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Comment by detritus | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I've had this conversation with a friend who has a kid about the same age as mine. He swears that there's no such thing as a sugar rush, whereas I absolutely see it in my kid and there's nothing you can tell me to make me think otherwise.

As far as I can tell, the difference in our opinion comes down to general diet - his kid has a sweet cereal for breakfast and generally has a high sugar diet, whereas my kid absolutely does not. She has a single small sweetie at the end of the day after dinner.

Any time she gets spoiled (by someone else!) I can see her eyes widen and her energy levels go up and her behaviour become more bouncy and erratic about 10-20 minutes after consumption, lasting another 20-40 minutes thereafter.

Perhaps its genes or something else too, but I swear to god it's not simply 'confirmation bias'.

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People in South America have never seen sugar rushes in real life, and every single child is given sugar every day. A common breakfast and afternoon snack includes coffee(!) with lots of milk and sugar.

If genes were involved we would expect the prevalence to be different, but there is no way that not a single South American child has the right genes for sugar rush.

Is sugar rush a culture-bound syndrome?

Yes, that's the point i was making - kids who have lots of sugar don't seem to be affected, as it's just their baseline, whereas kids who don't have a lot of sugar do seem to exhibit it.

Curiously, my friend's partner's Argentinian, so... .

It might depend on how literally you mean "have lots of sugar".

If the dominant component really is physicalist/biological then things that actually contain sugar but don't look like they contain sugar will cause sugar rushes. For example fruit juice, ketchup, pizza.

If it's cultural/psychological then only things that are "sugar-coded" will produce the effect. Like candy, syrup, ice cream, soft drinks.

If you feel like doing some mad science, see if you can give your kids a rush using sugar-free coke or something like that.

Sadly, I've informed my daughter that she can't have coke until she's 22 :)

Also, I'm 'one of those' and avoid sugar-free alternatives.

For sure though, I can't say I've much noticed it in the likes of fruit smoothies and such, nor when she has a lollypop or some other sugar-laden thing that takes time to consume.

But if she’s being spoiled then isn’t she in a situation in which she’d probably be excited anyway? At a party or grandmas house or wherever novel situation it is in which she is getting an unusual treat?

No, I account for that - also, I do buy her an icelolly or whatever at the end of an excited day and she upticks when I'd not expect her to.

I can't relay each and every data point from the last few years but I have noticed.

in the name of science, you could get gel caps, fill some of them with sugar and some with something else, say, xylitol, have someone else blind you so you don't know which is which and just test it for months and see what happens.

shame we can't actually do experiments like that.

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