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What if the hidden sugar in your so-called healthy foods is quietly lowering your migraine
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threshold every single day?
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Migraine Heroes is a podcast for chronic migraine sufferers who've seen countless doctors with
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Learn how to reduce your migraine attacks without endless medications or constant sacrifices.
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Hello, I'm Diane Ducarme.
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I've helped over 500 people break free from migraine, even after suffering for up to 60
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My mission in life?
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To bring this relief to a million people using a unique blend of Eastern medicine and Western
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In this episode, you will learn why sugar spikes and crashes destabilize the migraine
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How to stabilize energy with food so your body feels steady and resilient.
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And the scandal behind modern food production and why healthy labels can't always be trusted.
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Let's dive deep here, because once you understand the blood-sugar-migraine connection, you'll
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see why sugar is not just a diet concern.
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It is a neurological disruptor.
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First, let's go into the basics.
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When you eat sugar, your blood glucose rises.
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This isn't only from obvious sweets, like cookies or soda, it's from hidden sugars
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in foods we don't even think twice about.
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The so-called healthy protein bars, flavored yogurts, especially coffees.
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The body responds by releasing insulin, the hormone that helps move glucose out of the
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blood and into your cells for energy.
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But here's the problem.
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For many people, especially those with migraines, the body overreacts.
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It sends out more insulin than needed, and blood glucose doesn't just return to normal,
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it crashes below normal.
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This is called reactive hypoglycemia.
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Now, why does this matter for migraines?
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Because the brain is especially sensitive to changes in blood sugar.
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When glucose dips too low, the brain's neurons become unstable.
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Research in the Journal of Headache and Pain shows that hypoglycemia increases cortical
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excitability, basically priming the brain for a migraine.
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In other words, the drop after a sugar spike doesn't just make you cranky or tired, it
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flips your brain into a state where a migraine is much more likely.
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And this isn't rare.
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A 2019 review in Nutrients pulled together dozens of studies and concluded that people
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with migraines are more likely to show signs of insulin resistance, a condition where cells
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stop responding well to insulin.
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That means their blood sugar control is already unstable even before you add hidden sugars
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The researchers suggested migraines should even be considered a neurometabolic disease
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because it sits at the crossroad between brain excitability and energy instability.
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Think about what this means in real life.
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You grab a flavoured yogurt at breakfast, your blood sugar shoots up, insulin surges,
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then you crash mid-morning.
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Your brain enters that hypoglycemic zone and suddenly a stressful email, your screen, or
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dropping the kids to school's bright light, or a skipped meal, is enough to trigger a
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full-blown migraine.
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This is what scientists call a threshold phenomenon.
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No single trigger might be enough on its own, but add the instability of a blood sugar
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crash and your threshold for pain lowers.
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Suddenly everyday stressors become migraine fuel.
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But the story doesn't end here.
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Sugar swings don't just destabilize the brain, they ripple across the body's whole system,
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across your hormones.
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In a 2021 study in Headache, the study found that women with migraines showed more irregularities
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in insulin sensitivity around their menstrual cycle.
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This may explain why sugar feels like a bigger trigger at certain times of the month.
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The ripple effect is also across inflammation.
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Excess sugar fuels systemic inflammation, and inflammation isn't just a vague idea.
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It directly activates the trigeminovascular system, the network of nerves and vessels,
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at the core of a lot of types of migraine attacks.
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And then that ripple effect also goes across the gut-brain axis.
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Blood sugar swings are going to disrupt the microbiome.
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A 2020 paper in Frontiers in Neurology linked high sugar diets to dysbiosis, imbalances
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in gut bacteria that increase gut permeability and feed into inflammation-migraine cycle.
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And then they're asleep.
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Sugar and insulin spikes disrupt circadian rhythms.
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Your body has to work overtime to stabilize glucose overnight, leading to restless sleep.
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Poor sleep, as we know, is one of the most consistent migraine triggers.
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Now, here's where it gets frustrating.
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The food industry makes this so much worse.
