The Myth of the “Sugar High”
I love sugar. I really really love sugar. I generally think of dinner as something I have to endure to get to dessert. In March of this year I stared a monthly cookie/dessert exchange where my friends and I get together under the pretext of exchanging cookies/desserts and their recipes but it’s actually just an excuse to sit around with my friends, talk, laugh, and eat a lot of sugar.
After a particularly good Cookie Exchange I updated my Facebook status with “Jessie is loving the sugar high from Cookie Exchange this afternoon.” A couple of my friends commented on my status informing me that there is no such thing as a “sugar high”.
This seemed crazy to me, I thought it was common knowledge that eating a lot of sugar gives you a buzzed feeling and makes you hyper. Kids go crazy and run around like Tasmanian devils at birthday parties and holidays because of all the sugar, right? Wrong.
It turns out my smarty-pants friends were right, according to The Journal of the American Medical Association’s 1995 meta analysis, sugar does not cause hyperactivity.
JAMA’s Meta analysis looked at 23 studies where children were given food or drinks containing a known quantity of sugar or artificial sweetener (placebo) and their behavior was observed and tested afterward. The tests were double blinded, meaning that neither the children, parents nor the researchers knew which children were getting the sugar and which were getting the placebo.
The conclusion was:
“The meta-analytic synthesis of the studies to date found that sugar does not affect the behavior or cognitive performance of children. The strong belief of parents may be due to expectancy and common association. However, a small effect of sugar or effects on subsets of children cannot be ruled out.”
Although they stop short of saying that sugar has absolutely no effect on children’s behavior, the evidence was very compelling that sugar does not affect the behavior of an average healthy child.
Even confronted with this evidence it can be difficult to believe. I’ve heard people grudgingly accept that it may not cause hyperactivity in children but insist that it causes rapid spikes and falls in blood sugar levels which create the feeling of the “Sugar Rush” and the “Sugar Crash”.
The fact of the matter is, if you are healthy, not diabetic and do not have impaired glucose tolerance, your body does a very good job of producing insulin and regulating your blood sugar levels.
When your kid eats half of his Halloween candy before you can stop him, his body takes care of it by producing a bunch of insulin that keeps his blood sugar in the normal range. Diabetics don’t produce enough insulin to regulate their blood sugar and can experience high levels of blood sugar and their symptoms are frequent urination, thirst, hunger, weight loss, fatigue, irritability and blurry vision. This is NOT how people describe a “sugar high” in themselves or in their children.
“But when I’m hungry and I eat a sugary snack in the afternoon I feel a sugar rush.”
Most likely what you feel is your body responding to having fuel, any fuel. You were hungry and now your body has something to burn. Sugar and simple carbohydrates are absorbed into your body quickly so you may feel the effect of having fuel sooner then if you ate protein.
The “Sugar Crash” is attributed to a sharp drop in blood sugar or low blood sugar with is called Hypoglycemia. According to Harriet Hall (the totally awesome and generous SkepDoc):
”Hypoglycemia was a popular “pseudo disease” a few decades ago: all sorts of vague symptoms were attributed to low blood sugar or rapid drops in blood sugar, and patients were advised to avoid sugar and eat protein. When they actually tested blood sugar levels, this idea didn’t hold up. Real hypoglycemia does occur – in diabetics and people with certain other diseases.”
WebMD describes MILD symptoms of hypoglycemia as nausea, extreme hunger, feeling nervous or jittery, cold, clammy, wet skin and or excessive sweating, a rapid heartbeat, numbness in the fingertips and lips and trembling. Again, not how people describe a sugar crash.
So why do so many people, myself included—until recently—talk about a “sugar high” as if it is a fact and why do so many parents insist that sugar makes their kids hyper?
1) In my opinion, it doesn’t seem crazy to assume that something you ingest could affect the way you feel or behave. When I take aspirin, my headache goes away, when I drink alcohol, I tell everyone how awesome they are and act like a moron.
2) Children can be sensitive to caffeine and may be reacting to the small amounts of caffeine that are found in chocolate and soda.
3) Kids often get lots of sugar at a special event like Halloween, Christmas, or a birthday party. Special events are exciting and fun and can make kids hyper. If I was at a birthday party where I got to run around with 20 of my friends, hit a piñata, and jump in a bounce house, I would act hyper, too!
4) The big one and the hardest to swallow is parental expectation. We see what we expect to see. There was a study done at The Menningar Clinic and published in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology that showed how strong expectations can affect the parent’s perception of their child’s behavior.
