
While home for winter break I came to the realization that my mother had completely changed my families diet. She had recently seen a convincing documentary that researched the harmful effects of sugar and it inspired her to research the topic. A plethora of the information she found was eye opening. After this experience she purchases products with no artificial or added sugar and tries to cook with fresh. My mother has taught me a lot about sugar and nutrition making me question my own food decisions. Personally I have experienced some of the symptoms described in her research and sugar is definitely hidden in everything I consume. One of the facts in the documentary was that the daily recommended amount of sugar is less then what is put into one soda. This just shows how easy it is to go over the daily limit. With this extensive intake of sugar many people do not realize what is happening to their brains and bodies. The over consumption of sugar may be the reason why America is in the middle of an obesity epidemic. With all the information already obtained and by researching through the university database I am going to find creditable evidence to delve into my topic.

In the article "Sugar and Cardiovascular Disease", there are various claims that are stated which pertain to the dietary effects of sugar on health. The article starts with detailed definitions that are important to know and then it talks about sugar consumption in the US, the correlation between sugar and heart disease, plasma lipoproteins, diabetes, obesity, and other health problems. I was most interested in the earliest section of the article that deals with basic definitions of sugar. It goes through and outlines the different types of sugar and what foods they are contained in. The next part I used was the facts on sugar consumption in the Unites States. The next round of useful information pertained to dietary sugar and the link to obesity. The one author Barbara Howard has a PhD and has special interest in studying risk factors for CVD, such as diabetes and lipids. Her work has many publications and she currently works at Georgetown University, a renowned research institution. The other author, Judith Wylie-Rosett is a Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, and the Department of Medicine at the Albert Einstein College. This article was research based therefore it was rid of bias. 

The second article that I found was "Evidence for Sugar Addiction: Behavioral and Neurochemical Effects of Intermittent, Excessive Sugar Intake". This article looks into the evidence of sugar addiction and correlates some of the issue with drug addiction. It gives a detailed description of the stages of addiction and the brain neurotransmitters that are involved in the process. It then links how sugar addiction is leading to obesity. I am mostly going to use this article for the classification of the stages of addiction. It goes into detail about this subject and gives the correlation between sugar addiction and drug addiction. The experiment done in rats is also good evidence for me to use in my paper. I retrieved this article off of the universities library database so I believe it is reputable. The authors Nicole Avena, Pedro Rada, and Bartley Hoebel are all professors and researchers at Princeton University and have published a lot of scholarly articles on nutrition, obesity, and addiction. This article is full of factual evidence and does not seem to have a bias.  

The third article that I found was, "The Plausibility of Sugar Addiction and Its Role in Obesity and Eating Disorders". This article looks at the hypothesis that addiction to food; especially sucrose leads to obesity and other eating disorders. There is evidence from popular literature and the research of animal testing. The results find that there is no support that human's addiction to sucrose causes obesity. This article is of interest to me because it disputes some other sources I have. The author believes that obesity is not caused by sucrose whereas my other articles believe it to be true. Another thing I am interested in is the information on the link between drug addiction and sugar addiction. I obtained this article off of the Universities library database, so I believe it is reputable. The author works for the Department of Psychology at the University of Swansea and has published over two hundred and seventy scholarly articles. He has also cited 160 sources that show he did his research.  

This conversation about sugar has many facets that provide evidence for its harmful effects on humans. Due to scientific studies on animals and humans as well as research over the years, scientists and psychologists have many hypotheses. Many of their studies that have been proven can withstand argument because of how much factual evidence they provide. There are two main views on the topic; Sugar addiction does not lead to obesity, and sugar addiction is like drug addiction so the increase consumption will lead to obesity. The different perspectives have not changed my stance on the topic because I have actually experienced the effects of sugar addiction. 