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Hidden sugars go by more than 60 names on food labels.
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So let me name a couple here, because I think that's going to help you.
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So you have the obvious ones, the ones that are labelled sugar, like brown sugar, cane
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sugar, beet sugar, raw sugar, coconut sugar, date sugar, muscavado sugar, turbinado sugar,
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demerara sugar, okay?
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Then you have the syrups.
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High fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, corn syrup solids, rice syrup, brown rice syrup,
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maple syrup, barley malt syrup, golden syrup, invert syrup, malt syrup, sorghum syrup, refiner
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Until here, we're fine.
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Then we go into the O's sugar, the chemical names.
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We have the glucose, the dextrose, the fructose, the sucrose, the lactose, the maltose, the
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Then we have the concentrates and the extracts.
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The fruit juice concentrate, the apple juice concentrate, the pear juice concentrate, the
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grapefruit juice concentrate, the agave nectar, honey, molasses, carob syrup, date syrup,
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And then we have the other forms, like florida crystals, panela, sucanat.
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Foods marketed as low-fat often pack in more sugar to make up for the taste.
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One analysis published in BMJ, formerly called the British Medical Journal, in 2016 found
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that nearly 74% of packaged food in the US contained added sugar, often in foods people
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don't expect, like salad dressings, crackers, and even soups.
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So while you think you're making a healthy choice, you may be unintentionally setting
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off the very chain reaction that fuels your migraines.
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Now I want to share a personal story.
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When I was living in the US, so 2007 to 2010, and I had so many imbalances in my body at
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that moment, I was craving sugar.
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And by having all of these additives I didn't know about, I was such a novice in the country,
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so green, I was having so much sugar.
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And I started to develop this allergy to corn syrup, and so each time I'd eat something
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with corn syrup, I'd have my hands and my feet inflated.
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So I was a corn syrup detector, and let me tell you, definitely breads, definitely soups,
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and some of the wines, some of the cheap wines I was having as a student.
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Now, let me break down into simple steps, because this is the heart of how sugar connects
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So first you're eating something with sugar, so maybe a dessert, maybe just a healthy snack
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you didn't realize was sweetened.
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Your blood sugar spikes.
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When your body reacts, it releases insulin, and sometimes it releases too much of it.
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That's when your blood sugar doesn't just come back down, it falls too far.
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That dip is called reactive hypoglycemia, and here's the problem.
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In that state, your brain becomes hyper excitable.
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Think of it like the brain's volume dial being turned way up.
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It's primed to react.
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Now combine that hyper excitability with lowered migraine threshold, suddenly things that wouldn't
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normally tip you over, a skipped meal, a little stress, or even a change in light, can ignite
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the migraine pathways.
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And it doesn't stop there.
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Add in the inflammation sugar fuels, the disruption it causes in your gut, and the way it unsettles
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your sleep, and now the attacks become more frequent and harder to control.
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So it's not just sugar, it's the domino effect sugar creates in your body that makes the
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migraine brain so vulnerable.
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And here's the hopeful part, once you understand this connection, you can actually outsmart
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it, you don't have to give up all the sweetness, but you can learn to eat in a way that stabilizes
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blood sugar, protecting your brain instead of sabotaging it.
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In Eastern medicine, sugar is not really about calories or weight, it's about how it changes
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your inner landscape, how it makes your body either a place of clarity and flow, or a place
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where migraines can take root.
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In traditional Chinese medicine in particular, excess sugar creates something called dampness.
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Imagine a heavy fog that settles inside of your body, clogging the pathways where energy
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and blood are meant to flow freely.
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Dampness makes everything sluggish.
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And when it lingers, it doesn't just sit quietly in the gut, it moves upward into the head,
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releasing fogginess, heaviness and pressure.
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Many migraines suffer no way too well.
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The first organ system to struggle with sugar is going to be the spleen.
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In traditional Chinese medicine, the spleen isn't just about digestion, it's about transforming
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your food into clear energy, or qi.
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But sugar weakens the spleen when in too much quantity.
