Here's What Sugar Does to Your Brain
LiveScience,
by
Amy Reichelt
Original Article
Posted By: MissMolly,
11/17/2019 3:28:23 PM
We love sweet treats. But too much sugar in our diets can lead to weight gain and obesity, Type 2 diabetes and dental decay. We know we shouldn't be eating candy, ice cream, cookies, cakes and drinking sugary sodas, but sometimes they are so hard to resist.
It's as if our brain is hardwired to want these foods.
As a neuroscientist my research centers on how modern day "obesogenic," or obesity-promoting, diets change the brain. I want to understand how what we eat alters our behavior and whether brain changes can be mitigated by other lifestyle factors.
Your body runs on sugar — glucose to be precise.
Breast milk contains 28 forms of sugar so if nature provides it I truly wonder how bad it could be. This constant demonization of one food or another is pathetic. Just go with all things in moderation. It Is the problem of quantity we all know it.
12 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
judy 11/17/2019 4:48:34 PM (No. 237676)
Gee I should be brilliant I haven’t had sugar for over a year, it taste like vinegar to me . I do try from time to time but it taste horrible. It’s not a good life for me because almost everything contains sugar. I’ve had every test you can name..,zero!
6 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 11/17/2019 5:31:45 PM (No. 237734)
"On an evolutionary basis, our primitive ancestors were scavengers. Sugary foods are excellent sources of energy, so we have evolved to find sweet foods particularly pleasurable."
That's this "scientist's" first problem. We didn't "evolve" from some primordial mass of ooze in the ocean. We were fearfully and beautifully created by God. Our bodies are resilient enough the be capable of living on many different food sources, but for how long is worthy of research. Eskimos live off protein and fat. Pure fat. That is THE highest "octane" fuel the body can ingest. Give me a choice between a bowl of sugary Fruit Loops cereal and a big fat juicy New York Strip steak, medium rare, and I can tell you the cereal ends up in the trash.
Evolution cannot and dares not try to explain the fantastic complex Engineering of the human body. Recently I stumbled upon the Wikipedia subject of the human artery. Did you know how complex those little tubes are? There are 6 distinct layers of dissimilar tissues that make up our arteries. Did you know that a capillary is the width of one cell, and since we have a vast network of them over our bodies they make up the primary means of dispersing gases throughout our body? Our inter-vertebral discs contain 7 types of dissimilar issues, which are even more structurally complex. How can such a fantastic things "evolve" so precisely through unexplained mutations? What "force" brings order from total chaos? Charlie Darwin never trusted microscopes, clearly because it blew his :theory" apart.
"Darwin had strict ideas about the use of the microscope. He thought that using high powers without using low powers was "injurous to natural philosophy". Whilst this does not necessarily mean that he lacked faith in higher power microscopes, it does show that he was aware of the mistakes that could be made by examining objects without the visual frame of reference provided by low powers."
http://www.sites.hps.cam.ac.uk/whipple/explore/microscopes/darwinsmicroscopes/
Mistakes from higher powers? Someone please tell the inventors of the Electron Microscope that they grievously injured "Natural Philosophy."
8 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Delilah 11/17/2019 5:48:13 PM (No. 237741)
I just finished a delicious dish of ice cream with nuts and a side of cake. I'm 86, in excellent health and my blood sugar runs a little on the low side. Life is good!
16 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
msjena 11/17/2019 6:19:43 PM (No. 237757)
I love cookies, candy, ice cream, cake etc. I am not overweight. I think I’ll go have another cookie.
7 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Sunhan65 11/17/2019 6:29:05 PM (No. 237763)
I post about this from time to time because I have actual medical data to support it. I've been a Type 1 diabetic for almost 40 years. Two years ago I went on what is pretentiously called a ketogenic diet: Basically, eliminate all the carbohydrates you can and focus on fat as a source of energy with lots of low-carb vegetables.
I did it to lose weight and did. I lost 78.6 lb in 16 months. However, the secondary effect was even more profound. Previously, I was injecting 24 units of rapid-acting insulin with each meal. Within a week of starting the new diet, my mealtime injections dropped to 5 units of rapid-acting insulin.
The test results reflect this change as well. My blood glucose test average out around 1:24 to 1:29, and my hemoglobin A1c hovers around 6.2. Total cholesterol was a bit high for a while but is back to normal now and the ratios are good. Because I'm taking less rapid acting insulin with each meal, low blood sugars are far less frequent and are significantly less severe when they do occur.
This was only my experience. As always, your mileage may vary. Please speak to a real endocrinologist before making any dramatic changes, and be careful during the transition weeks because your insulin dosages will inevitably be too high once the carbs stop.
10 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Kate318 11/17/2019 7:02:21 PM (No. 237786)
Thanks, #6. I find I am less tolerant of sugar as I get older. I have always had a sweet tooth, but have tried to cut back over the years. I now get terrible indigestion if I consume too much sugar. I count that as a good thing. Unfortunately, I still crave it from time to time. I have flirted with the Keto Diet lately, but still haven’t taken the plunge. Unfortunately, this article was a little convoluted in its presentation, but I do essentially agree with its premise. #1, there is a difference between the natural “sugars” (glucose) The body uses and the processed sugar the article is talking about. No one is arguing that the body does not need and utilize glucose. And, #3, I believe the author referred to primitive ancestors, not to primordial ooze. Even Creationists accept there was such a thing as Neanderthals and Cro magnons before there were Homo sapiens, and Homo sapiens sapiens. One does not have to embrace macro-evolution to know that humans did develop from earlier, more primitive human ancestors. The fossil record is simply to broad and deep to ignore. It is those ancestors of who the author speaks. But, I wholeheartedly agree that the human being is a remarkable creation, and one of God’s finest moments.
3 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Kate318 11/17/2019 7:03:37 PM (No. 237788)
Sorry for my previous typos. In too much of a hurry.
1 person likes this.
Not a fan of cookies and cake and really don't like pie crust but do not get between me and ice cream.
I worry about the Keto Diet. Years ago, I almost didn't have surgery because of ketosis after dieting.
0 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
Catherine 11/18/2019 3:20:22 AM (No. 237968)
You ever tried to get a baby to eat spinach or carrots? How about applesauce or pears? Guess which a big blob of an infant prefers??? So to get them to eat spinach or carrots, I'd put the food on the spoon then dip it in the applesauce of pears. It worked. Even babies know what tastes good.
0 people like this.
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