ADHD Lab

Sugar Affects Your Brain

If you ever had too much sugar and felt your brain going into a fog, you know that sugar affects your brain.

If you’ve ever watched a kid eat a lot of sugar and start acting like a kid tornado, you know that sugar affects the brain.

Although scientific research has not proven this, sugar makes ADHD symptoms worse.

And for the record – when I say sugar I mean any food with a high glycemic index.

Don’t believe me?  Try eating something with a lot of sugar (a can of pop will do the trick) or giving it to your child, and watch what happens.

The key is in paying attention to changes in mood and behavior.

Everybody that I have spoken to has found that sugar does indeed have a drastic effect, especially on people with ADHD.

So what can you do?

First of all, really try to avoid foods with a high glycemic index.

Eliminate junk food as much as possible.

Second, when you eat carbohydrates, or foods with sugar, make sure to take some protein with it.  Protein levels out the highs and lows of sugar in your bloodstream and therefore evens out the amount of sugar that gets to your brain.

I have found that protein really helps in  minimizing the effect of sugar on the brain, and can often even eliminate symptoms (of course, it depends on the amount of sugar you just had)

In fact, since you don’t want to have drastic sugar highs or lows in your bloodstream, eating small frequent meals with some (complex) carbohydrates and protein is a good idea.

If you are unnverved by ADHD symptoms in you or your child, seriously consider the amount of sugar you have in your diet.