Excessive sugar intake linked with unhealthy fat deposits
June 29, 2020
Science Daily/European Society of Cardiology
Sugar consumption is linked with larger fat deposits around the heart and in the abdomen, which are risky for health. That's the finding of a study published today in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).
"When we consume too much sugar the excess is converted to fat and stored," said study author Ms. So Yun Yi, a PhD student at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. "This fat tissue located around the heart and in the abdomen releases chemicals into the body which can be harmful to health. Our results support limiting added sugar intake."
Excess sugar consumption is a worldwide problem. The six countries with the highest sales of sugary drinks per capita are Chile, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, the US, and Saudi Arabia. The demand for sugar is expected to increase in Asia, Africa, and Russia.
This observational study examined both sugar-sweetened beverages (such as soft drinks, fruit drinks, energy drinks) and sugar added to foods and beverages for sweetness (for example when cooking or in processed foods). The researchers analysed the association between long-term sugar consumption and fat stores around the heart and other organs.
Data were obtained from Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA), an ongoing cohort study in the US that includes centres in Alabama, California, Illinois, and Minnesota. A total of 3,070 healthy participants aged 18 to 30 were included in this study.
Food and beverage intakes were measured three times over a 20-year period (1985 to 2005). After 25 years (in 2010) computed tomography (CT) scans of the chest and abdomen were performed to measure fat volumes in the abdomen and around the heart.
The researchers found that sugar intake over the 20-year period was related to fat volumes later in life. Higher intakes of both sugar-sweetened beverages and added sugar were related to greater fat stores around organs in a stepwise fashion.
"Our findings provide more evidence that consuming too much added sugar and sugary drinks is related to a higher amount of fat tissue," said study author Dr. Lyn Steffen of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. "And, we know that fat deposits are connected with higher risks of heart disease and diabetes."
She advised reducing the amount of added sugar consumed each day. "Have water instead of sugary drinks and choose healthier snacks over foods rich in added sugar like cakes," she said. "Read food labels to check the amount of added sugar in what you are buying. Look for ingredients like syrups, glucose, fructose, sucrose, and maltose. Being more aware of hidden sugar will help you cut back."
Dr. Steffen said: "On top of our individual efforts, governments, food manufacturers, restaurants, schools, and workplaces have a role to play in increasing consumer awareness of the sugar content in foods and beverages and offering healthier alternatives."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200629120243.htm
Want to avoid the holiday blues? New report suggests skipping the sweet treats
December 12, 2019
Science Daily/University of Kansas
A new study from a team of clinical psychologists suggests eating added sugars -- common in so many holiday foods -- can trigger metabolic, inflammatory and neurobiological processes tied to depressive illness.
If you're prone to depression, this holiday season you might want to say "bah humbug" to offers of sugar plum pudding, caramel corn and chocolate babka.
A new study from a team of clinical psychologists at the University of Kansas suggests eating added sugars -- common in so many holiday foods -- can trigger metabolic, inflammatory and neurobiological processes tied to depressive illness. The work is published in the journal Medical Hypotheses.
Coupled with dwindling light in wintertime and corresponding changes in sleep patterns, high sugar consumption could result in a "perfect storm" that adversely affects mental health, according to the researchers.
"For many people, reduced sunlight exposure during the winter will throw off circadian rhythms, disrupting healthy sleep and pushing five to 10% of the population into a full-blown episode of clinical depression," said Stephen Ilardi, KU associate professor of clinical psychology.
Ilardi, who coauthored the study with KU graduate students Daniel Reis (lead author), Michael Namekata, Erik Wing and Carina Fowler (now of Duke University), said these symptoms of "winter-onset depression" could prompt people to consume more sweets.
"One common characteristic of winter-onset depression is craving sugar," he said. "So, we've got up to 30% of the population suffering from at least some symptoms of winter-onset depression, causing them to crave carbs -- and now they're constantly confronted with holiday sweets."
Ilardi said avoidance of added dietary sugar might be especially challenging because sugar offers an initial mood boost, leading some with depressive illness to seek its temporary emotional lift.
"When we consume sweets, they act like a drug," said the KU researcher, who also is author of "The Depression Cure" (First De Capo Press, 2009). "They have an immediate mood-elevating effect, but in high doses they can also have a paradoxical, pernicious longer-term consequence of making mood worse, reducing well-being, elevating inflammation and causing weight gain."
The investigators reached their conclusions by analyzing a wide range of research on the physiological and psychological effects of consuming added sugar, including the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study, the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study, a study of Spanish university graduates, and studies of Australian and Chinese soda-drinkers.
Ilardi cautioned it might be appropriate to view added sugar, at high enough levels, as physically and psychologically harmful, akin to drinking a little too much liquor.
"We have pretty good evidence that one alcoholic drink a day is safe, and it might have beneficial effect for some people," he said. "Alcohol is basically pure calories, pure energy, non-nutritive and super toxic at high doses. Sugars are very similar. We're learning when it comes to depression, people who optimize their diet should provide all the nutrients the brain needs and mostly avoid these potential toxins."
