Essentials: Control Sugar Cravings & Metabolism with Science-Based Tools
4/30/202634 min
In this Huberman Lab Essentials episode, I explain how the body senses and uses sugar, and why understanding those mechanisms can help reduce sugar cravings. I discuss different types of sugar and how they are processed by pathways in the gut and the brain to shape appetite and the desire for specific foods. I also share many science-based tools to help curb sugar cravings and support healthy blood sugar regulation. Read the show notes at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman Lingo: https://hellolingo.com/huberman LMNT: https://drinklmnt.com/huberman Timestamps (00:00:00) Sugar (00:00:37) Hunger, Hormones & Blood Glucose (00:03:03) Fructose vs Glucose, Controlling Hunger (00:06:30) Sponsor: AG1 (00:07:54) Brain Circuits: Sweet Taste & Nutritive Pathways (00:10:51) Sweet Taste & Dopamine (00:13:22) Gut & Blood Glucose; Tool: Sugar Cravings & Hidden Sugars (00:15:44) Sponsor: Lingo (00:16:53) Glycemic Index, Tool: Food Choices, Fiber & Sugar Intake (00:20:55) Glutamine Supplementation, Leaky Gut & Sugar Cravings (00:23:17) Tool: Lemon Juice to Blunt Blood Glucose (00:26:44) Sponsor: LMNT (00:28:16) Tool: Reduce Blood Sugar Cravings with Cinnamon (00:29:10) Berberine & Potent Molecules to Regulate Blood Glucose (00:30:52) Tool: Quality Sleep & Sugar Cravings Disclaimer & Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsAndrew Huberman· Host0:00
Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance. [upbeat music] I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today, we are going to discuss sugar, in particular, how our nervous system regulates our sugar intake and our seeking of sugar. We are going to place sugar into its proper context. The way I wanna start off by doing that is to tell you a little bit of what happens when we eat and a little bit of what the brain does to respond to those events. So what happens when we eat? Let's just take a, what I call, top contour view of the hormonal response to ingesting food. Anytime we eat, that is the consequence of a number of things that happened before we ate. There's a hormone in our brain and body called ghrelin, spelled G-H-R-E-L-I-N. Ghrelin is a hormone that increases depending on how long it's been since we ate last, okay? So the longer it's been since we had a meal, ghrelin levels are going to be higher and higher and higher, and it essentially makes us hungry by interacting with particular neurons in an area of the brain called the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus, and some other areas as well, like the lateral hypothalamus. And then when we eat, typically what happens is ghrelin levels go down. So it's a very logical system. Now, when we eat, assuming that we eat carbohydrates, but even if we just eat some protein and