Research: sugar sensitivity in children and teens

by Christina Sbarro (Subscribe to Christina Sbarro's posts) Sep 15th 2007 4:02PM

Categories: Babies, Toddlers, Preschoolers, Teens & tweens, Eating & Nutrition, Development

Does your child have erratic mood swings? Does your toddler experience frequent and volatile tantrums? Sugar sensitivity may be to blame.

According to according to the article, "Sugar and Spice--But Not Very Nice," in the Fall 2007 Natural Solutions magazine, America might be in the midst of a sugar sensitivity epidemic. The author, Margaret Adamek, PhD, sites research by best-selling author and addictive nutritionist, Kathleen DesMaisons, PhD, who states that "Sugar sensitivity is an inherited biochemical condition resulting from volatile blood sugar and low levels of serotonin and beta endorphin in the brain." The result? A wide range of emotional and psychological issues including depression, anxiety, attention and concentration deficits. Obesity and diabetes are also linked to this genetic pre-disposition towards sugar sensitivity.

Children all ages can have this pre-existing intolerance for refined sugar products, and DesMaisons suggests that children who come from families "with a history of alcoholism, obesity, diabetes, or depression are more likely to be sugar sensitive and are at greater risk for addiction as a result." By addiction, she means: to sugar.

There is evidence to support DesMaisons' claims. Since 1970 Adamek notes that the average American has increased his or her consumption of corn syrup a staggering 40 times. Caloric intake has also increased by more than 300 calories a day, and the children of our nation regularly consume both fast food and soda in large quantities. Vending machines have become a regular facet in most high schools--and while some do not carry soda out right, most carry sugar intense sports drinks.

It's an issue worthy of consideration, especially if you have a child with inexplicable mood swings, tantrums, or depression. In her book Little Sugar Addicts, DesMaisons suggests that gradually weaning children off of a sugar intense diet, adding protein to breakfast, and having a regular routine for mealtimes helps to stabilize children with volatile blood sugar.

Comments (10)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Nancy Toby 9-15-2007 @ 7:48PM

Is the first author mentioned the social worker?
http://iupui.socialwork.iu.edu/snav/712/page.htm
And the other is shilling books?
http://www.littlesugaraddicts.com/press_room/authorbio.html

Most definitely *NOT* what I'd consider qualified and unbiased nutrition experts. I have much more respect for someone like nutritionist Sandy Szwarc:
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/

Valerie 9-15-2007 @ 8:54PM

Thanks for the other link Nancy, I definitely plan on del.icio.us-ing it. However, I don't think we should just write off the other two. Even the link you gave has items for sale and also requests support for the site.

I've read a couple of Kathleen's books and she's got a lot of good points which she bases on studies. Along with that she has experience working with people. The diet (in the larger sense of the word; not the canteloupe every day, or two shakes for breakfast and lunch, kind of meaning) worked for me. I was able to cut out all refined sugar without cravings and I felt much better. It took me 9 months to do it. Her stuff isn't about quick fixes and it requires you to figure out how you personally react to food, and take responsibility for yourself. And everyone doesn't react the same way. I have pretty volatile blood sugar as she defines it. My friend Tracy does not.

Getting sugar out of the diet can be difficult because of the many cultural and emotional associations in at least the US, white, hetero culture, that I know the most about. Each season has sugar laden associations - summer - lemonade, snowcones, ice cream trucks; fall - candy apples, halloween candy; winter - gingerbread, egg nog; spring - easter candy. Birthdays, school parties, office parties. There are so many traditions built around sugar. Go completely off of sugar and white flours and it will become awkwardly apparent.

Getting rid of or cutting down the refined sugars and other carbs (white bread, white rice, cakes, cookies, etc.) in our kids diets certainly couldn't hurt.

Nancy Toby 9-15-2007 @ 9:15PM

Then perhaps Valerie or Christina can tell us more about the actual credentials of these individuals? Where their degrees were earned? In what fields of nutrition? Where their nutrition research, if any, has been published - in refereed research journals scrutinized by scientific peers such as the Journal of Nutrition, perhaps?

Until I see that these individuals have some actual recognized expertise in nutrition I remain deeply skeptical of any claims they make.

