We know that too much sugar is bad for our waistlines and our heart health, but now there's mounting evidence that high levels of sugar consumption can also have a negative effect on brain health -- from cognitive function to psychological well being.
While sugar is nothing to be too concerned about in small quantities, most of us are simply eating too much of it. The sweet stuff -- which also goes by names like glucose, fructose, honey and corn syrup -- is found in 74 percent of packaged foods in our supermarkets. And while the Word Health Organization recommends that only 5 percent of daily caloric intake come from sugar, the typical American diet is comprised of 13 percent calories from sugar.
“Many Americans eat about five times the amount of sugar they should consume,”Natasa Janicic-Kahric, an associate professor of medicine at Georgetown University Hospital, told The Washington Post.
It's easy to see how we can get hooked on sugar. However, we should be aware of the risks that a high-sugar diet poses for brain function and mental well-being.
Here's what you need to know about how overconsumption of sugar could wreak havoc on your brain.
It creates a vicious cycle of intense cravings.
When a person consumes sugar, just like any food, it activates the tongue's taste receptors. Then, signals are sent to the brain, lighting up reward pathways and causing a surge of feel-good hormones, like dopamine, to be released. Sugar "hijacks the brain’s reward pathway," neuroscientist Jordan Gaines Lewis explained. And while stimulating the brain's reward system with a piece of chocolate now and then is pleasurable and probably harmless, when the reward system is activated too much and too frequently, we start to run into problems.
Over-activating this reward system kick starts a series of unfortunate events -- loss of control, craving, and increased tolerance to sugar .
In fact, research has shown that the brains of obese children actually light up differently when they taste sugar, reflecting an elevated "food reward" response. This suggests that their brain circuitry may predispose these children to a lifetime of intense sugar cravings.
It impairs memory and learning skills.
A 2012 study on rats, conducted by researchers at UCLA, found that a diet high in fructose (that's just another word for sugar) hinders learning and memory by literally slowing down the brain. The researchers found that rats who over-consumed fructose had damaged synaptic activity in the brain, meaning that communication among brain cells was impaired.
Heavy sugar intake caused the rats to develop a resistance to insulin -- a hormone that controls blood sugar levels and also regulates the function of brain cells. Insulin strengthens the synaptic connections between brain cells, helping them to communicate better and thereby form stronger memories. So when insulin levels in the brain are lowered as the result of excess sugar consumption, cognition can be impaired.
Insulin is important in the body for controlling blood sugar, but it may play a different role in the brain. Our study shows that a high-fructose diet harms the brain as well as the body. This is something new.
It may cause or contribute to depression and anxiety.
If you've ever experienced a sugar crash, then you know that sudden peaks and drops in blood sugar levels can cause you to experience symptoms like irritability, mood swings, brain fog and fatigue. That's because eating a sugar-laden donut or drinking a soda causes blood sugar levels to spike upon consumption and then plummet. When your blood sugar inevitably dips back down (hence the "crash"), you may find yourself feeling anxious, moody or depressed.
Sugar-rich and carb-laden foods can also mess with the neurotransmitters that help keep our moods stable. Consuming sugar stimulates the release of the mood-boosting neurotransmitter serotonin. Constantly over-activating these serotonin pathways can deplete our limited supplies of the neurotransmitter, which can contribute to symptoms of depression.
Chronically high blood sugar levels have also been linked to inflammation in the brain. And as some research has suggested, neuroinflammation may be one possible cause of depression.
Teenagers may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of sugar on mood. A recent study on adolescent mice, conducted by researchers at Emory University School of Medicine, found a diet high in sugar to contribute to depression and anxiety-like behavior.
Research has also found that people who eat a standard American diet that's high in processed foods -- which typically contain high amounts of saturated fat, sugar and salt -- are at an increased risk for developing depression, compared to those who eat a whole foods diet that's lower in sugar.
It's a risk factor for age-related cognitive decline and dementia.
A growing body of research suggests that a sugar-heavy diet could increase risk for developing Alzheimer's disease. A 2013 study found that insulin resistance and blood glucose levels -- which are hallmarks of diabetes -- are linked with a greater risk for developing neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's. The research “offers more evidence that the brain is a target organ for damage by high blood sugar,”endocrinologist Dr. Medha Munshi told the New York Times.
