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This is speculation, however, as is the notion that the taste of sugar will soothe distress and stop infants crying, or that consuming sugar will allow adults to work through pain and exhaustion and to assuage hunger pains. If sugar, though, is only a distraction to the infant and not actively a pain reliever or a psychoactive inducer of pleasure that overcomes any pain, we have to explain why, in clinical trials, it is more effective in soothing the distress of infants than the mother's breast and breast milk itself.
然而，這只是一種推測，就像糖的味道能夠緩解痛苦，讓嬰兒停止哭泣，或者吃糖可以支撐成年人在痛苦和疲憊中工作，減輕饑餓的痛苦。但是，如果說糖只是會讓嬰兒分心，而不是止痛藥或者能克服任何痛苦的精神愉悅誘因，那么，為什么在臨床試驗(yàn)中糖在緩解嬰兒痛苦方面比母親的乳房和母乳本身更加有效，我們必須給出解釋。
Research literature on the question of whether sugar is addictive and thus a nutritional variant on a drug of abuse is surprisingly sparse. Until the 1970s, and for the most part since then, mainstream authorities have not considered this question to be particularly relevant to human health. The very limited research allows us to describe what happens when rats and monkeys consume sugar, but we're not them and they're not us. The critical experiments are rarely if ever done on humans, and certainly not children, for the obvious ethical reasons: we can't compare how they respond to sugar, cocaine and heroin, for instance, to determine which is more addictive.
糖是否會使人上癮，從而成為一種濫用藥物的營養(yǎng)變體，關(guān)于這一問題的研究少得可憐。直到1970年代，以及在那以后的大部分時間里，主流當(dāng)局都不認(rèn)為這一問題與人類的健康有什么特別的關(guān)系。研究非常有限，我們只知道老鼠和猴子吃糖時會發(fā)生什么，但我們不是它們，它們也不是我們。顯然，出于道德因素，批判性實(shí)驗(yàn)很少會在人類身上進(jìn)行，當(dāng)然更不會在兒童身上進(jìn)行：例如，我們無法比較他們對糖、可卡因和海洛因的反應(yīng)來確定哪一種更容易上癮。
Sugar does induce the same responses in the region of the brain known as the "reward centre" as nicotine, cocaine, heroin and alcohol. Addiction researchers have come to believe that behaviours required for the survival of a species – specifically, eating and sex – are experienced as pleasurable in this part of the brain, and so we do them again and again. Sugar stimulates the release of the same neurotransmitters – dopamine in particular – through which the potent effects of these other drugs are mediated. Because the drugs work this way, humans have learned how to refine their essence into concentrated forms that heighten the rush. Coca leaves, for instance, are mildly stimulating when chewed, but powerfully addictive when refined into cocaine; even more so taken directly into the lungs when smoked as crack cocaine. Sugar, too, has been refined from its original form to heighten its rush and concentrate its effects.
糖確實(shí)會在大腦中被稱為“獎勵中心”的區(qū)域引起與尼古丁、可卡因、海洛因和酒精相同的反應(yīng)。成癮研究人員已經(jīng)開始相信，一個物種生存所需的行為——尤其是進(jìn)食和性——在大腦的這個部分會產(chǎn)生愉悅感，所以我們會一次又一次地這樣做。糖刺激同樣的神經(jīng)遞質(zhì)的釋放——尤其是多巴胺——通過這種神經(jīng)遞質(zhì)，其他藥物的有效作用得到了調(diào)節(jié)。因?yàn)樗幬锸沁@樣工作的，人類已經(jīng)學(xué)會了如何將其精華提煉成濃縮的形式從而提高快感。例如，咀嚼古柯葉時會有輕微的刺激感，但提煉成可卡因時則具有強(qiáng)烈的成癮性，當(dāng)作為強(qiáng)效可卡因吸食時，直接進(jìn)入肺部的就更多了。糖也是從其原始形式中提煉出來以提高其刺激性并濃縮其效果。
