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Psychological Encyclopedia

How to Stop Sugar Cravings: Evidence-Based Behavioral Strategies

Sep 29
20 min read

Author: Ukrainian Psychological Hub · Published: September 29, 2026 · Editorial Policy


Sugar cravings are best managed as a behavior problem with several possible inputs: hunger, learned cues, routine, stress, sleep loss, availability, sensory expectation, and reward. There is no single trick that reliably switches every craving off. The practical goal is to identify what is driving the current urge, reduce the conditions that make urges predictable, and practice a response that you can repeat.


For most people, “sugar craving” means a strong desire for sweet foods or drinks, not a biologically specific need for sucrose. Chocolate, cookies, ice cream, pastries, soda, sweetened coffee, candy, and desserts differ in fat, starch, aroma, texture, temperature, caffeine, portion size, and learned meaning as well as sugar content. That matters because the behavior you are trying to change may be attached to a food, a place, a time, or a ritual rather than to sugar as an isolated molecule.


The evidence also supports a useful distinction between craving and hunger. A 2026 systematic review of ecological momentary assessment studies found a consistent within-person association between hunger and food craving, while also showing that craving is a dynamic state that changes across everyday contexts. Jun et al., 2026 If you are physically hungry, treating the episode as a willpower test can make the problem harder. If you are adequately fed and the urge appears in a familiar cue-rich context, a behavioral strategy is often more relevant.


Quick Answer: How Do You Stop Sugar Cravings?


Start with five moves. First, decide whether you are hungry or mainly responding to a cue, routine, emotion, or expectation. Second, if you are hungry, eat an adequate meal or snack rather than trying to suppress hunger. Third, if the urge is cue-driven, interrupt the cue-response sequence by delaying the action briefly, changing context, or using a preplanned alternative. Fourth, make the recurring trigger less automatic by changing availability, visibility, timing, or routine. Fifth, build an if-then plan for the next occurrence so the new response is easier to repeat.


These strategies are supported by broader food-craving and behavior-change research rather than by evidence for a unique “sugar craving cure.” A meta-analysis of laboratory craving interventions found small-to-medium benefits across several approaches; cognitive regulation strategies had the most robust effects on subjective craving, while long-term transfer to daily life remained uncertain. Wolz et al., 2020 A separate meta-analysis found that specific implementation intentions—simple if-then plans—produced small improvements in reducing less-healthy eating behavior. Carrero et al., 2019


If you want the broader mechanism—why cravings happen in the first place—see Sugar Cravings: Why They Happen and What Psychology Can Explain. The present article owns the practical question: what to do to reduce recurring sugar cravings without turning ordinary eating into a detox program or a punitive food rule.


If your main goal is to reduce overall added-sugar intake rather than manage the craving itself, see How to Cut Back on Added Sugar Without Making Food Miserable. That article owns the broader low-deprivation reduction intent; this one stays focused on recurring craving episodes and their behavioral triggers.


First, Define What You Are Trying to Stop


“Stop sugar cravings” can mean several different goals. One person wants fewer afternoon candy urges. Another wants to stop buying a sweet coffee automatically. Another wants to reduce desserts after dinner. Another wants relief from recurrent loss-of-control eating. Those are not interchangeable problems, and they should not be treated with the same strategy.


Craving


A craving is a strong desire to consume a particular food or class of foods. It can occur with hunger, without hunger, or after a meal. Craving is an experience, not a diagnosis. Its presence does not establish addiction, diabetes, hypoglycemia, nutrient deficiency, or an eating disorder.


Hunger


Hunger is the broader drive to eat. It is usually less food-specific than a craving, although hunger can make highly familiar and rewarding foods more attractive. For a practical comparison, see Sugar Craving vs Hunger: How to Understand the Difference.


Habit


A habit is a learned cue-response pattern. The same time, place, action, emotion, or preceding event repeatedly predicts sweet eating, so the response becomes easier to initiate. This is why the end of dinner, opening a laptop, entering a gas station, seeing the office snack table, or making coffee can become a craving trigger. The dedicated mechanism is covered in Sugar Cravings and Habit: How Cues Trigger Automatic Eating.


