If it's not the sugar affecting children's behaviors, then what is the cause? This article only tells half the story.
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@jeepCK
On occasions where a lot of sugar is consumed - like birthday parties & Halloween - the kid gets excited. It’s obvious! It’s a simple coincidence that I always knew about.
1
These studies, (the way they are explained here), while demonstrating certain things like “sugar alone can not turn a normal child into a hyperactive one”, they do not in any way shape or form prove that there is no such thing as a sugar high. Parents have experienced this phenom. Often referred to as a “sugar high” for generations. You can twist it and turn it and and brake these studies down to this chemical and that chemical but it flies in the face of experience to say there is no such thing as a sugar high. I would look into who funds the studies or better yet who manipulates the language around the results to make things look nicer for candy companies…
4
In science, the question is often does Chemical ASD456-VVBBB-23 cause Psychological Predisposition in Older Malaysian Adults Who Have Never Seen The High School Transcripts of Ronald Reagan's Nephew.
Most people just wanna know if too much sugar makes life harder. It can and it does. Teeth get cavities a lil more often and sleep gets a lil worse and energy goes down a lil after 'bout an hour for some people. No big whoop.
The moral is that lording science over folk myths is mostly needless; the primary purpose of science isn't to put one over on hard-working parents who believe in sugar highs, it's to--behind closed doors--learn about reality's fabric, design new technologies that make life better, invent new solutions to health problems like diabetes and heart disease, and to thereby quietly and effectively serve society.
3
"...sugar does not affect children’s behavior or cognitive function"
I can see how a controlled study can ready evaluate cognitive function, but "behavior" is a much more complex phenomenon that could depend greatly on the environment or testing situation.
2
My grandparents heavily restricted my sugar intake because they noticed a difference but of course I got occasional treats. From my own experience, I remember on one occasion as a child laughing uncontrollably when I ate 1/2 of a French Creme pastry for what felt like an entire minute. I can also tell a difference in my children.
2
Would be interested to see a study that compared a diet with sugar sweetened treats to a diet with no sweetened treats instead of artificially sweetened treats. From my observations of my 3 year old, the sugar high (and crash) are very real. We still give him sugar in moderation because it’s delicious!
3
Doesn't it seem counterintuitive? Does sugar do anything good at all? If sugar did nothing good, I highly doubt humans would evolve cravings for it.
Does sugar cause a crash or high on laboratory rats?
Experienced sugar addicts - er - I mean "aficionados" - will tell you that it's not about the so-called "high" which may result from dose -- but rather it's the crash which follows --
As in the my becoming extremely drowsy - and needing to lie down for a nap last weekend about thirty minutes after guzzling down a rich chocolate milkshake float from Mr. Softee -
ZZzzzz..
I’m confused. The research quoted looked at hyperactivity, ADHD. When people talk about a “sugar high” they usually mean fleeting behavior. Did that controlled study and the meta-analysis say there was no effect whatsoever on behavior, or no link to “hyperactivity”as clinically defined? Seems that the answer here and many comments are conflating the two.
6
This article could have been more nuanced. What, exactly, is a sugar high? I'm an adult who has never been hyperactive, but a dose of carbohydrate--especially when added to the caffeine in a cup of coffee--always makes me feel good. My definition of a sugar high.
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@Robert Steiner
Agreed. After reading the article, I have no idea what is meant by "sugar high" means. Clearly the science has established that sugar releases dopamine, and that dopamine accelerates some brain functions and makes people feel better than when they were craving it. If that isn't a high from sugar, we need definitions.
And I'm not disagreeing with the research. I have learned that dopamine often lies, making us think that we will feel better. But actually it just temporarily reduces craving and long term increases dissatisfaction.
3
Does it? Are there scientific studies showing your opinion or is it just your imagination?
What about the dopamine release when sugar is eaten....that makes us feel great, which in its self gives us more energy.
3
What wasn’t likely replicated in the studies was the psychological milieu that grownups create around eating sugar.
Kids obligingly react to grownups’ expectations that they will act wildly, even if the cues they receive from adults are subtle. (From experience, the influence isn’t subtle at all: “You guys are so crazy from all that sugar!”). Grownups are essentially creating the outcome they expect, even if it’s not conscious or intentional. The phenomenon has also been described with relation to how adults behave when intoxicated, with respect to their unique cultural expectations.
Writers here dismiss the science debunking sugar as a cause of hyperactivity because it doesn’t fit their experiences, but fail to realize that there are other factors (i.e. their own expectations and influences on child behavior) that are actually behind the phenomenon that may not have been replicated in the studies.
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@APierce
“Writers here dismiss the science debunking sugar as a cause of hyperactivity because it doesn’t fit their experiences, but fail to realize that there are other factors (i.e. their own expectations and influences on child behavior) that are actually behind the phenomenon that may not have been replicated in the studies.”
In essence what you are saying is the cause of the child’s hyperactivity is not because of the sugar, it’s because of the parents. You may be right. But that was not the point of the article nor the research being performed on sugar and it's effects on hyperactivity in children. Theirs was a biological study. Yours a psychological or anthropological one.
The writer (and researchers referenced in the article) are saying sugar does not cause the hyperactivity. They are talking about sugar, the compound, the chemical, not causing the hyperactivity. So if sugar does not cause hyperactivity in children, then that is the point the writers are making regardless of parental involvement or cultural expectations. Again the point you are making is when children eat sugar it’s parental interference or cultural a bias that causes the hyperactivity. Again that maybe so. But whether or not the parents or their culture cause the hyperactivity while children eat sugar is a completely different matter and not to the writer’s point. That point being that sugar is not causing the hyperactivity.
1
@Radical Roach perhaps you didn't notice the number of commenters who wrote here that they know for sure that sugar makes their kids go wild, it made them go wild when they were kids and no scientist can prove otherwise.
APierce was attempting (very nicely, I thought) to offer an explanation for why the commenters are so convinced that their belief that sugar is the cause of kids going wild. He/she was not addressing the article; he/she appears to have accepted that the research to which the article refers is probably sound.
1
Kids get excited when anticipating anything that's unusually novel and fulfillng, whether that be food or some stimulating activity. Just like dogs do!
Science says this is a psychosomatic phenomenon. Research is still needed, perhaps, into whether the "high" can also occur for those who don't constantly crave snacks, and for kids who find no satisfaction in social events.
Yet again we see evidence for how much the behaviours of our bodies, and some of our illnesses, originate within the brain!
1
I have always had a sensitivity to sugar. How do I define this? My reactions to it have paralleled the profile of an addict: serious cravings, inability to be sated by a little bit, bingeing, feelings of being high followed by depressive lows that have at times led to suicidal thoughts.
This was worse when I was young, but I was wise enough to quit it at some point, and the difference was enormous. I got a lot of flak from people who thought I was crazy for going cold Turkey, but I realized that I had no other choice.
Perhaps I’m in the minority, perhaps my sensitivity is related to having maternal family members with type one diabetes. But I do think some people are more sensitive to the effects of sugar, and I agree with the commenters who pointed out that backers of one of the studies cited were linked to the sugar industry: they are KNOWN to have hidden their own internal science linking sugar consumption to heart issues, stroke, and diabetes. And then they proceeded to push sugar into every product in the grocery store, even table SALT, and in products you might not ever have expected to find it.
That they got away with lying about their product while the cigarette industry didn’t is a scandal to me; the health effects, while longer to take effect, are more insidious.
What bothers me the most is the way that western society has linked the worst processed, sugary foods, to every single celebration connected to kids. Sugar is not benign.
11
There is some evidence that the craving for sugar is driven by the bacteria that helps break down sugar. By eliminating sugar from your diet, those bacteria will also disappear, and stop sending the signals for more.
3
Uh, a quote from the analysis overview that should have been included in the article is "effects [of sugar] on subsets of children cannot be ruled out."
Parent of four here, each of whom I would guess belongs, to one degree or another, to such a subset. I have watched my children literally transform from calm, even-tempered beings capable of concentrating, sitting still, and keeping their voices at a reasonable volume into manic, unfocused, spastic, hollering creatures minutes after the ingestion of sweets. I am no disbeliever in science. I do, however, believe that science can be misrepresented by popular journalism.
15
As a parent of 5 kids age 8-42, who read the research in the early 90’s, I came to see that Sugar High was a myth.when I stopped believing it and so I stopped seeing it:) What I do see is excitement when kids get treats. I get excited about a slice of chocolate cake. And what I do see is that when kids basic nutritional needs aren’t met with nutrition filled snacks and meals, their behavior tanks. So, a good rule of thumb is to be old school and have treats after a good meal. I think it was called desert.
Fiber is key to slowing absorption of sugar into bloodstream. Kids show us through behavior that they need something. They don’t say, “My rapidly growing body needs fiber, protein, complex carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals,”, they just show you with behavioral deterioration.
12
Since I was a child, I've had an almost immediate headache after eating sugar. My skin also becomes more sensitive. No diabetes, no other problems. But I've never heard an explanation for this.
As an adult who ate a lot sugar, I can tell you that there is definitely a high that comes with it. There were times that I was bussing from so much sugar.
As an adult who just stopped eating sugar cold turkey a little over a month ago, I can attest to the withdrawal symptoms that happen when you stop. It took almost a week before I felt close to normal. I spent one day (the 3rd or 4th- I can't remember) lying in bed, miserable, unable to think clearly.
I made no other changes to my diet and once I made it through to the other side, I have my energy back and I've lost 14 lbs. My mood is much more stable (just ask my husband) and my sleep patterns are more regular- I don't drink anything with caffeine so it was the sugar that messed me up.
Maybe it's time to start an SAA group- Sugar Addicts Anonymous.
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@Trainer An addiction is not the same as sugar causing hyperactivity. Just because you had withdrawal symptoms from sugar doesn't mean sugar gave you hyperactivity when you had it, but rather you had addiction symptoms when you had it.
2
Sadly, the "sugar high" myth will not die no matter how many facts you throw at it. It's a zombie idea, immune to reason, right up there with the "saturated fat causes heart disease" and "fat makes you fat". Some ideas, once embedded in the national psyche, seem immovable. Too bad someone can't come up with a way to make everyone believe climate change is real.
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Type one diabetic here….yes there is such a thing a a sugar high for those with my particular hormone issue.
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Each of us is a profoundly unique chemistry set. If not, there would be one drug, one reaction, for every physical and mental heath condition. I work with bipolar support groups - 30 people in a room with the same diagnosis; everyone is on a different regimen of drugs that is adjusted regularly to keep up with resistance and efficacy factors. One constant is that the majority of peers are extremely sensitive to sugar and caffeine. To think that humans across the board don't have unique reactions, and mood changes, to sugar is folly.
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@WRC To think that a reaction exists when proof to the contrary is amply available is denying science.
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@WRC They are debunking the "sugar high" (ie hyperactivity) phenomenon, not that people don't have any reactions to sugar.
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I disagree with most of what is in this article. Children must be taught nutrition. They need to know what is good and what is bad. Self regulation can be tested, but most often needs guidance. We need some amounts of sugar, but rewards of sweets and expectations of desert are not healthy. As an adult i limit most sugar intake for health and dietary reasons because I can and choose to put my health above all. Parenting is one of the most difficult challenges an adult can and will face in their life, I have two myself, and it’s a constant battle to ensure everyone is sane, safe and taken care of. But sacrificing health is not a good choice; we as humans are prone to become obese.
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@David Knudson I think you're misunderstanding the article. It recommended limiting children's sugar consumption at the end. It's just saying that sugar doesn't make kids hyper.
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I definitely get high from eating sweets. I noticed it as young as five years old. I also noticed eating sweets makes me very hungry when I was a child. Both things still hold true and I'm 70. I recently read something about sugar modulating dopamine and/or seratonin in some way. I don't remember the specifics (ha! I'm 70) but it sounded like a reasonable proposition.
When are we going to learn the limitations of "scientific" research? Or that eliminating one cause is not the same as eliminating the effect? We need to be more educated information consumers especially when it comes to health/medical certainties.
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@ck My husband can tell if I’ve had a a few pieces of chocolate...(my sweets are almost invariably chocolate) ..HOW ? He says I’m more animated in my exchanges with him - I noticed how exhilarated I feel, much more energy.
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@Odette Chocolate has caffeine, which is a stimulant.
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I take issue with this sentence: "Neither the parents, the children nor the research staff knew which of the children were getting sugary foods and which were getting a diet sweetened with aspartame and other artificial sweeteners."
I always know when I've been slipped artificial sweeteners - taste and digestive issues are inescapable. I also know I am neither a super taster nor an anomaly.
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@Private Why do you TAKE ISSUE with the fact that the patients in this study didn't know the difference? You TAKE ISSUE with OTHERS not being able to tell the difference?
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Can I please loan the researchers my children?
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As a “wired”, “hyper” ADD kid (one of those “bright, pleaser girls” growing up in the ‘50s, and thus, undiagnosed at time), I can testify to the extra-“hyper” effects of eating sugar.
In later yrs, I referred to my post- consumption of sugar behavior to an esteemed teacher-aunt of mine.
“Oh, you weren’t that bad”, she commented tellingly. Oh, but I was, and I was crushed by her faint praise, contrasting me to the many poorly-behaved students she surely had taught! I have since totally given up eating sugar (any recognizable, labeled amounts), and to this day I shudder, recalling that off-kilter buzz I received that led to an out of control mouth and some times actions. You can’t always listen to the experts on these things. Sometimes you just have to listen to your own body and mind.
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@Eliz Levine considering those that are ADD or ADHD lack proper dopamine transporters, and taking into account that sweets raise dopamine levels(just like anything we do that we thoroughly enjoy) I would imagine this would cause the sugar "high" that you experienced. In my opinion
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I have always wondered if the sugar isn't what hypes up a kid as much as the influence of other kids and the party atmosphere. Sugary food and drink accompanies many celebrations and sometimes some kids seem to have associated meltdowns or what the article calls bad behavior? Does the kid also realize that either their own parents aren't around or if their parents are around they are distracted or decide a celebration isn't a place for discipline, so the kid figures out one can get away with more and so they try behaviors normally regulated by adults? So sugary treats were blamed instead of looking at crowd influence and the fact that kids aren't always good at regulating their emotions yet and may react in ways that are problematic.
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Unless artificial sugar has the same effect. Can we get a study without any sweetener at all for the control group? Seems like an obvious flaw.
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“Sugar shock” is a better word and a lot of older, maybe slightly pre-diabetic types know what I mean. I just take it as a reminder that “If you don’t want to be diabetic, eat as if you were.” (Watch the sugar.)
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Not everyone has the same reaction to ingested substances. Alcohol, for example. Some can control their intake and consistently stop after a drink or two; others cannot. Some react with anger and combativeness, or get very drowsy, or vomit, and other users do not. We don't conclude that none of those behavioral abnormalities are valid because most drinkers don't engage in them.
I knew a mom in the 1990s who said her fifth-grade son went off the rails every time after ingesting a lot of sugar. Her reaction to these researchers: you can come feed my son birthday cake, a cola, and a candy bar, as long as you agree to babysit him for the next four hours, and then let's see what you think.
I believe science, but I also think moms and dads know their kids, and if some parents say, my kids do not tolerate sugar without becoming notably hyperactive and/or distractible, so we don't feed that to them, I'm going to believe the parents. Generalized research results do not always apply to every individual.
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@Clutch Cargo True. My son and I both get calm and sleepy after ingesting above-average amounts of sugary foods or drinks. I also can't tolerate alcohol - one drink, unless accompanied by a large meal, puts me straight to sleep. At 20, he still rarely drinks (unheard of!) but limits himself to a glass of wine or beer with a meal for the same reason. Most of my family and my husband's family can drink alcohol and eat sugar without any abnormally strong effects.
I was hugely popular at college and graduate school parties because I had a great time but could still be relied on as the designated driver, and he is following in my footsteps!
Just a cursory conflict-of-interest search shows that the study leads are on pharmaceutical company payrolls. Diet has nothing to do with behavior, therefore you need our meds.
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@Ananda - You may be right about the researchers’ connection to pharmaceutical companies but it doesn’t matter. The data they produced are available for review by other, independent researchers who have corroborated the accuracy of the results. Otherwise we would have heard of the rebuttal. That’s how science works.
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But what about the Great Cornholio?
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Thank god, now my mom can’t blame me for being on a sugar high
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A lot of people don’t understand the true, mysterious nature of the placebo effect, judging by the comments. Thinking that sugar gives you a high can actually cause a real high in your brain. Your brain will release dopamines because it thinks it is supposed to. That doesn’t mean that sugar itself makes you high. It works the same with a similar belief in anything. If you sincerely believe that eating a piece of rice will make you high, you will feel “high” after eating a piece of rice. The brain is more powerful than the ego. And that’s an easy explanation of a simple placebo effect. There are more complex ones which defy current scientific explanation.
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WARNING: Overexposure to this sugary sweet Valentine to the beverage industry may be hazardous to your children's health. 4 out of 5 readers recommend digging deeper to find out who supported this study.
Repeated sharing of the information in this article may cause one's nose to grow incredibly long.
4
It doesn’t matter if you are giving a child sugar or aspartame. It’s the sweetness that lights up the same part of the brain as cocaine. That is the high you get from sugar. It is an addictive substance that will cause obesity, diabetes, heart disease. What a disservice this article is to parents.
