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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，这只是一种推测，就像糖的味道能够缓解痛苦，让婴儿停止哭泣，或者吃糖可以支撑成年人在痛苦和疲惫中工作，减轻饥饿的痛苦。但是，如果说糖只是会让婴儿分心，而不是止痛药或者能克服任何痛苦的精神愉悦诱因，那么，为什么在临床试验中糖在缓解婴儿痛苦方面比母亲的乳房和母乳本身更加有效，我们必须给出解释。
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.
糖是否会使人上瘾，从而成为一种滥用药物的营养变体，关于这一问题的研究少得可怜。直到1970年代，以及在那以后的大部分时间里，主流当局都不认为这一问题与人类的健康有什么特别的关系。研究非常有限，我们只知道老鼠和猴子吃糖时会发生什么，但我们不是它们，它们也不是我们。显然，出于道德因素，批判性实验很少会在人类身上进行，当然更不会在儿童身上进行：例如，我们无法比较他们对糖、可卡因和海洛因的反应来确定哪一种更容易上瘾。
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.
糖确实会在大脑中被称为“奖励中心”的区域引起与尼古丁、可卡因、海洛因和酒精相同的反应。成瘾研究人员已经开始相信，一个物种生存所需的行为——尤其是进食和性——在大脑的这个部分会产生愉悦感，所以我们会一次又一次地这样做。糖刺激同样的神经递质的释放——尤其是多巴胺——通过这种神经递质，其他药物的有效作用得到了调节。因为药物是这样工作的，人类已经学会了如何将其精华提炼成浓缩的形式从而提高快感。例如，咀嚼古柯叶时会有轻微的刺激感，但提炼成可卡因时则具有强烈的成瘾性，当作为强效可卡因吸食时，直接进入肺部的就更多了。糖也是从其原始形式中提炼出来以提高其刺激性并浓缩其效果。
