological plaques.
- Cancer — all of our cells use glucose to grow, not just cancer cells, but there is a strong correlation between high sugar intake and cancer. According to the Mayo Clinic, sugar causes Americans to become overweight and obese, which in turn, “not only increases the risk of diabetes and heart disease but is also a risk factor for 13 different cancers.”
Why Quit Sugar?
Quitting sugar will almost certainly lead to an improvement in your mental and physical health. Your sugar cravings will decrease soon after you quit, and your physical health will steadily improve as well. To put this in perspective, consider that The National Institute for Health reported that in 2012 half of all deaths in the U.S. were caused by poor diets with too much sugar.
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How to Quit Sugar with CBD
If you want to quit sugar, consider using CBD as part of your natural approach. CBD treats addiction by interacting directly with your body’s endocannabinoid system. The job of your endocannabinoid system is to keep your body in balance by regulating things like mood, appetite, and sleep. When we get a sudden rush of dopamine, or conversely, when we experience craving, our endocannabinoid system is overloaded and cannot function properly.
CBD and Addiction … the clinical studies
Recent studies have focused specifically on how CBD can be used to reduce cravings for both heroin and tobacco users, but this research can be applied to any kind of addiction, including sugar.
Consistently using CBD has been shown to:
- Reduce Cravings
- Reduce Anxiety
Sugar Off … Sugar On
It’s never easy to quit any addictive substance. But sugar may be one of the hardest habits to kick. This is because everywhere we go, we’re bombarded with advertisements for sugary sweets, which constantly triggers the dopamine craving. This is called cue-induced craving, and in our society the cues for sugar are endless! This is why it’s so easy to relapse when you try to go sugar-free.
Satisfy the Cue-Induced Cravings with CBD
A heroin addict can stay away from the people and places that used to trigger his addiction, but it’s simply unrealistic to think this approach can be applied to someone who wants to quit sugar. Just think of all the advertisements for soda and junk food that we are confronted with on a daily basis.
“The specific effects of CBD on cue-induced drug craving and anxiety are particularly important in the development of addiction therapeutics because environmental cues are one of the strongest triggers for relapse and continued drug use.” — Yasmin Hurd, PhD, the Director of the Addiction Institute at Mt. Sinai
Fortunately, not only can CBD products fight addiction, but they can fit in your pocket, and they’re 100% legal to be used anywhere, anytime.
When cravings hit, CBD Pre Rolls or CBD Drops can offer a fast and effective boost to your endocannabinoid system, leaving you feeling more in control of the urges. Imagine you’re driving down the road and you see a billboard for your favorite syrupy sweet soda. The craving strikes, and it would be so easy to pull over at the nearest gas station and buy yourself a 32-oz iced-down dopamine rush. (That’s a whopping 73 g of sugar, by the way—about three times your daily recommended amount of added sugar.)
Instead of giving in to the craving, what if you reached into your glove box for a bottle of Full Spectrum 1500 mg CBD Drops instead? Hmm … how convenient!
Set Your Intention
Whether or not you decide to use CBD to help quit sugar, make sure you have something available to help fight the cravings. Maybe it’s carrot sticks. Maybe it’s Kombucha. At first, it probably won’t be the same as getting your drug of choice (SUGAR!!), but every time you redirect your behavior it will get easier. We promise!
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“I Quit Sugar” Recipe
A big Thank You to one of our customers who wrote about her experience using CBD to quit sugar. Here’s how she did it …
Week 1
This week was the hardest. I took upwards of 200 mg CBD per day. That’s the equivalent of two full droppers of 1500 mg CBD Drops, or smoking two full CBD Pre Rolls. I found that it was most helpful to take the CBD Drops at regular intervals throughout the day, and then rely on the quick relief provided by the CBD Pre Rolls when I noticed specific cue-based cravings.
Week 2
Started to get a lot easier! Cut my daily CBD dose in half. I missed a couple mornings of my CBD Drops, and I noticed stronger cravings on those days. I went to a coworkers birthday party, and almost gave in when they brought out the cake. Fortunately I had my pack of Lucky Elks, and I smoked a pre roll outside and actually felt great!
Week 3
Cut the dose in half again, to 50 mg CBD per day. By now, the sugar cravings have almost completely gone! I like the ritual of taking the CBD Drops in the morning and the evening though. And I always keep a pack of Pre Rolls nearby for those cue-based cravings that sneak up on me!