Reward learning


Reward learning describes how cues acquire motivational value because they predict a rewarding outcome. It does not mean that dopamine is a simple pleasure chemical or that a craving proves addiction. In a meta-analysis of 45 reports involving 3,292 participants, food-cue reactivity and craving predicted eating and weight-related outcomes with an overall association of about r = 0.33. Boswell & Kober, 2016


What Counts as “Sugar” in a Sugar-Reduction Plan?


For a practical reduction plan, the most useful target is usually added sugar or free sugars rather than every molecule of sugar in the diet. In U.S. labeling, the FDA defines Total Sugars as naturally occurring sugars plus added sugars. Added Sugars include sugars added during processing, table sugar, syrups, honey, and sugars from concentrated fruit or vegetable juices; they exclude sugars naturally occurring in milk, fruits, and vegetables. FDA: Added Sugars on the Nutrition Facts Label


WHO uses the broader term free sugars. It includes sugars added by manufacturers, cooks, or consumers and sugars naturally present in honey, syrups, fruit juices, and fruit-juice concentrates. WHO recommends keeping free sugars below 10% of total energy intake and notes that reducing intake to 5% or less may provide additional benefits. WHO: Healthy Diet


These definitions are related but not identical. A craving-management article should therefore avoid the vague rule “all sugar is sugar.” Intact fruit, for example, is not an Added Sugar under FDA labeling, while fruit juice contributes free sugars under WHO terminology. If your goal is to reduce recurring sweet-food habits, begin with the specific foods and drinks that actually create the behavioral loop.


A 10-Minute Protocol for a Sugar Craving


When a craving hits, you do not need to solve your entire diet. Use a short protocol that separates immediate action from long-term habit change.


Step 1: Ask whether you are hungry


Look for the broader pattern: time since your last meal, whether several foods sound appealing, and whether the urge is accompanied by ordinary signs of hunger. Hunger and craving can coexist. If the answer is “yes, I am hungry,” eat. Repeatedly substituting willpower, water, gum, or a tiny low-calorie snack for genuine hunger can leave the original driver in place.


Step 2: Name the trigger


If hunger is not the main driver, identify what happened immediately before the urge. Did dinner end? Did you start a television show? Did you walk past a vending machine? Did a stressful email arrive? Did you smell baked food? Did you open a delivery app? Naming the trigger turns a vague feeling of “I need sugar” into a testable pattern.


Step 3: Delay the automatic response without declaring the food forbidden


A brief delay creates room for a different choice. Ten minutes is not a biologically magic interval; it is simply long enough to interrupt an automatic sequence. During that interval, leave the cue if possible, change rooms, start the next planned activity, or use the response specified in your if-then plan. The aim is to weaken automaticity, not to prove that you can suffer through an urge.


Step 4: Reassess


After the pause, ask again: am I hungry, do I still want this particular food, and what choice fits my plan? If the craving has fallen, continue. If you are hungry, eat. If you still choose the sweet food, eat it deliberately rather than treating the episode as a failure. A flexible system is easier to repeat than a rule that turns one dessert into “I ruined the day.”


Strategy 1: Prevent Extreme Hunger From Becoming a Craving Amplifier


One of the most useful changes is also the least glamorous: do not repeatedly arrive at predictable craving times extremely hungry. Daily-life research shows that hunger and craving rise together within individuals. Jun et al., 2026 That does not mean every sugar craving is caused by an energy deficit, but it means hunger deserves to be checked before you interpret the episode as a psychological battle.


Practically, this can mean eating regular meals that are adequate for you, planning food before a long commute, or having a real snack available before the hour when you usually raid the office candy bowl. The goal is not to chase perfect satiety or count every calorie. It is to remove a predictable condition that makes immediate high-reward food especially compelling.


This is also why “just skip meals so you consume less sugar” can be a poor behavior-change strategy for someone whose strongest cravings emerge after long periods without food. If your eating schedule is medically constrained, part of an eating-disorder treatment plan, or tied to diabetes management, individualized clinical guidance takes priority.


Strategy 2: Map the Cue–Craving–Response Loop


For one week, record only enough information to reveal patterns: time, place, what happened immediately before the craving, hunger level, the food desired, and what you did next. You are looking for repeated sequences, not building a moral scorecard.


Common cues include finishing a meal, coffee, a work break, driving, screen use, shopping, seeing food on a counter, food-delivery notifications, social gatherings, boredom, stress, and bedtime routines. If one cue repeatedly predicts the same response, that is a better target than the abstract goal “use more willpower.”