In this study all mothers identified their children as “sugar sensitive”. All the children were given a placebo (aspartame) but half of the mothers were told that their child was given a large amount of sugar. The mothers who thought their child was given sugar tended to stay physically closer to their child, criticized, looked at and talked to their children more then the parents who knew their children had the placebo. The mothers who thought their children ate sugar also rated their children as significantly more hyperactive the control group.
5) Children respond to subtle and not so subtle cues parents give them. If they hear parents talking about how all kids go wild every time they eat cake, they think they’re supposed to go wild after eating cake.
Even though I feel a little silly for falling for the myth of the sugar high, I still love sugar! I’m not advocating eating lots of sugar all the time or saying that eating sugar is healthy, but I’m glad to know that sugar doesn’t cause hyperactivity or any spikes in blood sugar that my body can’t handle. It’s just one fewer thing to worry and feel guilty about. So at my next Cookie Exchange I will enjoy my sugar a little more knowing that I feel “high” because I love eating baked goods and talking with my friends not because all the sugar is doing something weird to my body.
Dan Said,
December 2, 2008 @ 3:05 am
I’m totally baffled by this, having two small, as I’v always thought, sugarhyped kids myself. But true skeptic as I am I will concede to the scientific proff presented. My only problem with this fact is trying to convince my parental friends about it. And horror, my wife.
Aaron Helton Said,
December 2, 2008 @ 7:12 am
It’s funny how conventional wisdom can so utterly fail us. I’m a parent of a naturally active boy, and I can tell you flat out that sugar has nothing to do with it (except when that’s all he wants to eat and throws a tantrum to try to get his way).
Thanks for the enlightening post!
shirky Said,
December 2, 2008 @ 8:20 am
There is definitely something to the ‘party’ hypothesis. Mine goes nuts whenever he has an audience or a partner in crime, even though he has declared cupcakes “yucky”.
There may also be something in the candy and frosting to blame besides sugar:
Primary source: The Lancet Online
Source reference:
McCann D et al. “Food additives and hyperactive behaviour in 3-year-old and 8/9-year-old children in the community: a randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial.” Lancet Online DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(07)61306-3.
jennie m Said,
December 2, 2008 @ 8:49 am
Wonderful post! A great read. Also… how do I score an invite to one of your cookie parties??
Dawn Said,
December 2, 2008 @ 10:14 am
This was a great post! Right on the money. From someone who really does “get” to experience the sugar high spikes (being a diabetic), it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
Martin Baby Blog » Diaper Daily News - 12/2/08 Said,
December 2, 2008 @ 8:15 pm
[...] The Myth of the “Sugar High” [...]
Jane Hersey Said,
December 2, 2008 @ 9:36 pm
Well, despite what a particular study might conclude, a mother’s observations should be given more respect. There are a lot of problems inherent in this issue. For example:
*Different people have different tolerances to sugar and to other foods.
*A person’s ability to handle sugar can depend on whether they have just finished a good meal or if they eat in on an empty stomach. (The same is true for alcohol and caffeine.)
*Very few processed foods now actually use “sugar” — they are much more likely to use corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup.
*If corn sweeteners are found in most candies, and a study uses table sugar, they are looking at two different things.
*Most people confuse “sugar” and “candy” but they are entirely different things. Candy contains large amounts of sweeteners, but many candies also contain synthetic dyes, artificial flavors, and a variety of other chemicals that have been found to trigger hyper behaviors in most children.
*When people remove “sugar” from a child’s diet and find that he calms down, chances are they have actually removed highly sugared cereals, soft drinks, etc., all of which are also loaded with synthetic chemical additives.
*There is now a great deal of research to show that chemical additives such as food dyes can trigger a wide range of behavior and learning problems. See http://www.diet-studies.com.
*Most of the dyes used in our food today are made from petroleum, and the majority of them start out in petroleum refineries in China. What’s more our Food and Drug Administration allows them to contain residues of dangerous impurities like lead, mercury and arsenic.
*While artificial food dyes have been used for many years, their use has increased drastically. The use of these dyes in food has increased 500% between 1955 and 2005!
The good news is that nobody has to eat petroleum! There are plenty of favorite foods available without harmful additives and natural dyes can be used to make food colorful and appealing. The non-profit Feingold Association of the US shows families how to find these foods. See http://www.feingold.org for lots of information on how to make simple changes in your food that can bring about a big difference.
