Staying Healthy in the Fast Lane

staying healthy in the fast lane

Sugars and Your Hormones

The simplest way to give your hormones a break when it comes
to sugar consumption is to eat it either as whole fruit or intact in
legumes, vegetables, nuts and seeds, and/or whole grains. These
forms of complex sugars put less stress on your adrenal glands,
pancreas, and liver, producing a smoother blood sugar rise and fall.
The popular term is to eat low glycemic foods. Usually, but not
always, low glycemic foods are found in whole, unrefined plant
foods, especially beans, lentils, peas, and some pastas. Yes, I said
pastas! Most pastas have a better glycemic index than breads. Of
course eat whole grain pastas when you can. Shoot for eating low
glycemic, unprocessed carbohydrate-rich foods (GI < 55; glyce-
micindex.com).

Sugar and Your Brain

Your brain doesn’t like to be without two things for too long:
oxygen and sugar. A lack of either can cause mental fogginess, dif-
ficulty thinking, irritability, or even headaches in some.
Your brain cells use more than twice the energy as other cells
in your body. Neurons require high energy because they’re always
working metabolically. Even during sleep, neurons are repairing
and rebuilding. Neurons manufacture enzymes and neurotrans-
mitters that are transported to the ends of their nerve branches,
which takes energy. Nerve transmission is a very energy-intensive
use of glucose, consuming one-half of all the brain’s energy (nearly
10 percent of the whole body’s energy).^9
Thinking can be exhausting. Glucose can be rapidly used up
during mental activity. Reduced amounts of glucose can impair
acetylcholine synthesis, which is an important neurotransmitter
in the brain for memory.^10
A sugary snack or soft drink that quickly raises your blood
sugar level can give you a boost, especially if it has caffeine added
to it, but this is generally for a short period of time. As previously
mentioned, when you eat something that causes a rapid rise in