The New Science of Sugar Addiction. Eating sugar may fuel cravings for more by quieting stress. (Reuters Health) - Eating sugar may quiet stress signals in the brain, leading some people to seek comfort by consuming more sweets and making the habit very hard to break, a small study suggests.
This Is What Sugar Does To Your Brain. 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 wellbeing.
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. 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. Sugar: The Bitter Truth. High-Sugar Diet Can Impair Learning And Memory By Altering Gut Bacteria. The typical American diet is loaded with fat and sugar, and it may be hurting not only our physical health, but also our ability to think clearly.
New research from Oregon State University finds a high-sugar, high-fat diet causes changes in gut bacteria that seem to lead to significant losses in cognitive flexibility, a measurement of the brain's ability to switch between thinking about one concept to another, and to adapt to changes in the environment. The study, which was conducted on mice and published this week in the journal Neuroscience, found that a high-sugar diet was particularly detrimental to brain function, leading not only to decreased cognitive flexibility but also to impairments in short- and long-term memory.
“We’ve known for a while that too much fat and sugar are not good for you,” Dr. Kathy Magnusson, a biomedical scientist at the university and the study's lead author, said in a statement. As Magnusson suggests, the findings aren't entirely surprising. The Experiment. SUGAR IS A DRUG: How To Overcome Sugar Cravings, Lose Weight & Stabilize Mood. Are You a Sugar Addict? This is what happens to your brain when you give up sugar. Anyone who knows me also knows that I have a huge sweet tooth.
I always have. My friend and fellow graduate student Andrew is equally afflicted, and living in Hershey, Pennsylvania – the “Chocolate Capital of the World” – doesn’t help either of us. But Andrew is braver than I am. Last year, he gave up sweets for Lent. I can’t say that I’m following in his footsteps this year, but if you are abstaining from sweets for Lent this year, here’s what you can expect over the next 40 days. Sugar: natural reward, unnatural fix In neuroscience, food is something we call a “natural reward.” Evolution has resulted in the mesolimbic pathway, a brain system that deciphers these natural rewards for us. Not all foods are equally rewarding, of course. Tips on Quitting Processed Sugar. For those of you new to my blog, I am a huge believer in quitting processed sugar.
Before switching to a whole food diet, I was a HUGE sugar addict. I dumped tons in my coffee, loved cookies and cakes and even had a little stash of jellybeans in the car. I never had a weight problem, but I always had that extra 5-7 lbs that I just couldn’t seem to loose. When I quit processed foods and sugars, I lost weight without even trying! Since then, I never count calories and stay at 122 lbs. 1. 2. 3. How to Quit Sugar. Interventions to Reduce Sugar Consumption.
Why fasting bolsters brain power: Mark Mattson at TEDxJohnsHopkinsUniversity. Feast-and-famine diet could help extend life, study suggests. Think of it as interval training for the dinner table.
University of Florida Health researchers have found that putting people on a feast-or-famine diet may mimic some of the benefits of fasting, and that adding antioxidant supplements may counteract those benefits. Fasting has been shown in mice to extend lifespan and to improve age-related diseases. But fasting every day, which could entail skipping meals or simply reducing overall caloric intake, can be hard to maintain. “People don’t want to just under-eat for their whole lives,” said Martin Wegman, an M.D. -Ph.D. student at the UF College of Medicine and co-author of the paper recently published in the journal Rejuvenation Research. Michael Guo, a UF M.D. Intermittent fasting may help those with diabetes and cardiovascular disease, study suggests. Intermittent fasting is all the rage, but scientific evidence showing how such regimes affect human health is not always clear cut.
Now a scientific review in the British Journal of Diabetes and Vascular Disease published by SAGE, suggests that fasting diets may help those with diabetes and cardiovascular disease, alongside established weight loss claims. Intermittent fasting -fasting on a given number of consecutive or alternate days -- has recently been hailed as a path to weight loss and improved cardiovascular risk. A team led by James Brown from Aston University has evaluated the various approaches to intermittent fasting in the scientific literature. They searched specifically for advantages and limitations in treating obesity and type 2 diabetes using fasting diets. The basic format of intermittent fasting is to alternate days eating 'normally' with days when calorie consumption is restricted.
A healthy heart. Anti-inflammatory mechanism of dieting and fasting revealed. Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have found that a compound produced by the body when dieting or fasting can block a part of the immune system involved in several inflammatory disorders such as type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis, and Alzheimer's disease.
In their study, published in the Feb. 16 online issue of Nature Medicine, the researchers described how the compound β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) directly inhibits NLRP3, which is part of a complex set of proteins called the inflammasome. The inflammasome drives the inflammatory response in several disorders including autoimmune diseases, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, atherosclerosis, and autoinflammatory disorders. Three Methods of Intermittent Fasting (Updated) » Nia Shanks. Intermittent fasting – it is definitely one of the fastest (no pun intended) growing nutrition topics right now.
Supplement added to a standard diet improves health and prolongs life in mice. Representative photographs from blinded histopathological analysis of kidney, liver, and lung panels for mice on standard diet (SD) and SRT1720 supplementation (credit: Sarah J.
Mitchell et al. /Cell Reports) Activating a protein called sirtuin 1 extends lifespan, delays the onset of age-related metabolic diseases, and improves general health in mice. The findings, which appear online February 27 in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports, point to a potentially promising strategy for improving health and longevity. Sirtuin 1, or SIRT1, is known to play an important role in maintaining metabolic balance in multiple tissues, and studies in various organisms have shown that activating the protein can lead to many health benefits. Researchers led by Dr. The researchers found that SRT1720 significantly extended the average lifespan of mice by 8.8%.
Abstract of Cell Reports paper. Dr. Oz Investigates Protein Powders (Video) Choosing The Best Soy Protein Powder. Maybe you are someone who wants to be sure that they can bulk up while at the gym, yet you are not someone who likes to eat meat as a part of your daily diet. Years ago, it was almost unheard of to be able to find the right vegan supplementation to help you get the right amount of protein in your body to allow you to fully bulk up when you hit the gym. Most of the time, anyone who was looking to pack on muscle would have to take on some protein supplements that were not fully vegan.
Today, there are a lot of different choices out there that you can look into that will give you everything that you need and. Even if you are living a lifestyle of someone who only wants to consume plant based foods and products, you can actually get your hands on some of the best soy protein powder on the market today.