Sugar, Adrenaline & Survival: Why Modern Sweetness is Wrecking Our Bodies

What we ideally want to see in a healthy body is a gradual increase and gradual decrease in blood glucose. This helps keep us in a balanced, responsive state.

But sugar doesn’t work like that.

Most sugar and refined carbohydrates cause a rapid spike in blood glucose. And here’s the problem: it’s not just the amount of sugar you eat—it’s how fast it hits your bloodstream.

When that spike happens, your body panics.

Imagine this: You eat something sweet, and in just seconds—before you even finish chewing—30% of the sugar is already being absorbed in your mouth. By the time it hits your stomach and duodenum, nearly all of it is in your bloodstream. Your blood sugar starts rising at an alarming rate—several points per second.

Your body recognizes this as a life-threatening emergency.

At that moment, your brain doesn’t calmly assess the situation. It goes full red-alert:“We’re about to hit dangerous glucose levels. If we don’t act now, this person could die.”

Your pancreas, part of your endocrine system, immediately releases a surge of insulin—not just a little, but a flood of it—to bring those levels down.

Insulin’s job is to grab the excess sugar and convert it into triglycerides (fat). Those triglycerides are then stored in fat cells, or float around in your bloodstream, leading to insulin resistance, high cholesterol, and inflammation.

And that’s just part one of the rollercoaster.

When insulin drops your blood sugar too fast—which often happens—you now face the opposite problem: your brain doesn’t have enough fuel.

This too is a survival emergency. Your body switches gears and calls in the adrenal glands to release adrenaline. This hormone tells your liver to go into gluconeogenesis—a process where your liver creates new glucose out of protein to bring your blood sugar back up.

The process is intricate. It’s hard on the liver. It’s hard on the kidneys. And it’s driven by adrenaline.

This is why sugar and adrenaline are so connected.

You might not think a cookie or vanilla cake is putting you in crisis mode…

But it is.

For trauma survivors or anyone with PTSD, panic, insomnia, or anxiety—this cycle makes everything worse. Because trauma and stored charge in the nervous system are deeply activated by adrenaline. And sugar activates adrenaline.

That slice of cake? It’s not just dessert. It’s a physiological emergency.

This sugar-adrenaline-insulin loop wears out your entire endocrine system:

• The pancreas becomes overworked trying to keep up with frequent spikes. Over time, it loses the ability to produce enough insulin, leading to Type II diabetes.

• The adrenal glands become depleted from constant emergency responses. This leads to adrenal fatigue, which feels like exhaustion, depression, anxiety, poor concentration, and hormonal imbalance.

• Triglycerides build up and coat your cells, making it harder for glucose to enter and fuel your mitochondria. This leads to insulin resistance, brain fog, and fatigue.

• The body produces excess cholesterol as a result of high triglycerides—leading to heart disease and atherosclerosis.

Yes! The body runs on glucose. Every whole food— like veggies and beans—gets broken down into glucose to fuel your cells. But these complex carbohydrates break down slowly—exactly how your body prefers.

The issue isn’t glucose. It’s the speed and concentration of glucose.

Sugar is already broken down. It bypasses digestion and enters the bloodstream too fast—triggering survival mechanisms your body was never meant to use this often.

The safe amount of sugar the body can handle at one time is surprisingly small—just about one teaspoon, or roughly 5 grams of sugar per serving.

That’s it.

Anything beyond that amount begins to overwhelm the system.

Most processed foods and drinks far exceed this limit, delivering sugar in concentrations the body was never designed to manage.

Whether the sugar is naturally occurring (like in fruit or milk) or added (like in desserts or sweetened beverages), the body doesn’t distinguish—it still responds with the same insulin and adrenaline-based survival reaction.

The problem isn’t just the sugar itself.

It’s how quickly it enters the bloodstream, and how much of it floods in all at once.

Staying within this small threshold is key to avoiding the metabolic rollercoaster that contributes to inflammation, fatigue, hormonal imbalance, and long-term health issues.

When I stop eating sugar, something incredible happens:

• I don’t crash.

• My thoughts are clear.

• My nervous system slows down.

• My body rests.

• I move through life with more peace.

Sugar has been my vice—my tool when I’ve overextended, when I need a boost, or when I’m dysregulated. But it always comes with a cost.

When I leave sugar behind, I stop living in emergency mode.

Eat slow carbs: vegetables and beans.

Pair carbs with protein and fat to slow absorption.

Notice your patterns: Do you reach for sugar when you're tired, overwhelmed, anxious?

Get curious about what your body is really asking for.

We are not weak for craving sugar. We are often just dysregulated and depleted.

But understanding the full picture—how sugar impacts not just our weight, but our brain, hormones, and trauma patterns—is empowering.

We can begin to heal by making slow, compassionate changes.

We can choose foods that support our bodies instead of throw them into crisis.

We can move from emergency to equilibrium.

Your body isn’t fighting you.
It’s trying to keep you alive.