Is Excess Sugar Causing Depression?
What You’ll Discover
You’ll discover how researchers can spin null findings into suspicions.
Why It Matters
Excess sugar can cause real harm, and you should be aware of it. But knowing how to read the data is equally important to separate facts from fiction.
A study published in February 2024 in the journal BMC Psychiatry [1] suggested that
“a 100 g/day increase in dietary sugar intake correlated with a 28% higher prevalence of depression”.
I’m pretty sure, the media and some health gurus will embellish the message just to give you another fright.
28% sounds like a big thing, but in this short post, I’ll illustrate why you shouldn’t lose sleep over it. I’m not whitewashing sugar intake, on the contrary. There is ample evidence that most people have too many free and added sugars in their diet. But that will be the subject of another post.
What interests us here is how the presentation of study results may distort lay-readers’ interpretations, and how to correct those misperceptions.
