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  #1   ^
Old Fri, Apr-05-19, 02:24
Demi's Avatar
Demi Demi is offline
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Default No such thing as 'sugar rush'! Sugar worsens mood rather than improving it

Quote:
From Science Daily
4 April, 2019

No such thing as 'sugar rush'! Sugar worsens mood rather than improving it

Sugar does not improve mood and it can make people less alert and more tired after its consumption -- according to a new study by the University of Warwick, Humboldt University of Berlin, and Lancaster University.

The research team set out to examine the myth of the 'sugar rush': can sugar really put you in a better mood? Using data collected from 31 published studies involving almost 1300 adults, Dr Konstantinos Mantantzis at Humboldt University of Berlin, Dr Sandra Sünram-Lea at Lancaster University, and Dr Friederike Schlaghecken and Professor Elizabeth Maylor in the University of Warwick's Department of Psychology investigated the effect of sugar on various aspects of mood, including anger, alertness, depression, and fatigue.

They also considered how factors such as the quantity and type of sugar consumed might affect mood, and whether engaging in demanding mental and physical activities made any difference.

The researchers found that :
  • sugar consumption has virtually no effect on mood, regardless of how much sugar is consumed or whether people engage in demanding activities after taking it.
  • people who consumed sugar felt more tired and less alert than those who had not.
  • the idea of a 'sugar rush' is a myth without any truth behind it.

Professor Elizabeth Maylor, from the University of Warwick, commented:
"We hope that our findings will go a long way to dispel the myth of the 'sugar rush' and inform public health policies to decrease sugar consumption."

Dr Konstantinos Mantantzis, from Humboldt University of Berlin, who led the study, said:

"The idea that sugar can improve mood has been widely influential in popular culture, so much so that people all over the world consume sugary drinks to become more alert or combat fatigue.

"Our findings very clearly indicate that such claims are not substantiated -- if anything, sugar will probably make you feel worse."

Dr Sandra Sünram-Lea added:

"The rise in obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome in recent years highlights the need for evidence-based dietary strategies to promote healthy lifestyle across the lifespan. Our findings indicate that sugary drinks or snacks do not provide a quick 'fuel refill' to make us feel more alert."


Journal Reference:
Konstantinos Mantantzis, Friederike Schlaghecken, Sandra I. Sünram-Lea, Elizabeth A. Maylor. Sugar Rush or Sugar Crash? A Meta-Analysis of Carbohydrate Effects on Mood. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 2019; DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.03.016


https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas...90404104345.htm
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  #2   ^
Old Fri, Apr-05-19, 05:46
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WereBear WereBear is offline
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This is the lure of bingeing. It's a form of self-medication. The jolt of brain chemicals from fast-acting carbs does leave you miserable in the aftermath. But another jolt will fix that!

And there you go.
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  #3   ^
Old Fri, Apr-05-19, 07:37
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thud123 thud123 is offline
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<opinion>

I think the sugar rush happens BEFORE, and WHILE you ingest it, not after. It's a phycological high. The foreplay is thinking about, planning and purchasing the substance, the orgasm is putting it in your mouth and can last as long as you keep putting it in your mouth before you body/brain fights back and can take no more.

People use it to change the way they feel. One answer is to learn to accept the way one feels; good, bad or indifferent. If this is practiced diligently, no substance needed.

</opinion>
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  #4   ^
Old Fri, Apr-05-19, 08:01
tess9132 tess9132 is offline
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Hmm. Not buying it. Of course, there's a let down. Just like there is with alcohol, but for me anyway, the high is very real. I have told this story of being stuck on a shut down I-95 before, but I'll tell it again.

My oldest son and I had headed out of DC around noon and had been hoping to make it home for his Spring Break before the other kids got home from school. Traffic was flowing smoothly - no problem. All of a sudden, high winds shut down I-95. We couldn't get off, we couldn't use a bathroom. We couldn't do anything except stare at the car in front of us. Frustrated and helpless, I was miserable and more than anything I wanted a glass of wine or a shot of vodka, or something. Sometime close to midnight, I remembered that I had been hiding a big bag of Cadbury mini eggs in my trunk for the kids' Easter baskets. I hopped out, grabbed the bag and tore into it. AAAAAAAAAH! I felt so much better. Until that exact moment I hadn't realized that chocolate (or sugar or both)? gave me a release that was comparable to a shot of alcohol. But all of a sudden the I-95 shut down didn't make me want to scream or hit something anymore. I was ok.

Honestly, if I had that moment to do over, I'm pretty sure I'd dive into the Cadbury again. Probably sooner. It was a coping mechanism, and probably a sign of my weak will and lack of discipline, but it was an extreme moment and I needed some sort of sedation. Lacking alcohol, I had to resort to Cadbury.

