Using sugar to relieve stress?
Are sugary drinks helping to relieve our stress?
Find yourself scrambling for comfort food when you're feeling stressed? Researchers think they've discovered why that may be.
According to a study released in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, drinking sugar-sweetened beverages suppresses cortisol – the hormone secreted when the body is responding to stress. However, the same cannot be said for diet beverages using the artificial sweetener aspartame.
"This is the first evidence that high sugar -- but not aspartame -- consumption may relieve stress in humans," study author, Kevin D. Laugero, PhD, of the University of California, Davis, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service, said in a news release. "The concern is psychological or emotional stress could trigger the habitual overconsumption of sugar and amplify sugar's detrimental health effects, including obesity."
Nineteen women between the ages of 18 and 40 were examined for 12 days. Researchers separated the participants into two groups. Eight women drank strictly artificially sweetened beverages, while the remaining 11 consumed sugar-sweetened beverages.
Over the course of the study's time period, the women drank their assigned beverages at breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Prior to the experiment, researchers monitored the brain's stress response in the women using MRI screenings after they were asked to solve mathematical problems. They also measured cortisol levels using salvia tests. The same protocol followed the conclusion of the 12-day trial.
Researchers found that the women who consumed the sugar-sweetened drinks displayed a diminished cortisol reaction to the math tests and exhibited more activity in the hippocampus – a section of the brain responsible for short-term memory directly affected by increased stress levels – than the women who drank the aspartame-sweetened beverages.
With nearly 35 percent of American adults obese and half of the population consuming sugary drinks daily, Laugero believes the research might provide a parallel to why people are tempted to reach for comfort foods when stressed.
"The results suggest differences in dietary habits may explain why some people under react to stressful situations and others overreact," he said.