Self-monitoring is not a sugar-craving-specific cure, but broader dietary behavior research suggests a small average benefit. A systematic review and meta-analysis of remotely delivered self-monitoring or tailored-feedback interventions found a small improvement in dietary behavior, with substantial heterogeneity and risk-of-bias concerns. Teasdale et al., 2018


Keep monitoring lightweight. If tracking food, weight, calories, or cravings increases obsession, anxiety, binge–restrict cycles, or eating-disorder symptoms, stop using that tool and choose a different method.


Strategy 3: Change the Environment Before the Craving Arrives


A recurring craving is easier to manage when the cue is weaker, later, less visible, or requires more deliberate effort. This is not about making a home “perfect.” It is about changing the path of least resistance around the specific behavior you want to change.


Examples include storing the trigger food out of immediate sight rather than on the counter, buying a smaller package instead of a family-size package for an automatic evening routine, disabling delivery-app prompts, moving snacks away from a desk, taking a different route through a store, or preparing the intended snack before the time when a craving usually begins.


The scientific rationale is broader than sugar. Food cues reliably influence attention and craving, and cue reactivity predicts eating outcomes. Boswell & Kober, 2016 A 2026 systematic review of food-related odors likewise found that odor exposure can affect appetite, craving, food choice, preference, and intake, although findings varied across study designs. Li et al., 2026


Environment design works best when it is specific. “Keep all sugar out of the house forever” is a global rule. “I stop leaving cookies next to the kettle because tea is my cue” is a targeted intervention.


Strategy 4: Use If-Then Plans Instead of Vague Intentions


An intention such as “I will eat less sugar” leaves the hard decision for the moment when the cue is already present. An implementation intention makes the response explicit in advance: “If I finish dinner and want something sweet, then I will make tea and wait ten minutes before deciding,” or “If I stop for coffee on the way to work, then I will order the drink I planned before I enter.”


A 2011 systematic review and meta-analysis found that implementation intentions improved healthy eating with a moderate effect and reduced unhealthy eating with a smaller effect. Adriaanse et al., 2011 A later meta-regression of 70 interventions found a small average effect for reducing unhealthy eating and suggested that specific if-then and action plans were more useful than complex plans. Carrero et al., 2019


The plan should identify a real cue and a realistic response. “If I crave sugar, I will not eat sugar” simply restates the goal. “If I open the pantry after dinner, I will close it, make peppermint tea, and start the dishes before deciding about dessert” specifies a behavior you can rehearse.


Strategy 5: Substitute the Response, Not Just the Ingredient


Substitution works best when you identify what the original behavior was doing. If the function is hunger, substitute an adequate snack or meal. If it is oral stimulation during work, a non-food routine may be enough. If it is a comforting evening ritual, replacing a dessert with something that feels like punishment is unlikely to preserve the function of the ritual.


This is why “replace every sweet food with a zero-calorie sweetener” is not a complete craving strategy. It changes an ingredient while potentially preserving the same cue, sweetness expectation, time, context, and action sequence. WHO’s current healthy-diet guidance advises that reducing free sugars should be accomplished without relying on non-sugar sweeteners. WHO: Healthy Diet


That guidance does not mean every use of a non-sugar sweetener is automatically harmful or that no individual can find one useful. It means sweetener substitution should not be presented as the universal evidence-based answer to reducing free sugar. Different sweeteners also have different evidence, sensory properties, and gastrointestinal effects.


Strategy 6: Use Cognitive Regulation and Decentering


A craving is an urge, not an instruction. Cognitive regulation changes how you relate to the urge rather than pretending it is absent. Depending on the person, useful techniques can include distraction, reappraisal, focusing on longer-term consequences, or observing the craving as a temporary mental event.


The evidence is promising but should not be oversold. A 2020 systematic review and meta-analysis of laboratory interventions found the most robust craving reductions for cognitive regulation strategies such as reappraisal, suppression, and distraction, while emphasizing the need for evidence on long-term effects and real-world transfer. Wolz et al., 2020


Mindfulness-based interventions also show a modest average effect. A 2025 meta-analysis of 24 controlled studies involving 1,920 adults found a small reduction in craving intensity (Hedges’ g = 0.28), but no significant reduction in craving frequency; the certainty of evidence was rated low. Allameh et al., 2025


A practical decentering phrase is simple: “I am noticing a strong urge for something sweet.” That wording creates a small amount of psychological distance. The objective is not to argue with the craving until it disappears. It is to notice it accurately enough to choose the next action.


