How Sugar Affects Your Brain

cocaine-vs-sugar

We’ve talked a lot about how sugar affects our body and even one of my strong beliefs on how it affects your emotions. What we haven’t talked that much about is how sugar affects your brain.

One of the more difficult things for me to convey to folks, in over 25 years of dealing with sugar addicts, is how that experiential experience trumps the slowness of science – and it appears, from the news a few days ago from the JAMA (Journal Of the American Medical Society,) the huge cover ups in how the science gets to us.

How and why science has dawdled on this issue is not the focus of this article.

What is the focus is sugar’s effects on your brain.

We’ve all seen the amazing graphic and heard about sugar being as addictive as cocaine with the graphic showing brain scans side by side. One with the brain on sugar, the other with brain on cocaine and how almost identical they look – how they affect the same regions.

cocaine-vs-sugar

It’s a shocking graphic, yes,  but it’s not really in context for anyone but neuroscientists.

Nobody knows what the heck that all means.

The only thing you can go on right now is how you feel when you ingest and what others who have gone before you tell you about their experiences with the product.

One of the major, head slapping Ah-Ha’s that 25 plus years of observations of people’s ups and downs with their sugar has brought me is that their self esteem is higher in that time period of 20 minutes after a good solid sugar ingestion. I mean it is very observable, almost sickeningly obvious. We have all observed love ones, bosses or colleagues after that first cup of coffee in the morning or that first martini at night – watch this closely one day.

You’re in for shock!

These are people you know very well, kids, parents, good friends and spouses. I mean really well. You can tell that they are addressing you from a place of higher confidence – literally. It’s kinda scary. And if you’ve journaled it in yourself – you can see it too – feel it. Watch for in yourself and in your loved ones.

It’s subtle, not at all like cocaine, but it is there. Your brain is changed in a meaningful way.

I hesitate to even write this because it feels to revealing to me and may seem crazy to people who have not been through some of this but it is 110% true. I’ve also talked with many others who have had similar experiences.

When I used to snort cocaine I would look in the mirror and think “damn – lookin good”

All the judgement about my strange nose, my scars, my acne — all of it gone! For just few minutes I didn’t judge myself harshly.

Well the exact same thing happened with sugar. I’m dead serious.

It’s not as dramatic an effect but the effect is real. I felt better about myself. I didn’t judge that one aspect, however personally subjective, of myself as harshly. Just for a few minutes.

The sad part is, with both cocaine and sugar, is that about twenty minutes later you are judging yourself so harshly you can’t stand it and you need to re-ingest to chase the same feeling.

So after having real problems with cocaine the last thing I wanted was another drug in my system that modeled those feelings of going way up and the hard crash down.

I didn’t feed the stuff to my kids – ever. That story is well know.

What is less know is my belief about my beloved, sainted mother the sugar junkie and her Alzheimer’s disease. My mother’s mother died when she was eight years old. Her father and her went to live with an aunt.

Because my grandfather felt bad for her he set up an account with the local shop owner – literally across the street – to be able to get any candy she wanted – any time she wanted!

Nice thought back then but I probably don’t have to tell you the rest of the story.

Can I prove to you that my mother or anyone gets a disease as devastating as Alzheimer’s from over 70 years of sugar abuse? No, I can’t.  Can I prove it like smoking causes lung cancer?

Not yet..

  • Do I believe it with all my heart? Yes
  • Do I want to take a chance with my brain so my children have to go through what I’m going through now if I think anything can change that outcome. – Not a prayer.

If I get enough feedback I’ll tell the story of a doctor who has done over 3,000 brain scans and has changed people’s diet from high sugar and the second scan, months later, show the healing, show the changes – amazing stuff.

You know I don’t do this to scare you to death right? (Well maybe a little)

I do to just change your perception. To nudge you out of your complacency.

To know that you’re joining this email list or reading this blog means the world to me and that your search for answers about sugar in your life will not fall on deaf ears here.

As always, if you want to get started on changing your behaviour around sugar – join us here: Quit Sugar Now!

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