U.S. adults eat 150 pounds of sugar/yr.

NEW YORK, Nov. 1 (UPI) -- The average U.S. adult consumes about 150 pounds of sugar annually and many are addicted to the sweet crystals, a doctor suggests.

Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, a board-certified internist and author of "Beat Sugar Addiction Now!," puts sugar addiction in four categories:

-- Hooked on "energy loan sharks."

-- Feed me now or I'll kill you!

-- Happy Twinkie hunters.

-- Depressed and craving carbs.

"The average American adult consumes 150 pounds of sugar each year and the body was never made to metabolize that amount of sugar added to our diet!" Teitelbaum says in a statement. "Understanding your sugar addiction type, you can take steps to beat it and in the same stroke improve your overall health."

Common complaints linked to sugar addiction include: Fatigue, getting irritable when hungry, having chronic nasal congestion and sinusitis, digestive problems such as irritable bowel syndrome and spastic colon, weight gain with inability to lose weight even on a diet and poor concentration and memory, Teitelbaum says.

Sugar is as powerful an addiction as tobacco or alcohol and one of the most difficult to break, Teitelbaum says.