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Dopamine. Sugar releases dopamine.
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One issue I would like to see examined more would the possible linkage of sugared foods or candies with food additives – artificial food coloring has been demonstrated to increase symptoms in children who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. They are found in all sorts of food products, but especially those marketed for children.
I strongly suspect that it is the artificial chemicals which are wrecking havoc.
www.special-education-degree.net/food-dyes/
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@Ronn How about caffeine? I love coffee and always have - but, once I'm past my limit, I get tangible reactions - always the same: racing heart, over reactions to any stimulus, dizziness, sweating, blahblah. I also get these same conditions after receiving an injection of epinephrine?
Any connection with sugar? None that I'm aware of - but 40 years ago, I "got rid of alcohol; it liked me too much".
What's the internal connection? No doctor to whom I've ever mentioned this reaction cared to address the question. I think I know.
PS: around 12:00 every day, I get a craving for a piece of chocolate. What to do? Eat the chocolate.
1
As a longtime third grade teacher, I am positive they just feed off each other's energy. Birthday parties are fun and out of the usual and create loops of hyperactivity that are more psychological. Getting a ton of candy is unusual and fun and indicates a time to let loose, and that is what excites them. I have also had 25 kids return from events with high sugar content to my classroom and had to calm them down and I knew how to and I did. I did not have them swinging from the proverbial classroom chandeliers.
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I still think it exists. When adults drink alcohol, they are basically putting a sugar into their bloodstream. In the MiddleEast, alcohol is forbidden, but very sweet mint tea is common. I think you get a "high" from excess sugar in the bloodstream, and it can come from alcohol or liquid sugar. It's basically a "excess fuel" situation in the blood.
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@George Tyrebyter Ethanol is the intoxicating part of alcohol not sugar. Also, not all alcohols have sugars. Research has proven you are wrong in your thinking.
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@DrTadpole You got that one right.
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Many studies show that sugar and other refined carbs increase the relative amounts of tryptophan in the blood, which leads to a surge in the production of serotonin. Dopamine is also released. That's a high, and it's addictive.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/02/the-most-unhappy-of-pleasures-this-is-your-brain-on-sugar/253341/
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@ACH You say many studies show a connection between sugar intake and increased serotonin in the brain, which studies? I did a cursory search and didn't find any, maybe I didn't dig deep enough. The article that you linked to does not cite any sources. If this was true then why isn't there a difference in child behavior in the double blind studies presented in this article?
@Byron Yes, for example:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6400041
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3056265
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/458726
I can't speak to why the quoted study didn't find a difference, but like others, you could posit placebo effect, poor controls, experimental design, etc.
No sugar high? Of course, eating tends to decrease activity to aid digestion, maybe the parents just bought into the post-Halloween issues as based on sugar rather than bad parenting..oh well, another bogus myth debunked...but will the believers now say, “oh I was wrong,” no way. Good science should be our path forward...answering why it’s not would be a great study to add to this article.
4
I never heard of such a thing as sugar rush growing up in Europe. Here in the US, I always had the feeling that the kids behaved a bit abnormal at parties because all the adults were looking at them, expecting some sort of irrational behavior from the kids, and actually telling the kids about the expectation. “He is so cute. Look at him, soon he will get his sugar rush. Isn’t this funny.”
13
Cue the crowd of people claiming that their experience is different. It's like saying "I've never had COVID-19 so therefore it doesn't exist."
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People see 30 kids at a party eating sweets and blame their excitement or "hyperactivity" on the sweets. It's actually the 30 kids at a party part.
15
I'm anti sugar just because the teeth are important to keep strong!! I have an adult mouth full of fillings...and I've paid for my adult braces. I just don't want to face big bills for my 2 kids teeth...and it's not fair to have them reach their 20s with a mouth full of fillings too!! The sugar thing is also a dental expense thing.... if I can't get my 9 and 10 year old to brush their teeth then I truly am a lame parent : (
3
Does anyone remember the Beavis and Butthead episode “The Great Cornholio” where Beavis has a hilariously psychotic transformation after consuming a massive amount of sugar and the liberal teacher said,”I just read a study where sugar doesn’t cause hyperactivity[.]”?
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Thank you but the true believers will not believe it. Up is down and black is white. We are at a time when people prefer lies and bunk to reality and science.
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The paper in 1994 provided doses of sugar over a week if I interpreted correctly. As a parent of young children and an attendant at multiple birthday parties, I am not convinced that short term high sugar intake does not influence children's behavior. I don't think that the paper addresses that at all, and the article misses the point. I can believe that long term sugar consumption may have no bearing on ADHD, but that is not what most parents are referring to when they speak of a 'sugar high'.
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@DJ The thing that is causing excitement at the birthday party is the fact that you have a bunch of kids playing together and has nothing to do with their sugar intake.
4
I find this finding highly ... curious. As an adult, when my energy flags, I reach for something sweet. A cinnamon roll, a peanut butter cup, cookies. It's pretty effective -- though sadly short-lived.
And once I start eating sugar to deal with low energy, I end up with dips in energy that make me tired, cranky, and hangry. The only fix is more sugar.
It's a similar story for many adults I talk to.
Why this phenomenon should be so clear for adults and not have any impact on children is beyond me.
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@Rose it’s a placebo. You think it makes you more energetic but it really doesn’t.
@ Steve Disagree with you about this being placebo effect. But do remember that what’s probably most at work here is the fact that it’s not What you ingest, but how your individual system metabolizes what you ingest. Until we allow for observed (alcohol, etc)individual differences there, we will continue this divisive back-and-forth.
1
This study is likely wrong due to cohort selection.
Sugar affects brain chemistry in many ways and has been proven to decrease glucose receptors (in addition to opioid and dopamine receptors). It also affects executive function and memory.
With reduced glucose receptor activity, the kids tested were likely sugar resistant - which is like testing the effect of alcohol on alcoholics.
It's probably impossible to find kids who are not sugar resistant, since sugar is everywhere. Try testing some indigenous kids - give them sugar and see what happens.
But first redefine the meaning of hyperactive, which is an obvious problem.
7
I assume that they mean “hyperactive” compared the normal behavior of a specific child rather than an absolute state of “hyperactivity” as a medical disorder.
1
In an 18 year study it was conclusively determined that our daughter and her friends almost inevitably became quite hyper if they had more than 3 Oreos. Why it was Oreos and not other sweets I don't know, but we did our best to keep them out of the house because there was a distinct change of behavior that was not for the better.
3
@mkb It's most likely the red dye 40. More recent studies have shown those food dyes and preservatives to be the culprit for significant behavior changes like the ones you describe.
3
@Andrew This idea does have merit, I strongly suspect. Food additives have been seen as culprits in more than a few health related problems:
www.health.harvard.edu/blog/common-food-additives-and-chemicals-harmful-to-children-2018072414326
2
It takes much more than empirical evidence to kill a myth. Plus, the fact that sugary foods are consumed at holidays, special events, halloween, etc - of course the kids will be off the wall, and that's enough proof for most people.
7
First of all, the supposedly rigorous study proves nothing, because the body is perfectly capable of reacting to aspartame the same way it does to sugar. That's why the placebo effect works -- the body says, "Oh! I know this stuff, and I know what it does. Here we go!"
Secondly, I just want the scientists who are so sure about this to spend an afternoon locked in a room with a dozen pre-schoolers and a good Halloween haul. Maybe we'll let them out eventually. (The children, I mean.)
15
Making is such an assertion would be bolstered by supplying actual evidence that it is true. Can you cite any studies?
The whole point of artificial sweeteners is that your body does not react to them in the same way that it does to sugar, that is by burning them as fuel or storing them as fat if consumed in excess.
3
If the children had responded to the aspartame the same way as with the sugar, then the result still would have been negative: no behavior change.
4
Ummmm... the occurrence of Halloween would totally confound the data and corrupt any firm conclusion about the causes of the children’s behavior. Just sayin’...
Children with hyperactivity are one thing. But if you spend enough time in real life dealing with young children, not "studying" them in a quantified setting, you won't care who tells you that sugar does not excite them to expend a sudden (and predictable) surge of energy. As for the children who did not imbibe sugar, if they are playing with compatible kids who did eat sugar, they will behave in a similar way. Placebo effect? Or something else that should perhaps be studied.
Beyond that, it isn't only children who get affected by consuming sugar.
6
It depends on the baseline. If a person, child or adult, is hypoglycemic—low in blood sugar—and therefore lethargic or otherwise subdued, then having some sugar might indeed pep them up and improve their mood. But if the baseline is blood sugar within a normal range, studies I’m aware of do not show an additional boost from having more sugar. The body just produces enough insulin to get the blood sugar back within normal limits.
1
My son has severe AHDHD. I did put him on the Feingold diet. The whole family went on it because that was easier than him being "different". I made my own mayonnaise even to reduce sugar as he required. We were on it a long time. There was absolutely no difference in his or the other children as a result of the diet. The Ritalin bounced him off the walls so that didn't work either. He had a tough childhood.
8
My research is my three kids and in my observation if they consume little sugar or dairy they focus better and they behave better and more calm that day and the next day. My husband was put on the Feingold diet of no artificial or cane sugar for years after constantly running around in the classroom in kindergarten and he was able to control himself and focus better after that. Perhaps it depends on your genes or environmental factors - but regardless parents can always try this to see if it helps their kids. Much better than being put on ADHD medication.
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@A Parent
That's called an anecdote, not research. And it has zero scientific validity.
2
It is amazing that despite a cogent presentation of the FACTS, most readers who respond are not convinced. Well, I'm a physician and it never ceases to amaze me that biases persist and anecdotes are considered as evidence. What is not mentioned in the article is that insulin regulation is fine-tuned to keep one's blood glucose (sugar) in a very narrow range. So despite wide variations in one's intake of sugar, your smart body (specifically the endocrine aspect of your pancreas) knows to keep your blood sugar nearly constant. This is in keeping with the findings reported in this editorial. Lastly, sugar intake can lead to obesity (as can all food) which in turn can lead to obesity which can then lead to insulin resistance which is leads to type 2 diabetes mellitus. Come on people, believe in excellence in science!
22
I’m concerned about the ecological validity of such studies - these kids being tested are in artificial and novel environments, not their ‘safe’ and familiar environments. Their behavior and cognitive abilities, including their levels of concentration, are affected by their environments (including the perceived expectations of these), and as such, the results only ‘prove’ how sugar affects children in those specific settings.
I would argue, that if sugar is addictive, which I believe is established science, then to argue it doesn’t affect behavior seems nonsensical; addiction is surely reflected in behavior, action and mind.
3
@Frank Isn't there the possibility though that along with sugary foods often comes artificial flavors and colors; therefore, that is what causes the hyperactivity?
I think some kids are more susceptible than others. When my kids eat a bag of Skittles, they are not the same kids.
1
@Frank The problem is not the sugar, which as you point out, is regulated by the insulin, but the release of insulin itself, which affects the synthesis of serotonin. There is also increased dopamine, and a delayed acetylcholine response. This affects mood, which is probably what most people are noticing when they observe others or themselves eat sugar.
2
If true, then what accounts for how kids' behavior change from relatively calm before they eat a chocolate bunny and 10 jelly beans to behaving like a wild mustang afterward? Power of suggestion from parents?
5
@Kathy B Power of suggestion, parents already biased to see children as hyper after sugar, and also, events in which kids have more sugar than usual (birthday parties, playdates, Halloween, etc) are big events to children who are already excitable, so the excitement and joy is already built into an event for them.
14
@Kathy B ... The plural of anecdote isn't "data"... and said kids are reading a book and then eat the bunnies and jelly beans, then behave like wild animals?
1
@Luke S Gotta disagree. I've watched it happen too many times. The article is addressing hyperactivity, not short-term stimulation. In the short-term, enough sugar makes them go crazy...
3
Not so fast. Just because you can't find clinical correlation doesn't disprove the association. Sugar might not clinically cause "hyperactivity." However, sugar is in fact a stimulant. You can't tell me I don't feel more awake after drinking a glass of grape fruit juice because I do. The combination of sugar, fiber and carbohydrates are effectively a meal without the sleepiness.
Kids might be hyper even without sugar. That's true. Any number of stimuli can make a kid hyper though. Activity in general is stimulating. Try exercise. I can't believe sugar isn't a contributing factor. Let's test the hypothesis.
Next time your child has a sleep over, I'll give all the children espresso. Let's see how you handle it.
3
@Andy Caffeine and sugar are two different things.
1
The rigorous study was "a double-blind controlled trial with two groups of children: 25 normal preschool children (3 to 5 years of age), and 23 school-age children (6 to 10 years) described by their parents as sensitive to sugar. " I do not believe that a study of 48 children debunk anything.
15
Do not trust any so-called study involving sugar. Not to say that they are all necessarily corrupt, but thanks to big money and corporate behavior, this is where we are in 2020. Each person has to do their own research and trials.
11
The small intestines contains ample enzymes to rapidly convert starch to sugar. A large, plain, 400 calorie bagel will turn to the equivalent of 100g. sugar and rapidly enter the blood stream. No one is claiming that a bagel will make children hyperactive, but it should, if sugar is the culprit. Conversely, snickers bars, which contain a good deal of fat, slowing the entry of its sugar into the bloodstream, will not raise blood sugar as substantially.
11
@Sandy My mom said we always wanted white grape juice, but they'd only give it to us when no one was coming over because we'd run around like insane people.
1
Dr. Klasco is entirely correct in his analyses of the data on sugar consumption not be causative of hyperactivity in children. It is, therefore, a little disconcerting that he should conclude his informative piece with this erroneous statement, "Still, limiting your child’s sugar consumption is a good idea. Though cutting down on sugar will not affect children’s behavior, it may help to protect them against obesity, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease." I would argue that within the limits of homeostasis, there is no causative link between sugar consumption and Type 2 diabetes (https://academic.oup.com/bmb/article/120/1/43/2527492). Type 2 diabetes is a function of insulin resistance, not sugar consumption.
2
@Ijaz Jamall : But what causes insulin resistance?
1. Being overweight (which is more likely if you eat a lot of sugar); and
2. Eating a lot of sugar.
So yes, insulin resistance is the "cause" of diabetes, but sugar both directly and indirectly leads to insulin resistance.
2
@Ijaz Jamall; thank you for your comments; I confess to find them breath-taking; I can only admire the strength of your extraordinary beliefs: "there is no causative link between sugar consumption and Type 2 diabetes ";
@Ijaz Jamall
Obesity increases the chance of Type 2 diabetes.
From the abstract of the referenced study - "The children's behavior and cognitive performance were evaluated weekly.", and "For the children described as sugar-sensitive, there were no significant differences among the three diets in any of 39 behavioral and cognitive variables."
It's impossible to even begin to evaluate the study without a thorough consideration of how and what kind of measurements were being made. Human behavior is complex and notoriously difficult to measure and "neatly" categorize.
Yet as humans we must and do evaluate human behavior everyday, and parents are making a continuous gestalt evaluation of their children's behavior based on continuous observation (not a questionare or interview once a week).
Furthermore, each of is occupies a human body, and can reflect on our sweet childhoods, and event as adults still may observe the difference between high and low sugar intake on our own behavior.
So excuse me if take this doctors conclusion with ... a spoonful of sugar? No thanks, I prefer a pinch of salt.
5
There is a mass of anecdotalism in these responses, even from a self-identified scientist!
7
@Bruce Williams - The study itself is an anecdote because it relies on a subjective decided evaluation performed once a week over the course of the study.
5
@Craig H. It's almost like you missed the part of the article that explains the existence of multiple studies that also come to the same conclusions.
3
@Craig H. Studies are not anecdotes, they are research--whether they are observational, experimental, how they are designed, etc. is another matter. An anecdote is a person's observation of self or other and drawing a conclusion.
1
Seems every other there is a report of “scientists” that seem to me to be confusing correlation with causation (I suppose either out of ignorance just to get grants and attention). My favorite is the repeated dietary surveying that produces reports either de-linking or linking “red meat” with heart disease etc. Do they control for sugar-filled buns and a boatload of greasy fries cooked in cottonseed and soy oil and whatever else thrown in? Of course not! Does the sugar industry have an interest in this matter?
2
I never believed in the “sugar high.” It’s hidden CAFFEINE that’s an issue.
1
@Toni Vitanza As a psychostimulant caffeine is sometimes a good starting intervention early in the treatment of ADHD. US parents balk at children having a grown-up drink but Europeans have long raised their kids on diluted coffee. Brazil encourages childhood coffe consumption.
7
The study would have been conclusive if the effect of sugar on kids with ADHD was observed
1
@An Island There is a replicated study, although not fully controlled so not definitive, that children with ADHD show improved attentiveness with consumption of about
8 oz by volume of sucrose (table sugar). The parents of my patients defer.
2
"Sugar High"? Maybe sugar does present a "sugar high" for some, but others.
However, sugar presents greater concerns: Listen to Robert Lustig: https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/01/13/sugar-smoking-nutrition-health.
1
I, like the majority of responders this article, have real life experience that says Yes, there is a sugar high. I have a childhood brain injury that delays processing. Maybe my gut bacteria is changed. Maybe the TBI is the cause. I can and do walk everywhere as I don't own a car and live in a town without bus service. Still I have the 'apple shape' that gives me a girth that I shouldn't have. Lots of unanswered questions. One of which is why European studies aren't included.
