High sugar consumption is linked to poorer mental health. This is revealed by a study carried out by scientists from the Institute of Epidemiology and Health at University College London, which evaluated the incidence of mental disorders in more than 7,000 people in the United Kingdom between 1983 and 2013. The study determined that those who consumed more than 67 g of sugars per day had a 23% higher risk of suffering from mental problems five years later than those who ate less than 39.5 g per day. This same research also suggests that people with mental health problems who consume a large amount of sugar have a greater risk of relapse into long-term depression.
It is not the only research that links sugar consumption with worse mental health. A study carried out by scientists from the University of Zaragoza, published in the journal Nutrición Hospitalaria, reveals the intimate relationship between diet and mood and points out that “educational interventions aimed at reducing the consumption of unhealthy foods in university students can lead to an improvement in psychological health.”
Thus, taking into account that the consumption of free sugars affects mental health to a greater or lesser extent, Christmas is a particularly delicate period of the year that can increase the risk of suffering from anxiety and depression due to multifactorial causes. It is explained by psychiatrist and psychotherapist Ana Isabel Sanz, from the Ipsias Psychiatric Institute, in Madrid: “Christmas is a time when vulnerable people usually have flare-ups. Even those who are well adjusted may experience mild symptoms. This happens because on these dates we receive a kind of drastic order that we must be happy and be in good harmony with the family environment, we are even questioned for missing those who left. Taking into account that these are times of the year in which we usually take stock, most people find dark areas and this makes us feel bad.” If we add to all this that the diet does not help either, since these are times in which we eat and drink excessively and the intake of sweets increases, a breeding ground is created that gives rise to a greater risk of suffering from some type of disease. imbalance in mental health.
For Sanz, it is important to change the vision we have of Christmas with the aim of better coping with a delicate time of year for many people. “We should not feel guilty if there are things in our environment that do not work and we should be tolerant of our own feelings of sadness or lack of fulfillment. It is important to be compassionate with ourselves and also with the feelings of those around us. The emotions that make us uncomfortable are there for a reason and feeling them makes us be more real, more authentic people,” explains Sanz, who regrets that at this time “the social expectation is so high, so demanding, that it generates a lot of frustration.”
In this sense, maintaining good mental hygiene must go hand in hand with an adequate diet, avoiding the excesses typical of these dates as much as possible. To try to ensure that these do not last beyond what is strictly necessary and could end up affecting our mental health, nutritionist Pilar Esquer, from Nutrihabits, recommends only exceeding the holidays. “Nothing substantial is going to happen if one day we consume more sugar and fat than necessary. The problem on these dates is that we end up eating sweets that we generally do not consume also on days that are not holidays,” she explains. This means that in many homes they eat nougat, polka dots and other foods with large doses of sugar for practically three weeks in a row. And not only that. “In many cases these foods end up being consumed even after the holidays, throughout the month of January,” explains Esquer, who recommends putting all the Christmas leftovers in a garbage bag on January 7 and getting rid of them to avoid temptation. .
The Nutrihabits nutritionist highlights the difference between natural sugars, such as fructose, present in fruit and other foods, and the free sugars that we find especially in ultra-processed foods, pastries, snacks, pre-cooked and even hidden, without us knowing, in some commonly consumed foods such as fried tomato. “When we consume free sugars we feel an almost immediate sensation of energy, since a rise in glucose occurs. The problem is that it also decreases quickly, so we feel that energy drop and the body asks us for more sugar. Many people live without knowing it on that constant roller coaster of glucose rises and falls, something that affects our physical and psychological state much more than we believe and causes the body to end up exhausted.”
Therefore, it is best to resort to sugar naturally present in food, which does not affect the body in the same way. Nutritionist Susana León explains it: “The sugar present in fruits is a combination of fructose, glucose and sucrose – the latter is, in turn, a combination of the other two – in different proportions depending on the fruit, while the added sugar is pure, hard sucrose.” León states that “this type of sugar behaves differently from added sugar because the fruit contains fiber, which slows down the absorption of glucose and therefore prevents a sugar rush from occurring.”
These intrinsic sugars must be distinguished from free sugars, which either appear hidden in some ultra-processed foods or we add ourselves. Sanz explains that when we consume free sugars, “a peak of satisfaction is generated in the brain that produces dopamine, so that we feel active and euphoric for a short period. Then comes the depression and gives rise to a completely opposite mood.” Intuitively, it happens that “we are constantly looking for pleasant sensations, so we enter a cycle of ups and downs that generates a state of disorganized activation of very short duration. That is, without realizing it we are subjecting the body to a state of permanent activation.”
The psychiatrist and psychologist from Ipsias affirms, however, that sugar consumption cannot in itself be considered a trigger for mental disorders. “It is advisable to incorporate healthy dietary habits as a hygienic and complementary measure, that is, preventively, to avoid adding vulnerability factors that can add to work and family stressors and trigger generalized anxiety,” she says.
For Sanz, it is also important to distinguish what exactly is meant by anxiety, with the aim of being able to differentiate it from other disorders and treat it correctly. “Anxiety encompasses a broad spectrum of emotions and physical symptoms. The first thing to be clear about is that it is an emotion, that is, it has cognitive elements, that is, related to thoughts, although it can also incorporate somatic physical elements. To distinguish it from other disorders, it must be taken into account that anxiety is equivalent to fear and that when it occurs with disproportionate intensity we speak of pathological anxiety. Many people mistakenly link anxiety with emotions such as fear, anger or irritability and this happens because our vocabulary tends to discriminate little.”
The psychiatrist points out that even those people who do not have any mental health problems can experience some symptoms on dates as delicate as Christmas. For various reasons, young people tend to be more prone. “They live under the pressure of success and, most importantly, they have fewer tools to defend themselves from what society requires them to be. To have critical thinking and quarantine that demand for success requires skills that only develop with experience, so young people are much more vulnerable to the feeling of failure,” explains Sanz.
To know if anxiety symptoms require treatment, the psychiatrist and psychotherapist invites us to evaluate “if it lasts a long time, if it makes it difficult for us to relate to our environment, if it distances us from our usual activities, if it alters some of our thoughts and makes us reach the conclusion that life has no meaning.” If this situation occurs, it is best to seek professional help. “The desirable thing is, as in any other disease, prevention,” explains Sanz. It is best to anticipate and act before having to prescribe medical treatment or even regulated psychotherapy. “It’s about preserving health before treating the disease, which is much easier if you act in time.”
