Science Checkup: Does Sugar Kill Your Sex Drive?

Do you remember your English classes back in high school? The teacher would assign you some droll book to read and warn you of an impending test on said book. The night before the exam, you would sit down and Google as hard as you could to try and find the Cliffs Notes. Upon finding one, you would read through the summaries and hope it was enough to pass the test. This strategy would usually yield mediocre results. A passing grade but nothing too fancy. Sometimes, this strategy would earn you a big old F. 

Some science writers never grew out of the Cliffs Notes phase and employ this strategy when reporting on journal articles. They will read through the abstract, the summary of a paper, and base their article on that single paragraph. Just like your high school English tests, these articles end up misinterpreting and misrepresenting the full context of the study. 

Enter Dr. Mark Hyman and his latest article, Killing Your Sex Drive One Bite at a Time: 5 Surprising Ways Sugar Lowers Libido [1]. In the opening salvoes of his article he makes the following claim:

“The biggest culprit that continually knocks sex hormones out of balance is sugar in all its many forms (including all flour products), which raises insulin and creates a hormonal domino effect. Once you understand how insulin can impact other hormones, you begin to connect the dots about how excessive sugar can wreck your sex life.”

He then gives 5 reasons for how sugar kills your sex drive. Let’s review them to see if he was able to make it past the abstracts, shall we?