3
The one most important fact to know is that fructose is solely metabolized in the liver, unlike dextrose or sucrose which are metabolized throughout your body. Do not give children fructose sweetened food. Over consumption of fructose leads to non-alcoholic fatty liver. Only consume fructose in fruits and vegetables. Look it up.
Sugar may not cause ADHD, but it is my experience that it induces a sugar high that is followed by a crash as happens with most refined carbohydrates.
And sugar + caffeine, blast off.....
3
Interestingly, in contrast to the 'sugar high' hypothesis, my son use to become agitated and agressive as a toddler when ever he was hungry which I thought was due to hypoglycemia. Me and my wife used to know that he was hungry by these spells of aggression for quite some time untill he was old enough to say he was hungry.
It's a chicken/egg thing. A hallmark of a mind with ADHD is a struggle to get enough dopamine due to (possibly) lower amounts of dopamine transporter density . People with ADHD struggle with higher rates of obesity, drug and alcohol addiction, high stimulation activities like video games, high risk taking behaviors etc.
This is an attempt by the brain to get more dopamine through these actions. So basically, I don't think that sugar causes ADHD but I absolutely believe that people with ADHD try and self medicate with sugar, especially kids who don't yet have access to drugs, alcohol, motorcycles etc and the connection gets made that kids who crave a lot of sugar are becoming hyper. It's the other way around, kids who might be prone to hyperactivity are craving sugar in their brain's attempt to flatten itself out.
3
@John
ADHD s response to the PFC damage when Ritalin is taken would seem to indite Alcohol Syndrome as the culprit.
If a diabetic can become comatose due to a change in blood sugar then it is not unreasonable that a change in blood sugar has an effect on the average human body.
1
@Idiolect Yes! I think that research that says sugar does not cause hyperactivity is true. However, I firmly believe that sugar GIVES ENERGY to hyperactivity!
@Idiolect The difference is a diabetic has a disease that means they are unable to regulate their blood sugar correctly. Healthy young children are as capable of regulating their blood sugar as you or I. A healthy person's blood sugar rarely falls outside of the normal physiological range. There are a couple of ways to make it happen, post-prandial hyperinsulinemia can happen to anyone with a sweet tooth that eats candy on an empty stomach, excessive alcohol can also induced hypoglycemia by disrupting liver metabolism. But for the most part, normal fasting and eating does not cause significant changes in your blood glucose.
2
So who says aspartame for children is a good thing either ? I realize that to mount a classic double blind study the test subject is not supposed to know whether they are getting the placebo or the item under study. However there is some speculation about the various ways that artificial sugars " trick metabolism " There fore I remain in the parent /grandparent camp that suspects a link between excess sugar and an upset child. My own children used to become tearful and fractious and their hair stood up on end when they ate a certain brightly multicolored candy. Even they recognized this. My little grandson, age 5, is aware, in his own words, that he can become " sugar charged ". I love cookies and brownies myself. But no child needs the giant frozen sugar drink out of the machine. The same grandchild was given one at the PG 13 movie by the other grandmother and screamed and kicked for the entire 45 mile drive home while sweat poured down his little cheeks. I am convinced that in excessive amounts it has undesirable behavioral effects. We have a societal blind spot about it. Do another test-sugar or no sweetener.
4
@Consuelo Though there might be some evidence that sugar substitutes trick our metabolism, much of the negative we believe about substitutes is because of research done by the SUGAR INDUSTRY! I think sugar might be worse than any other "bad" food.
1
@Consuelo Nothing about this article (nor the study) recommends aspartame. This is a red herring.
2
There may be the "myth of the sugar high," but there's also the "myth" of artificial dyes and preservatives which has now been substantiated, to the extent that American Pediatric Association has issued statements saying they may have been wrong in their "debunking" of that myth. Indeed, if sensitive, plenty of children react with ADHD-like behaviors after eating red dye 40, yellow 6, and/or sodium benzoate, all of which are present in candies, cupcakes, and other junk food.
1
I grew up in a family with good food. The shock of my young life was to discover that many other families didn't. Americans have food myths because so many of us don't care about food. Food is just fuel, and the only discussion around it (if there is one) is "good for you" or "bad." Thus, sugar is a demon we shouldn't touch, ever. Carrots have a high "glycemic index" -- they're bad. Bananas are "sugary," so you avoid them.
Years ago, a non-vegan neighbor's non-diabetic 6-year-old daughter wasn't allowed to have ice cream at a school event, held once a year, because it was sweet. Attitudes are extreme. Food is not important. The food rules, though, are well developed.
5
This sugar myth seems to be getting stronger with time! I’ll establish my credentials by disclosing I’m the mother of 3 healthy adults. I feel lucky that I raised them before the Wellness Industrial Complex made parents feel guilty and/or superior about normal foods. Children are sensitive to changes from their usual routine and are very suggestible. If a parent tells them a food will cause a problem, the child will manifest the problem. Examples that disprove the sugar myth: hyperactive behaviour on Christmas morning and Halloween afternoon ( lots of excitement but no sugar); the generally well behaved children in Europe who get hot chocolate for breakfast, cake in the afternoon and gummy bears in-between. In Europe, children also get lots of exercise, daily routines, good schools, healthcare and better social supports ( the result of higher taxes). I’m afraid these factors are what matter in raising healthy children - counting the grams of sugar per day isn’t very important.
8
Beg to differ with this premise. When my nephew was little he very hyper-active and my brother and his wife took him to his pediatrician and talked to him about it. The pediatrician said to limit his sugar consumption (no candy, only fruit) and within days my nephew was no longer "bouncing of the walls" (as my brother put it).
4
No matter how many studies show there is no medical basis for a "sugar high," non-scientists and lay people insist they know better. And yet, Donald Trump is criticized for doing exactly the same thing. Millions of parents think they know more than scientists, as does Trump. They attempt to debunk scientific theories with their own studies of one or two of their own children. Using nothing but antidotes of what they've witnessed at birthday parties or before bedtime, they claim the scientists are wrong. How can Trump be blamed for his suspicion of science, his distrust of any theories that counter his own, and his insistence that he knows more than the scientists do? Millions of parents, including many right here in the pages of the NYT, do exactly the same thing.
13
I’m a social science researcher. I’m not refuting science, but I do know one or two research studies on human behavior (especially funded by Big Sugar) are not sufficient to debunk something observable in everyday life. Show me many large studies with careful design and I would be more likely to concur there are no physiological effects of sugar on children. These studies aren’t even biological in nature and the article doesn’t even address those facts. Sorry if I’m being critical and asking more questions about the scant research used here to make very big conclusions. I thought that was the point.
15
@Chris N
I find it hard to reconcile your claim to be a "social science researcher" with your claim that the study was not "biological in nature" based on this from the article:
"Nine different measures of cognitive and behavioral performance were assessed, with measurements taken at five-second intervals."
6
@Kevin Banker biological as in metabolic, cellular. These seem to be studies based on behavioral observation, which are important by their own right But no one should be satisfied with the conclusion here without any evidence of how sugar effects us on a physiological level, as well.
Also I am literally a "social scientist" and read and conduct research all day that is designed to inform policy. So critiquing and asking questions about the validity of research and whether it's sufficient to support policies that affect people's lives is my job.
8
Sorry, but parental instinct needs to have a say. Aside from the fact the 1994 study was apparently funded by a lobbying nonprofit that supports the beverage industry. And that sugars physiological effects are intertwined with behavioral queues (sugar = fun, breaking the normal routine). Sugar certainly gives me a boost for breakfast and often replaces caffeine in some energy drinks. I just can’t trust a finding that indicates there’s no impact on my kids energy level and propensity to goof off. So maybe the carefully designed experiment done in isolation can give us some data on observable effect in controlled settings, but can’t predict human behavior writ large. And maybe shouldn’t be used to inform parental guidance and classroom rules.
7
I think this article conflates two different things. I have no trouble accepting the science that sugar does not cause ADHD behavior. I have two ADHD kids (now adults) and I was diagnosed as ADHD at 53. Sugar or no, I can't sit at my desk and work on one thing for more than an hour. Fortunately I have a job that includes walking around the factory and other variety.
On the other hand, don't tell me there is no such thing as a sugar high. I have a weakness for jellybeans. After eating more than I should, there is definitely a sugar high followed by a crash.
13
@Bill Anecdotes are not evidence.
5
Correct, but when a theory widely and repeatedly conflicts with real-world observations, it should be met with further scrutiny - and a healthy skepticism.
This is especially true in nutrition science, with its many famous recommendation reversals over the last 30 years.
2
We tend to associate food with experience. Take pizza for example, you usually have it on a Friday and at other times a party or for some type of reward. Most people associate pizza positively, and I bet you feel pretty chill while eating it. Cakes and candy usually accompany a party so we associate it with a good time, especially during childhood when a party was a free-for-all.
In my opinion we reinforce certain behaviors when we eat certain foods. In children it is more pronounced because they may have only limited access to high reward foods. Eating a cupcake during the school day means, a party! so don’t expect them to want to learn multiplication tables 15 minutes later.
13
Or perhaps these studies suggest that sugar and non-caloric artificial sweeteners have similar effects independent of blood glucose per se. Certainly non-caloric sweeteners do not seem to impact metabolic syndrome or obesity, so using them as the control may not be appropriate.
8
@Lisa Kelly Couldn't agree more, was just about to make the same comment.
1
Is there a such thing as a gluten rush? Can a wheat allergy lead to ADHD?
3
@Dan
An 'opiod like peptide' is formed during the digestion of Gluten in some, reference Dana Laake's ADHD nutrition and supplement guide
I can’t believe what I’m reading! I’m diagnosed with hyperactivity, and maybe that is part of the problem, but I challenge everyone to test it on themselves if sugar (or even any other dose of simple carbohydrates) doesn’t affect eg their ability to concentrate.
When I rehearsed for a play in college I knew that I had to avoid fries, if I wanted to get something done after lunch, otherwise I would just waste my time onstage.
Sugar is pure energy for your body, there has to be a reaction! It’s like saying more coals won’t change the heat of a stove!
To conflate bad behavior with hyperactivity is just the cherry on top of this dishonest article.
19
My children had their first taste of refined sugar via a chocolate chip cookie at a grocery store. By the time I was ready to check out I could barely contain them. I can only think it was the sugar in the cookie.
5
@PJ Atlas It's the chocolate, which contains caffeine.
5
@Michael Cameron There's not THAT much caffeine in the chocolate chips in one cookie.
1
@PJ Atlas From a single cookie? Have your kids ever been out of control without a cookie? If so, what was the cause then? Kids go out of control all the time, without eating anything. Look up "post hoc ergo propter hoc".
4
While the studies are interesting, I think it really depends on the subpopulation. I have two children. One of them can eat as much sugar as they want and it doesn't have much of an effect. The other can eat a very small amount and the effect is noticeable. We limit sugar intake for that child. Neither child has artificial sweeteners which I suspect may have many of the same effects as sugar.
6
@Rocky Not sure how you came to the conclusion that artificial sweeteners have the same impact as sugar - there's a ton of artificial sweeteners out there and all have very different chemistries from each other and sugar - so leave the science to the scientists.
6
Kids are kids. They get excited at the idea of a party with cake and ice cream and happiness. When my children were young, they too got excited. Now that they are adults, not so much. I think it's a myth, but one that's a good conversation starter/excuse at a party.
7
If you think the sugar high is a wild myth, just read through these comments. People assign all kinds of reasons for various behavior ..most of it not based on any facts whatsoever and mostly because they have pretty vivid imaginations. The sugar high myth and all kinds of others will live on.
12
Sugar certainly affects my 70 year old brain - and not in a good way.
9
I’ve read this and believe the science, but I also have little kids. And eating sugar definitely perks my kids up and seems to infuse them with an short term energy burst. Maybe it’s just because they’re so excited about eating candy or cake.
9
@Dan I think you've hit the nail on the head with this theory, and psychologists generally agree - the effects we attribute to a "sugar high" are more likely to come from the situation in which a treat is offered. Parties, celebrations, or just a special reward - all of these things can make a person feel good and pump up their responses.
1
I taught elementary school. Most teachers did not look forward to kid’s birthday parties because parents brought in cupcakes and the kids were so high from the sugar afterwards that getting their attention was a huge challenge for the rest of the day.
Yes, they may have been excited from the party itself, but other exciting activities that did not include sugary food did not result in the same noticeably more energetic and hyped up behavior.
10
@Andrea R Tell me about the birthday parties where the adults brought in low-carb treats, like broccoli or sauteed chicken breast. I'm sure there were many of those parties for you to compare, right?
1
It's not so simple as "does sugar make you hyperactive" or not. Everything's not a simple dichotomy. And there's no connection to ADHD, but individuals will react differently to change in endogenous catecholamines which are affected pretty acutely by a big bolus of sugar and the hormone cascade that follows. Some may get sleepy. I do.
I found the results unsurprising. There could be a better study. People don't seem to understand the results.
6
The article addressed this.
“While thoroughly refuted, the theory of the sugar high endures as a topic of ongoing investigation. But the results of these investigations continue to show that sugar does not affect children’s behavior.”
8
While I don’t think hyperactivity is something that comes along with sugar, a sugar “high” is very real. Sugar is highly addictive, the first drug-like substance we’ve ever been exposed to (our ancestors only had fruit in their diets). I have a major sweet tooth and it definitely does something to my brain and something sweet after a meal definitely satiates me in a way that a large savory meal cannot. Sugar addiction is real!!
20
@Courtney - Fruit contains fructose, but the fiber in the fruit limits speed of eating and rate of sugar absorbtion into the bloodstream. It should also be noted that eating a regular healthy with fat, followed by sweets, incurs a lower rate lower rate of sugar absorbtion than eating sweets on an empty stomach.
I suspect that a high rate of increase in blood sugar level makes it difficult for some bodies to regulate insulin - such high rates of increase were not normally experienced during our primitive evolution.
Although I always pass the diabetic blood test provided I fast properly, I am sugar sensitive and will get severe headaches with some combination of high total carb intake and high increase in blood sugar level, exacerbated by insufficient "normal" fiber/fat in normal food. The headaches are pretty much on/off so it is a good binary test.
5 bananas consumed in 30 minutes results in a headache. One bottled fruit juice (200-300 calories of fructose) consumed in 10 minutes results in a headache. No different from a can of sweet soda.
I'm a scientist with 25+ years designing. overseeing and analyzing, clinical studies including diabetes studies. I'm also a grandparent of a 10 y.o highly sensitive child with ADHD. I contend Wicks is only partially correct. When visiting her I decided to conduct my own experiment regarding the effect of dietary sugar on her behavior. I oversaw all meals including lunches for 2 weeks. She was calmer and more focused until the day she returned home and was literally jumping around and unable to sit still. When questioned she insisted she'd only eaten what was given her except for a red Dum Dum lollypop. The red dye connection. When visiting me later that year, we had lunch prior to a show. She ate hers as well as half of mine. She was satiated & quiet. The day was hot & we had time to kill. I'm not a Starbucks fan but it was close. I asked about a non-caffeinated drink & was told to order a Vanilla Frappucino. Within minutes of leaving she was complaining about being hungry although she was full before drinking it. She was then unable to sit still or get comfortable throughout the show or on the way home. I sent her out to play and when alone, my researcher mind kicked in. I checked the ingredients in a 16 oz Frappuccino and discovered she had ingested 53 gms of sugar (no food coloring). Since it was so yummy she willingly subjected herself to a repeat. Same result. My takeaway-wrong demographic. Scientists need to study a pre-disposed sensitive child NOT a normal one.
15
@Samgil
Adults with ADHD can be as sensitive (as a child) to sugar. This adult is often tempted (and sometimes gives in) to a sweet something that might be "laced" in finer coverings, i.e. fiber, protein, wheat cereal etc. I don't buy candy, bakery goodies, cereals, fruit juices. ADHD combined with sugar is a recipe for irritability, zero focus, and socially "testy."
8
@LydB Interestingly, my other daughter (granddaughter's aunt) stopped drinking bottle frappuccinos because she noticed they made her irritable. She started calling them nasty juice. Obviously, the sensitivity runs in families. Anyone else in your family with the same pre-disposition?
2
Your experiment wasn’t double blind though was it. And it has a sample size of one.
12
Yeah my sugar is high like 285 this morning, and with all the Met Forman and glipizide and true list city I'm taking,,I will be going on the needle soonly — mainlining the insulin — then I'll have a euphoric sugar low!
It isn't the sugar in candy that makes kids wacky - it's the artificial dye, especially Red 40.
2
A researcher named Amy Reichelt at Western University in Canada has published an article in the Canadian edition of "The Conversation" discussing how sugar influences the mesolithic dopamine system to create a rewarding feeling which can create cravings for food, and that this phenomenon has been important for evolutionary reasons — but can also cause problems. The issue seems more complex and contested than the author of this is aware.
4
I once gave a horse a handful of Cocopuffs. He went for the box in my other hand and got half of it down his throat before I could wrest it back.
He definitely exhibited a short but intense sugar high.
I guess he hadn't read about this experimrnt debunking the effect of sugar on immediate mammalian behavior.
13
@DD 1) Horses aren't humans. Note how we do not ever do studies on horses to test human foods. There's a reason for that. 2) Your single report of a single event does not represent a reproducible (and reproduced) result.
