Sugar Contributes To Mood and Anxiety Disorders: What You Need To Know

Being addictive, sugar can lead to cravings and be a major contributor to anxiety disorders and mood disorders like depression. Learn what you can do.


To a baby, sweetness means mother’s milk.






Let’s take a look at the complicated relationship between sugar and your mental health.

Along the way, you’ll find out how sugar actually affects your brain and how this keeps you coming back for more.

Glucose — The Brain’s Main Energy Source

To understand how sugar (sucrose) impacts you, we need to take a look at its two components, glucose and fructose.



It is essential to life.

It circulates in your blood and provides energy to all of your cells especially your brain cells which use a disproportionate amount of energy compared to other cells. (1)

And since brain cells can’t store energy, they need a steady supply of  glucose.

While your liver can break down stored fat to produce ketones to feed the brain in a pinch, most people’s brains run on glucose most of the time.

Why Added Fructose Is a Problem

Fructose is another simple sugar naturally found in fruit and sweet vegetables like carrots, beets and yams. (2)


Refined sugars like white sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and even “healthier” sweeteners like honey and maple syrup are roughly half glucose and half fructose.

A diet high in added fructose raises blood fructose levels — and this is a health disaster.


It increases the risk of obesity and diabetes. (6)

And it contributes to chronic inflammation, an underlying cause of many health conditions of both the body and the brain.

Sugar and Depression

The evidence is clear.

There’s a strong correlation between sugar consumption and depression. (7, 8)

You may turn to sugar when you’re feeling blue.

It may make you feel better temporarily, but, in fact, sugar fuels your depression.

Here are the main ways sugar contributes to depression.

Sugar Increases Serotonin

Most antidepressant medications work by increasing brain levels of the “happiness” neurotransmitter serotonin.

When you’re feeling down and indulge in foods with a high sugar content, you are actually self-medicating.

Eating refined sugars, white flour, and other processed carbohydrates gives you the fastest serotonin boost. (9)

But this lift is short-lived, lasting only an hour or two before you crash.

A smarter long-term strategy for increasing serotonin is to eat healthy carbohydrates.

Oddly, when carbs and protein are eaten together, the presence of protein blocks serotonin synthesis. (10)


Learn exactly how to strategically eat carbs to curb depression in our article on increasing serotonin with food.

Sugar Increases Brain Inflammation

The medical consensus is that depression is caused by a lack of two feel-good brain chemicals, mainly serotonin and sometimes dopamine.

Millions of people are prescribed antidepressants based on this model of depression.

However, another promising theory is emerging — the “cytokine model of depression.” (11)

Related articles on Be Brain Fit —
Brain Inflammation May Be the Cause of Your Depression

This foundation of this theory is that brain inflammation is the root cause of depression.

Cytokines are immune system messengers that regulate inflammation.

Inflammatory cytokines have been linked to depression, anxiety, memory loss, brain fog, inability to focus, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, stroke and Alzheimer’s. (121314)

Currently, the most popular antidepressants are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) which are thought to work by increasing serotonin levels.

But now there’s evidence that SSRIs are anti-inflammatory.

So it’s quite possible that being anti-inflammatory, not serotonin-boosting, is the property responsible for their antidepressant effect. (15)

Sugar Suppresses a Natural Antidepressant


BDNF stimulates the formation of new brain cells and protects the brain from neurodegenerative diseases. (16)

It also acts like a natural antidepressant. (17)

But sugar, especially when combined with high fat intake, decreases BDNF production. (1819)

Lower levels of BDNF are associated with numerous brain-related conditions including depression, OCD, schizophrenia, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease. (20)

Sugar and Anxiety

Just as you may eat sugar to lighten your mood, you may also eat it to relax when you are feeling stressed or anxious.

In the short term stress can depress appetite, but chronic stress increases appetite by raising levels of the stress hormones cortisol and epinephrine and the hunger hormone ghrelin. (21)

Stress also affects food preferences, making you crave sugar, fat or both.


There’s evidence that bingeing on sugar can induce anxiety independently of hypoglycemia, but hypoglycemia is undoubtedly a major physical cause of stress and anxiety. (22, 2324)

The Hypoglycemia-Anxiety Connection

Hypoglycemia occurs when your blood sugar level drops too low.

The symptoms of anxiety and hypoglycemia are so similar that doctors have been misdiagnosing hypoglycemia as anxiety for decades. (25)



You can also experience what’s known as relative or reactive hypoglycemia. (2627)

This occurs when the symptoms of low blood sugar are present even though your actual blood sugar level is in the normal range.

The Blood Sugar Roller Coaster


Your body responds by making insulin which causes your blood sugar level to drop.

