For decades sugar was promoted as a health food that did everything from fight fat to energize you, the 1950s – 1970s saw some of the most brazen and manipulative marketing ever pushed on the American public. Rivaled in its guile only by the infamous health promoting cigarette ads of the same period, sugar was sold as a healthy way to keep you alert, avoid over-eating and (most absurdly) lose weight!
The onslaught of hype continued in the 1980s with the low fat craze that catapulted processed carbohydrates to the status of a superfood consumed by Olympians and champion athletes in their quest for greatness.
By all accounts, the relentless publicity, PR and advertising worked, in 1822 we consumed 6 pounds of sugar per person per year, today we consume, on average, over 100 pounds of sugar every year … a colossal increase!
And then there’s corn…
This is Your Brain on Corn Syrup
Although the danger posed to our health by sugar consumption, from obesity to diabetes, is well known, less so is our awareness of refined carbohydrates’ role as a driver of heart disease and a prime factor in the proliferation of cancer, what gets almost no attention, however, is the devastating effect sugar, especially in the form of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a potent sweetener derived from corn starch, has on the brain.
Wide-scale, industrial production of HFCS began in 1967, a flash-point as its manufacture became highly efficient while also yielding an extremely high sweetness profile. Most significantly, high fructose corn syrup became far cheaper to process than traditional cane (or beet) sugar due to advances in food manufacturing technology and the exorbitant government subsidies farmers received to grow corn, a market-distorting practice that continues to this day.
The result?
HCFS has become ubiquitous as a food additive, its prevalence in our food supply is so pervasive it can be found in everything from ketchup to lunch meats and accounts for 80% of the added sugar in soft drinks and baked goods.
According to Michael Pollan, author of “in Defense of Food” and “King Corn,” in his article, “When a Crop Becomes King“…
“It’s probably no coincidence that the wholesale switch to corn sweeteners in the 1980’s marks the beginning of the epidemic of obesity and Type 2 diabetes in this country. Sweetness became so cheap that soft drink makers, rather than lower their prices, super-sized their serving portions and marketing budgets. Thousands of new sweetened snack foods hit the market, and the amount of fructose in our diets soared.”
And with the rise of cheap, high fructose corn syrup, its omnipresence in a vast cross-section of the foods we consume and the explosion of type-2 diabetes and obesity, we are also seeing a severe impact on brain health with a well-established connection between increased consumption of refined carbohydrates and cognitive impairment.
READ: Increased Fructose Intake as a Risk Factor for Dementia
Brain Drain
Of all our organs, the brain requires the most energy, circa 20% of all caloric intake and 80% of all glucose, amazing considering our grey matter makes up only 2% of total body mass!
Our minds rev high and are ever hungry for energy to fuel neuronal transmission, yet after gorging on refined carbohydrate-laden foods, the ensuing insulin spike lowers blood glucose levels to the degree that it actually reduces the brain’s ability to cogitate.
“What has recently emerged is the association of obesity with cognitive decline and that intake of added sugars may mediate the influence of obesity on cognitive function.”
READ: The Emerging Role of Dietary Fructose in Obesity and Cognitive Decline
Far more sinister however than sugar as a driver of decreasing rates in our ability to think and recall in dynamic fashion, is its role in the utter devastation of cerebral health wrought by a plethora of neurodegenerative disorders.
Long term consumption of refined carbohydrates not only ends up decimating the body’s ability to effectively utilize sugar, as consistently high blood glucose levels lead to insulin insensitivity (a condition marked by cellular resistance to insulin’s role in stimulating the uptake and storage of glucose, giving rise to to a viscous cycle of ever higher rates of sugar in the blood coupled with the pancreas’ challenge in producing the exceedingly larger doses of insulin necessary to counter such resistance, ultimately leading to type 2 diabetes)…
Sugar and processed carbohydrates also destroy the brain’s ability to metabolize the very glucose it has become dependent upon, which is a key characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease (a condition marked by bewilderment, memory loss and delusions).
“The association between Alzheimer’s and type 2 diabetes is long-established: type 2 sufferers are two to three times more likely to be struck by this form of dementia than the general population. There are also associations between Alzheimer’s and obesity and Alzheimer’s and metabolic syndrome (a complex of diet-related pathologies).”
READ: Alzheimer’s Could be the Most Catastrophic Impact of Junk Food
Furthermore (and given the above it is no surprise), it has been found that Alzheimer’s may be a form of diabetes in and of itself, one that is specific to the brain.
In scientific circles, Alzheimer’s has now come to be known as Type 3 Diabetes!
“Altogether, the data provides strong evidence that (Alzheimer’s) is intrinsically a neuroendocrine disease caused by selective impairments in insulin and IGF signaling mechanisms, including deficiencies in local insulin and IGF production.”
READ: Alzheimer’s Disease Is Type 3 Diabetes
When considering the repercussions of refined carbohydrates on cerebral performance, the deterioration of our power to assess, analyze and recall effectively, let alone operate at peak states, the toll that sugar takes on our productivity and mental well-being is staggering.
According to Dr. David Mercola, in his article, “How Sugar Destroys Your Liver and Brain”…
“As you over-indulge on sugar and grains, your brain becomes overwhelmed by the consistently high levels of insulin and eventually insulin and leptin levels and signaling become profoundly disrupted, leading to impairments in your thinking and memory abilities.”
“A study published in Diabetes Care found that type 2 diabetes is associated with a 60 percent increased risk of dementia in men and women.”
“A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2013 demonstrated that a mild elevation of blood sugar a level of around 105 or 110 is also associated with an elevated risk for dementia.”
By depending on refined carbohydrates to nourish and propel us (as opposed to fats and ketones), we are instead destroying our mind’s ability to perform at the height of its power, and far worse, charging headlong into a meat grinder of chronic disease and neurodegenerative disorders.
Lawrence Rosenberg on Twitter: @lawrosenberg
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