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Instead of producing steady fuel for the body and brain, it leaves behind sticky residue.
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That residue is the dampness I just talked about.
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And dampness disrupts clarity.
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Instead of the sharp, steady flow of energy you need to protect against migraines, you
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get sluggishness, fog and instability.
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Now we can add the liver into the picture.
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The liver in traditional Chinese medicine is responsible for keeping energy moving smoothly
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throughout the body.
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But when dampness clogs the system, the liver struggles.
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Its energy flow becomes erratic.
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That's when you see classic migraine pattern, a surge of pressure rising towards the temple, swapping
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behind eyes, and stabbing sensations at the sides of the head.
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In Ayurveda, the perspective is different in language, but strikingly similar in meaning.
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Sugar first aggravates kapha, the dosha of earth and water.
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That's the heaviness, the congestion, the feeling of being bogged down.
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Then, your body swings to compensate,
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vata, the dosha of air and movement, becomes destabilized.
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Vata governs the nervous system.
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When it's unsteady, you feel jittery, restless, overthinking, and this neurological agitation
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often tips straight into a migraine.
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Finally, pitta, the dosha of fire, can flare as sugar fuels inflammation.
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That's the burning, pounding migraine, the one where your head feels like it's on fire.
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So you see, sugar doesn't just give you too much energy, or not enough energy.
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In the Eastern view, sugar destabilizes all three doshas, and it weakens the very systems,
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spleen and liver, that are supposed to protect your brain's balance.
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That's why migraines after sugar are not only just common, they can be predictable, can be.
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But there's a nuance.
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In both traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, the sweetness itself isn't the villain.
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Natural sweetness, like the gentle sweetness of root vegetables, yeah, they consider them
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sweet, cooked grains, yeah, sweet as well, or ripe pear, yeah, sweet as well, has a calming,
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It nourishes the spleen in traditional Chinese medicine, and it soothes vata in Ayurveda.
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The problem is the constant, artificial, refined sweetness of modern life.
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I mean, that's when your child gets completely excited after a birthday party.
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That's what overwhelms the digestion, weakens the body's fire, what Ayurveda calls agony,
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and destabilizes your whole system.
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And here's something Eastern medicine adds that Western science often overlooks.
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Sugar cravings are not about sugar.
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When your body craves sweetness, it's often asking for stability, warmth, and comfort.
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If you answer that craving with refined sugar, you get the illusion of relief, followed by
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a crash, dampness, and migraine.
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But if you answer it with real nourishments, like a bowl of warm congee, a spiced herbal
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tea, or a naturally sweet root vegetable, you give your body the steadiness it truly
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So while Western science explains the blood sugar spikes and insulin crashes, Eastern
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wisdom goes one step further.
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It shows us how those disruptions weaken the very defenses that keep migraines at bay.
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And it reminds us that the antidote isn't cutting out all the sweetness. It's learning
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how to choose the right kind, in the right way, at the right time.
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Because when you stop feeling dampness and start feeling resilience, you create an inner
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environment where migraines no longer find fertile ground.
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So here's how to protect yourself.
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Pair carbs with protein or fats to slow glucose absorption.
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Favor whole foods with minimal ingredients.
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The fewer the words on the label, the safer the food.
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Build meals around stable energy with, for example, quinoa, lentils, vegetables, nuts,
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For your nuts, please soak them overnight.
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Save the sweets for after a balanced meal, not on an empty stomach.
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This isn't about living without sweetness. It's about keeping your nervous system steady.
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Now, sugar cravings themselves are a symptom. And it took me 12 full years to understand
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that and to understand how to correct it.
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Back when I was in the US, I was clearly very ignorant.
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And that will be the object of another full episode. You deserve to know.
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For today, we'll stick to a simple yet super important lesson. Sugar and hidden sugars
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are a migraine trigger.
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And remember, every small step you take moves you closer to freedom.
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You are powerful, you are resilient, and you are no longer alone.
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Keep rising, migraine hero.
