Psychology Today: Link between Dietary Sugar and Mental Illness.
we all know that dietary sugar can cause things like diabetes, and even cancer. Sugar turns into avid in the body, and things like Cancer love acidic conditions.
But have you ever wondered what impact dietary sugar has on the brain?
I Googled the subject, and found this article on PsychologyToday.com, found to be highly informative, and decided to share it. Perhaps it'll make you pause before you eat that next marshmallow around the campfire.
"Noted British psychiatric researcher Malcolm Peet has conducted a provocative cross-cultural analysis of the relationship between diet and mental illness. His primary finding may surprise you: a strong link between high sugar consumption and the risk of both depression and schizophrenia.
In fact, there are two potential mechanisms through which refined sugar intake could exert a toxic effect on mental health.
First, sugar actually suppresses activity of a key growth hormone in the brain called BDNF. This hormone promotes the health and maintenance of neurons in the brain, and it plays a vital role in memory function by triggering the growth of new connections between neurons. BDNF levels are critically low in both depression and schizophrenia, which explains why both syndromes often lead to shrinkage of key brain regions over time (yes, chronic depression actually leads to brain damage). There's also evidence from animal models that low BDNF can trigger depression.
Second, sugar consumption triggers a cascade of chemical reactions in the body that promote chronic inflammation. Now, under certain circumstances (like when your body needs to heal a bug bite), a little inflammation can be a good thing, since it can increase immune activity and blood flow to a wound. But in the long term, inflammation is a big problem. It disrupts the normal functioning of the immune system, and wreaks havoc on the brain.
Inflammation is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and even some forms of cancer . . . it's also linked to a greater risk of depression and schizophrenia. And again, eating refined sugar triggers inflammation. So does eating heavily processed molecular cousins like 'high fructose corn syrup'.
If you think about it, it makes sense that our bodies don't handle refined sugar very well. After all, for the vast majority (99.9%) of our existence as a species, there simply was no such sugar. We were endowed with a sweet tooth so that we'd crave the highly nutritious fruits that were available - sometimes in short supply - in the ancestral environment. But with the advent of processed sugar cane a few centuries ago, the blessing of our formerly adaptive sweet tooth suddenly turned into a curse - causing us to crave foods that we were simply never designed to process.
As I've become increasingly convinced by these research data, I've begun gently encouraging my depressed patients to simply try cutting out sugars for a couple of weeks to see if they notice any effect. (I also ask them to cut out simple starches - like crackers and white bread - which the body converts directly to sugars). A few have had the courage and determination to given it a go: they're reported remarkable improvements in mood, energy, and mental clarity."
Comments
PsychologyToday is pop-psychology at its worst. It's only about one step above Dr. Phil.
Science articles for the public are generally sensationalized, and I feel like psychology articles are some of the worst offenders. Correlation is shorted to causation, and even more significantly, relatively insignificant differences are reported as nearly being decisive.
IE "sugar actually surpresses activity of a key growth hormone in the brain called BDNF" - well, there are likely studies which show that sugar acts as a mediating factor in the production of that hormone, but that doesn't give any indication of its level of significance, or the strength of the correlation. Not to mention that, again, mediation only means one factor, which isn't necessarily driving.
"BDNF levels are critically low in both depression and schizophrenia" - again, this is a correlation, not neccesarily a causation; it could very well be the mental illness which leads to a decrease in hormore, or, more likely, that the lowering of that hormone is a biochemical expression of the psychological state of depression, rather than a chemical causing an altered mental state.
Btw, what sort of inflammation are we talking about? Inflammation is the swelling of a region of the body, and that can mean the brain, but inflammation in itself is extremely non-specific.
Honestly, I feel like reading things like PsychologyToday often leave you less informed that not reading anything, because there is such of a lack of caviots and nuance for the sake of garnering attention.
I mean, okay, but mental illnesses tend to be a result of typically harsh surroundings or body biology. It seems strange for it to be suddenly shifted over to foods. .
Well let's think about that for a second. People who eat fast foods have a tendency to make people fat, where as people who eat healthy food tend not to be.
The point is if what we eat can have a physical effect on us, than why rule out food having a mental effect on us? Just saying!
I like this thought process, actually. I do agree that exercising daily, sleeping normally and eating healthy all tie into having a better "mood" among other things. I just don't directly believe that there is any direct link between the creation of mental illness and eating fatty foods. Helping to improve on it? Sure, I can believe that.
My anxiety and PSTD was a beyotch to deal with until I started eating three meals a day, getting at least seven hours of sleep, going to Jiu Jitsu and eating less snacks and more fruit. Though there's nothing wrong with a chocolate bar every once in a while since that apparently (?) helps with hormones and stress
I must say I love your picture.
You're a martial artist?
I've thought about taking martial arts. Karate in particular!
Karate is the only sport I'm good at. I'd totally recommend it.
I am, I'm doing Jiu Jitsu.
If you're looking for it, I'd suggest trying it out. It's a little pricey and you might feel uncomfortable in the beginning, but "teams" in martial arts are extremely accepting and supportive communities, so I don't think you'll have a problem fitting in after long. It feels nice to get the exercise and what I do (karate is probably the same, but I'm not totally sure) helps build muscle, relieve stress and so on.
what exactly is the difference between karate and jiu-jitsu?
Jiu Jitsu is a ground fighting and karate is not. A lot of Jiu Jitsu involves legs and grappling, while karate is more focused on arms and hands.
Might as well learn both. And also add boxing go the list as well.