Do you crave for sweets after meals? Most of us like to taste something sweet after meals. While sometimes we control the desire, sometimes we indulge. If we don’t have a ‘little sweet’ after eating, the meal feels incomplete.

Is this craving for desserts just mental? Or is your body trying to give a message through this? Doctors say that this need for sweets can often be an indication of a specific health problem in the body.

This problem occurs when you eat too much heavy food, especially refined carbohydrates like rice, bread or flour. These kinds of food are digested quickly in the body. As a result, the level of glucose or sugar in the blood suddenly increases. To manage this level, the body quickly produces more insulin. But when insulin works more than necessary, the level of sugar in the blood starts to drop rapidly. In medical terms, this is called reactive Hypoglycaemia.

Reactive hypoglycemia, also called postprandial hypoglycemia, is when your blood sugar drops too low a few hours after eating, usually after a meal high in simple carbs, due to an exaggerated insulin release. This causes a rapid spike and then plunge in glucose, leading to symptoms like shakiness, dizziness, hunger, anxiety, and fatigue, often within 2-4 hours post-meal. It can occur in people with or without diabetes, sometimes linked to gastric surgery or enzyme issues.

When our blood sugar level drops rapidly, our brain panics. It wants energy quickly. And the only thing that can provide energy quickly is sugar or sweets. So, a strong desire or desire to eat sweets is created in the body. In addition, sweet foods help increase the production of serotonin hormone in our brain. This hormone helps to keep the mind in a good mood. So the brain keeps asking the body for that ‘little bit of sweetness’ again and again.

Early sign of pre-diabetes or insulin resistance?

According to doctors, this intense desire for sweets after meals every day is not normal. This may indicate that you are taking extra sugar in your main meal. Or there is a slight problem with the functioning of insulin in your body. This habit may be an early sign of pre-diabetes or insulin resistance.

Prediabetes means your blood sugar levels are higher than normal but not yet high enough for a type 2 diabetes diagnosis, acting as a warning that you’re at increased risk for developing diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. It’s often caused by insulin resistance, where your body’s cells don’t respond well to insulin, causing sugar to build up in the blood. Lifestyle changes, like diet and exercise, are crucial for preventing progression to full diabetes, and many people have no obvious symptoms, making regular checks vital.

So it is not just to satisfy your taste buds. If you feel such a sweet craving regularly, it is necessary to change your eating habits immediately. Reduce refined carbohydrates and sugar from your food. If necessary, it would be wise to get your blood sugar levels checked from time to time.

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