Anger and insulin resistance

Anger has a physiological effects on our body, not just emotional:

One of the hormones released during anger is adrenaline.  This is one of the hormones involved in the ‘fight or flight’ response and it acts to convert glycogen stores in the body to glucose for action in case of danger or for energy for strenuous running. 

However, adrenaline is also released by the brain when it detects low sugar levels in the brain.  The brain can only burn glucose to function (whereas other cells in the body can burn fat as an energy supply if glucose levels are low).  Normally the slow-acting hormone glucagon signals the body to convert glycogen into glucose – whereas adrenaline is acts extremely quickly to liberate glucose.  As levels of glucose in the blood rise, the pancreas then releases insulin to tell the cells of the body to burn glucose.  The insulin receptors on the cells then tell the cell to use glucose.

So why is this a problem?

If we eat a high-sugar diet over a prolonged period of time, we keep exposing our body to wildly fluctuating sugar levels.  This is because many foods give up their glucose very quickly and give us high blood sugar levels followed by a slump which we try to compensate by eating high sugar foods again.  This is a destructive cycle which can lead to spikes in insulin release (to combat the high sugars) with a sudden crash in sugars (hypoglycaemia) leading to adrenaline release to provide the brain with sufficient glucose.  Overtime, this leads to insulin resistance which exacerbates the problem further still. This is a precursor of type 2 diabetes (Hypoglycaemic Health Association).

There are a number of studies which are connecting violent behaviour or anger outbursts with hypoglycaemia (Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine).  This is a problem in the body with handling sugar levels and is linked to insulin resistance (Hypoglycaemic Health Association).

Alcohol makes hypoglycaemia worse since alcohol lowers blood sugar (hence the ‘munchies’ when we have had too much to drink!) and the correspondence between alcohol and anger/violence (Diabetes.co.uk, Hypoglycaemic Health Association).

Allergies have also been linked to hypoglycaemic syndrome. Many common allergenic foods also lead to hypoglycaemia, as well as substances such as coffee (caffeine) and tobacco (nicotine). These all stimulate adrenaline production (Hypoglycaemic Health Association, How Stuff Works).

In summary, eat a well-balanced diet (preferably balancing slow release and fast releasing foods according to the rules of the Glycaemic Index), stop smoking (you know it’s bad for you!) and lower your intake of alcohol and coffee to help balance your blood sugar levels.

 

References

BBC (2011) Anger Management. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/emotional_health/mental_health/coping_angermanagement.shtml

Diabetes.co.uk (2012) Diabetes and hypoglycaemia.  Available at: http://www.diabetes.co.uk/Diabetes-and-Hypoglycaemia.html

How Stuff Works (2012) How Nicotine works.  Available at: http://www.howstuffworks.com/nicotine3.htm

Hypoglycaemic Health Association (2011) Anger management: nutrition and psychotherapy.  Available at: http://www.hypoglycemia.asn.au/2011/anger-management-nutrition-and-psychotherapy/

Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine (2012) Hypoglycaemia and violence.  Available at: http://www.orthomolecular.org/library/jom/search_results.shtml?cx=012934609838436511334%3Aeuo7oo38sqc&cof=FORID%3A11&q=Hypoglycemia%2C+violence&sa=Search&siteurl=orthomolecular.org%2Flibrary%2Fjom%2Findex.shtml