Okay, I admit it. I am not as rational and logical as I claimed to be these past 65 years. Aging, obesity and Type II Diabetes are pointing their long, evil fingers at me with an undeniable accusation: many of my choices in the course of my life have been plain stupid. The past few weeks with their delicious, sweet and fat laden temptations have confirmed something else: I haven’t changed that much as I’ve grown older.

You may be wondering what my reflections on holiday season eating have to do with memory. Well, it’s like this. I was just reading a blog entry entitled “5 Bad Things That Immediately Happen to Your Body When You Eat Sugary Junk.” You guessed it, one of them is memory loss. Here’s why.

When we eat things that contain lots of sugar they are digested very quickly because simple sugars required very little breakdown. Sugar breaks down into glucose, which then rushes into the blood. In response, our bodies produce extra insulin to compensate for the extra sugar. Falling blood sugar levels trigger the release of stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol to activate stored sugar supplies. These hormones have enormous negative effects on the body, including memory loss.

I hear lots of people say that they feel mentally foggy after eating large meals or during the holidays in general. I often feel that way myself. This fogginess can largely be a result of what we eat.

Some of the effects of stress hormones disappear when sugar levels stabilize. However, each release of these hormones has some degree of permanent effect. Moreover, we are more vulnerable to the effects of stress hormones as we grow older, in the short run as well as long-term.

I’m not crazy about New Year’s resolutions. Let’s just say that I have once again been confronted by those long, evil fingers that clearly signal that I have to start making better choices. If I don’t, one of two bad things can happen. I can die, or I can live a life that doesn’t have much to offer.

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