Strategy 7: Treat Stress as a Trigger When Stress Is Actually the Trigger


Stress can shift eating behavior, but the effect is not universal. A systematic review and meta-analysis of 54 studies with 119,820 participants found small average associations between stress and overall intake, increased less-healthy food consumption, and decreased healthier food consumption. Hill et al., 2022


So the useful question is not “does cortisol make everyone crave sugar?” It is “does this particular craving reliably follow stress for me?” If yes, intervene earlier in the chain. A brief walk, a phone call, a transition ritual after work, changing the location where you decompress, or another coping behavior may be more effective than fighting the food after stress has already triggered the routine.


For the dedicated evidence and mechanisms, see Stress and Sugar Cravings: Why Stress Can Shift Food Choice.


Strategy 8: Protect Sleep When Cravings Cluster After Short Nights


Sleep loss can increase dietary intake and alter food motivation in some people, but the popular hormone story is too simple. A 2026 synthesis of human randomized controlled trials concluded that sleep restriction often increased intake, while changes in hunger and motivation were inconsistent and did not reliably explain the extra eating. Tan et al., 2026


If your cravings reliably intensify after short sleep, improving sleep opportunity can remove one contributor. It should not be sold as an instant craving cure. The practical value is to reduce a recurring vulnerability—fatigue, extra waking time, reward-driven choice, disrupted routine—rather than to promise that one good night resets appetite hormones.


For the dedicated sleep evidence, see Sleep and Sugar Cravings: How Sleep Loss Can Change Appetite and Reward. If the problem is specifically late-evening craving, see Sugar Cravings at Night: Habit, Hunger, Sleep, and Food Cues.


Strategy 9: Reduce Added or Free Sugar Without Turning It Into a Detox


If your goal is lower sugar intake, target the largest repeat sources first: sweetened drinks, sweet coffee or tea routines, frequent desserts, candy, pastries, or packaged foods with substantial added sugar. The Nutrition Facts label can help identify Added Sugars in U.S. packaged foods. How to Read Sugar on a Nutrition Facts Label is the dedicated label guide.


FDA’s Daily Value for Added Sugars is 50 grams on a 2,000-calorie reference diet, and the agency notes the Dietary Guidelines recommendation to keep added sugars below 10% of calories. FDA: Added Sugars on the Nutrition Facts Label WHO similarly recommends free sugars below 10% of energy intake. WHO: Sugars Intake Guidance


You do not need to label naturally occurring sugars in intact fruit or plain dairy as the same behavioral target as a nightly candy habit. You also do not need to call a reduction plan a “detox.” Dietary sugar is not a toxin that requires a cleansing protocol, and ordinary craving management is not medical detoxification.


Should You Quit Sugar Cold Turkey?


There is no universal answer because restriction and craving interact in more than one way. A review of deprivation research found that short-term selective deprivation can increase cravings for the avoided food, while longer-term energy restriction in some intervention studies was associated with lower cravings. The relationship is therefore more complex than either “restriction always makes cravings worse” or “complete abstinence always makes cravings disappear.” Meule, 2020


For ordinary behavior change, a gradual reduction is often easier to personalize: reduce the number of automatic sweet occasions, reduce sweetness in a recurring drink, change portion size, or keep selected desserts intentional rather than automatic. A person who does better with a clear boundary can use one, but the boundary should serve the goal rather than become a punitive rule.


If you have a history of restrictive eating, binge eating, purging, compulsive exercise, or an eating disorder, aggressive elimination rules can be clinically inappropriate. In that context, individualized care matters more than generic sugar-reduction advice.


What About “Sugar Withdrawal”?


People sometimes report headache, irritability, fatigue, low mood, or strong urges after changing a habitual diet. Those experiences can be real, but they do not by themselves establish a withdrawal syndrome caused by sugar. Changes in caffeine intake, meal timing, total energy intake, hydration, sleep, expectation, and routine can occur at the same time.