When your brain doesn’t get the fuel it needs, your adrenal glands kick in to release epinephrine and cortisol.

This causes stored sugar to be released to bring your blood sugar level back to normal. (28)

But these stress hormones are also released when you are in “fight or flight” mode and can ramp up anxiety. (29)roller-coaster

If you suspect your anxiety is related to hypoglycemia, it’s critical that you limit your intake of all refined carbohydrates and eat protein, healthy fats, and complex carbohydrates instead.

And consider taking a magnesium supplement.

Taking 340 mg of magnesium per day can stabilize blood sugar in people with hypoglycemia. (30)

Why You Crave Sugar and What You Can Do About It

Knowing that sugar contributes to anxiety and depression won’t stop you from craving sugar.

In a weird way, your brain doesn’t “care” where the glucose comes from — healthy or unhealthy sources — as long as it gets enough.

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but the main cause of sugar cravings is sugar!

Related articles on Be Brain Fit —
The Importance of Vitamins for Depression

Natural Antidepressants: 14 Proven Ways to Beat Depression Without Drugs

White sugar is so highly refined that its effects on the brain are more drug-like than food-like. (31)

Sugar meets all of the criteria of an additive substance.

The lure of sugar is so strong that it’s been compared to hardcore drugs.

Let’s take a look at how sugar hijacks your brain to make you want more.

Sugar, Dopamine, and the Pleasure-Reward System

Throughout most of human history, finding enough food was a struggle and sweet foods were scarce.

So when our ancestors found a patch of wild berries or an empty beehive, it was a rare sweet treat!

And this fortunate find gave them a nice boost of the neurotransmitter dopamine.

Dopamine is the “movitation molecule” that’s also in charge of your pleasure-reward system. (32)

It gives you that “I want more!” and “Let’s do this again!” feeling when you experience something enjoyable.

Refined sugar floods your brain with dopamine as do all addictive substances and behaviors like recreational drugs, nicotine, caffeine, alcohol and gambling. (33)

Sugar Cravings from Food Reactions

You may also experience sugar cravings if you eat foods to which you are allergic or sensitive.

The most likely culprits for food allergies are dairy, eggs, seafood, wheat, soy, and nuts. (34)

You don’t have to be truly allergic for a food to make you crave sugar.

You may simply be intolerant to a certain food.

Reasons for food intolerances include lactose intolerance, gastroesophageal reflux (GERD), and enzyme deficiencies. (35)

Sugar Cravings from Artificial Sweeteners

Brain scans reveal that artificial sweeteners confuse the brain and don’t diminish the desire for sugar. (36)

In fact, they increase appetite, hunger, and sugar cravings even more than sugar. (3738)

By changing your intestinal microbiome they also cause your blood sugar level to vary more than normal. (39)

When Sugar Cravings Are a Cry for Nutrients

Sugar cravings can be a signal that your body is starving for nutrients.

You may need more macronutrients like fat or protein or you may be missing important micronutrients like the B complex vitamins, vitamin D or omega-3 essential fatty acids. (40)

Hormonal-Based Sugar Cravings

PMS, menopause and pregnancy all have women craving sweets.

A whopping 97% of all women report sugar cravings compared to 68% of men. (41)

Men, on the other hand, more often crave meat, and turn to alcohol and cigarettes when stressed, anxious or depressed.

Sugar Meets the Criteria of an Addictive Substance

Sugar addiction is not yet recognized as a psychological disorder by the American Psychiatric Association or the World Health Organization.

But the latest research supports that sugar addiction is real. (42)

Sugar exhibits all the hallmarks of an addictive substance:

  • You can’t eat sugar in moderation.
  • You often have more than you planned.
  • You consume mindlessly, not really enjoying it.
  • You eat it to the point of feeling unwell.
  • You think about sugar even when you are full.
  • You feel guilty after eating but immediately want more anyway.
  • You feel out of control.
  • You lie about or hide your habit from others.

Do any of these sugar addiction symptoms sound familiar?

Some research indicates that sugar may be as addictive as heroin and cocaine! (43)

The average American eats their weight in sugar every year. (44)

If you are among them, you may well have a sugar addiction.

Processed Food Is Intentionally Addictive

And if all that isn’t enough, there is an insidious scheme to get you hooked on sugar.

Investigative journalist Michael Moss revealed in his book Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us that food manufacturers employ teams of scientists to find the perfect balance of sugar, fat, and salt called the “bliss point” to make their products intentionally addictive. (45)

These processed foods trigger a flood of dopamine.

This explains why you may find yourself staring at the bottom of an empty cookie jar when you vowed you’d have only one or two.

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