1
There are commenters here, for and against the study.
Those against give anecdotal information, some question the financial source for the study, and the substance used in the control group. All those concerns are valid. It may be science, but it can still be flawed in many ways, or biased in origin.
Many of us with children, or having taught children, will attest to the fact that one could see changes in children after consumption of sugar-added products. Though in fairness to sugar, we won't all have the same response to food or food additives. Manufactured or processed food might not be good for some of us. Sugar, even what's called natural cane sugar, is a very processed product. It simply doesn't start out as a sparkling white powdery product. In fact, it's a slimy brownish substance to begin with. Processing and bleaching make it the final substance called "pure cane sugar." And, "raw," brown sugar is also a very processed product. Aspartame, used in the study is also suspect for many reasons.
A control group consisting of children eating only natural foods, unprocessed, might have been a better control group.
11
My home has been the site of another secondary longitudinal study of the impact that sugar had on children and their activity level. After 13 years of observing my kids and their friends in a natural setting eating ice cream, cookies, carrie, and chocolate with an occasional broccoli floret as a control I have found a resounding amount of evidence that the sugar high is a direct result of excess sugar intake. No “proven study” could convince me otherwise. Coming out in a scientific study next month... jeeze before you know it people will be taking about supernatural occurrences like rising from the dead after three days and three nights....
16
I frequently observe hyperactive children in restaurants (as well as clueless parents). Is it possible that the research is more relevant to long term behavior that short outbursts in something like a restaurant setting? One thing is certain to me: a problem does exist, and there must be some reason for the problem (other than parents who ignore the horrible behavior of their children).
3
Then why do I feel more energetic and mentally active fifteen minutes after a Pepsi Cola?
I made a scientific study of it training for the 2016 NYC Marathon. I jogged a short loop near my house, and stopped every hour for Powergel (100 calories of simple sugars) and water.
If I only drank water I hit the wall after an hour and a half, losing half my speed. If I slurped one Powergel my energy levels stayed constant. Two, I would experience a little kick after fifteen minutes. Three, a big kick. Four, I would actually speed up. Six I couldn't digest quickly.
I experience sugar high every week.
8
@Cross Country Runner Maybe the 37 mg of caffeine in a 12 oz can of Pepsi has more to do with your feeling more energetic after drinking one.
7
@BayKat: Pepsi/caffeine point taken, but what about the Powergel experiment?
2
It’s called caffeine. It’s in most cola drinks.
2
There is no discussion in the article about the microbiome and effects of sugar on the population of gut bacteria. I would assume a sugary diet would lead to an abundance of yeast in the gut. What effect would this have on behavior? A link between the microbiome and mental state has already been demonstrated.
12
In an alt-fact, created, enabled and mantrafying culture, misinformation can and dies reign.
Its individual and systemic stakeholders can and do profit.
Paradoxically, targeted types, levels and qualities of wellbeing and health can and
do lose out.
And opportunities to learn to “Fail better,”
are rejected by all too many. Often with shameless certitude.
I never noticed that my kid got worked up after having sugar. Not only that, but his favorite ice cream flavor is coffee, and if we went to “Ashley’s” in New Haven, he’d have a double scoop of their excellent espresso bean and was just fine. He did have friends who had parents that were twitchy over sugar and such. Those kids tended to behave badly. It never occurred to me that it was the sugar, I assumed it was the overbearing parents. But I can’t cite a study to support that hypothesis.
16
My kids were high-energy and active no matter what. Withholding sugar made no difference.
There are a lot of factors when a child is more active and less controllable in an intense situation, such as parties or group activities. We should not deny the fact that such activities are, by their nature, very stimulating. As parents we need to teach our children how to navigate these situations, simply controlling diet is unproductive.
11
I think the myth of the sugar high is just too darn convenient for people to ever give it up. It came out right when there was a big "natural" kick and you were evil if you let kids eat processed sugar or didn't serve whole wheat bread. (Not too long after the MSG scare either). And it's a handy stick to beat other parents with, being a braggy No Soda Mom and such. You could have a thousand kids live in a testing lab for a week and do a complicated and thorough experiment and still nobody invested in the idea would change their mind.
On the other hand think people are just making up what they see... treats, novelty, etc. do matter. For my kids, put them at a party and on top of the excitement they'd have a cupcake and juice, feel full snd be impatient to go play, not eat enough real food and be off kilter. But "oh they're hyper because of magical poison sugar"? Hooey.
15
Duh. 1st gen artificial sweeteners (aspartame, etc.) ALSO cause insulin to spike! So of course all the kids in that trial behaved the same way. Now we have things like monk fruit sweetener and Swerve. It has zero calories, zero net carbs and is certified non-GMO and non-glycemic, which means it does not raise your blood sugar. Unlike lots of artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame, saccharin and sucralose, Swerve is made from natural ingredients only. Test this against sugar, and then see what happens.
10
Though the author mentions Dr. Feingold’s book, no mention is made of the correct conclusion that it is food coloring that causes both hyperactivity and depression in children. I can speak from experience, seeing food coloring cause personality changes and hyperactivity directly after being consumed.
I don’t know why the scientific community continues to deny this direct relationship. Many children and their families suffer because of the lack of this acknowledgement and necessary education.
6
@Mona Can you please state the studies that support your conclusion
11
What’s outrageous is that the NYTIMES publishes this without comment from independent sources. The leader, “Many parents blame sugar for their children’s hyperactive behavior. But the myth has been debunked.”, is a classic and shameful example of‘fake news’. It doesn’t inspire confidence in other reporting from a leader in presenting news factually.
Many have made great points in rebuttals here. In addition to insulin mechanisms, others include serotonin release and cholecystokinin pulses. Everyone responds slightly differently. The variance also comes from behavioral goals at the moment (watch movies vs do math). And then group dynamics come into play.
Shame on the NYTIMES. Someone there does know better than to perpetuate poor journalistic behavior. Maybe too much sugar?
19
This article shouldn’t use “sugar high” in the title. The article argues that sugar doesn’t lead to the development of ADHD in kids. Fine. That the author seems disinterested in the spikes of energy that sugar creates in children is bizarre. Isn’t that the “sugar high”? I wonder if this was paid for by the industrial food lobby. Anyone who has met a child knows that sugar gives children spikes of energy. Alcohol makes you drunk, coffee makes you alert, sugar gives you energy—what does a medical degree give you that a fat check from the food lobby can’t, is mainly what I wondered after reading this.
20
this story, and study, brought to you by C & H Pure Cane Sugar: Letting folks know that they shouldn't trust their own experience, but rely on corporate funded science, and corporate-biased science journals.
OR: brought to you by the doctors who used to recommend cigarettes for health, and cocaine for a pick me up.
13
@No longer lost coast Maybe you should read this NIH item which was linked in the story, because it explains that 23 separately conducted and funded studies came up with the same results. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=7474248
1
I taught kindergarten for 21 years, and we had quite a few parties during each year with lots of sugary treats. My children were always well-behaved during our parties. We had a great time, too. Usually someone spilled red Hi-C on the carpet during the party. When that happened, I would say, “Now it’s a real party because we had a spill!”
I always gave myself a private pep talk before parties. “These children are five years old, and this party is a big deal for them. Don’t spoil it by being crabby.”
12
Was this article written by someone in the sugar industry? This is ridiculous. Sugar may not directly affect behavior but it is bad for you, makes you fat, and is addictive and put in every commercial product out there. This is an incredibly irresponsible article.
14
@Tracy S.
Read the last paragraph of the article!
6
The NY Times is extremely irresponsible in publishing this piece without doing due diligence.
• The study quoted is flawed - a test base of fifty persons cannot claim to represent the nationwide population of 300 million. It’s simple math
• The study was funded/supported by industry. Strike two
• Quoting a study from nearly thirty years ago as definitively settling the issue? Thirty years ago?! There have been more advances in the understanding of nutrition since then. How lame AND irresponsible is it to quote results from a shady study from thirty years ago...
• Ask any individual dealing with hypoglycemia and insulin issues if sugar highs and lows are real. And that’s just those who know they’re dealing with hypoglycemia and insulin issues.
The majority of people struggling with sugar highs and lows, adults and children alike, are not aware of the impact of sugar on insulin and on sugar highs and lows. The reason they are not aware is because they have not been made aware of the direct impact of sugar on their health and their activity. And the reason they haven’t been diagnosed and made aware is because of irresponsible medical practitioners like this and articles like this which consider the matter settled by biased, ancient “studies” instead of paying attention to ongoing empirical evidence.
The NY Times deserves to treat the publishing of science, health and medical pieces with greater rigor. This is not a tabloid matter.
30
So true...
1
@Joseph Meer While I agree that a lot could be improved about the study's design and interpretation, the statement "A test base of fifty persons cannot claim to represent the nationwide population of 300 million. It’s simple math" is a common misconception that shows a lack of mathematical and statistical knowledge. The sample size has nothing to do with the size of the population whose statistics are being estimated.
2
@Joseph Meer You accuse the Times of a flawed study based on only 50 people, but the Comments here are full of people who believe based on observing only one or two people. Which is more accurate?
5
Is this really a NYT article?! It seems too under researched and quite frankly dumb to be in a high quality newspaper.
15
@CLee Go easy on them, Lee. They may not have the extensive medical education you have, but they do try.
8
Yeah I would think that kids act pretty hyperactive after you give them sugar at the end of a meal, too. Which means that it probably isn't a purely physiological effect, since sugar after a meal loaded with fat and protein and fiber should hit you, physiologically, totally differently. It's probably just that they're excited they had sugar!
1
I don’t remember people talking about sugar highs back in Europe. I had been warned to keep the kids busy when we organized my daughter’s birthday party, but I thought kids were the same everywhere. When the kids got a tad overexcited, we pulled the adult card and told them to quieten down. Most of the kids did except a small group of kids who blamed a « sugar rush » and carried on. When a ten-year old does not know to behave herself at a friend’s home, I don’t call it a sugar rush, I call it a bad education. The same kids were rude to substitutes, but polite to their regular teachers. Of course, since they were white middle class kids, it was due to a sugar rush, not poor upbringing.
9
@Marie Yes, we all know that bad and antisocial behavior is a direct result of sugar consumption. Ban sugar and you wipe out crime. Sure.
2
@kenneth you completely misunderstand her post.
10
Is this study a joke? The study compared groups of children who took sugar vs other artificial sweeteners. Where is the placebo group who ate a bowl of vegetables instead? Sounds like this study was funded by those who would do well with concluding that sugar is good for you. This is terrible science.
14
@Shirine Dajjani The "placebo group" consisted of children who did NOT get the added sugar.
4
@kenneth They got sugar substitutes, still suspect for what they do or reactions they
produce. I'd agree with most posters sayng,
the control group should have gotten a fresh veggie diet,with, of course, protein, and no sugar.
1
It’s not a “control” if the kids got something they could obviously tell was not sugar.
A control group has to think they are getting the same thing as the main group.
6
Was this study by any chance funded by the sugar industry? Any parent knows that if you give your child some sugar, they get hyper and then crash. Will it give them ADHD, not directly I’m sure, since that’s a neurological wiring issue. But the study, as described here, says sugar doesn’t make your child hyper, which is total bunk.
7
@Bethany Have you reported your own findings to the New England Journal of Medicine?
6
@Bethany well said. I have ADHD, which has been described as brain damage without a deficiency in intelligence...It’s also said that nothing in biology is black and white, so there no “sugar has no impact on mood/behavior in anyone.”
I knew to expect lots of 'anecdotes' from far wiser parents "proving" that the data are wrong. Anti-science pop culture so dominates the thinking of the middle-class, that actual science is simply dismissed as 'fake." All you have to do to sell snake oil today is call it "natural" and denounce "Big Pharma" and every sucker on goop will buy it.
6
@AR "All you have to do to sell snake oil today is call it "natural" and denounce "Big Pharma..."
I didn't see "natural" or Big Pharma mentioned anywhere in the story.
@AR I have a different opinion. It seems to me that the threshold for science has been considerably lower in recent years. Nowadays practically everything and everyone are claiming to be “science.” Which is too bad, because it cheapens the value of science, as well as things of value that aren't science.
1
Many Americans hate science. They prefer to believe their own realities. Even the people who claim to “believe in” science are usually almost totally ignorant about it. It’s one of the most depressing things about our country.
4
@Ben And that has something to do with this story about a sugar high?
2
@kenneth—It has to do with people choosing to cling to the myth of a sugar high despite evidence to the contrary, yes.
2
Perhaps they should test my kids.Sugar intake= spastic kids. I live it.
4
@Morris Lee Why "they"? You're the parent.
2
To all the people, here in the comments section, who say that their personal life experience, which flies in the face of these scientific studies, proves that science is nothing but a load of bunk: Let me explain to you, how you do science.
Go to a hundred elementary schools, chosen at random. In each school randomly pick two class rooms. In each class room, have a cupcake party right before math class. What's gonna happen? My experience in life tells me, that all of those kids are gonna have a hard time concentrating on math. But now, in each school, one class room got cupcakes made with actual sugar. The other class room got cupcakes that taste sweet, but don't have any sugar in them. I predict that you won't be able to tell, from how the kids are behaving, which class room is which. And there is your scientific proof that there is no sugar high. AND it does not disagree with your experience in life.
11
@TD
Betcha the class having the "taste sweet," no sugar cupcakes were able to focus on the math.
@LydB
Did you read the article?
It says you lose the bet.
1
Give me a break. These experts are definitely not parents.
4
There might not be such a thing as a "sugar high", but junk food most definitely affects behavior of children. Lousy food makes people of any age irritable and lethargic. Low-fat whole food vegan meals for all is the answer.
4
@Kim Okay. Thanks for the diversion.
1
@kenneth is an interesting character. He has trolled me a couple of times, but in a way that made me think twice. It seems like he picks specific articles and trolls everyone’s responses for being foolish. Whether or not he is intoxicated or not while doing so is an open question, as far as I am concerned. A distinctive voice in these parts.
Aspartame is 180 times as sweet as sugar and has many biological effects on the brain. Should be obvious that this "extraordinarily rigorous" study - from 1994 - had lots of confounders making it a rubbish study.
“there is no evidence that sugar alone can turn a child with normal attention into a hyperactive child.”
Note they did not say there was no evidence that it could not.
Consider that a normal person has only 4 grams of blood sugar and a can of Coke has 39 grams, and that sugar (as glucose) is a primary energizer for all your cells.
It certainly makes sense that a megadose of your most primary energy source would cause hyperactivity. How could it not?
Could attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder be triggered by sugar?
__________
This study (2019) says Yes: "There was a dose-response relationship between SSB (sugar sweetened beverages) consumption and ADHD."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27384573
__________
This one too: "children who took high doses
of sugar, on an empty stomach, produced high levels of adrenaline."
http://ejpd.eu/EJPD_2019_20_2_9.pdf
__________
Then again, Marcia Angell, Editor-in-Chief of New England Journal of Medicine says:
"It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines."
https://ethicalnag.org/2009/11/09/nejm-editor/
4
@Fourteen14 Your statement "Note they did not say there was no evidence that it could not." makes it clear that you don't really understand the scientific method, controlled studies, convergence of evidence. It is clear that you have an emotionally tainted bias." Sounds like you're someone who should be joining conspiracy theorists and "fake news" screamers instead of scientific discussions.
5
@Mark
Yes, you are right - I purposely did that because non-science types would assume that:
“there is no evidence that sugar alone can turn a child with normal attention into a hyperactive child.”
implies that this scientific study is definitive.
But nutritional biochemistry - apart from the fatal errors inherent in associational studies - can never be definitive as one never knows how many confounders are missing.
Of course absence of evidence is not evidence of absence - but that absence is still a possibility. I wanted to highlight that.
Just because we have no evidence of outer-space aliens does not mean they do not exist, right? They could be hiding their ships in the clouds and we'd never know. Right?
You haven't worked in an elementary school have you.... mood changing would be a better way to describe the sugar 'high'....
3
@Kathy Mood changing -- It's also a good way to describe this article and the readers' comments.
1
When I eat a lot of sugar, my energy spikes and then crashes. I used to teach third and fourth graders and believe me when they ate candy their energy would spike and then crash. I have a real problem with this article citing a study from 26 years ago which compared sugar to artificial sweetener. How about testing a group of children who were given NO sweets at all? Could it be possible that perceived sweetness affects energy levels?
I have a lot of respect for the NYT but this article is as bad as the study suggesting processed red meats are not detrimental to ones health.
3
In order to grant the article slightest credence readers need from Dr. Klasco a firm declaration that it is not backed by Coca Cola, Pepsi, and/or affiliated breakfast-as-candy-sugar-corn syrup industries.
2
With home made devices now available measuring glucose level spikes before and after meals, this issue is no longer debatable. Too much refined sugar and refined carbs spike glucose levels forcing the body to produce too much insulin eventually causing all kinds of health issues including diabetes, obesity and heart disease. Why not write a complete article with all the facts about sugar rather focussing on one issue that may promote more consumption. If the average North American consumes 15 times the daily refined sugar that they should, wouldn’t it make more sense to promote moderation? As a soccer coach I did notice that it was impossible for the kids to pay attention the day after Halloween!
4
This article and the terribly out of date study it relies on seems like a serious piece of propaganda from the sugar industry.
