Feeling depressed, some candy? Sweets may not make you happy
Fan Zhihong
Unhappy?
Come with a chocolate pie, a macaron biscuit or just booze a can of "Happy Fat House Water (Coke)".
Nowadays, many people believe that although sweet food has the risk of gaining weight, it can regulate people's emotions and bring people happiness.
However, it is not.
After giving people a short period of happiness, sweet foods may quickly make people go back to frustration.
A daily intake of more than 15 grams of sugar is at risk of depression
Related scientific research shows that increasing the intake of sweet drinks may make people more likely to produce negative emotions such as depression and depression.
However, this does not mean that high-sugar beverages such as Coke and Sprite, we can't drink one bite.
Relevant data shows that drinking more than 2 small cups of cola a day will have a negative impact on people's mood. Drinking 3 cans of cola a day can increase the risk of depression by 25%.
Analyzed by sugar intake, a sugar intake of less than 15 grams per day will not increase the risk of depression, but if the sugar intake is between 15 grams and 100 grams, then as the intake increases , The risk of depression will rise.
This result reminds us that if we consume less than 200 grams of yogurt per day, we don’t need to worry.
Because generally speaking, 100 grams of yogurt contains only 7.5 grams of added sugar, and 200 grams of yogurt contains 15 grams of added sugar.
The happiness of sweets is only temporary
Another study done by Japanese scholars also confirmed this.
In a 3-year follow-up study of nearly 1,000 people, Japanese researchers found that people who drink a lot of sweet drinks every day do have an increased risk of depression.
After eliminating influencing factors such as age, gender, and region, the researchers found that those who drink more than 4 cups of sweet drinks a day have a 90% higher risk of depression than those who do not drink 1 cup a week.
At this point, some people may wonder: drinking sweet drinks and eating sweets will indeed make me feel happy. Does the above research reverse the causality?
Maybe it is the people who are prone to depression who want to eat sweets and drink sweet drinks, instead of drinking sweet drinks and eating sweets to make people depressed?
First of all, when Japanese scholars started this study, they conducted a survey on depression of nearly a thousand interviewees, and they were not classified as severely depressed.
In 3 years, I also let the interviewees eat and drink according to their past eating habits. They just surveyed the interviewees regularly and then analyzed the data.
After 3 years of observation and recording, the respondents' depression performance and depression questionnaire were analyzed. The results showed that the depression scores increased the most for those who drank the most sweet drinks.
Second, the short-term and long-term effects of a food are not necessarily the same.
Eating sweets and drinking sweet drinks will indeed make people feel happy now, because the intake of sweets increases serotonin and dopamine, which can temporarily make people feel better.
But a kind of food makes people feel happy in a short time, and may not really help people prevent depression.
Just like taking drugs can make people feel "extremely happy" temporarily, but in the long run, it will never bring people a better psychological state or happiness.
Therefore, sweets can also be regarded as a short-term "happiness anesthetic". In the long term, it will reduce the body's ability to cope with stress and reduce the ability to regulate the nervous system, which is not conducive to preventing depression.
Eat a balanced diet to stay away from depression
As for why eating sweets may cause depression, according to my analysis, the reasons are as follows.
First of all, animal experiments have shown that the proportion of a large amount of added sugar in food will increase the anxiety and depression behavior of animals, and increase the level of cortisol. Especially when animals in the developmental stage consume a large amount of sugar, it will affect the hypothalamus-pituitary gland. -The development of the adrenal axis disrupts the pressure regulation system, thereby increasing the risk of depression.
Secondly, the intake of sweet drinks can easily lead to obesity, and obesity itself can reduce the body's ability to regulate stress.
The relationship between obesity and depression risk has been confirmed by multiple scientific studies.
Third, sweet drinks can cause glucose metabolism disorders and insulin resistance, and this type of metabolic disorders will cause low-grade sustained inflammation, and the release of some inflammatory factors itself will increase the risk of depression.
Finally, some animal experiments have found that if animals are fed a large amount of sugar-added feed for a long time, the number of serotonin 1A receptors in dendritic cells will be reduced.
The decrease in the number of this receptor will affect the synthesis and release of serotonin in the human hypothalamus, which will lead to a decline in the body's ability to cope with external pressure. This mechanism is very important for preventing depression.
In addition, the author believes that another reason sweet foods can cause depression is that sweet drinks consume B vitamins in the human body. When vitamin B1, B6, and niacin are deficient, they will affect nervous system function and neurotransmitter balance. This in turn increases the risk of depression.
Therefore, a balanced diet can help us stay away from depression.
(The author is an associate professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Safety, College of Food Science, China Agricultural University. Source: Scientific rumors platform)