"Sugar Rush" was a sweet baking show. "Sugar High" is a spinoff that features confectioners who use blowtorches to create spun-sugar sculptures. And sugar alarm — well, that's my take on how dangerous it is to eat added sugars.

A new study in the journal Science Advances looked at data that shows patients with mental disorders consume around two times as much sugar as those without mental health issues, and excessive sugar intake contributes to the development of psychiatric disorders in susceptible people.

The researchers then constructed a lab study that showed excess sugar intake around puberty may be especially risky, making it more likely for teens to develop mental health problems.

Another study published a couple of years ago in the journal Nature is also worth looking at again. A sweetener called trehalose — which is commonly used in frozen foods like ice cream as well as baked goods, cereals, frozen shrimp, nutrition bars, and gum — encourages two strains of the bacterium Clostridium difficile, an antibiotic-resistant bug capable of causing diarrhea, colitis, organ failure, and even death, to flourish in your gut. That’s not good.

The solution is to consume no artificial sweeteners. A study in JAMA Network shows that for women and anyone who is obese, consuming foods with the artificial sweetener sucralose triggers food cravings and overeating.

The conclusion: Get your sweets from whole fruits and enjoy 1 ounce of 80% dark chocolate a day; avoid processed foods; and eat a plant-based, fresh, whole-food diet.