4
The concept of a sugar high is just about as scientific as that of vaccine-induced autism. We are a nation of scientific illiterates.
6
who paid for the study?
4
Sorry sugar affects the happy neurotransmitters like crack or video games.Mothers and teachers know. In 5 years they will put out a study saying oops they were wrong it really does affect them and mothers will go "O yeah? Can you say tardy to the party?"
2
Wow, amazing science work. Did any of the men involved have kids?
3
Why no mention of food dyes? Red 40, for instance, is notorious in sweets and notorious for behavior spikes, too.
4
For an article to claim to speak with authority while citing only one 26yr old study of 50 kids, with poor methodology, indicates the need for a better science editor at the NYT. The author may be perfectly correct in their conclusion, but the evidence presented is only marginally improved over the anecdotes of the comment section.
Is there no experiment with a larger sample and better controls?
If not, then the question remains scientifically unsettled.
9
Regardless of whether the hyperactivity link is true (I tend to believe it is) the conversation needs to be that too much sugar is bad for you. Artificial sweeteners are even worse. I've read several comments here that claim we ate lots of sugar in our childhoods and were just fine. I'd like to know when these folks grew up. In my case it was the 60's/70's and my Mother and most other parents kept sweets at a minimum. We drank mostly milk and water, there was no such thing as soda machines in schools, and of course most meals were eaten at home.
7
@H Silk
This article DOES say you should limit added sugars. That's the whole last paragraph. How do so many readers seem to have missed it?
3
The first time I've ever heard about sugar rush was in the USA. In France, Spain, Japan and Hong Kong, places that I've lived, kids have the same love for candies as any other place, but none of them at least the local ones that I've met, were more excited after eating a chocolate bar or a slice of birthday cake. The only ones going over the board at least in their parents opinion were the kids from my Americans expat friends. The parents keep repeating the mantra " sugar makes you hype" so often to their kids that they started to act accordingly to what is expect from them after eating candies.
6
Sometimes I think saying, "Sugar makes me hyper," is a convenient excuse for bad behavior that kids who have heard this all their lives use to go wild. Kids just naturally have extra energy reserves that those of us who are older don't. If you have ever walked down an elementary school corridor, during the day (early or late), there are always kids running, skipping, jumping, generally bopping along when the adults are ready to call it a day.
7
Aspartane and other artificial sweeteners still spike insulin just like sugar, so perhaps that could explain the perceived sugar highs, no? A new study featuring stevia or xylitol instead, which doesn’t have the same insulin-spiking effects as other artificial sweeteners, would be more conclusive.
13
@John Glass That is exactly the problem with this study!!
1
@Lisa C "artificial sweeteners still spike insulin just like sugar" - that's a hyperbolic and false statement.
5
I have had problems with sugar since I was a child, especially then. "Sugar" can be married to artificial colors. artificial flavors, caffeine, MSG, preservatives, etc. Sugars vary in quality. Some are not as sweet and, so, more is needed to get the desired taste/texture. Low quality sugar=high quantity sugar=...
1
All I know is that whenever I eat sugar, I fall asleep. It has never made me hyper. I remember as a kid that I often ate sugar desserts before I went to sleep at night. So did all my sisters.... In fact, if we had not eaten any and couldn't sleep, we'd get up in the middle of the night to eat some dessert...
I suspect there are individual differences and that some people do get hyper from sugar but I agree with some of the other commenters who say that the context is a more likely culprit...
7
We are sitting around with new friends, our kids now grown, 14 and 10. As good parents would do, we start chatting about our kids. And as what good parents have done for past 14 years, we land on rather superficial parenting perspectives capturing very little of the true heart and essence of our children. It's the ballet class, or the latest tantrum, maybe even Tik-Tok. Conversations rarely touch on who they really are - their moods, tendencies, values, moral and spiritual lives; and how we as parents assiduously listen and care and nurture them.
To the point, we as parents blame kids tantrums on a candy she or he ate 1 hour ago, the most prosaic, simple optic. A scapegoat. Similarly with ADHD, a difficult condition many kids struggle with for sure. But for some, instead of looking to the root of the emotions, struggles, tendencies, values, moral and spiritual lives of our children, we over-label kids with ADHD, simplifying the magic and difficulty of parenting to a chemical. Might as well blame it on the candy.
(The concept of moral and spiritual lives of children is adapted from Dr. Robert Coles)
6
When there's an event with sugar (cake, soda, etc.) the novelty of the event and the associated lack of structure make for hyper kids. It's not the sugar.
26
@Vincent It's why teachers dread Halloween. The anticipation and then the aftermath. The kids get all excited about the costumes or lack thereof. They have the parties at school. They march through neighborhoods or go to parties after school. They don't get enough sleep since they are still "high" from the activities of the day, not the sugar. Then we expect them to attend to school the next day.
3
My daughter is OK with sugar.
Artificial flavors and colors, not so much.
High fructose corn syrup is out, too.
But cane sugar is not a problem.
3
There are a lot of people here stating anecdotal evidence from their families (my own would indicate no link between sugar and crazy energy), but that’s why you can only prove a theory with a scientific study. People who insist otherwise are no better than anti-vac’ers or those in China eating wild animals because of superstitious beliefs.
17
Aspartame can also cause a "high" in some people, so I wonder if that experiment was flawed. I wonder what the result would be if the control group was fed another sweetener that had no such reaction.
3
@Caroline V. Ritter You throw out the 'fact' (in your opinion) that aspartame can cause a 'high'.
Do you have some scientific papers with double blinds to substantiate your claim?
If there are, and a peer review journal with only facts and science in mind has agreed, then we'll talk.
Until then, you go on saying that aspartame causes this behavior. I, for one, avoid it because I am happy with the flavor of real sugar and have no side effects from it, so why take the alternative? But I know plenty of folks who use it, usually in small amounts, and have no difficulty with it.
The world is less wonderful when you avoid naturally sweet foods, or unless medically necessary, the spices and salt that enhances good food.
PS, I also walk under ladders, owned a wonderful black cat that for 11 years crossed my path countless times per day, and fail to toss any spilled salt over whichever shoulder you are supposed to do, and get along just fine.
It's hard to admit your family or life long beliefs are just superstitions. But adults do so with critical thinking, and yet we all are fooled by biases.
4
I can look back at my childhood of cake candy soda sugar consumption and say II didn’t have a high, I went into a haze; a sugar low....
5
Forget the kids. I’m 67 and let me loose in a bulk candy store (formerly known as penny candy) and I’ll show you a sugar high.
13
I'm sorry, is a sugar high the same as turning a normal kid into a hyperactive child? Sugar can cause people to be very wound up and then to crash--that is a sugar high. It doesn't contradict the statement "“there is no evidence that sugar alone can turn a child with normal attention into a hyperactive child.”" A normal child can get wired from it. Or maybe it doesn't affect all kids equally. It certainly affected my kid and affects me, even now.
19
@joanne c Exactly. I am a science grad and a parent of small children. This article is not specific enough and crosses unrelated concepts together. I have witnessed many times the clear realtionship with sudden large amounts of sugar (lollies, ,icecream, burthday parties with both sugary and non-sugary food) and my children's behaviour. The terms hyperactive and high are not the same.
13
@joanne c You and Dan need to watch kids in anticipation of a treat or a party to see that even THINKING about sugar makes them jazzed up.
And every one of my dogs would turn themselves inside out when a treat or going for a ride in the car was mentioned, even before the fact.
The reason that double blind studies are done is to eliminate the bias the observers have. In hyperactive children, if the teachers knew which ones were 'labelled' that and which ones were getting medication, it was well known in the design of studies of medications that being hopeful and helpful as teachers are, would cause them to have positive observer bias in their rankings.
5
Maybe it's the hoopla around an over-stimulating event?
Maybe that IS the trigger?
AS a parent who accompanied my son to many a birthday party, I saw so often that the mania which alarms parents so much started well before the cake was presented, anyone was allowed near the dessert table or the goodie bags came out.
27
We have to review in depth how the studies were performed and the data collected. Out of personal experience, I can say that none of my kids nor myself as a kid could have any sugar after 400pm.
9
@MMR so many of these comments say something to the effect of “my anecdotal experience totally invalidates the findings of a peer-reviewed study and its conclusions.” That’s not a valid argument any way you slice it.
6
As a father of two I know better than trusting what I just read. Live and learn to survive is a daily motto very quickly after your first born. My daily experience is plenty. Can’t wait to see what happens when the person who did that study gives sugar to his kids. We have a strict no refined sugar diet in our home for many reasons, and we are all a happier family thanks to this, health and mind alike.
24
@David I do not have one iota of concern for you selecting your family's diet. Sugar, gluten, animal foods, you feel free to eat what you want, and no quibbles.
But unless you forgot the information presented in the article, and have any understanding on how scientific studies are designed and carried out to eliminate built in bias, none of your first sentence makes any sense.
Your observations are anecdotal and carry no weight at all, since anyone who has watched a stage magician can and will be easily fooled, by design.
To further the anecdotals, I know a couple of parents who told the parents of kids that some party treats were sugar free, and weren't. No difference in the behavior during the party, all were wound up. Unethical on the part of the servers? Perhaps, but unlike food allergies where real harm could have occurred, with sugar, unless diabetic, none does.
6
@David Your perception that your children get wired when they have sugar is simply a misconception. People just love to have something to wine about and direct their nonsensical frustrations at. Sugar is convenient.
-father of 3
4
Nobody is saying an abundance of sugar is good for anyone.
Sugar consumption still affects blood glucose levels, but does not cause hyperactivity.
Krsipy Kreme and Starburst before bedtime are still probably no-no's, even taking this article into consideration.
14
Exactly! Sugar is bad for kids, but not because it makes them hyper. Anecdotal evidence to the contrary.
5
You are wrong.
One doesn’t need to be a doctor to know that no one can make a blanket statement about all children and how they respond to sugar.
I recall when I was in medical school the “experts” said chocolate couldn’t cause acne. The “experts” have changed their views now. I knew they were wrong about that too, from personal experience.
Same with most food and health recommendations. This type of ‘know it all’ statements actually pave the way for misinformation and fake news because people know better. Anecdotal evidence matters sometimes and studies always have a weakness. You need a more humble approach to your opinions so that when you’re more experienced you won’t be embarrassed.
A good scientist should always answer questions by saying “it’s complicated” before they give such broad and over-reaching opinions.
24
@KM Wait. What? Chocolate cause acne? When was that decided and how did I miss that?
1
@KM,
Actually, anecdotal “evidence” is virtually useless.
All it can do is to indicate the need for a scientific study to determine what is really going on.
2
@Margo
Yes, chocolate was said to cause acne. That was back in the dark (60's) ages, before the turn of the century.
The "sugar high myth" survives, despite numerous well researched studies through the years that prove otherwise.
I've politely challenging parents a couple of times when they tell me about their kids bouncing off the wall after consuming sugar and they look at me as if I have two heads. It's a little like challenging someone's belief in god. Once a myth is deeply embedded in a person's psyche, no matter how absurd or unsupported by empirical evidence, they're not apt to give it up.
Myths are why Americans spend billions every year on unnecessary supplements. The bottle claims the ingredients will cure [fill in the blank] and apparently that and unsubstantiated claims and random rumors are sufficient to get people on board.
And once someone decides vitamin C will cure their cancer, or ginkgo biloba will improve their memory, there's no changing their minds. And meanwhile, the supplement industry makes billions upon billions off unsuspecting consumers.
We Americans do indeed relish our myths and heroes.
56
Linus Pauling was one of the greatest scientists in the 20th century. He won two Nobel prizes. But he believed that high doses of Vitamin C were a miracle cure. People can fool themselves even when they should know better.
6
Like buying gluten free water lol
4
Bill, I can personally remember getting sugar highs as a child and still get them today.
Your examples of analogous beliefs don’t hold water, as the sugar high is something any of us can test at home.
1
Yet another excuse for American parents to blame something other than upbringing or just plain being a kid to explain obnoxious behavior.
18
@Sara Obnoxious behavior should not be tolerated.
Being allowed to be a kid, should.
At a church meeting a few weeks ago one very good kid about 3 years old was QUIETLY burning off energy by doing a sort of hop scotch on the tiles of the meeting room floor, and running around in stocking feet behind all the adults. He did this for 45 minutes and never slowed down (lunch hadn't been served).
What in the world is wrong with allowing energy and play and fun to be burned off? Puppies and kittens and foxes and all young animals do this too, as it is exercise and training for the brain.
Oh, and at about 50 minutes this decades old person, as tired as I was, wanted to join him with anything to distract from the meeting that was lasting way too long.
5
Whatever. I know I've personally felt a sugar high - you know that feeling right after you've gobbled up six Krispy Kreme donuts in like 15 minutes? They're so delicious while you're eating them, and then all of a sudden you feel .... very strange.
Also, one study from 1994? Diet science has advanced considerably in the 26 years since then. Sugar high or not, a big bolus of sugar is going to have real and measurable effects on immediate metabolism. I strongly suspect there's a heck of a lot more to be discovered on this subject.
13
@Mimi ...You can however go hypoglycemic. It is a known phenomena that if you eat a quantity of sugar (causing an insulin spike) and then in the next few minutes participate in some energetic activity (putting a demand on glucose) the combination of insulin induction and energetic exercise can cause a glucose deficit - resulting not in hyperactivity but a performance crash.
15
@W.A. Spitzer
Most definitely - and a pretty good reason to avoid overloads of sugar. For some of us, it doesn't require, say, candy, but just breads or cereals - simple starches alone without a balancing amount of protein - will do this.
5
Perhaps the author's contention is true. But to label a single 25+ year old study involving less than 50 children as "extraordinarily rigorous" that "settled the question" is a huge stretch.
22
@Dave Yep. Not only that, the control group in the study was given aspartame. How about a control group where no sugar is given and also no aspartame? That's a poorly designed study for sure.
4
@Dave I'm not sure why 25-year old studies can't be extraordinarily rigorous....?
6
@Thinker,
In order for a study to be valid, it has to avoid subjective bias by the participants.
Everyone in the study has to be unaware of whether they are receiving the substance being studied or a substitute.
Thus, in this study all have to perceive the same perception of sweetness, from either sugar or a substitute.
3
Diabetics, who run elevated blood sugar levels, don't get high. Sugar is the brain's fuel. It provides energy for excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters.
Chocolate doesn't cause hyperactivity either.
Lots of medical misinformation persists despite having been disproven - antivaccers for a further example.
24
Diabetics, who run elevated blood sugar levels, don't get high. Sugar is the brain's fuel. It provides energy for excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters.
Chocolate doesn't cause hyperactivity either.
Lots of medical misinformation persists despite having been disproven - antivaccers for a further example.
4
It would be helpful to differentiate between short term or long term effects. “Sugar high” refers to the hour or two following a large sugar intake. ADHD describes a persistent/ongoing pattern of behavior. Which is the research about?
24
@Erin Brice
Weird that the author does not even seem aware of what a sugar high is commonly thought to be. Perhaps there was some medical idea of a sugar high in the 1970s but I have never heard that as an idea associated with the sugar high kids experience on Halloween night or the hour after eating candy, cake, and ice cream at a birthday.
I am not sure it is only kids either that experience a sugar high- just that relatively fewer adults gorge on candy of the same proportions as a child and generally have slower metabolisms and more self-control where behaviour changes are not as obvious.
2
Here's a question: Adults, do YOU feel hyperactive or even more active after eating sugar? I can't say that I do. I know children are different, but you would think that if the phenomenon were noticeable in children, it would also to some extent be noticeable in teens and adults. I've always assumed that sugar made children more hyperactive (maybe it's really the context?) but now that I think of it, I don't really feel that it does that to me, and looking back in my memory, I don't remember ever feeling weird or different or hyperactive just after consuming sugar.
15
@reader - I don't but having eaten sugar for about 6 decades, I'm sure I have built up a tolerance just like I have with years of weed use.
At my age, if I try and get perky or energetic about anything my body laughs and says, "Sit down Boomer before you fall and can't get up"
7
@reader
I can definitely recall the days of having a huge rush of energy after consuming large amounts of sugar but I rarely if ever eat proportionally the same amount of sugar as I consumed as a child by bodyweight. Most adults also have the self-control not to react so obviously to a surge of energy.
If I consumed 12 doughnuts, a soft drink. and a few pieces of candy as a kid that weighed 80lbs it would take 3x as much to get similar amount of sugar as an adult not to mention adults have slower metabolisms and greater insulin resistance.
2
@reader That alarming "rush" and mania that kids often manifest? I'd say it's about the over-stimulating event they're attending if it's a BD party or a BBQ or picnic, etc.
They're smart creatures and they can see the shift in boundaries in front of them. They decide it's time to let the rules drop, go wild and bounce off the walls.
I've seen this behavior in kids well *before* the lunch or dinner was served. Definitely a long time before the cake or cupcakes or s'mores were anywhere in the vicinity.
8
The title of this article is ridiculous. Of course, there is a such thing as a sugar high. Give a large amount of the sugar relative to body mass to any human with a working pancreas and blood sugar levels rocket up,insulin is produced to adjust, and if the sugar is of a high-glycemic variety a crash inevitably follows.
The studies simply conclude (albeit confusingly) that over a period time kids that have high sugar diets do not necessarily fit the criteria of being hyperactive. Accordingly, removing sugar is not a magic cure for hyperactivity.
