Sugar Can Help To Quit Smoking

Smoking is considered the most common and one of the most destructive bad habits, and millions of people around the world are currently fighting for their lives and trying to get quit smoking help. Lately, the number of deaths caused by smoking has been firmly increasing, and it is estimated that currently this terrible habit kills about 3 million people a year. Moreover, specialists say warn us that provided the tendency remains, by the year 2020 the world is going to witness the death of 10 million people every year due to inability to find an effective help to quite smoking and get rid of this habit. In modern world, smoking is a leading cause of premature death, and many people in their 40s or 50s lose their life after being diagnosed with lung cancer, throat cancer, a heart attack and other smoking-related serious health conditions. Bad effects of smoking are very serious, and fortunately, more and more people are trying to quit after learning about the health risks linked to smoking.

A group of scientists came up with an interesting solution for those smokers who have been failing to find effective anti-smoking techniques and are in urgent need of quit smoking help. As the research by an expert team from the University of Georgia has shown, rinsing the mouth with a sugary drink like lemonade can be effective in decreasing cravings, improve self control and elevate the chances to give up smoking. The scientists tested the proposed technology on 51 healthy young American men who decided to participate in the study. The first phase of the study involved studying the effects of sugar on attention. The participants were offered to perform some attention tasks, including crossing out all E letters in certain text pages, or identifying colors of certain words appearing on a screen, and so on.  At that, a half of the study group was asked to rinse their mouth with sugary lemonade during the test, and the other control group was offered to rinse their mouth with lemonade sweetened with Splenda, an artificial sweetener.

It turned out that those participants who rinsed with sugary lemonade were much faster when answering the test questions compared to those who were using lemonade with artificial sweetener. ‘After this trial, it seems that glucose stimulates the simple carbohydrate sensors on the tongue. This, in turn, signals the motivational centers of the brain where our self-related goals are represented. These signals tell your body to pay attention,’ said Professor Leonard Martin, a study group leader. According to the scientist, studying the discovered effects of sugar can give a clue to creating a new revolutionary strategy to solve more serious problems related to a lack of self0control. Those include, primarily, developing a new quit smoking help approach, as well as a new technology to assist people lose weight. Professor Martin underlined the necessity of further studies, but the main idea is to use glucose to stop automatic response and help people to focus on harder and more complicated missions.

‘So, if you are trying to quit smoking, a swish of lemonade may not be the total cure, but it certainly could help you in the short run,’ Professor Martin said. The findings of the expert group were recently published in journal Psychological Science, and they are following the conclusions of previous expert group saying that increased self-control necessary for quitting smoking require spending a lot of energy. Therefore, sugar as a source of energy can play a role of an effective natural support and quit smoking help. However, as Professor Martin commented, the main purpose of glucose as an element of help to quite smoking is not bringing energy but assisting the person to stay focused and strengthen the person’s self-control. Besides, the expert is convinced that sugar is a unique support which can be used by every modern person who wants to succeed in multitasking since it gives energy for completing not only the first but the second, the third and other tasks.

Author Info: Hi! My name is Carla and I am a 5th year medical student at HYMS. I am interested in alternative medicine and I have done months researching the topic of herbal medicine. Besides, I like interviewing people and learning more about their experiences with one or another type of herbal treatments. I am willing to contribute to this site with my knowledge, and I would be happy to help you out to the best of my ability with any specific questions or problems related to alternative medicine.

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