ReviewFrontiers in psychiatry2018
Sugar Addiction: From Evolution to Revolution.
Review in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 66 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
66 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 123 citations in OpenAlex.
- Relationship between Emotional Eating, Consumption of Hyperpalatable Energy-Dense Foods, and Indicators of Nutritional Status: A Systematic Review.Journal of obesity · 2022Pooled it
- The Effect of Gymnema Sylvestre on Motivation to Consume Sweet Foods-A Qualitative Investigation.Nutrients · 2025Trial
- Dysregulated eating behaviour and microbiota-based interventions targeting eating disorders and food addiction.Gut microbes · 2026Review
- Is Australia Ethically Justified in Implementing a Sugar-Sweetened Beverages (SSB) Tax?Journal of bioethical inquiry · 2026Article
- Perceived Stress and Disordered Eating Behaviors in Emerging Adulthood: A Multidimensional Pilot Study of Dietary and Genetic Factors.Diseases (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- A unified theory of restrictive and addictive eating: a life course model integrating generational transmission, neurodevelopmental risk, and ultra-processed food use disorder-a theoretical review.Journal of eating disorders · 2026Review
- YFAS-derived 'sugar addiction symptom scores' are unrelated to BMI or sugar intake.European journal of nutrition · 2026Article
- Lipid stress evolved, microbiome-based probiotics reduce lipid uptake in mice.Bioengineering & translational medicine · 2026Article
- Sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) signaling as a novel therapeutic target for alcohol abuse.Research square · 2026Article
- Predicting alcohol consumption and reward sensitivity using responses for natural sucrose reward in non-food-restricted rats.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Sociocultural considerations in food addiction and emotional eating: comparative evidence from college students in the United States and South Korea.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Biomolecular correlates of incubated sucrose-seeking within ventromedial prefrontal cortex are sex- and subregion-selective.Pharmacology, biochemistry, and behavior · 2025Article
- Review
- Psychiatric Comorbidities Associated with Food Addiction in Post-Bariatric Patients: Toward Personalized Mental Health Screening and Postoperative Care.Journal of personalized medicine · 2025Article
- Ethnicity modifies the relationship between added sugars and fructose exposure in the first 1000 days and offspring body composition at 24 months.Nutrition research (New York, N.Y.) · 2025Article
- The Validation of the Persian Version of Sugar Addiction Questionnaire: Factor Structure, Item Analysis and Model Fit.Iranian journal of psychiatry · 2025Article
- A Pilot Study on the Effect of Added Sugar on Response Inhibition: Event-Related Potentials in a Go/NoGo Task.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Article
- Parsing reward sensitivity reveals distinct relationships with energy intake, metabolic markers, physical activity and fitness.Acta neuropsychiatrica · 2025Article
- Low carbohydrate and psychoeducational programs show promise for the treatment of ultra-processed food addiction: 12-month follow-up.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- A feasibility and acceptability study of liberate: an online, peer-supported, psychoeducational intervention for ultra processed food addiction.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
6 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The obesity epidemic has been widely publicized in the media worldwide. Investigators at all levels have been looking for factors that have contributed to the development of this epidemic. Two major theories have been proposed: (1) sedentary lifestyle and (2) variety and ease of inexpensive palatable foods. In the present review, we analyze how nutrients like sugar that are often used to make foods more appealing could also lead to habituation and even in some cases addiction thereby uniquely contributing to the obesity epidemic. We review the evolutionary aspects of feeding and how they have shaped the human brain to function in "survival mode" signaling to "eat as much as you can while you can." This leads to our present understanding of how the dopaminergic system is involved in reward and its functions in hedonistic rewards, like eating of highly palatable foods, and drug addiction. We also review how other neurotransmitters, like acetylcholine, interact in the satiation processes to counteract the dopamine system. Lastly, we analyze the important question of whether there is sufficient empirical evidence of sugar addiction, discussed within the broader context of food addiction.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.