40
@RP Knowing a little about how your body works allows you to cherry pick what may seem to you and other listeners are science facts behind your erroneous conclusion.
The study is old, but so are the studies on heart drugs, antibiotics and other medicines. Once done, done well and having skeptical reviewers look for faults and none are found, then a bunch of other studies are compared, you don't really have to do it over again unless some new contradictory information comes to light.
IF sugar had this effect and was so observable by true scientists and skeptics about this myth, there would have been many other follow up studies launched.
4
@RP Everything you just mentioned is a myth. Sugar of a high glycemic variety is pure mythology. Sugar is sugar is sugar is sugar.
1
Have kid who is now 21, short term auger high is fact with kids, sorry guys get out of you lab more, too funny.
Sugar is a drug, and like all drugs, people consume them for their effects. Sugar the first drug we all get exposed to-- and you only need to look at Halloween. Ask for drugs, make trades with parents and other kids to get the form of the drug you like, eat drugs to the point of overdose (get sick), tell themselves (and you) that they will never eat candy again... and by the next morning they're asking for more candy.
2
@Kingsley Sugar is not a drug. Sugar is a simple carbohydrate. Where and what is your evidence to state that sugar is a drug? Please stick to the facts.
4
@Kingsley
Unless you count anything you ingest as a drug, sugar is no different from any other nutrient.
People who binge usually do so because they are normally forbidden from eating the particular food.
4
I think I'm getting a sugar high from just that photo.
So many choices and only enough money for one option.
1
I’m guessing the researchers didn’t have kids.
10
Oh, so my daughter CAN eat that Krispy Kreme donut before bedtime...
8
@Paul And my kids didn't dance the Floss around a restaurant for half an hour straight unable to sit down that time I gave them an icecream cone at 5:00pm, I was imagining it.
@Paul
Only if she brushes her teeth afterwards. Seriously, sugar puts me to sleep. No excitement here, now or when I was a child. Sugar is not caffeine.
1
Dr. Feingold's work was primarily about the effect of additives, like artificial colors and certain preservatives, on ADHD-like symptoms.
Not about sugar.
Over the years, there has been enough research that implicates these colors in health issues that they are required to carry warning labels in Europe.
This article was thinly researched.
The New York Times should require more than this of their writers.
24
I love science and research, but I also have three kids. My human subjects have given me all the evidence I need. I give them candy for hiking to unleash the raw energy. I never give them candy before going in public. Lets just say lessons have been learned.
17
Study or no study, I know that if my daughter eats a high-sugar item like a donut for breakfast, she’s a crabby, awful monster about 60 minutes later. Not hyperactive—just downright miserable. I attribute it to the insulin spike that straight up sugar and carbs cause.
There is, however, so much we don’t know about how individuals’ bodies interact with different foods that it wouldn’t surprise me at all if some people can consume sugar with no ill effects on their behavior and others just cannot — similar to gluten sensitivities or lactose intolerance.
11
When my three children were in a Montessori school (3 years through 6th grade), the teachers limited their sugar supplies but fed them hot dogs and pepperoni pizza. Nitrites are far more damaging to our bodies. Sugar just washes on through, whether it causes hyper behaviors on the way.
1
These studies are not about sugar highs as generally understood.
I'll design a study.
Take an equivalent number of preschoolers and put them in two separate rooms. Feed one group cake and soda. Measure the noise level in each room and also measure the number of fights, arguments, and tears. There you go- you will see the existence of the sugar high.
Every so often we read articles saying there's no such thing as a sugar high. I wish these articles would stop, because they are malarkey.
13
@Alyce A couple parents did a similar thing... by having two different treat tables, one for the kids of parents who were saying their kids were sensitive (not diabetic) to sugar and others who were allowed to eat anything.
Both tables had the same treats on them. No noticeable difference in kids' behaviors.
Not scientific, perhaps a wee bit unethical, but no harm no foul and anecdotally, showed no problems.
2
@Alyce ...I hope that when you do the study you will also draw blood to show the correlation with blood glucose levels. You might find the result to be opposite of whet you suspect.
@Alyce You fail to acknowledge that the atmosphere for cakes and soda is PARTY! And being given taboo treats (sugar, cake, etc...)
2
....some things in life simply make good sense regardless, even if the data are disputable or not completely correct. Take global warming for instance. The data are getting clearer and clearer and yet many of us knew, or.....felt.... 50 years ago (!) that getting off fossil fuels would be good thing.
I feel this goes for trying to eliminate refined sugar as much as possible. A soda pop every now and then isnt going to kill you, but overloading on sugar simply does not make good sense, regardless.
1
We now know that the sugar industry paid scientists to play down the link between sugar and heart disease, as reported in the NYT. How do we know that the same hasn’t happened here? What a boon to the sugar industry if the sugar high is a myth.
(I’m not normally a conspiracy theorist, but in this case, we have a historical record of at least one conspiracy.)
9
I'd wondered about the sugar theory. Look at families in which the kids all eat the same foods, yet there's one 'brat' who can't or won't sit still. We all know them. Then there are families where kids are overfed treats to the point that they get so large they can barely move. Surely these kids would be ricocheting off the walls if massive sugar consumption causes hyperactivity.
There has to be something going on other than diet.
12
I’m not convinced. Your study only shows that artificial sweeteners are as good as actual sugar when it comes to behavior. Your follow up study doesn’t even use an experiment; choosing to rely on highly disputed questionnaires. Pretty poor science if you ask me.
21
Its always fascinating to see how children's behaviors are so often linked to some "additive". So a child goes to a party and afterwards is amped up, like a wild-thing. Must be the cake, or soda, or X. Never due to the parents, etc.
When I was a child in the 60's, we had those same kids, but it wasn't the availability of sugars, it was because some of those kids were...wait for it - generally ill-behaved! And their parents never controlled them, so when truly left to their own devices at a family party, etc, those kids were beserkers! And their parents only intervened when someone got hurt.
Second case, which I see a lot of now. The parents are in constant control-mode, monitoring their child's every move, every twitch they don't approve of, every sound, every activity. Then the kid meets unstructured play time with other kids, and its off the walls time! The kid has no self-regulation. Like dogs that have been cooped all day, let them out and they are shot of a cannon.
Kids dont want to be on Parent time. They are built to run, move and burn off energy till they stop. And then its refuel, and repeat.
So the parents, who never blame themselves and their "parental philosophies", especially wealthier parents, who all seem to have a "method", look for outside causes, because it couldn't possibly due to their influences. And in today's environment of "food is virtue", its all about outside influences. Must be evil gluten! Demonic dextrose!
11
@Boregard So parents are basically always to blame then? If they control too much or not enough.
So many of the comments reflect a major problem with out culture - not only does everyone believe they have a right to an opinion, they feel all opinions should have equal weight. Putting asides the incorrect conflation of disproven behavioral effects versus dietary impact of sugar ingestion, the comments belie a fundamental lack of knowledge about simple sugars. They do not trigger physiologic withdrawal or dopamine release - so no, they are not “addictive.” They do not lead to changes in receptor density in the brain, so no, they have no behavioral effects. Individual “testimony” about personal experience with sugar are as compelling as individual “testimony” about alien abduction. I’m sure the individual believes in these things - but they simply aren’t true.
17
This study doesn't prove that refined sugar or excessive carbohydrate intake is actually good for anyone. And it didn't measure excessive sugar intake and its effect on deep ability to focus, listen or integrate information, or to function in other highly integrated ways.
The study was funded by ILSI, a food industry lobbyist. ILSI represents clients like Coca-Cola and Mars (the candy corporation):
http://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/16/health/ilsi-food-policy-india-brazil-china.amp.html
8
The parents and teachers who believe in the sugar/behavior connection usually complain about children acting crazy after eating sweets in front of the children. The kids internalize the message and act crazy. Its a bit like those kids in the daycare that went along with the suggested memories of abuse.
5
Another bogus “clinical trial” that hardly meets the standards of a clinical trial. The first line of any story about a medical study should state the group that paid for it.
I’m indifferent to this study because I avoid children at all costs, they don’t need to be hyperactive to annoy me.
6
I've seen this with my own eyes. Perfectly well- behaved, nice kids; add a round of donuts and you've got fighting brats.
4
@pedestrian Only when there are 9 kids and 5 donuts.
2
This is a joke. As a teacher I have seen for years children eat their lunches from home, I see the cause and effect of sugary foods on behavior. Let’s use some common sense.
7
“Common sense” being defined as YOUR anecdotal observations, eh?
4
Why do you think most teacher's have a child's cupcake birthday party at the end of the day? There is no bringing them down after that much sugar.
7
I wonder how many parents clinging to the "sugar high" beliefs are also anti-vaxxers?
The common thread seems to be an unwillingness to credit science over their own anecdotal stories.
11
I am very curious as to the author's funding, as well as most of the other studies. In the 70s, a study came out from Harvard that sugar was not only not responsible for a spike in hyperactive behavior but also good for humans to eat more of. It turned out to be fully funded by the Sugar Industry. As a chid care counselor in a residential treatment center for 3 years and a children with special needs teacher for 33, I can tell you the MANY (over that many years) stories that belie the conclusion that sugar doesn't play a significant part in behavior. The key is, not every child reacts the same. Some barely register a change while others are (literally) climbing the wall. If the aphorism is "everything in moderation", you have to take into account when your child should eat some candy or when. Believe me, when teachers rewarded their kids with candy in the class before mine (high school), I really knew what happened...
3
I was a young mother with 3 small sons and this article states exactly what I thought: Sugar made no difference in my children's behavior. I didn't think it was a good idea for them to have too much sugar but i didn't see any correlation between their behavior and sugar consumption when they did end up having it.
We didn't serve dessert after meals, had no sugary cereals and no sweets around the house. But that was just because I thought sugar was an empty calorie not because it made a difference in how they behaved.
7
@mrw
Have you sat all three down and let them have some sodas and cupcakes? Wait about 20 minutes and tell us there is no effect. I can even see it affect high school students. All animated after class starts, 20 minutes or so later, they all crash back to Earth and it gets eerily quiet.
The author has buried the lead.
“Though cutting down on sugar will not affect children’s behavior, it may help to protect them against obesity, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.”
Just because sugar may not cause hyperactivity, it doesn’t follow that feeding our kids sugar is a good idea.
This is like writing a long article detailing research that proves smoking doesn’t stunt teenagers’ growth. Who cares? There are much more serious reasons not to do it.
7
But the article was focused on the myth of sugar-related hyperactivity. Just because you wanted it to be about something else, doesn’t count as a criticism of its findings.
8
During the '70's and early '80's, I spoke with numerous children whose mothers worked earnestly to restrict them to foods recommended by Dr. Feingold, avoiding those sugary and containing dyes. Feingold clubs existed which mothers could attend to reinforce their enthusiasm for what they were doing. In private conversations with the children, however, they confided that one of their favorite activities was to go to their friends' homes where they could find a supply of M&M's and other high sugar treats, also containing dyes, which they eagerly consumed. They always asked that I keep that information confidential, not to tell their mothers. The mothers, meanwhile, were pleased with their behavior, believing in the Feingold diet and being unaware of the sugar jolt their children were receiving daily when visiting friends. Placebo effects are indeed powerful.
11
It would have been helpful to include an explanation behind the behavioral changes that are misread as a "sugar high." It is common enough that most people recognize it -- the higher energy, almost frenetic behavior that can follow eating even something as benign as organic ice cream, in my personal experience. I noticed it with some of my children's friends. And we no longer serve any desert to my extended family with small children when they come for meals and the parents are very appreciative. Getting out the door is invariably more difficult if the children have had a dessert with added sugar. I'd like to know why.
8
@Northeast Mama The "higher energy, almost frenetic behavior" that is observed in my experience is due to the change in setting for the child, a shift in rules and expectations ("I'm at my friend's house! The adults will do their thing and we get to go nuts!"). And it's always tough to when we're "getting out the door" to go home because who wants to leave this "other" place and go back where the 'rents rule?
2
Is that right? I beg to differ from my experience with children. For example, my friend's 8 year old granddaughter loves sweets. Especially ice cream. Every time I have seen her eat something sweet - and she eats sugar whether ice cream, etc - she gets charged up more than normal, She gets "Genki" as the Japanese say - translated loosely as super perked up. This reaction is common when she eats ice cream later in the evening, As adults we get a sugar rush if we are down and need a lift. Not arguing with the medical clinicians I am just saying I know what I see. Something happens to kids when they eat sugar besides cavities.
3
@Tbone, how often has it been suggested to her that sweets will have this effect? She may be doing what is expected of her.
7
Nothing is suggested to her. She’s hyper after she gorges on ice cream.
Years ago, at one of my first jobs, I bought perhaps 18 boxes of Girl Scout cookies in an attempt to support a neighbor's daughter.
I brought them to the office and put out a box every afternoon in an effort to be accepted as one of the crew.
One of the agency partners couldn't stop himself from devouring at least 10 cookies after lunch every day. He was a runner, razor thin, but for some reason he loved these cookies.
He also went off the rails every afternoon after eating the cookies. No one wanted to be near him. I stopped putting out the cookies. He asked why (I felt like a pusher).
I explained that he was going on a sugar jag every day and he was driving everyone nuts. After a few days of no Girl Scout cookies and becoming his old self again, he readily agreed and apologized to everyone.
I gave the rest of the boxes of cookies to an assisted living facility.
4
I have many years of clinical experience and have known the "sugar causes hyperactivity" idea was a myth all along, so am glad to see this article. Unfortunately though, it seems that most people who are not scientifically-minded will believe unfounded, popular, unprovable nonsense more than solid, evidence-based conclusions. Also, it is rarely emphasized that "stimulant" meds like methylphenidate do not stimulate or cause hyperactivity. I imaging most people reading this article and my comment will have some rebukes which are not data-based.
14
@Ron Clark
Medicine is not data-based, or evidence-based, or scientific. It just says it is.
The statistics are junk science, cannot be replicated, and every study is never definitive. There are always studies that conclude the opposite.
The studies are full of confounders and you never know where they stop. Medicine is not a science like physics with a finite variable set that can be accounted for.
"Conflicts of interest and biases exist in virtually every field of medicine, particularly those that rely heavily on drugs or devices. It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines."
"“The pharmaceutical industry likes to depict itself as a research-based industry, as the source of innovative drugs. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is their incredible PR and their nerve.”
“A review of seventy-four clinical trials of antidepressants, for example, found that thirty-seven of thirty-eight positive studies [that praised the drugs] were published. But of the thirty-six negative studies, thirty-three were either not published or published in a form that conveyed a positive outcome.”
- from Marcia Angel, Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine
4
@Fourteen14 seems that you are on a sugar high
@Ron Clark
You may be using the term "hyperactivity" wrong, that is technically, to describe sustained behavior and not as a short-lived behavior spike, which may be how non-technical normal people use it.
Note that sugar does alter brain chemistry, specifically the inhibitory neurons in the prefrontal cortex, where decision-making and impulse control are located. Sugar also impairs spatial memory and inhibits neurogenesis in the hippocampus.
And sugar reduces receptor availability so maybe your clinical experience is with kids who have developed resistance.
Maybe the study cited had a cohort that was insensitive to sugar from years of sugar abuse.
If after consumption of sweets a person has a reaction, besides sugar consumption, I think we should also look at other ingredients that may cause a reaction. People may be having a reaction to dye, dairy, wheat, or other allergens.
6
Or they may be reacting to simple pleasure.
What is the operational definition for "sugar high" in these studies? Clearly not what I experienced as a child and see in my 8 yo son. Last night I had to plug in the yard lights after he had a square of chocolate so he could run around the yard 10 times because he could not steady his hand to work on his Keva planks construction until he worked out that energy. A scientist would have to be blind not to see the connection. These studies must lay out a different conception of "high".
14
@Palousian Chocolate has caffeine- a known stimulant.
26
@Palousian
The point is your son may behave the same without the chocolate.
Our brains, my brain, your brain, your son's brain all run on glucose. Everything we eat can be turned into glucose somewhere in our core so we can feed our head what it needs. It doesn't matter if one's blood sugar is high, the brain isn't more active because of it. It only takes in as much as it needs. Our gut is another thing. High blood sugar is more likely to make one feel tired than overactive. If we don't eat enough carbs, our bodies convert stored fat or protein into glucose so the supply to the brain is adequate.
Your belief is unshakeable because you see what you see. The behavior is plain, the food is obvious because he's always eating something or just ate something. That doesn't mean your attribution of what causes your son's behavior is what you think it is. It also means you can freely choose whatever without guilt that somehow your food has bad (or good) consequence. Behavior is complicated, not easily simplified to the percentage of macro nutrients in a meal.
2
All I know is that sugar keeps me awake. I am an older woman who used to eat a lot of sugar in the past, as a child and a young adult. Now all I eat is some dark chocolate in the morning. If I eat any sugar later in the day I will have a restless night.
1
@Chris Are we talking all kinds of sugar or chocolate in particular? The caffeine in chocolate does it to me, but not sugar cookies, for examples. If you can’t drink tea or coffee at night I would guess it is the caffeine in chocolate.
