According to a Student Science report, a new study with mice reveals that sugar may induce drowsiness.
“We all experience this strong feeling of sleepiness after a very large meal,” says Christophe Varin. As a neuroscientist at Lyon Neuroscience Research Center and ESPCI ParisTech in France, he studies the brain. His team’s new research now suggests that sugar is the reason that post-meal naps are often irresistible.
In their study, Varin and his colleagues injected glucose — a type of simple sugar — directly into the brains of mice. This mimicked what happens after a big dinner. Meals, particularly those loaded with carbohydrates, raise sugar levels in the brain. Carbohydrates include sugars and starches, such as those that serve as the building blocks of table sugar, fruit juice, flours, rice and potatoes.
