Sugar and Violent Behavior

Eating high levels of sugar can cause violent behavior. Research demonstrates that high sugar diets promote violence because whenever the limbic system and the cerebral cortex have to vie for scant supplies of glucose, the limbic system always wins. With a high sugar diet, the body is left depleted of blood sugar when a hit of dietary sugar wears off, because insulin is released to shut down the body’s production of glucose; the limbic part of the brain then gobbles up the available glucose, starving the cerebral cortex and thereby making emotional behavior dominant (the limbic system is in control) and pushing rational behavior into the background. Eating less sugar and eating more healthly fat and protein is key for keeping balanced brain activity.

Daryl Conant, M.Ed.