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------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- From [log in to unmask] Fri Jan 12 21:45:46 1996 Received: (root@localhost) by mail.industry.net (8.6.9/8.6.8) id VAA19943; Fri, 12 Jan 1996 21:45:45 -0500 Message-Id: <[log in to unmask]> Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 21:36:31 (EST) Errors-To: "Don Voegeli" <[log in to unmask]> Sender: "Don Voegeli" <[log in to unmask]> From: "Don Voegeli" <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Cc: [log in to unmask] Subject: Sleep & sugar X-Organization: IndustryNET, serving industry professionals. [log in to unmask] X-Deliver-To: don.voegeli Hi all; FWIW, this a rare post from a lurking listener who has learnde a lot from this list. I noticed during my annual Holiday-Cookie-Eating Marathon (still going on) that I seem to be sleeping better and longer than usual. Then I found an answer that I'll gladly accept in a newspaper piece that looks like it's written by the Sugar Cane Grower s Association. MYTH #3: Sweets give you a sugar buzz. "We've done studies evaluating this idea that sugar produces a high, the so-called sugar buzz," said Bonnie Spring, a psychology professor ant the Univ. of Health Sciences at the Chicago Medical School. For most people "the most common reaction is to get sleepy." She explained it this way: When you eat carbohydrates, the amount of glucose in your blood rises. That rise triggers an outpouring of insulin. a pancreatic hormone that lowers the blood glucose level by sending glucose to the muscles for energy or to the liver for storage. But insulin also removes many other compounds called amino acids from the blood. The exception is the amino acid tryptophan. Without the "competition" of the other amino acids, more tryptophan enters the brain, where its effect is to increase a key ner ve chemical, serotonin. This tends to produce drowsiness, even while blood glucose levels are still elevated. At the same time, in those who have a deficient supply of serotonin, sugar can have the opposite effect. A low level of serotonin is linked to seasonal affective disorder (winter depression), nicotine withdrawal, premenstrual syndrome and carbohydrate food craving, Spring said. "With people who show signs of a serotonin deficiency, [sugar] actually gives them energy," she explained. Very "medical" information from a psychology professor. This is an excerpt. E-mail me for the whole thing. Authoritative debunking welcome.