2
Glad it’s been debunked. I’ve always been skeptical about that idea because I noticed that the “sugar high” tends to be only be noticed and mentioned by parents in contexts such as birthday parties (and I knew plenty of kids who ate sugar every day). As if the kids might not scream in excitement just from the fun of being able to run wild, and also maybe eat sweets to their hearts’ delight.
21
Breast milk is sweet, we have a natural predisposition to like sweet things. Best to separate good nutrition which precludes eating lots of sugary foods from the whole “Sugar High” concept. Occasional sweet treats are fine (especially if homemade) if the diet as a whole is healthy.
To say there is no such thing as a sugar high is not the same as saying a diet high in sugar is good for anyone.
3
Thank you for this. I’ve been arguing against the sugar high myth for years to no avail. People believe their own anecdotal evidence over fact because it feels truer to them.
Let them eat cake.
19
I have always eaten a lot of sugar. (No lectures, please.) As a child, I was a candy fanatic. I could eat an entire pie by myself. My mother was a fantastic baker, and I bake, too. Cakes, cookies, even candy. I give a lot of what I bake away, but I eat a lot, too. As an adult, I still eat candy every day. I keep a supply of candy bars in my pantry. (In case you're wondering, I am not over weight, and my teeth are perfect. I've had only a few cavities in my life.) So, I consider myself somewhat of an expert when it comes to sugar. I have never experienced a "sugar high." It did not make me a hyperactive child; in fact, I was a quiet child who preferred reading to most other activities. Sugar does not seem to affect me as an adult. I don't get a burst of energy after eating candy. I just like sweets.
13
@Ms. Pea
I'm the same. Same history. Same demeanor. Same outcomes. I read cook books for fun and try something new as often as possible. However, I try to choose oranges and apples over chocolate chip cookies.
My weight has been stable my entire adult life. I've never been overweight and likely will never be.
3
Whatever. Industry has been lying about sugar and covering it up for decades. I think any parent can clearly see what happens to their kid after eating a giant plate of veggies vs a giant box of candy.
14
@Joanna Okay, what happens? Tell us.
Careful medical studies tell us that the child does not become excited. So if you think that is what happens, you are wrong.
Children often eat ice cream, cake or candy at parties or on Christmas morning. They are excited at these times because of the event, not the sugar.
46
@Joanna , I agree! So maybe the research bears out that it doesn't cause hyperactivity. But it can make kids feel bad, which in turn, makes them crabby. Why no mention of this in the article?
5
@Joanna
Yes, the sugar and also the artificial additives (and caffeine in Coke) gets into your bloodstream fast and that triggers adrenaline, which causes increased activity.
But that goes away fairly fast and is not considered hyperactivity, which is when you're highly active all the time, like when you have a thyroid problem.
Forget kids. Any adult, at twice or three times the weight, can tell you what happens after eating a candy bar or drinking a can of soda.
If there's no sugar high, what accounts for cupcake and ice-cream shops full of adults?
7
@jrd we are biologically destined to love sugar because when our DNA was forming, sugar was very rare—the occasional honey find and similar treats.
Sugar has high caloric value so it makes sense from ann evolutionary standpoint. Plus our culture trains us that sugar is a treat.
Personally, sugar doesn’t do much for me. Now chocolate...
10
@jrd No one's saying sugar isn't delicious.
2
@jrd -- Maybe some adults are in cupcake and ice cream shops because they like cupcakes and ice cream.
5
"Neither the parents, the children nor the research staff knew which of the children were getting sugary foods and which were getting a diet sweetened with aspartame and other artificial sweeteners."
Sugar and artificial sweeteners don't taste alike. One need not read a package to know whether one is consuming one or the other.
5
Ok then. How about they do a study of the effects of sugar on children with diagnosed ADHD? Because I can tell you right now that I've had dozens of parents in my office who have cut out as much processed sugar as possible from their children's diets and noticed improvements.
12
Because they cut out processed food which has LOTS of additives that affect behavior.
By cutting out "sugar", they are likely cutting out all sorts of artificial colors, flavors and preservatives.
12
@Liz
Anecdotes don't count except sometimes to instigate hypotheses. Well designed, sufficiently powered, controlled crossover studies are the gold standard in clinical research.
27
@Dalgliesh
RCTs are not much of a so-called gold standard.
RCT crossover studies are not used to refute a hypothesis, but to confirm a bias from an associational epidemiological study.
They focus on some discrete molecular aspect and use that to confirm a spurious correlation according to everyone's biases.
What RCTs are good for, and why they're so often used, is to pull down those research dollars.
1
Feingold and the Feingold Diet calls for the elimination of artificial colors, flavors and preservatives, not sugar.
7
I've never understood why people believe in sugar highs. It's more like a happiness high because they've gotten. Something they really like. Often at a play date or party with lots of playmates and more leeway to behave out of bounds. In those situations, even with no sugar, there will be hijinks.
28
So when my child bounces off the wall after eating ice cream it’s just joy?
1
How can we know that sweet flavors in general don’t all trigger hyperactivity? Can’t the body be tricked into producing insulin in the presence of artificial sweeteners?
@Sophia Berg Beta cells in the pancreas have something called the GLUT2 glucose transporters. Essentially these are glucose specific doorways that allow glucose to come out of the bloodstream and into the cell. Once inside, glucose triggers insulin release.
There are other mechanisms for triggering insulin release, but artificial sweeteners are not known to be one of them. They usually are present in relatively small concentrations.
10
Most sugar comes with artificial flavors, colors, preservatives and salt. But the 1994 test diets "were essentially free of additives, artificial food coloring, and preservatives." High sugar food, and the ingredients that come with them, are bad for everyone, and a steady diet from toddler to adult is one of the major reasons we have epidemics of diabetes, mental instability, weight gain and hormonal imbalance. Food companies wants you to eat their products 24/7. It is a highly competitive industry, and any ingredient that makes you prefer theirs will be used: from genetic engineering to taste enhancers. Organic, unprocessed, fresh food is the only safe bet for optimum health.
3
I will add sugar to my list of racing bike saddles and caffeine. I think salt is next for exoneration. My father taught me that most anything is OK in moderation, and I have extended that to include moderation itself.
13
@alan
Salt has been exonerated. You want between 1.5 and 2.5 tsp of salt/day.
We need about 5 grams of sodium, whereas the American Heart Association recommends less than 1.5 grams of sodium.
(This is the same AHA whose president John Warner, cardiologist and president of the AHA, had a heart attack in the middle of a health conference at the age of 52)
"Sodium intake was associated with cardiovascular disease and strokes only in communities where mean intake was greater than 5 g/day."
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)31376-X/fulltext
5 grams of sodium is the upper limit. The healthy range is 3 grams to 5 grams of sodium.
This is sodium, not Salt, so multiply the 5 grams of sodium by 2.5 to get the salt upper limit = 12.5 grams of salt or 2.5 teaspoons of salt.
And not less than 7.5 grams or 1.5 tsp of salt.
What there is, in fact, is sugar addiction. Read Dr. David A. Kessler’s publications. I am a person who could not control my eating, hence my weight, until I stopped allowing refined sugar (the hard stuff) and sugar substitutes into my space. Sounds like alcoholism, right? That would be correct; it’s the same. I read Wm. Dufty’s Sugar Blues decades ago, and it took me nearly as many years before I could face up to my truth.
28
@Barbara Ommerle
ditto salt. both highly addictive -- and there's the rub. once ingested, the brain says, "feed me more!"
;-)
2
@Barbara Ommerle There's a great deal of evidence for you the addictive properties of sugar, also for its many other harmful effects on health. The point of the article is that even though sugar is no health food, one thing it does not do is cause hyperactivity in kids. There's still so much work to be done in general in the field of addiction in humans, and sugar in particular. But it's hard to convince anyone that something as ubiquitous as sugar, which most people have eaten all their lives, could be harmful or "addictive". It would be so helpful if we could figure out why some people can consume sugar (or alcohol, etc) and not become addicted to it.
@jls228 But the difference between salt and refined sugar is that the human body requires salt to live. It's needed to maintain fluid balance and to facilitate many metabolic and chemical processes. You could cut sugar from your diet with no adverse effects, but salt is essential and the human body cannot produce it, so we need to consume it. The question is how much is too much.
I've worked as a psychotherapist with kids since the mid-80's, and gave up years ago trying to educate parents, teachers, and even other mental health professionals regarding the myth of the sugar high. It is a zombie belief, that will not die in spite of the multiple studies due simply to the powerful influence of confirmation bias (with multiple examples of said bias in below comments).
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@paul
I'm a child psychiatrist, and while sugar may not have much of a behavioral effect on most kids, it most certainly does affect children with ADHD.
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This focuses on sugar. However, who sits and eats pure white sugar? Most often it comes in candy or other forms with additional ingredients which may well be the culprit.
When my daughter was little anything with blue dye in made her hyperactive. I would come home and she would be in constant motion. Invariably, she had had something blue, usually a snow cone. We had friends whose soon could not have anything red.
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I think the term “hyperactive” is problematic in this study. In a educational setting, hyperactive behavior is defined as “constant activity, being easily distracted, impulsiveness, inability to concentrate, aggressiveness, and similar behaviors.” As a teacher, I have never observed sugar to turn a child “hyperactive” in this clinical sense. However, I do believe that eating sugar energizes kids and makes some of them appear “hyper” for a short time. Similarly, the “crash” after eating sugar seems to make some kids grouchy and lethargic. Go to a first grade classroom and let them all have a cupcake. Then try to teach them math.
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Bingo! This is truth. The article was misleading.
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I’m an adult and experience a sugar high and hour or two after eating products containing too much sugar or its substitute. It’s an uncomfortable feeling of agitation that passes after several hours. This usually happens after consuming low quality candy.
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@Ozma I am adult and experience a sugar low after eating products that contain "too much'' sugar. It's an uncomfortable feeling of being very tired that passes after several hours.
What happens is that my my blood glucose concentration rapidly rises. This causes a release of insulin by my pancreas. Insulin transports glucose from my bloodstream into my cells. Now my blood glucose concentration drops, and might drop so much that I experience a low blood glucose concentration, and my poor cells don't have enough glucose to support my active and vigorous life. I feel tired, until insulin gets everything sorted out.
My advice is not to eat low quality candy, or low quality anything.
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Most of my third grade students become highly energized after partaking in iced (birthday) cupcakes and a “juice” drink. Over the years, I’ve found that trying to get them to listen or follow instructions after the treats is time wasted. They’re ready for recess, but not much else.
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@Sue Sopher But could this also be due to the excitement of getting a treat and doing something out of the ordinary? Kids get soooo excited even before they have treats.
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I’m allergic to cane sugar. When I eat it (and occasionally I do, I regret to say) my heartbeat quickens, I have a hard time focusing, and I’m sleepless.
Studies come and go, but really, who cares anyway? Any decent parent is going to limit the sugar and white flour foods to special occasions and push the veg, fruit, and whole grains.
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Hmmm, I think the question needs clarification. What do you mean by "high?" There is no way I will give my kid sugar/dessert before bed because sugar makes her wild and restless. We've seen it over and over--I feel a sugar response as well. Does it change my behavior and make me hyperactive over time? No.
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As a teacher - special education - with 31 years in the classroom, and as a parent and grandparent, I believe that the sugar high is not due to the sugar and its metabolism, but due to the social context. I have seen countless students, children, and grandchildren consume sugar with no increase in activity or energy. Anecdotally, I cite every experience at every movie; vast amounts of sugar are consumed, but there is no increase in activity, let alone hyperactivity.
In classroom after classroom, I have watched students, those with diagnoses of ADHD and those without, consume sugar with increase in activity levels.
However, I have seen students, children, and grandchildren consume sugar at parties and celebrations, and they are off the wall. It isn't the sugar, it's the context.
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That is true. They can drink a pop at the movies and continue watching the movie calmly.
However, birthday parties, forget it! They will run for an hour and a half, get very tired, all sit calmly for the cake and 20 minutes later they are screaming and running in circles unlike at any other point in the party.
I understand context plays into it, but is it possible the cake does too?
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@Julie
The science suggests not; however, I also note that the science, as reported here, focuses on sugar. It may be that, while sugar alone is not responsible when it is combined with other carbohydrates, e.g., flour in the cake, the whole package sets them off.
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Precisely
This is yet another example of studies that end up being meaningless and later retracted. Anyone who has been around children has observed a sugar high after lollipops or other sugar candy. It doesn’t take a scientist to see the obvious. What should give us pause is the large number of studies that contradict other studies. Whether it is butter, salt, coffee, aspirin, statins, or whatever, we are constantly revising our understanding of their impact on our bodies. Why is this the case? Largely because these studies are faulty by their nature. Statistical techniques cannot disambiguate the complexity of interactions our bodies operate in. The results of studies, at best, show correlation rather than causation. Try unraveling that correlation out of the myriad environmental and biological interactions it sits among. Finally, publish or perish is alive. Every scientist understands their career depends on publishing. Publishing requires funding. This is why so many recent studies have ‘debunked’ others. Why reproducibility is often low for seminal studies. There are lots of reasons to minimize sugar intake and this study contradicts my own experience. I’ll stick to my own experience and that of parents and teachers who see it every day.
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@Roberto Veranes Well, I'm not sure actually. Without commenting on the one particular study mentioned here, I have a kid, and now that I think of it, the "sugar high" is almost exclusively noticeable in contexts of parties or special events. My son often gets more excited *before* having a dessert than after - because he's so excited that he gets to have one. I've hosted birthday parties and the kids are crazy the whole time, increasing in craziness as the party goes on and then finally becoming over-stimulated and then unhappy that the party is over. Does sugar have anything to do with this? Maybe not, since the kids are usually crazy before the cake too.
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I’m a type 1 diabetic and have had a hunch the sugar high was bogus for years based off my experience with sugar dealings.
I think maybe candy and ice cream makes the kids excited, that it’s an emotional response, not a physiological one. Saved this article in case I ever need to debunk this myth. Thanks!
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The sugar high may be a myth, but not the sugar crash.
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@Sutter Thank you. Apparently I wanted to make the same comment 18 minutes too late.
When our child was about 3 years old we noted that he was particularly and unusually active (not necessarily misbehaving). We inquired of his caregiver whether he had eaten candy that day. Normally, it would have been rare that he consumed candy. The caregiver reported that he had discovered her candy dish full of candy corn and consumed the bulk of it. Root cause found . . . nuff said.
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@M Dziewit
Candy corn! Truly the root of many evils. How people can still eat that stuff is beyond me. My teeth hurt just thinking about that stuff.
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The article clearly says, that your child's behaviour had nothing to do with the sugar ingested, and that suggesting otherwise is a persistent myth. What is hard to understand here?
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The only causation I found in sugar and my behavior is that it that after 30 minutes, I would become extremely sleepy. I had to stop eating surgary treats and candy at work because I found myself nodding off at the desk.
I think kids get excited and wound up when there's a group of them playing or if a child has a sensitivity to stimulation, albeit various foods or even introduced to a new toy they really wanted or going to the park to play.
For a while I recall studies suggesting that red dye no. 2 would cause kids to become hyper.
I think the bigger concern for kids who eat too much sugary snacks is not only developing diabetes but also cavities. The cost of a dental visit and work is ridiculous.
My mother always insisted on moderation. A cookie, slice of pie or piece of cake is fine on occasion, but should never be considered as a meal replacement.
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@Marge Keller ...The sugar (glucose) causes a spike in insulin. If the blood level of insulin remains high after the glucose spike has cleared, the result will be hypoglycemia which might well be manifest by getting tired and sleepy.
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@W.A. Spitzer
That is exactly what my doctor told me, which is why I need to focus on protein rather than sugar.
Thanks for the intel - hopefully it will be of help to others.
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Human beings are African primate apes who evolved evolutionary biological DNA fit 300, 000+ years ago.
Driven by our animal vertebrate mammal biological nature and nurture to crave fat, salt and sugar by any means necessary including conflict and cooperation.
For the first 290, 000 years humans were small widely dispersed active hunter gatherers. For the last 10,000 years humans have been concentrated inactive sedentary animal and plant domesticators.
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Yet doctors and teachers in the comments here want to claim that multiple high-level peer-reviewed studies that debunk the sugar high myth must be flawed and that we should instead trust their instinct and anecdotal evidence.
So the myth continues right along with getting colds from being outside in cold weather and children getting autism from vaccinations.
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As a doctor I believe you may have too much faith in the double blinded, peer-reviewed study. It is subject to as many flaws as any other method of getting data, but seems to have hordes of scientists who think it’s infallible information.
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Those are faulty comparisons. Does that mean that every study should be believed because those two examples of anecdotal evidence are false? If so, hows your intake of butter, salt, baby aspirin, eggs, etc? How many times have you had to reverse course? Or are you sensible and take such studies with a, dare I say, ‘grain of salt’.
@Don Agreed (the cold one is still very prevalent). The latest one I've heard that is getting traction is the "wonders of celery juice" !
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One of our three children had a reaction to color dye. This showed up in her behavior and her skin. Normally very easy going, she just moved into a different cognitive/behavior zone after eating/drinking/slurping the stuff. Not surprisingly, the dye usually came with sugar so I can see how, in children w similar reactions, that correlation could be confusing.
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A teacher sees and knows otherwise :-)
In addition, I've read quite a bit lately that suggests the sugar substitutes and other forms of sweet may trigger similar hormonal (?) reactions in the body because the taste buds have a role to play. We seem to be learning quite a lot lately about the endocrine system as we learn more about PCOS, obesity, and other medical issues.