So, Mom, dust off your self-respect. When it comes to your kid, YOU are the expert. There are lots of studies and they show lots of different things. Generally, the studies showing that sugar has no down side have been funded by….guess who! The Sugar Association! Gee, do you think they might have a stake in the outcome? We would all like to believe that scientific inquiry is not contaminated with special interested and doctored results. Some are, but many are not. We would all like to believe in Santa Claus too!
Diane Said,
December 3, 2008 @ 8:28 am
Oh for heavens sake. Why is it so hard to accept that sugar doesn’t cause a sugar high? Of course, too much of any one thing is not good for anyone–a diet of sugar isn’t healthy, anymore than a diet of nothing but broccoli would be. My mother in law thinks that any amount of alcohol makes her drunk, so if she thinks she’s drinking something alcoholic, she immediately starts acting drunk, even if her drink is virgin. Kids whose parents think they are “sugar sensitive” fulfill those expectations very nicely. Unless one is actually allergic to something (meaning needs an epipen), I think being relaxed about food makes everyone happier. So chill out, enjoy your meals, and enjoy your parties.
chanson Said,
December 3, 2008 @ 10:12 am
My two boys are very rowdy and active, but they don’t really have that much of a sweet tooth, so I don’t have much personal experience with this question. But before reading this article, I’d assumed that the “sugar high” was fact — I didn’t even realize it was scientifically in question!
Rebecca Said,
December 3, 2008 @ 10:33 am
Thanks for the post! It reminds me of the time we were at a 1st birthday party and watched in gleeful anticipation as the birthday girl got to dig into her first ever sugar-infused item: birthday cake. We were giggling and excited, ready for her to freak out or get all happy or gobble it up or something. What a disappointment! She took a few bites, didn’t seem to think anything of it one way or another, and wanted her mom to pick her up.
I think the comparison with alcohol is apt. Sugar comes with a lot of social expectations, and even if it’s not a birthday party it might be a “special treat” or “fun to share with mommy” or whatever – we probably don’t give sugar stuff to our kids without cuing them to react to it somehow.
Anyway – I want to know about your sugar parties! Do you guys all just make something and bring it over, like a dessert potluck? Sugar is my only remaining vice, and I like the idea of cultivating it.
JessieMarion Said,
December 3, 2008 @ 10:52 am
Ah.. the sugar party. I call them “Cookie Exchange” but I don’t think they are what is typically thought of as a cookie exchange. The second Sunday of every month we all bake a batch of whatever cookie/pie/confection we like and bring it over to my house. (Sometimes we have an optional theme like “Pie” or “Halloween” but it’s usually very loose.) Everyone prints out the recipe, or emails it to me for me to print out. We all get a physical or digital copy of the recipe and most importantly we sit around and EAT some of everything. The eating only takes a few minutes but we end up chatting for hours. When we it’s time to go, we divide up whatever goodies remain and take them home to our significant others. It’s a good time!
Ingrid Said,
December 4, 2008 @ 2:26 pm
Interesting post. I wasn’t aware of the study. So much for that excuse for bad behavior of children. Too bad they didn’ t have this info when the guy who shot Harey Milk used the “Twinkie Defense”!
RationalMoms.com « FreeThought Fort Wayne Said,
December 10, 2008 @ 12:29 pm
[...] The Myth of the “Sugar High” A couple of my friends [informed] me that there is no such thing as a “sugar high”. [...]
Angeline Said,
June 13, 2009 @ 7:46 pm
I don’t want to be a party pooper, but it isn’t any mystery that a “sugar high” is a sudden spike in glucose that causes a “sugar crash” which is a sudden huge dump of insulin to compensate for the imbalance. An entire dieting industry – The Zone, Atkins – is based on that glucose/insulin relationship. I have no doubt that the study says there’s no such thing as a “sugar high”, but I would look a little closer at what criteria they used to measure it, what kind of and how much sugar they administered, who sponsored the study, as well as a number of other things including their definition of “sugar high”. This is one study among an enormous body of evidence to the contrary — including type II diabetes research, immune system response to glucose research… I’m not so sure.
Julie Said,
June 13, 2009 @ 8:40 pm
Hm…I wonder if high in this context really should be “rush.” The study is really just talking about behavior.
carolyn Said,
January 27, 2010 @ 1:52 am
I was a war baby and we were glad of sugar…we had sugar sandwiches for tea sometimes, when there was nothing else.. My grandson is a victim of this so called ’sugar rush’ what a load of old condswallup that is … My children were never badly behaved because of sugar…they just mis behaved as perfectly balanced ‘boys’ but I never blamed it on their sugar intake…it was just normal….generally they were very well behaved and were NEVER ‘hyper’…