The broader claim that sugar is an addictive substance in humans remains contested. A 2016 review found little evidence for sugar addiction in humans, with much of the classic addiction-like evidence coming from animal models using intermittent access. Westwater et al., 2016 A 2026 narrative review concluded that evidence for mood modification and withdrawal in humans remains limited and that no standardized clinically validated sugar-addiction measure exists. Hascher et al., 2026



Common Sugar-Craving Advice That Is Too Simple


“Just drink water”


Hydration matters for health, and thirst can sometimes be confused with other bodily sensations. But water is not an evidence-based selective treatment for sugar cravings. If the driver is hunger, habit, stress, cue exposure, or sleep loss, water does not remove that mechanism.


“Eat protein and the craving will disappear”


A balanced meal can help when hunger is contributing, and protein can support satiety within an overall diet. That is different from claiming that protein specifically switches off sugar cravings. Use adequate meals to manage hunger; do not turn one nutrient into a craving antidote.


“You are craving sugar because you lack magnesium”


There is no established rule that ordinary sugar or chocolate cravings diagnose a specific micronutrient deficiency. A craving is too nonspecific to function as a nutrient test. Supplementation should be based on an actual nutritional or medical indication, not on a social-media craving chart.


“You need a dopamine reset”


Reward systems participate in food motivation and learning, but there is no clinically established “dopamine reset” protocol for ordinary sugar cravings. The useful behavioral translation is simpler: reduce repeated cue exposure where practical, change the learned response, and practice alternative actions.


“Never eat anything sweet again”


Complete abstinence is not required by FDA or WHO dietary guidance, and it is not necessary for every person who wants fewer cravings. For some people, rigid prohibition can increase preoccupation with the forbidden food; for others, a clear personal boundary can simplify decision-making. The correct question is whether the rule improves behavior and well-being without creating harmful restriction.


How to Build a Personal Sugar-Craving Plan


A useful plan is concrete enough to run as an experiment. Choose one recurring craving pattern rather than trying to redesign every meal at once.


1. Define the episode


Example: “I buy a sweet pastry with coffee on weekday mornings,” or “I start looking for chocolate within 20 minutes after dinner.” A behavior you can observe is easier to change than “I have no self-control around sugar.”


2. Identify the strongest driver


Ask whether the episode is mostly hunger, cue, habit, stress, sleep-related vulnerability, social routine, convenience, or sensory reward. More than one driver can be present, but choose the one you can act on first.


3. Change one cue or one response


Move the food, change the route, prepare a different snack, alter the post-dinner sequence, disable the prompt, or create a ten-minute transition. Avoid redesigning your entire life around a single urge.


4. Write one if-then plan


Example: “If I want candy during the 3 p.m. work slump, then I will first eat the snack I brought and take a five-minute break away from my desk. I can decide about candy afterward.” The plan respects hunger if it is present and still interrupts the automatic cue-response chain.


5. Review after one week


Ask whether the craving occurred less often, felt less intense, led to eating less automatically, or became easier to delay. Do not demand zero cravings as the only definition of success. A successful intervention may change your response before it changes the frequency of the urge.


A Seven-Day Behavioral Experiment


Day 1: Observe. Record the time, trigger, hunger level, desired food, and response for each strong sweet craving.


Day 2: Identify the repeat cue. Choose the most common recurring pattern and ignore less important episodes for now.


Day 3: Fix predictable hunger. If the craving regularly appears when you have gone a long time without food, plan an adequate meal or snack before that point.


Day 4: Change the environment. Remove one obvious cue, add friction to one automatic purchase, or prepare the intended alternative before the trigger time.


Day 5: Add an if-then plan. Make the trigger and response specific enough that another person could tell whether you followed the plan.


Day 6: Practice a brief craving pause. Notice the urge, label it, wait, change context, and then choose deliberately.


Day 7: Review the pattern. Keep what worked, discard what did not, and change one variable for the next week. Behavior change improves through iteration, not through declaring a perfect “sugar-free” identity on day one.


When Sugar Cravings Deserve Professional Attention


Ordinary cravings are common. Professional support becomes more important when the problem includes recurrent loss of control, objective or subjective binge episodes, purging, fasting or severe restriction, compulsive exercise used to compensate for eating, intense shame or fear around food, major nutritional restriction, significant weight change, or substantial interference with daily life.


