Even if sugar itself causes the fast majority of the harm, I wouldn't be surprised if weaning oneself from the subjective experience of sweetness had some benefits. Have the studies on artificial sweeteners investigated it?
Anecdotally, I've noticed that if I avoid all sweets (and especially soda) I tend to have less of a sweet tooth. If I give myself leeway, and start taking donuts and candy that show up at work, I feel like my resistance to sweets drops precipitously and I'm much more likely to "just take one more."
One junk chocolate cake piece can leave me with 1-2 days of constant cravings for junk sweets. Where my mind constantly pops up thoughts of cookies and cakes and wants me to buy them and I must exert will to resist.
But, if I don’t eat junk sweets for 10+ days my taste and body just adopts and I don’t think about cookies at all. Even if I am at celebrations where people eat a lot of junk cakes, I don’t have to use will at all to stay away from them.
Processed sugar for me is more addictive for me than drugs.
Ordinary whole food carbs (I am a vegan so I eat a lot of unprocessed carbs) do not have that effect at all for me, quite the opposite in fact.
I consider sugar to be by far my worst addiction, I can moderate on alcohol and pot with no issue, but with sugar I really need an all or nothing approach.
