Back in 1994, a study in the Journal for Abnormal Child Psychology assembled a group of 35 boys, aged between five and seven, whose mothers said they were behaviourally sensitive to sugar. How can millions of parents have got it so wrong? Easily: expectation causes cognitive biases, which cloud judgment.

Sugar simply had no discernible effect on the children's behaviour in these studies. In 1995, a meta analysis of the 23 most reliable studies (using known sugar quantities, and placebos, and with the children, their parents and the researchers blind to the conditions) was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Scientists started looking into this in earnest in the 1970s after an American allergist, Benjamin Feingold, advocated the removal of food additives to treat hyperactivity in children. But one thing that it doesn't do is fuel sudden bursts of hyperactivity.

We are addicted to the stuff and it has fully replaced fat as the widely accepted culprit behind obesity. Sugar, the food additive, has never seemed more evil.

Is sugar rush real game