We human beings, in the face of sweet temptations, are difficult to resist. At present, the annual global sugar consumption level has reached an average of 23 kg per person. Fructose, glucose, maltose, sucrose, and sugars present in honey and fruit juices added to beverages and foods are collectively referred to as free sugars. Studies have found that free sugar is highly easily absorbed by the body, and the sweetness is addictive, thereby increasing the risk of obesity and cardiovascular disease. As a result, some regions have begun to impose sugar taxes in an attempt to control sugar consumption. Recently, a paper was published in the Progress fascicle of the journal Science that made the more poignant conclusion that a high-sugar diet can cause mental illness. Let's now introduce the main points of the study.
The paper published in the journal Science was completed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Sciences. Studies have shown that when there is glycosynostem deficiency involved in detoxification, a high-sugar diet can induce behaviors associated with mental disorders, such as ADHD, memory loss, impaired receptor capacity, and impaired interneuronal function. The high-sugar diet also caused microvascular damage in the brains of glyoxalase-deficient mice, resulting in reduced uptake of glucose by the brain.
The researchers also analyzed data from patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and found that the brains of these patients also had similar vascular damage to those in mice, indicating that mental disorders were related to cerebrovascular lesions caused by metabolic pressure. By analyzing the daily monosaccharide intake data of adolescents, it was found that when the monosaccharide intake reached 20% of the total daily calories, the risk of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder was about 2 times higher than that of healthy people of the same age, and these affected people developed mental disorders before the age of 30.
The study also found that people with schizophrenia who consumed higher sucrose showed more severe symptoms. In addition, adolescents with higher soft drink consumption are at higher risk of mental disorders, hyperactivity, and behavioral disorders. Studies have shown that anti-inflammatory drugs can effectively prevent vascular lesions in the brain, increase glucose uptake in the brain, and prevent the emergence of abnormal behaviors. Studies have confirmed that a high-sugar diet may affect the brain's uptake of glucose through glyoxalase-related metabolic pathways, causing microvascular damage and brain dysfunction, and ultimately causing mental illness.
Unable to resist the temptation of sweetness, it will affect brain function, and this phenomenon has previously attracted the attention of the scientific community. For example, in 2012, British scholars found that eating too much fructose can damage memory and learning ability. The research team at the University of California found that after feeding the mice fructose for 6 weeks, the mice's navigation ability became poor and their movements were slow.
Scholars at the University of Kansas, in 2019, found that although eating sugar can improve mood temporarily, it may have a negative impact on mental health in the long run. Because too much sugar intake can cause inflammation in the body, certain hormones associated with inflammation can cause the brain to enter a depressive state. Eating too much sugar can also have an impact on the gut microbiome, upsetting the balance of the microbiome and producing certain chemicals that can induce depression.
Although, according to people's living traditions, eating sweets is considered a way to reduce stress and increase happiness, scientific research has proven that consuming too much sugar not only brings caries, obesity, aging skin, chronic diseases, but also induces mental disorders. In 1995, the World Health Organization developed the Guidelines for Sugar Intake for Adults and Children, which recommends that the intake of free sugars should be reduced throughout the life course, and free sugars should be controlled within 10% of total energy. Our dietary guidelines recommend that you control your daily intake of free sugar to less than 25 grams. It is worth noting that adding sugar will satisfy the sense of taste, making people have a desire for sugar, that is, addiction to sugar, therefore, to reduce the dependence on sugar, you need to start from the mentality, really pay attention to their physical and mental health, in order to resist the temptation of sweetness.
Whoever loves, pass on health to whom.