Sugar may help relieve stress
Sugar reduces cortisol, the stress hormone. Scientists recruited 19 female volunteers, for 12 days, eight of them consumed beverages sweetened with aspartame, an artificial sweetener. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
- The senior author, Kevin D. Laugero, a nutritionist with the Agriculture Department, said one should not conclude that sugar should be used as a stress reducer.
Many people consume sweets in response to stress. Now researchers may have discovered why.
Sugar reduces cortisol, the stress hormone. Scientists recruited 19 female volunteers, for 12 days, eight of them consumed beverages sweetened with aspartame, an artificial sweetener.
The rest drank an identical beverage containing 25 per cent table sugar.
Before and after the experiment, researchers measured volunteers’ saliva cortisol levels and performed magnetic resonance imaging scans while they took arithmetic tests beyond their abilities — a procedure known to increase cortisol levels.
The study, in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, found no differences in the tests between the two groups before the 12-day diet.
But afterward, cortisol levels were lower in the sugar consumers and higher in the aspartame group.
The postdiet MRI scan showed more activity in the areas of the brain controlling fear and stress in the sugar group, and less activity in the aspartame group.
The senior author, Kevin D. Laugero, a nutritionist with the Agriculture Department, said one should not conclude that sugar should be used as a stress reducer.
But, he said, “the finding is intriguing because it suggests that there is a metabolic pathway sensitive to sugar outside the brain that may expose new targets for treating neurobehavioral and stress-related conditions.”