And, yes, there's also the sugar lobby funding to consider in all this.
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@Elly ...as does a mom of 14 years, doing my own unfunded and unreviewed study of behavior after too much candy, without the added stimulation of a party or classroom. My suspicion is that the dyed hard candy is a factor, without the benefit of anything else to absorb it (nuts, chocolate, nougat, etc.) This article is disappointing if the net outcome is for parents to disregard the effects of too much sugar on children.
@Elly This former teacher agrees.
My kids would certainly come back from trick or treating very hyper, and since they were around other kids, and particularly other kids parents, I would be much more attuned to their behavior because it is deeply embarrassing to see your kids misbehaving in front of other grown ups that you know are judging you. I always blamed the hyperactivity on the sugar but to be honest the remaining 90% of the candy they ate quietly in their rooms with zero signs of hyperactivity. Also I have noticed that birthday parties have become virtual trade expos for the display of “sensible choices” so the kids get practically no sugar, yet still they become little monsters.
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I had never heard of a link between kids' behavior and sugar consumption before I moved to the U.S. Sugar is problematic, no doubt, but for other reasons. For my own kids, I can see a direct connection between getting them moving and outside every day, and their behavior.
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We ate a lot of sugar in the 1950s, and hyperactivity was practically nonexistent. It was in our cereals, in our Kool-Aid, in our candy, in our Popsickles, etc.
There was also a lot of artificial food dyes in those foods and treats.
The major difference between children in the 1950s and the 1990s (and after) wasn't in their food but was in their activity. We all walked or rode bikes to school. We played outside every day. We moved and moved and moved.
Interesting to me (and it's just an anecdote I know) but we also had more recess in school. We had two 15-minute recesses and then a noon recess after lunch. We played soccer every recess and the girls jumped rope.
Children's natural need to move around was built into our school and into our home lives.
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My mother did not feed us the foods and beverages with sugar in the 50’s and 60’s. Cereals were plain (she called sweetened cereal junk), soda was for your birthday only, etc.
Of course my mom also put us in seat belts and car seats (as pitiful as they were back then). People today think my mom was a genius. She wasn’t. She just used common sense. Children needed to eat real food and were little projectiles in your car if you didn’t restrain them. Duh.
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@Travelers ….1963....about noon, or right after lunch, on a bright, sunny, spring saturday in cincy, ohio, dad kicked us out of the house with mom yelling to us as we split “....and I dont want to see you till dinner!!” And we were off! Runnin’, jumpin’, horsein’ around, throwin’ the ball, rasslin’...you name it! we were constantly moving moving moving....in motion!
Dont give me these sugar studies....they are meaningless....
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@Cooofnj
I guess my mother was a failure compared with yours.
What is the point you are making? Mine was about how much sugar there was in foods in the 1950s, yet the incidence of ADHD was extremely low.
Yours is that your had a better mother than the rest of us.
Duh.
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Many foods that are high in sugar are also high in artificial dyes and preservatives, which HAVE been shown in randomized trials to affect children’s’ behavior. This may explain why some parents report changes in their kids’ behavior after eating sugary foods, but the New England Journal article, which controlled for dyes and preservatives, was a negative study.
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As a doctor, I know that even the most well intentioned studies can be greatly flawed.
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As a layperson, I wonder how doctors choose which studies are legitimate to them and which studies are only well-intentioned.
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@Laura We interpret the data inside the context of our broader experience. So if treatment A beats treatment B in a study, and we have no context for that, we'll go with treatment A. But if a study's result flatly contradicts years of collective observation like this one, then our minds question it. For instance, were the criteria too narrowly defined? Was the sugar representative of the foods that cause the observed effect? Was the study powered properly? And even if it was powered properly, it's possible that studying a real effect might not find it. It's called a false negative result. So, yes, professionals who are trained in data and are used to interpreting +/- incorporating data don't always straightforwardly accept authors' conclusions. There's nothing sinister to it here.
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Getting the kids to go out and exercise more would solve a lot of the hyperactivity problems. I suggest reading the book Spark.
I also know from having two energetic dogs that they are much more focused after a good romp int he woods.
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I’m willing to believe most children don’t have a notable obvious reaction to sugar, but I’ve seen some children react to sugar like it’s speed. Beyond that, sugar may have other negative effects outside the hyperactivity argument. One obvious aspect present in sugar is it lacks nutritional value. Our food should have the most value possible for our bodies. Children’s bodies are growing and therefore benefit all the more from nutrient dense foods. This article does a disservice to children, people who want to defend their negative habits are going to grab hold of this and run with it.
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If the experiment gave kids carbs with sucrose or carbs with aspartame, it’s not surprising that there was little difference. But in the real world, even my 10-year-old knows he does better in school when his breakfast is peanut butter on whole grain rather than 20 grams of sugar in a chocolate glazed donut.
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@Hope ...You need to check the label. Most peanut butter is loaded with sugar.
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For the parents who've observed a sugar high in your kids, is it possible that what you've actually observed is a response to artificial colors and flavors? Both those are known to trigger dusruptive behavior, and are pervasive in sugary foods.
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Could it have been that being at birthday parties, or other social events like family gatherings where sugar is consumed (cake, candy) are just fun and stimulating and often a lot of carbs are consumed and then kids come home all jazzed? Similar to us adults when out socially, but we often use alcohol to blunt the excitement or boredom (!) of being with friends and family.
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There is not only a sugar high, there is a sugar low. Sugar contributes to depression. If you want to be in a better mood generally, stay away from sugar. Also, a study that compares the reactions of children who consume sugar with those who consume artificial sweeteners is not dispositive. I’m incredibly sensitive to both sugar and artificial sweeteners. This story reeks to high heaven. Show me the money. We need to know if the sugar industry paid for this.
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@MaraMDolan yrs, it reads like an Industry PR piece.
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As a parent who observed time and again the immediate effects of too much sugar on my children, I agree with Marci Lowman that there is something wrong with the studies. Observational results may not be measurable in a scientifically rigorous manner but they should not be discounted. I observed the results of too much sugar in a variety of situations so it wasn't only when there were other factors that needed to be taken into account. The only common factors among all my observations were the children and the sugar. And it wasn't just my children -- I observed it in others as well and discussed it with the other parents. And none of us had read the earlier studies -- it was real-world observation.
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It seems worth noting that an alternate interpretation of the results cited here is that artificial sugar affects children’s behavior in a similar manner to real sugar.
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Given how different the chemistries of the various sugar substitutes are from each other and from sugar, that would suggest that the sugar high is a psychological effect.
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@Charles Woods Exactly! The study should compare candy intake to various types of "healthy" food intakes, no food, and just water intake, for example.
@Charles Woods That's my thought, too. They should have included Sugar... and a placebo (no sugar). Not Sugar and a sugary tasting substance.
Sugar makes kids energetic and jittery, then they sugar crash and cry. Somethings wrong with the study metrics. Parents and teachers in it every day know the real deal.
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@Marci Lowman What’s wrong with the study metrics is that they gave kids sugar or aspartame and the “control” was saccharine! We could look at the results and conclude that artificial sugar is just as bad as real sugar, not that sugar doesn’t affect children.
How about measuring student performance after a breakfast of pop tarts and juice vs. toast with peanut butter. As a teacher and parent, I 100% guarantee that kids who eat protein instead of sugar for breakfast focus better.
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The study is essentially troll bait for news article. Posted specifically with a title that goes against most parents natural intuition and everyday experiences; then offering pseudo scientific proof that further attempts to refute this common experience, through whatever technicalities or interpretations may be at play.
Any parent knows that sugar will energize a child temporarily. It will me as an adult as well, but also cause an energy depression not long after. Maybe it isn't hyper activity, or doesn't last as long as we think, but without the troll bait title and catch it wouldn't even get read.
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I was diagnosed with hypoglycemia 3 decades ago. Sugar substitutes produce the same insulin surge then hypoglycemic low as sugar. The body doesn't distinguish between real sugar and sugar substitutes. The study is flawed because they compared people who ate sugar to those who ate artificial sweeteners. Both trigger insulin production.
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@Toni Or one could read the other studies that have the same interpretation with various designs.
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@Toni ....You need to cite the study, because from a scientific point of view the result you have stated does not seem possible.
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@Toni this has not been definitively proven. A few studies have shown *very small* effects on insulin (nothing like the effect shown by sugar). Other studies have shown no effect whatsoever. This has become kind of an urban legend.
https://www.marksdailyapple.com/artificial-sweeteners-insulin/
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I live not in best of 'hoods', however most mornings there are candy wrappers strewn across my lawn. The nearby school has so many 'attention' problems accompanied by many turnover of teachers.
Breakfast candy given by parents bad idea and a shame some parents not know any better!
Me thinks morning light coffee caffeine in their milk make more awake for learning skills instead of squirming in their seats from a sugar high..
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@Harris Most cereals and breakfast bars are no better than cake and candy. Kids need protein, eggs, bacon, a turkey sandwich not candy masquerading as a breakfast bar.
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It is a myth likely to have eternal life. There are mothers out there who would read this article and simply say that they "know" that their child reacts to sugar with acting out or hyperactivity regardless of what some study says...
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@Anne-Marie Hislop
There are already several comments stating this and questioning the research.
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@Anne-Marie Hislop Some of them are posting here. They just "know" that the studies are flawed. Multiple anecdotes ≠ data, folks.
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Not mentioned is the power of self fulfilling prophecy. The myth of sugar causes hyperactivity is known by everyone, including young children. Children get hyper after ingesting sugar because they and their parents expect them to do so.
There has been plenty of research on this phenomena, the power of suggestion and expectations in shaping behaviors.
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As kids growing up in the 1950s and 1960s we ingested a reasonable amount of sugar in the form of an occasional soda, ice cream in summer, homemade apple pie on holidays, and Twinkies when we could prevail upon our parents to supply them.
In Brooklyn, for when company came, dads went to Sutter's or Dubin's or Ebingers and brought back napoleons and eclairs or a chocolate layer cake.
We never acted up after dessert because we weren't allowed to act up. Or maybe we weren't allowed to stuff ourselves, and Coca Cola came in small glass bottles.
Sugar highs? Possibly. No discipline when it comes to eating? Probably.
Acting out? A little different from getting energy from sugar.
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@B. True soda came in 6.5 bottles, and now it's often 20 ounces. Plus it was an occasional treat not everyday. Energy bars, fruit by the foot, all did not exist. But they do now, parents just have to know this stuff is just as bad or worse than a piece of cake.
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@B. Agree. There is a lack of consistent discipline. Having been around a few family/friends that keep telling the kids, stop that, if you keep doing that, blah, blah, blah, just for nothing of consequence coming from it is difficult for me. I could step in with my siblings kids, but the in laws were just terrible kids. I am the mean one, they knew I did not care if they liked me or not. Too many need their kids to like/love them. Humans are born manipulators that know from an early age how to get their way if they are not given perimeters of acceptable behavior.
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Oh Ebingers what a great taste memory for their chocolate cake.
"An extraordinarily rigorous study settled the question in 1994." This study lasted for 3 3-week periods. It is sad that anyone, let alone a researcher, thinks this is sufficient.
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Not only that. They studied 50 kids. How is this small number statistically relevant?
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@Andre Very relevant if you have 100% of the 50, esp. in the broad population which seems to have an increasing no. of ADHD diagnoses, currently @ approx 5-10%. Think a most valid comment here is from Travellers (ie. in 50's/60's we ate a ton of sugar: little obesity or ADHD, but lots of activity/walking/biking).
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@michael And your experience in conducting research is what? Please provide specific numbers and validate them before simply claiming that what they did was insufficient.
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And who funded that study? I’m betting Big Sugar.
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@Thomas
My thoughts exactly. I was going to make a similar comment. Anyone who has tried to avoid or eliminate foods containing sugar when they shop for groceries has been hard pressed to find any.
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@Thomas Yep, ILSI founded in 1978 by a former senior vice president of Coca-Cola (who worked at Coke 1969-2001).
Love the name though---International Life Sciences Institute. Sounds so wholesome. In fact, the NYT did an article on this group on Sept. 16, 2019 titled "A Shadowy Industry Group Shapes Food Policy Around the World", and per the article "...an American nonprofit with an innocuous sounding name that has been quietly infiltrating government health and nutritional bodies around the world."
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And you're right. ILSI funded it
http://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/16/health/ilsi-food-policy-india-brazil-china.amp.html
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The scientists/studies are dead wrong! Anyone who has been with a small child KNOWS a highly sweetened drink, candy or pastry can increase hyperactivity. Sorry, but I’ve seen this occur in 3 separate unrelated children across 2 generations.
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@Greg Payne Okay boomer. And I'm sure you can disprove global climate change when it's a warm day in February, right?
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@Greg Payne my 11 yr old is addicted to sugar (to my frustration) yet she has never had issues with hyperactivity. In my opinion the more reasonable conclusion for seeing hyperactivity is that children naturally become excited before and during sugar intake. It's the anticipation and the experience that makes them "hyper".
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@Chris When you're older, you'll understand how many supposedly irrefutable studies end up later being shown to have used faulty methodology and discredited. One should maintain a healthy skepticism towards any of these studies.
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In the mid 1980"s I read a study which suggested that sugar did not make kids hyper. The thought was that, for the most part, when kids were taking in large amounts of sugar, they were at parties, during Halloween, or, as this article suggests, family gatherings. Activities in other words, that created situations for kids to hype out in the first place. In the study that I read, kids were given sugar as a reinforcer or, with another group, a toy as a reinforcer. Both groups were equally hyper afterward, suggesting that it was the act of reinforcing the activity that caused the kids to get excitable.
I am retired now, but in my over 30 years as a public school elementary teacher and all the sugar consumed over those years, I never did experience my students hyping out over simple consumption of sugar. I did, however, have many students tell me that sugar made them hyper, but then eat a cupcake laden with frosting and they were just fine.
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@ninamoa . Interesting that students told you that sugar made them hyper. Talk about self-fullfilling. I often wondered about that same phenomenon. My daughter would tell me the same thing when she started acting squirrely.
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@ninamoa Yes, exactly. I always said that _showing_ a child a cookie produced as much excitement (or more) as they exhibited after having eaten one.
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Possible hyperactivity is the least concerning of the side effects of a sugar-laden diet. I’m more convinced by the very credible research of Dr. Robert Lustig, which has also been reported in the Times.
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"A study that concluded sugar does not affect behavior or cognitive function" should be abandoned as obsolete. If this is the basis of argument, suggest going back to the drawing board. There might be a great range of differences in children's reactions, but anyone who has ever spent time with children knows that these results are ridiculous.
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@R&L The debunking story is not going to be believed unless it also acknowleges the normal (and not hyperactive) effect of eating sugar when your dragging from being hungry. Many people go from dolor to activity after a high-sugar snack. This personal experience makes them discount reports like this one. I encourage Dr. Kiasco and his peers to acknowledge people's experience, and to indicate that it is different from what is beign debunked.
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@Ruralist Suggest you do some research on your own. You could start with a World authority on the crippling nature of refined sugar on children. He presents the information clearly, concisely and accurately opposed to Dr. Fiasco's research with by sugar company backing.
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I think unbridled sugar consumption is a bad thing. In my experience, it leads to a sleepy coma after ingestion. It does affect you. I try to avoid it as much as possible, but like salt, it's hidden in many, many products, or given a different name, like fructose.
The only real way you can avoid sugar, is to cook from scratch a great deal, or peruse absolutely every label. It's hard. It takes time and persistence, but it can be done. Your body will thank you for the diligence.
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@Pamela L.
I agree with you. I feel pretty good when I do my best to eliminate sugar from my diet. The best way I have found to do that is by preparing my own meals at home, and very long grocery store trips because it takes soooo long to read every label and try to hunt down food that isn't filled with some form of sugar.
Sugar affects some children dramatically but these studies only consider the average. There should be a way to look at idiosyncratic responses of rare kids who cannot regulate their blood sugar and it dramatically affects behavior.
11
I'm certain the myth has been perpetuated because of the idea that sugar provides energy, and that is then extrapolated to "instant" energy, making it seem as if kids do get "high" from sugar.
Many of us have known that this is a myth. Glad to see it published once again.
29
Sugar is to contemporary parents what fat was to the 80’s: a broad dietary fear, useful for instilling nascent eating disorders and marketing processed faux-healthy foods to parents.
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Readers might have more confidence in this article and its claim if the author disclosed where the funding came from for the 1994 study cited. In today’s cynical environment one wonders if the research was supported by the sugar industry or was truly independent of influence. Please tell.
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@Dennis Harper Well, readers could check the link and see the actual published paper, which explicitly states:
Supported by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD24751) and the Clinical Research Centers Branch (RR59), National Institutes of Health, and the Nutrition Foundation-International Life Sciences Institute.
We are indebted to Dan Medenblik, Greg Peak, Lisa Marchman, Bridget Zimmerman, Robert Woolson, and Helen DeEmden for assistance with this research, and to General Mills, Libby's NutraSweet, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Royal Crown for supplying products for the study.
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@Dennis Harper that is an excellent question. Just looked up the original article and saw that the funding came from two government agencies and - wait for it - ILSI (the non-profit organization funded by the beverage industry).
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