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A high-sugar diet consumption, metabolism and health impacts with a focus on the development of substance use disorder: A narrative review
Carbohydrates are essential macronutrients for both rodent and human dietary patterns. Carbohydrates are involved in key metabolic processes as sources of energy and are critical to homeostasis. The regulation of sugar metabolism and consumption involves several nervous and hormonal controls to maintain energy balance. Processed foods contain significant amounts of added sugars, which lead to cardiovascular, nervous, and metabolic derangements. Current epidemiological evidence demonstrates an uptrend in the consumption of sweet food items by both children and adults (including reproductive-age adults and pregnant women), which may impact future offspring’s health and pertinence to develop physical and mental pathological conditions during early life and adulthood. In this narrative review by Witek, Wydra & Filip (2022), the authors investigate how high-sugar diets (HSD) and sugar intake (particularly, fructose and glucose) during the perinatal and/or postnatal periods of life impact behavioral and neural development and its influence on substance use disorder (SUD), a disorder that could be predicted by some emotional and behavioral cues that were found to be influenced by HSD, in addition to stress, depression, and anxiety. These facts postulate viewing added sugars as a type of food addiction, able to modulate cerebral reward neurotransmission signaling, similar to the effect of food and other addictive substances. Through a search of Scopus, PubMed and the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute open-access scientific journals, the authors gathered relevant experimental studies, reviews, and epidemiological data (1990 – inception) and presented them in their review. [NPID: Carbohydrates, fructose, glucose, high sugar diet, predictors of SUD, substance use disorder, sucrose, sugar, vulnerability to SUD]
Year: 2022
