It's no secret that eating tons of sugar can lead to weight gain—or that too much of the sweet stuff can make you go kind of haywire. In fact, a recent animal study from the journal Appetite found that sugar consumption may induce cognitive dysfunction. 

But even though you're familiar with the concept of a "sugar high," you may not realize the other ways in which the sweet stuff can affect your brain. File these under "more reasons to eat sugar sparingly":

It Increases Cravings
According to a , sugar lights up your brain's reward center, potentially increasing junk food cravings. So of course you eat more sugar and then continue to crave the sweet stuff. It's a vicious cycle…

MORE: 5 Foods That Have More Sugar Than a Candy Bar 

It May Hurt Your Memory in the Short-Term…
Research out of the Wake Forest School of Medicine found that people who ate meals that were high in sugar and saturated fat for as little as one month performed more poorly on memory tests than those who didn't. Meanwhile, another  suggests that just a week of eating a high-sugar diet may be enough to impair memory.

…And the Long-Term
Suzanne de La Monte, M.D., M.P.H., a neuropathologist at Brown University, and her colleagues coined the term "type 3 diabetes" to explain what happens in the brain when you consume too much of the sweet stuff. Their research hints that eating an excessive amount of sugar may lead to insulin resistance in the brain, which results in neurodegeneration and an Alzheimer's-like disease. Pretty terrifying stuff. To learn more about how this works, read about how your diet can give you Alzheimer's.

MORE: "My Week Without Sugar"

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Annie Daly

Annie Daly is a New York City-based freelance writer, editor, and author who specializes in wellness, travel, and culture. She is the author of Destination Wellness (2021), and co-author of Island Wisdom (2022). A former editor at SELF, Cosmopolitan, BuzzFeed Travel, Yahoo Travel, and Good Housekeeping, she has also written for a variety of publications, including Condé Nast Traveler, Vogue, Travel + Leisure, Marie Claire, InStyle, and AFAR, among others. To follow her work, find her on IG @anniemdaly and subscribe to her Substack, Destination Wellness.