A craving also does not diagnose a glucose disorder. Blood-glucose readings, fasting glucose, A1C, hyperglycemia, hypoglycemia, continuous glucose monitoring, and diabetes treatment belong to medical evaluation rather than to a sugar-craving behavior plan. If you have symptoms or a diagnosed condition that requires glucose management, follow your clinician’s guidance.


A registered dietitian, primary-care clinician, psychologist, or eating-disorder specialist can help when cravings are part of a broader nutritional, medical, or mental-health problem. The goal is accurate assessment, not attaching an addiction label to every strong desire for sweet food.


Evidence Status: What Is Established, Promising, and Contested?


Established or well-supported


Food cravings are influenced by cues and learning; craving and food-cue reactivity predict eating outcomes on average; hunger and craving often co-vary in daily life; stress can shift eating behavior for some people; sleep restriction can alter dietary intake; and specific behavior-change tools such as implementation intentions have measurable, generally small effects on eating behavior.


Promising but limited


Mindfulness, decentering, cognitive regulation, inhibitory-control training, and cue-exposure approaches can reduce craving intensity or intake in experimental settings. Effects are generally modest, study populations vary, and long-term real-world transfer is less certain.


Contested or oversimplified


A distinct human “sugar addiction” diagnosis, a universal sugar-withdrawal syndrome, dopamine-reset claims, a single micronutrient-deficiency explanation for sugar cravings, and one-size-fits-all rules such as “never eat sugar again” are not established by the evidence.


FAQ


How long does it take for sugar cravings to stop?


There is no evidence-based countdown that applies to everyone. Some urges are brief and context-dependent; learned cues can persist for much longer. Improvement may first appear as lower intensity, easier delay, fewer automatic episodes, or greater choice rather than complete disappearance.


What should I eat when I am craving sugar?


If you are hungry, eat an adequate meal or snack rather than trying to suppress hunger. If you are not hungry, the best response depends on the trigger: change context, use the planned alternative, delay the automatic action, or choose the sweet food intentionally. No single food reliably “cancels” cravings.


Can fruit help with sugar cravings?


Fruit can be a useful planned sweet option and intact fruit is not counted as Added Sugar under FDA labeling. It is not guaranteed to extinguish a craving for chocolate, pastries, or another specific food because sensory properties and learned associations differ. Use fruit because it fits the eating plan, not because it must act as a biochemical substitute.


What deficiency causes sugar cravings?


No single vitamin or mineral deficiency is established as the general cause of sugar cravings. Cravings are shaped by hunger, cues, learning, stress, sleep, sensory preference, availability, and individual experience. A craving should not be used as a diagnostic test for magnesium, chromium, iron, or another nutrient.


Does drinking water stop sugar cravings?


Not reliably. Hydration is important, but water does not specifically treat cue-driven, habit-driven, stress-related, or hunger-related cravings. If thirst is present, drink; if hunger is present, eat; if a cue is driving the urge, change the cue-response sequence.


Are sugar cravings a sign of diabetes?


A sugar craving alone does not diagnose diabetes, prediabetes, hyperglycemia, or hypoglycemia. Those conditions require appropriate clinical evaluation and measurement. This article addresses eating behavior, not blood-glucose management.


Should I cut out all sugar to stop cravings?


Not necessarily. FDA guidance distinguishes Added Sugars from naturally occurring sugars, and WHO guidance focuses on free sugars. Complete avoidance can be useful for some personally chosen routines, but it is not a universal requirement and can be counterproductive when it becomes rigid or disordered.


Do artificial sweeteners stop sugar cravings?


They may reduce added sugar in a particular product, but they do not necessarily change the learned cue, the sweetness expectation, or the surrounding habit. Evidence also differs by sweetener and outcome. WHO’s current healthy-diet guidance recommends reducing free sugars without relying on non-sugar sweeteners as the strategy.


Is it normal to crave sugar after dinner?


Yes, it can occur in ordinary eating. After-meal cravings can reflect learned dessert cues, sensory variety, residual hunger, stress, or reward expectation. See Sugar Cravings After Meals: Learned Cues, Dessert Habits, and Hunger for the dedicated explanation.


Are strong sugar cravings proof that I am addicted?


No. Craving is one feature that can occur across ordinary eating, habit, stress, dieting, binge eating, and addiction-related constructs. A strong craving by itself does not establish addiction, and sugar addiction is not an established clinical diagnosis.















References


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