Hello everyone! This is the owner of Fusubon.

I'm sure we've all had the experience of feeling sleepy after a meal or tired and eating chocolate to make us feel happy.

When you eat something sweet, you feel a sense of happiness as nutrients reach your brain, right?

This time, I'd like to write about feeling sleepy after meals and the feeling of happiness that comes from eating something sweet.

Why do we feel sleepy after eating in the first place?

Normally, a healthy person's blood sugar level is around 80 to 90 mg/dl.

It is said that blood sugar levels within 140mg/dl one hour after a meal are normal, but I think that if possible, you should aim to keep your blood sugar level at 120mg/dl, or at most 140mg/dl. Rather than thinking about how much carbohydrate you should consume, you should think about what your post-meal blood sugar level should be.

When blood sugar levels rise, insulin is secreted and sugar is absorbed into the body.

At this time, let's say your blood sugar level has risen to 130mg/dl. If your blood sugar level before the meal was 90mg/dl, then it would be best if insulin was secreted to reduce it by exactly 40mg/dl, but the pancreas does not have such an exquisite regulatory function, and so it generally secretes a lot of insulin. One might think that the only way to avoid hypoglycemia is to consume a lot of sugar, but the opposite is true. Hypoglycemia is a phenomenon that occurs when you consume too much sugar.

This causes your blood sugar level to fall below the initial level of 90 mg/dl. It is said that you feel drowsy the moment your blood sugar level falls, and feel fatigued when your blood sugar level is lower than the original level .

A project involving taxi drivers at Hinomaru Kotsu Co., Ltd. has demonstrated that limiting carbohydrate intake reduces post-meal drowsiness and improves work efficiency.

Hinomaru Transportation Co., Ltd. website

Happiness is caused by dopamine and other neurochemicals in the brain

When your blood sugar level is lower than the original level, consuming something sweet (carbohydrates) will cause your blood sugar level to exceed the initial value of 90 mg/dl, causing the brain to release neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine.

These brain neurochemicals have a drug-like quality that gives us a sense of well-being and relaxation. This is one of the reasons why eating chocolate when we are tired makes us feel energized. I think we are designed to feel this way because there have been long periods of famine in human history and we wanted to store fat.

As a result, too much insulin is produced, causing hypoglycemia, which makes you want to eat something sweet again; it becomes impossible to break the cycle of craving sweets, just like with drugs, alcohol, and tobacco.

It's not sugar itself that's bad, but the fluctuations in blood sugar levels and the large amounts of insulin secreted that have a negative effect.

While there are no problems with blood sugar levels fluctuating, secreting a lot of insulin can exhaust the pancreas and put you at risk for developing diabetes.

When insulin is secreted, a lot of active oxygen is also produced, which makes the body more susceptible to oxidation.

In addition, sustained high levels of insulin in the blood also promote the accumulation of amyloid beta, which is the cause of Alzheimer's disease.

In addition, as blood sugar levels fluctuate, large amounts of active oxygen are produced by cells, causing inflammation in the walls of blood vessels.

When inflammation occurs in the wall of a blood vessel, immune cells gather to repair it, enter the inside of the damaged blood vessel wall, thickening the wall and narrowing the inside of the blood vessel.

This is called "arteriosclerosis." People whose blood sugar levels fluctuate rapidly will gradually develop arteriosclerosis, which will eventually increase their risk of developing myocardial infarction or cerebral infarction.

There may be cases where hypoglycemia occurs simply because someone has not eaten for a long time, but whether it is post-meal hypoglycemia or hypoglycemia caused by being hungry for a long time, suddenly raising blood sugar levels can lead to further hypoglycemia, so it is not recommended.

The statement that sugar is an important source of energy for the brain makes sense because we all share the common experience of the feeling of euphoria we feel when ingesting sugar during hypoglycemia, but in reality, ketone bodies obtained by burning fat can also provide energy for the brain, and the solution is to avoid entering a state of hypoglycemia in the first place.

Cholesterol is not the bad guy

As mentioned above, sugar itself is not bad, but rather, when blood sugar levels rise after a meal, excessive insulin is released to absorb the sugar, which has many adverse effects. The problem is that blood sugar levels fluctuate and cause inflammation in blood vessels, and repairing this causes the inner walls of the blood vessels to thicken, which can lead to arteriosclerosis and cerebral infarction.

Cholesterol is still considered to be the bad guy, but cholesterol gathers in the blood vessels to calm and repair inflammation, so it is important not to cause inflammation on the inner walls of the blood vessels. Just because it is cholesterol that narrows the inner walls of the blood vessels, cholesterol should not be considered the bad guy.

Sugar cravings subside more easily than other addictions

From my own experience and from listening to the stories of people around me, I get the impression that sugar withdrawal symptoms subside more easily than those from tobacco, alcohol, etc. If you limit your sugar intake for about seven days, strangely enough, you no longer crave sweets.

There was a time when I didn't drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes, but instead ate ice cream every day after meals. I didn't feel satisfied unless I ate ice cream, so in a way it was like a withdrawal symptom. I felt a little stressed when I first started going low-carb, but after about three days I got over the withdrawal symptoms.

If you feel like you can't be satisfied without eating sweets or desserts after dinner or before going to bed every day, try replacing them with Husbon sweets for about a week. I'm sure you'll no longer have the urge to eat sweets after meals or before going to bed.

Managing the amount of carbohydrates → Managing blood sugar levels → Managing the amount of insulin secreted → Preventing pancreas pain and preventing fluctuations in blood sugar levels → Preventing diabetes. Preventing inflammation of blood vessels → Preventing various vascular diseases. Managing carbohydrates is not just about dieting, it is also linked to more important health management. In the future, I think it will become easier to manage blood sugar levels with various devices, so I think blood sugar levels will receive more attention. Let's all manage our blood sugar levels and extend our healthy lifespan!