New study suggests a potential link between sugar and men's mental health

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An alarming link has been found between consuming excessive sugar and depression in men while women are not affected, a new study suggested.

Consuming high levels of sugar has been associated with mental illness like depression, according to researchers from University College London (UCL) who have recruited a cohort of 5,000 men and 2,000 women for the Whitehall II, a study of sugar in the diet and common mental health problems, beginning in 1985.

In terms of high intake of sugar, over 67 gram per day, men had higher rates of suffering mental illness than those who had less sugar intake, regardless of whether or not they were overweight.

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The previous sugar-lead mental problem will continuously pose a threat to male participants, even during the period they have less sugar intake, while the relationship between sugar and mental illness had not been found from female participants in this study.

Anika Knüppel, lead author of Whitehall II study, of the UCL Institute of Epidemiology and Health, warned that these studies cannot prove there's a direct causal relationship between additional sugar and mental problems but claimed that there were previous pieces to suggest that additional sugar may affect mental health and would call for a policy action such as the new sugar levy in the UK.

Whereas, the fact that women weren't affected by the sugar as much as men did raised a concern of the accuracy of the study.

Problem is that studies based on self-reported data are naturally flawed as women are under-presented about what they ate in the study and participants don’t always remember what they eat exactly.

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But not only that, sugar intake from alcohol was not counted. All these variables would turn this study into a randomized controlled study.

So far, there isn’t strong proof that sugar directly leads to a mental illness, but there is an increasing number of evidences to suggest that excessive consumption of sugar has bad outcomes that isn’t only related to weight gain.

Tom Sanders, nutrition specialist at King's College London, agreed the results should be applied with caution.

“From a scientific standpoint it is difficult to see how sugar in food would differ from other sources of carbohydrate on mental health, as both are broken down to simple sugars in the gut before absorption and the glycemic index of sugar is less than refined starchy foods such as white bread and rice,” he said.