4 Ways Sugary Snacks Damage Your Brain
Not everyone realizes that sugar, when consumed regularly through sweets, sugary drinks, pastries, bars and so on, has some pretty undesirable effects on our brain.
It's important to be aware of this, because we tend to think the worst it does is make us gain weight, but from several other angles, it can actually do even more damage when consumed regularly.
Many of us get that hunger pang during the day, not quite real hunger, and want to satisfy it with something tasty, easy to find, and requiring zero preparation.
Usually the choice falls into one of these categories: chips, cookies, mini pizzas, pastries, sandwiches, candy, soft drinks, and so on…sometimes we might even be tempted to order a nice box of products from one of the many American snack shops to try what people eat overseas.
In short, all products full of sugar and carbs.
Let's skip the obvious: they cause big blood sugar spikes and make you gain weight, okay, we all know that by now, but it's hard to do without them.
The main problems with sugar are:
- It impairs memory and learning ability
- It can trigger and worsen anxiety and depression
- It prevents you from feeling full
- It causes genuine forms of addiction
1) Sugar impairs memory and learning ability
The first issue is that consistently high sugar intake leads to the development of resistance to insulin, a hormone used by our brain to strengthen the synaptic connections between neurons: this helps our neurons communicate better and more efficiently.
So thanks to insulin, we're able to think and remember better.
As a result, developing resistance to this hormone leads to a physiological decline in it, and therefore a weakening of the synaptic connections that make it harder for us to think clearly and remember things.
2) Sugar can trigger and worsen anxiety and depression
This harmful effect comes from the combination of two effects that sugar has on our body.
The first is that a blood sugar crash and continuous high and low glycemic spikes, caused by periodically consuming the wrong amounts of sugar, can lead to mood swings: from irritability to anxiety, exhaustion, and even sudden mood changes.
The second is that sugar intake causes our brain to release a neurotransmitter called serotonin which, among other things, helps our brain stabilize our mood.
Continuing to force our brain to produce it, through constant sugar intake, risks depleting the limited reserves available to our body, leaving us without this natural regulator and causing symptoms that can contribute to creating or worsening depression.
3) It prevents you from feeling full
Our body uses sugar and carbs as a "quick" source of energy: this is also why, when we feel tired or low on energy, we tend to prefer snacks that contain plenty of them.
One of the problems is precisely the fact that our body processes them very quickly to get that energy.
On top of that, sugar has negative effects on another neurotransmitter: oxytocin, whose job is to signal to our brain when we're full.
These two combined effects mean we never feel completely full after eating sugar, and so we end up wanting to eat another snack.
4) It causes genuine forms of addiction
As soon as the receptors on our tongue detect sugar, a signal is immediately sent to the brain, which releases hormones associated with feelings of wellbeing, like dopamine.
Obviously, triggering this mechanism with an occasional snack isn't a problem at all, but when it starts being activated too often, real problems begin, because our brain starts pushing us to seek out that feeling of wellbeing more and more often.
It's at this exact point that a mechanism of dependency sets in, not unlike the one caused by nicotine, alcohol and various drugs.
In conclusion
There's no denying that we need to cut down on the amount of sugar we take in, both the obvious kind, like a chocolate bar, and the "hidden" kind found in carbs and starches.
Our world, though, gives us very few options when we want something that is:
✅ Ready to eat right away.
✅ Able to satisfy hunger.
✅ Genuinely satisfying to eat.