ETA: Also, has anyone ever watched a toddler on a sugar high? They don't all get them, but our oldest did. We knew when we needed her to go to bed a little bit early, we could do the "dance and crash" by giving her a couple of slices of Pepperidge Farm cinnamon toast. She'd go crazy for about 20 minutes and then lie down on the couch and fall asleep. It was definitely a high followed by a crash. Our youngest didn't have as much evidence of the high, but he definitely had the crash about 20 minutes in. Boom. Sleepy time.

Last edited by tess9132 : Fri, Apr-05-19 at 08:43.
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  #5   ^
Old Fri, Apr-05-19, 08:16
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Ms Arielle Ms Arielle is online now
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Hard to beleive this is the whole picture. My son lives with low seratonin-- carbs drive up his seratonin levels. Cant tell you the mechanism, but I know it works.

When he is especially cranky and "off" this is another time that he needs to EAT. Again Im not clear on the mechanism. Is he hyperglecemic in this case??? After he eats, he is a totally different person.

Dr Amen addresses the low seratonin and suggested a complex carb like sweet potato.

Dr Amen is the only doctor that understands this phenomenon, as bringing this up with my son's doctors, I get "blank" reactions, poo-poo'd or otherwise shut down.
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  #6   ^
Old Fri, Apr-05-19, 08:36
tess9132 tess9132 is offline
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Quote:
When he is especially cranky and "off" this is another time that he needs to EAT. Again Im not clear on the mechanism. Is he hyperglecemic in this case??? After he eats, he is a totally different person.
This was me before I went low carb. The thinner I was (and I was once really thin), the more pronounced it was. My sister jokes I was "hangry" before the word was invented. For me, though, I'd always assumed it was blood sugar related, but who knows?

Last edited by tess9132 : Fri, Apr-05-19 at 08:45.
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  #7   ^
Old Fri, Apr-05-19, 08:47
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Ms Arielle Ms Arielle is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tess9132
This was me before I went low carb. The thinner I was (and I was once really thin), the more pronounced it was. My sister jokes I was "hangry" before the word was invented. For me, though, I'm reasonably sure it was blood sugar related.


THanks for the input Tess. He is VERY thin. Like no fat. Perhaps keto would help him-- assuming this is what you meant by low carb?
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  #8   ^
Old Fri, Apr-05-19, 10:53
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GRB5111 GRB5111 is offline
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I can attest to the feeling of a high due to sugar consumption personally. I started to recognize the sensation when I was about 12 years old. If I had a piece of well-frosted cake, I would literally get a warm rush shortly after consumption, similar to what many get from certain drugs. This occurred well into adulthood on those occasions of a sugary dessert consumption until I finally realized that feeling was far from being a good indicator for my health. Whether the sensation was my body reacting to a large bolus of sugar and corresponding surge in blood glucose or something else, it was real. This was the initial rush as a response to sugar consumption. Several hours later, I'd want either another dose or to take a nap.

Imagine what this means to those doing this long term as a regular behavior. Health deteriorates over time, and yet, how many people do we know (I was one once) who rationalize sweets or desserts as part of a balanced diet. It's denial behavior characteristic of substance abuse or addiction.
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  #9   ^
Old Fri, Apr-05-19, 11:37
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bevangel bevangel is offline
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Default

hmmmm, if what they're trying to say is that "in the long run, sugar will make you feel worse" I'll buy that. If they're trying to say that there really is "no such thing as a sugar rush"... i.e., that ingesting sugar does not make you feel better even temporarily... then nope, I don't believe it!

The whole reason sugar - and every other addictive substance IS addictive - is that, in the short term, the substance makes people FEEL GOOD! If the immediate result of eating sugar was that people all felt worse than before they put the sugar in their mouths, no one would continue to eat sugar... at least not if they didn't have too.

People just don't voluntarily repeat actions that make them feel bad instantly and from which they don't derive any benefit. Yes, that short term "high" may quickly be followed by a fall, but there is no denying the "high" happens.

To attempt to say that there is no high at all, is argue in the face of (almost) EVERYBODY'S personal experience. For some people the high may only be a very slight bump up followed almost immediately by a fall. These people are, I suspect, most likely to be those who don't report having a sweet tooth. Sugar just doesn't "do it" for them...but I think they're very much in the minority.



For others - which probably includes all of us who have to fight our sugar cravings - the sugar rush (high) is immediate and very noticeable! We KNOW we feel better, at least temporarily. And, for us, the fall down from the sugar high is probably more of a slow slide down. Yes, we may end up more "down" than we would have been without the sugar rush at all, but the slide downward is so slow that by the time we've bottomed out, we tend to think of our post-sugar "down" as our "normal mood" never realizing that, in fact, sugar has depressed us in the long term.... at least not until we manage to kick sugar to the curb and begin realizing just how much better our moods are overall than they were before.

