Initially, the intended segue from last week's article to this week's article made perfect sense.

Remind readers of Tammy Hoffman's 25-pound weight loss. Emphasize her decision to eliminate added sugar from her diet. Stress that the former would not have happened without the latter.Introduce a relatively new and particularly distressing discovery: even when it does not produce unwanted weight gain, a high intake of sugar - the amount most Americans ingest typically - increases the likelihood of developing many other health problems besides the two already so well known, type 2 diabetes and cavities.Quote Laura Schmidt from "New Unsweetened Truths About Sugar," a commentary piece published in the April 2014 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association: "Too much sugar does not just make us fat; it can also make us sick." Feature a half dozen or so studies that support Schmidt's quotation.Add that three out of every four packaged foods contains added sugars. Make an impassioned plea for sugar abusers to kick the habit. Offer ideas to help.But you're not going to read about any of that. This week. A different type of article needs to be written first.That's because the "perfect sense" made by the supposed segue doesn't stand a chance against what more than a few of you are up against: An addiction that feels less like a monkey on your back and more like a 600-pound gorilla.Before you accuse me of yellow journalism, think back to last week's article and Tammy Hoffman's love of sugar. She often ate the sweet treats found in the faculty room, rarely went a day without a raspberry Snapple, and usually "craved" something sugary after a meal. When she stopped eating sugar, she developed "massive" headaches.If that's not withdrawal from an addiction, what is?Moreover, Tammy had tried weaning herself off sugar a number of times in the past, but always "lost the will to continue" and started using again.So it's not incorrect to borrow a phrase that means "an addiction to drugs" to explain sugar addiction. They are similar.So similar, in fact, that Dr. Serge Ahmed concluded his presentation at the Obesity and Food Addiction Summit in 2011 by saying, "When society finally discovers that refined sugar is just another white powder, along with pure cocaine, it will change its mind and attitude toward refined food addiction." He based that statement in part on research he helped perform and publish in 2007 in PLoS ONE.In this experiment, 94 percent of the rats studied preferred the intense sweetness of the nonnutritive sweetener saccharin over cocaine. Since "the same preference was also observed with sucrose, a natural sugar," the other authors and Ahmed hypothesized that this preference results in the "overconsumption of diets rich in sugars [that] contributes together with other factors to drive the current obesity epidemic."In other words, the world's getting fatter because more and more sugar monkeys are hopping on our backs.Another presenter at the Obesity and Food Addiction Summit in 2011, Dr. Bart Hoebel of Princeton University, made the case for sugar being addictive by also citing research first available online in 2007. Published by Neuroscience Biobehavioral Review, this work found that "under certain circumstances rats can become sugar dependent." Hoebel also believes that even though sugar addiction "may be more pervasive" than cocaine or a heroin addiction, a sugar dependency probably won't disrupt daily living as dramatically.In another group of lab rats that turned out to be wrong.In research first released at the Society for Neuroscience conference in 2013, Connecticut College students fed rats Oreo cookies and discovered the feeding activated neurons in the "pleasure center" of the rats' brains. Joseph Shroeder, associate professor of psychology and director of the behavioral neuroscience program, then injected the rats with morphine or cocaine.The drugs also activated the neurons in the "pleasure center" of the rats' brains, but - surprise, surprise! - not nearly as many as eating the Oreos. Schroeder said: "Our research may explain why some people can't resist [foods high in sugar and fat] despite the fact they know they are bad for them."Are you one of those people? If so, what can you possibly do?First, find what finally allowed Tammy Hoffman to shake off her sugar monkey: a regimented program that forces you to quit cold turkey. Although Tammy found the first week without sugar difficult, she said the regimentation of knowing what you could and could not eat "helped tremendously."While you may not want to avoid using added sugars forever, total abstinence for a time seems to be your best chance of regaining control. after that, you may be able to use a limited amount of sugar successfully.Second, read next week's column. It will prove, Laura Schmidt's belief that "too much sugar does not just make us fat; it can also make us sick."Contact Kevin Kolodziejski at

kolo@ptd.net