The researchers found inflammation is the most important physiological effect of dietary sugar related to mental health and depressive disorder.
"A large subset of people with depression have high levels of systemic inflammation," said Ilardi. "When we think about inflammatory disease we think about things like diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis -- diseases with a high level of systemic inflammation. We don't normally think about depression being in that category, but it turns out that it really is -- not for everyone who's depressed, but for about half. We also know that inflammatory hormones can directly push the brain into a state of severe depression. So, an inflamed brain is typically a depressed brain. And added sugars have a pro-inflammatory effect on the body and brain."
Ilardi and his collaborators also identify sugar's impact on the microbiome as a potential contributor to depression.
"Our bodies host over 10 trillion microbes and many of them know how to hack into the brain," Ilardi said. "The symbiotic microbial species, the beneficial microbes, basically hack the brain to enhance our well-being. They want us to thrive so they can thrive. But there are also some opportunistic species that can be thought of as more purely parasitic -- they don't have our best interest in mind at all. Many of those parasitic microbes thrive on added sugars, and they can produce chemicals that push the brain in a state of anxiety and stress and depression. They're also highly inflammatory."
Ilardi recommended a minimally processed diet rich in plant-based foods and Omega-3 fatty acids for optimal psychological benefit. As for sugar, the KU researcher recommended caution -- not just during the holidays, but year-round.
"There's no one-size-fits-all approach to predicting exactly how any person's body will react to any given food at any given dose," Ilardi stated. "As a conservative guideline, based on our current state of knowledge, there could be some risk associated with high-dose sugar intake -- probably anything above the American Heart Association guideline, which is 25 grams of added sugars per day."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191212122532.htm
Evidence of behavioral, biological similarities between compulsive overeating and addiction
October 17, 2019
Science Daily/Boston University School of Medicine
Does yo-yo dieting drive compulsive eating? There may be a connection.
According to Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) researchers the chronic cyclic pattern of overeating followed by undereating, reduces the brain's ability to feel reward and may drive compulsive eating. This finding suggests that future research into treatment of compulsive eating behavior should focus on rebalancing the mesolimbic dopamine system -- the part of the brain responsible for feeling reward or pleasure.
An estimated 15 million people compulsively eat in the U.S. It is a common feature of obesity and eating disorders, most notably, binge eating disorder. People often overeat because it is pleasurable in the short term, but then attempt to compensate by dieting, reducing calorie intake and limiting themselves to "safe," less palatable food. However, diets often fail, causing frequent "relapse" to overeating of foods high in fat and sugar (palatable foods).
"We are just now beginning to understand the addictive-like properties of food and how repeated overconsumption of high sugar -- similar to taking drugs -- may affect our brains and cause compulsive behaviors," said corresponding author Pietro Cottone, PhD, associate professor of pharmacology & experimental therapeutics at BUSM and co-director of the Laboratory of Addictive Disorders.
In order to better understand compulsive and uncontrollable eating, Cottone and his team performed a series of experiments on two experimental models: one group received a high sugar chocolate-flavored diet for two days each week and a standard control diet the remaining days of the week (cycled group), while the other group, received the control diet all of the time (control group).
The group that cycled between the palatable food and the less palatable, spontaneously developed compulsive, binge eating on the sweet food and refused to eat regular food. Both groups were then injected with a psychostimulant amphetamine, a drug that releases dopamine and produces reward, and their behavior in a battery of behavioral tests was then observed.
While the control group predictably became very hyperactive after receiving amphetamine, the cycled group did not. Furthermore, in a test of the conditioning properties of amphetamine, the control group was attracted to environments where they previously received amphetamine, whereas the cycled group were not. Finally, when measuring the effects of amphetamine while directly stimulating the brain reward circuit, the control group was responsive to amphetamine, while the cycled group was not.
After investigating the biochemical and molecular properties of the mesolimbic dopamine system of both groups, the researchers determined that the cycled group had less dopamine overall, released less dopamine in response to amphetamine and had dysfunctional dopamine transporters (protein that carries dopamine back into brain cells) due to deficits in their mesolimbic dopamine system.
"We found that the cycled group display similar behavioral and neurobiological changes observed in drug addiction: specifically, a "crash" in the brain reward system," explained Cottone. "This study adds to our understanding of the neurobiology of compulsive eating behavior. Compulsive eating may derive from the reduced ability to feel reward. These findings also provide support to the theory that compulsive eating has similarities to drug addiction."
"Our data suggest that a chronic cyclic pattern of overeating will reduce the brain's ability to feel reward -- feeling satiated. This results in a vicious circle, where diminished reward sensitivity may in turn be driving further compulsive eating," said lead author Catherine (Cassie) Moore, PhD, former graduate student in the Laboratory of Addictive Disorders at BUSM.
The researchers hope these findings spark new avenues of research into compulsive eating that will lead to more effective treatments for obesity and eating disorders.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191017125240.htm