Some researchers, in fact, have even referred to Alzheimer's as "Type 3 Diabetes" -- which suggests that diet may have some role in an individual's risk for developing the disease.
Sugar. Just the thought of a sweet snack can make even the most hardcore dieter weak at the knees. The promise of a single fresh-baked chocolate chip cookie can make children eat an entire plate of vegetables or motivate couch potatoes to run that one extra mile. So what exactly does sugar do to our brains that make it so, well addictive?
Hooked From The First Bite
From the first bite sugar sends a message to the brain, activating the its reward system. That’s right; sugar has a similar effect on your brain to hanging out with friends, sex, and even drugs. This reward system is a series of electrical and chemical path systems across several different regions of the brain, Dr. Nicole Avena, a researcher in the department of psychiatry at the University Of Florida College Of Medicine explained in a recent TED talk.
The main chemical involved in this biological reward system is dopamine. In people who experience dependency on drugs, nicotine, and alcohol, the dopamine receptors are sent into overdrive causing the individual to be constantly seek that “high” effect. The end result is addiction. Sugar causes a similar reaction in the brain, although not nearly as extreme as in the case of other addictive substances.
Dopamine
Whenever we eat food dopamine is released in the brain. However after eating the same food time after time, the dopamine levels begin to even out and we no longer find the dish as satisfying as we once did, Avena explained. This is because the human brain evolved to motivate us to eat a wider variety of food. This evolutionary tacit ensures that humans both receive a balanced amount of vitamins and minerals, while also helping us to steer away from dangerous rotting food. Interestingly enough, no matter how much sugar a person consumes, the dopamine levels will never even out enough to motivate the discourage an individual from eating more sugar.
Addictive Elements
Not all doctors will agree that food is addictive, but the pleasure feeling one has after consuming a sugary treat is undeniable. Like all addictive activities, too much of sugar can be a far from a good thing. It may cause loss of control, cravings, and even an increased tolerance for sugar. In sugar-fed mice, absence of the addictive was seen to produce events of binging, craving, and even withdrawal symptoms, Business Insider reported.
The World Health Organization recommends that no more than 10 percent of an individual’s diet should come from sugar. This doesn’t seem to back when you take into perspective that for an average healthy adult this is about 25 grams which looks like 6 teaspoons of sugar a day. When figuring that a can of coke contains 39 grams of sugar, it’s easy to see how we can go overboard on our sugar consumption quite often. Weight gain and its more extreme cousin obesity are some of the most recognizable side effects of diets too high in sugar. Too much of the sweet stuff can also lead to other unpleasant health complications such as high blood pressure, liver damage.
So What Exactly Is Sugar?
In order to best control your sugar intake, it would probably be wise to know what exactly sugar is. Sugar is actually a carbohydrate. The white stuff we add to our tea and coffee is sucrose, a complex sugar comprised of two simpler sugars: fructose and glucose. Foods in the grocery store don’t always clearly label their sugar content so when reviewing nutrition labels it’s important to be aware that words such as glucose, sucrose, lactose, maltose, dextrose, starch, corn syrup, fruit juice, raw sugar, and honey. Sugar is also added to ketchup, yoghurt, and flavored water just to name a few.
What About Natural Sugar?
Sugar does get a bit of a bad reputation sometimes though. It occurs naturally in many important foods such as fruit and milk. But what about the hype concerning natural sugar such as agave and coconut sugar; are they any better for you? Yes,but maybe not as much as you may be lead to believe.
According JJ Virgin, author of The Virgin Diet and The Virgin Diet Cookbook, coconut sugar contains about the same amounts of fructose and glucose as ordinary table sugar. “A small amount of coconut sugar would probably not create problems, but it’s definitely not an ‘unlimited’ sweetener,” explained Virgin to Yahoo News. And agave? “The reality is that it is often heavily processed and contains up to 90% fructose. There is nothing healthy about the agave syrups and agave-sweetened processed foods you find in health food stores,” says Virgin.
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