I understand that the researchers seem to be trying to provide evidence to fight against our societies madness FOR sugar. And I appreciate the motive.

But people are simply not going to pay attention (at least not for any length of time) to anybody who tries to tell them "you did not feel what you felt." So, it seems to me like they might better spend their time and research budget investigating and reporting on how long the sugar rush actually lasts and whether subjects long-term mood (after the sugar rush is over) is better or worse than if they hadn't experienced the sugar rush at all. It might also be instructive to look at the differences in these factors between people who don't have a sweet-tooth, normal people (if there are any), and those who CRAVE sugar.

Just my 2 cents.
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  #10   ^
Old Fri, Apr-05-19, 12:26
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Bob-a-rama Bob-a-rama is offline
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Sugar never gave me a rush (but it sure tastes good). but then, neither does coffee - I can drink an espresso or two and take a nap.

It might depend on the person.

But it's pretty evident that the sugar/insulin spike is not healthy for us. That's enough for me.

Bob
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  #11   ^
Old Fri, Apr-05-19, 14:46
Zei Zei is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ms Arielle
Hard to beleive this is the whole picture. My son lives with low seratonin-- carbs drive up his seratonin levels. Cant tell you the mechanism, but I know it works.

When he is especially cranky and "off" this is another time that he needs to EAT. Again Im not clear on the mechanism. Is he hyperglecemic in this case??? After he eats, he is a totally different person.

Dr Amen addresses the low seratonin and suggested a complex carb like sweet potato.

Dr Amen is the only doctor that understands this phenomenon, as bringing this up with my son's doctors, I get "blank" reactions, poo-poo'd or otherwise shut down.

Same here, same as Tess, too. In my case it was confirmed by glucose tolerance tests by two different doctors in different decades that my problem was reactive hypoglycemia. What I didn't know then is reactive hypoglycemia is an early warning of diabetes to come. It's an early stage of metabolic dysregulation rather than the opposite of diabetes as I had supposed. Now that I'm pretty well at the diabetes stage, I'm able to completely control everything including too high or too low blood glucose levels through very low carb/ketogenic diet. Sure don't miss the hangries.
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  #12   ^
Old Fri, Apr-05-19, 15:03
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bkloots bkloots is offline
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Quote:
the idea of a 'sugar rush' is a myth without any truth behind it
A myth becomes a myth precisely because there IS truth behind it.

Clearly these people did not conduct a chocolate-deprivation test, followed by chocolate re-feeding.

Overall I approve of their agenda: encourage people to cut back on the sugar. But really now... Sugar makes us happy, and then it makes us fat, and nobody can deny that sugar makes us HIGH.

Telling people it really doesn't doesn't make it less attractive, and for some, addictive.
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  #13   ^
Old Fri, Apr-05-19, 16:59
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Calianna Calianna is offline
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Another one here who always experienced the sugar high, followed by the crash. It was a constant roller coaster, extreme high followed by an extreme drop.

Can't concentrate? Groggy? Irritable? Have some sugar - you'll feel better, perk up, and think clearly for a while, before your blood sugar crashes and you're irritable, can't think clearly, and feel like you're going to nod off again, which means it's time for more sugar.
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  #14   ^
Old Fri, Apr-05-19, 18:41
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mojolissa mojolissa is offline
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Not true - nuff said
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  #15   ^
Old Sat, Apr-06-19, 08:28
Bonnie OFS Bonnie OFS is offline
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I wonder why they focused on mood instead of energy? I always heard that sugar will - temporarily - boost energy, with a crash later (which I really felt as my t2 diabetes got worse), but never that it was a mood enhancer.

I like the idea that it's partly mental. I've been a binger for years. Once I went lc, my binges switched from sugary wheat foods to protein - mostly meat & cheese. I'm finally (I hope) getting a handle on those - both make my bg & weight higher than I'd like.

Our family birthday traditions always included lemon meringue pie. On non-birthday occasions I could eat an entire batch of lemon pudding. Of course, I said goodbye to all that years ago. I recently found a sugar-free lemon custard recipe - just 3 ingredients: Pyure, eggs, lemon juice - with only 2.5g carbs per 1/2 cup serving. I had my 1/2 cup & really enjoyed it - it's the closest to lemon pudding I've tasted. But I didn't crave more (tho I would have liked more). It satisfied the lemon pudding itch without triggering the insane desire for more of the same. Had I made it with sugar, would I have binged? Or at least needed to deal with cravings? Don't know, & I'm not doing that experiment !
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