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The Impact of Sugar on the Human Brain

Nov 7, 20243 min read

By Emilian Dobrescu


Our brain cannot work without sugar, as it uses a range between 25%-50% of the whole sugar-energy produced by our body`s systems. However, one significant detail here is that the brain is not fueled by any form of sugar, but just by glucose. This is our body's primary source of energy and it comes from the food we eat.


Different ways to intake sugar

When we read a product label, we can see how much sugar that item contains (on the nutrition value list) and also the provenance and the type of the sugar (on the ingredients list). An important thing is that the sugar can be found in food in three forms: sucrose, glucose and fructose. Then, in our body all the sugar is transformed into glucose and after that, the glucose enters in the bloodstream in order to share energy within our body.

We can get the sugar we need to obtain energy from any kind of food, but there are some aliments which contain more than others. Examples of low sugar food are vegetables, grains and dairy products, which do not provide a great amount of energy, but they are very important for our health. Then, we have high sugar foods like cakes, biscuits, bars, fast-food and also some kinds of fruits. In fact, all types of food can be sweetened with sugar, but in the raw form, low sugar food is definitely not as delicious as the high one.


Brain and Sugar

Our brain really needs sugar, in order to support certain functions such as memory, touch, motor skills, vision, breathing, temperature, hunger and so on, but it also has some consumption limitations and can be easily harmed if we are not aware of which they are.

The impact of sugar overconsumption is huge and also the number of side effects is big, but we'll analyze here just three main of them: memory problems, reward system decay and the drug effect. 


Does Sugar affect our memory?

Some studies showed a very close linking between memory problems and great amounts of sugar intake. The main concern is that a high level of glucose in our blood leads to Small Vessel Disease, which simply means that the vessels which transport blood in our brain are narrowed or obstructed and the brain cells don't get enough oxygen. Because this chronic damage starves the brain cells of oxygen, they cannot do their job well, namely to connect different parts of the brain, sending and receiving signals, and because of that our memory is impaired, as well as the speed of thinking and the concentration ability.


Sugar's rewards

When people feel happy and enthusiastic after a certain activity or after they achieve something important, it's about dopamine release. What is dopamine? Well, basically it's a substance which carries messages within the brain. What makes it special? It's the substance which makes us feel excited even if we got the best mark at school, we ran ten miles or we ate a bar of chocolate. So, the experience of reward is associated with dopamine release. In this way our brain will seek for activities which increase the level of dopamine, because we feel gladness these times. The issue here comes when we use sugar very often as a dopamine trigger, because our brain craves more and more for it. This leads to a reward system disorder as habitual intake of beatitude agents decreases the expression of dopamine receptors in the brain and it will need great amounts of sugar in order to feel happy and to share this feeling within the whole body. A dramatic result it's that we won't be able to enjoy some nice moments in our life, as the dopamine released during these occasions won't be enough to satisfy our brain's desire.


Is it the Sugar a drug?

Dopamine is the thing responsible for happiness and when we repeat very frequently an activity which involves a growth of this substance, we`ll become addicted to the agent which produced the increase, because we want to experience that feeling on and on. Sugar, as one of those agents, has the same effect. Once we begin to overeat in order to boost our mood, we’ll eventually not be able to live without taking our daily overdose.


What to do?

Boundaries. When something might be risky, set boundaries and never cross them. We should maintain an equilibrium in our choice system otherwise the results could be harmful. It's not a great deal of a problem eating a piece of cake or some chocolate, but just don't make it routine and also, as in formula one, don`t overtake the track`s limit. The human brain needs sugar, but don't load it too much, because it can blow up!



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