Valerie 9-16-2007 @ 4:00PM

Kathleen DesMaisons has a PhD in Addictive Nutrition from the U of NM I believe. She used to have her thesis available on her site but revamped has since revamped the site and I haven't looked for it recently. And as far as being published I don't know, but now I'm curious I'll ask and see if someone answers. Maybe even her.

Valerie 9-16-2007 @ 4:02PM

Oh and the site is http://www.radiantrecovery.com/.

Nancy Toby 9-16-2007 @ 7:26PM

Uh, there's a program in Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of New Mexico, but they don't offer a PhD as far as I can tell (only a Master's):
http://nutrition.unm.edu/

I've never heard of a Department of Addictive Nutrition, which is probably what would be needed to claim a PhD in that speciality.

I think it's fairly glaring that her profile page on the site you mentioned gives no details on her PhD, what field it was earned in, or where it was awarded:
http://www.radiantrecovery.com/meetkathleen.htm

Nancy Toby 9-16-2007 @ 7:43PM

Whoa, I see that DesMaisons also claims a "92% success rate with alcoholics". I call BS on that. I frankly don't believe that any program in the world has that, and think it's hugely irresponsible to claim it without substantiation. Let's see the independent evaluation supporting that claim. I'll bet anyone it just doesn't exist.

Kathleen DesMaisons 9-17-2007 @ 5:06PM

Hi Nancy, I thought I would comment directly on your belief that my numbers must be BS. I would be happy to send you a copy of my dissertation that has all the statistics in it. And yes, that is what we got when we measured the outcomes in a group of multiple offender drunk drivers.

My dissertation the the use of addictive nutrition as an adjunct to treatment was presented to the American College of Nutrition and published as an abstract there. My degree is in Addictive Nutrition. yes, it was defended to a legit committee at an accredited university.

And you will not find Addictive Nutrition referenced because I started the field. I made a choice to attend the Union Institute (www.tui.edu) so that I could do an interdisciplinary degree and have faculty from McGill, Harvard and Wright University advise my work.

I did make a personal choice to go down a *popular* route rather than an academic route because of my commitment to bring this information to the public. Academic research appears to be *the* critical legitimization for many people. In reality, it is driven by politics, funding availability and the capacity to design double blind gold standard studies. My work has far too many confounding varibles to lend itself to easy measurement in that context. In addition, I honestly believed that the reality of obtaining funding for studies on the efficacy of breakfast was pretty slim. My brother is a senior research scientist. His counsel was *good grief woman, we spend 20 years in the lab to try to find one thing that works. This works. Take it to the people.*

If you get a copy of Potatoes Not Prozac, you can read my bibliography. The book is being republished in January with the latest research demonstrating that my early hypotheses were on target. Little Sugar Addicts contains citations relevant to children.

If you look for clinical substantiation for Little Sugar Addicts, there is none. We only have anecdotal reports of thousands of parents saying their children are totally different.

And BTW, I don’t list my *credentials* on my personal intro page because in my experience my legitimacy comes from the people I work with and not my Ph.D. You certainly can agree to disagree with that. But if you dismiss the material without understanding it, you are making a comment about your approach to learn rather than mine.

I would be delighted to engage in a thoughtful dialogue about the efficacy of my work.

Warmly,
Kathleen

Nancy Toby 9-17-2007 @ 6:36PM

Does saying that your dissertation was "published as an abstract" mean that you gave a talk at a conference (many of which accept everything submitted to them) and your work was never critically reviewed by qualified scientists and never published in a scientific journal? How very peculiar. And where exactly might we find your quite dubious claim of "92% success rate with alcoholics" substantiated by any independent body of scientists (but yourself, of course)?

You seem (from what you have said above) to have avoided subjecting your work to universally-accepted means of validating efficacy via the scientific method. Anecdotal evidence is worthless in this regard.

Although, granted, it will sell books.

Nancy Toby 9-17-2007 @ 6:56PM

By the way, in a search for any articles with the surname Desmaisons of abstracts in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition from 1982 to 1997 at:
http://www.jacn.org/search.dtl
and through 2007 at:
http://www.jacn.org/contents-by-date.0.shtml
I've been able to find ZERO.
Perhaps the abstract Ms. Desmaisons cites was presented at a conference prior to 1982, or published under another surname?

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