Eat · Brain health technique
Minimize added sugars and refined starches
Evidence grade: Essential
“Added sugars” are sweeteners not naturally found in whole foods (table sugar, syrups). “Refined starches” are finely milled grains missing most fiber, white bread, pastries, white rice, crackers.
- Practice
- Eat
- Principle
- Nourishment
- Tactic
- Other Nutritional Strategies
- Health domains
- gut health, inflammation, metabolic, vascular
- Evidence grade
- Essential
- Strength of evidence
- High
- Cost
- High
- Effort
- High
- Time commitment
- Low
How to practice Minimize added sugars and refined starches
Keep added sugar under 25 grams a day (about six teaspoons). Focus on steady energy from fiber-rich carbs. If consuming simple carbohydrates, try to sequence your eating such that protein and fats are consumed before carbs - this will limit glucose spikes. Walking after eating carbs is similarly very helpful for glucose control. People with diabetes, prediabetes, or an APOE ε4 gene likely benefit from being even stricter.
The evidence behind Minimize added sugars and refined starches
High sugar and refined starch spike blood sugar and insulin again and again. Over time this makes cells, including neurons, less responsive to insulin, a pattern which can result in pre-diabetes and eventually diabetes if not prevented earlier. Poor metabolic health (with diabetes as the extreme case) is very strongly linked to dementia risk. People with better blood-sugar control consistently perform better on memory and reasoning tests.
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