When Hungry Becomes Hangry: How Hunger Affects Your Mood?

A recent study reveals that an abrupt drop in glucose that we experience whenever we are hungry really impacts on our mood. Or you may turn out to be a bad-tempered, irritable person as a result of hunger. University of Guelph researchers analyzed the impact of a sudden glucose drop in affecting behavior by inducing hypoglycemia in rats.

Professor Francesco Leri, Department of Psychology said that they have found verifications that a break down in glucose level may have a lasting effect on mood. He further said that it was disbelieving for him when people would tell that they get grouchy if they don’t eat, but now he is bound to believe it. Hypoglycemia is a strong physiological and psychological stressor. He stressed.

Extreme Anger when Hungry:

“When people often think about negative mood states and stress, they think about the psychological factors, not necessarily the metabolic factors, but we have discovered that poor eating behavior can have an impact,” said study author Thomas Horman.

For experimentation, the rats were injected with a glucose metabolism blocker causing them to experience hypoglycemia. After that, they were kept in a particular chamber. Again, in a different circumstance, they were given an injection of water and placed in a different chamber. But it was witnessed that when given the option of which chamber to go into, they actively stay away from the chamber where they experienced hypoglycemia.

Leri said that this type of avoidance behaviour is an outward expression of stress and anxiety. The animals avoided that particular chamber because they already had a stressful experience there; for which they don’t want to experience it again.

Mood Swings when Hungry:

These experiments were followed by checking of blood levels of the rats after experiencing hypoglycemia and found more corticosterone. This is a symptom of physiological stress. The rats too appeared more lethargic when they were given the glucose metabolism blocker.

“Some might disagree with the fact that this is because they need glucose to make their muscles work. But when they were given a generally used antidepressant medication, the slow-moving or sluggish behaviour was missing among them. The animals moved around so naturally. But this is exciting because their muscles still weren’t getting the glucose still their behaviour changed suddenly after the intake ”Leri said.

For the people who suffer from a lot of nervousness, anxiety, depression etc. the study findings have insinuation for treatment, said Horman. He also said that the factors that lead someone to build up depression and anxiety may vary from one person to the other. Now knowing that nutrition is a factor, one can include eating habits into possible treatment.

These findings obviously provide insight into the relationship between depression and diseases like obesity, diabetes, bulimia, and anorexia.

The research discovers and establishes that hypoglycemia contributes to negative mood states. The experts of the University of Guelph also planned to determine whether chronic and long-term hypoglycemia is a risk factor for developing depression-like behaviours.

Most importantly, Horman find out that while skipping one meal may make you “hangry,” these outcomes suggest that an individual mood could be impacted if missing your meals becomes a habit.