Connection between sugar and brain. What does sugar do to you?

Picture warm, gooey cookies, crunch candies, velvety cakes, waffle cones piled high with ice cream. Is your mouth watering? Are you craving for dessert?

Sugar and types of sugar

Why? What happens in the brain that makes sugary foods so hard to resist? Sugar is a general term used to describe a class of molecules called carbohydrates, and it’s found in a wide variety of food and drink. Just check the labels on sweet products you buy. Glucose, fructose, sucrose, maltose, lactose, dextrose, and starch are all forms of sugar. So are high-fructose corn syrup, fruit juice, raw sugar and honey. And sugar isn’t just in candies and desserts, it’s also added to tomato sauce, yogurt, dried fruit, flavored waters or granola bars.

Since sugar is everywhere, it’s important to understand how it effects the brain. What happens when sugar hits your tongue? And does eating bit of sugar make you crave more?

What happens to brain?

You take a bite of cereal. The sugar it contains activate the sweet-taste receptors, part of the taste buds on the tongue. These receptors send a signal up to the brain stem, and from there, it forks off into many areas of the forebrain, one of which is the cerebral cortex.

Different sections of the cerebral cortex process different tastes: bitter, salty, umami, and, in our case, sweet. From here the signal activates the brain’s reward system. This reward system is a series of electrical and chemical pathways across several different regions of the brain. It’s a complicated network, but it helps answer a single, subconscious question: should I do that again? That warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you taste Grandma’s chocolate cake? That’s your reward system saying. “Mmm, yes!”

And it’s not just activated by food. Socializing, sexual behavior, and drugs are just a few examples of things and experiences that also activate the reward system. But overactivating this reward system kickstarts a series of unfortunate events: loss of control, craving, and increased tolerance to sugar.

Let’s get back to our bite of cereal. It travels down into your stomach and eventually into your gut. And guess what? There sugar receptors here, too. They are not taste buds, but they do send signals telling your brain that you’re full or that your body should produce more insulin to deal with the extra sugar you’re eating.

The Reward System

The Major currency of our reward system is dopamine, an important chemical or neurotransmitter. There are many dopamine receptors in the forebrain, but they are not evenly distributed. Certain areas contain dense clusters of receptors, and these dopamine hot spots are a part of our reward system.

Drugs like alcohol, nicotine or heroin send dopamine into overdrive, leading some people to constantly seek that high, in other words, to be addicted. Sugar also causes dopamine to be released, though not as violently as drugs. And sugar is rare among dopamine-including foods. Brocolli, for example, has no effect, which probably explains why it’s so hard to get kids to eat their veggies.

Speaking of healthy foods, let’s say you’re hungry and decided to eat a balanced meal. You do, and dopamine levels spike in the reward system hot spots. But if you eat that same dish many days in a row, dopamine levels will spike less and less, eventually leveling out. That’s because when its comes to food, the brain evolved to pay special attention to new or different tastes.

Why? There are two reasons: first, to detect food that’s gone bad. And second, because the more variety we have in our diet, the more likely we are to get all the nutrients we need. To keep that variety up, we need to be able to recognize a new food, and more importantly, we need to want to keep eating new foods. And that’s why the dopamine levels off when a food becomes boring.

Now, back to the meal. What happens if in place of the healthy, balanced dish, you eat sugar-rich food instead? If you rarely eat sugar or don’t eat much at a time, the effect is similar to that of the balanced meal. But if you eat too much, the dopamine response does not level out. In other words, eating lots of sugar will continue to feel rewarding. In this way, sugar behaves a little buy like a drug. It’s one reason people seem to be hooked on sugary foods.

So, think back to all those different kinds of sugar. Each one is unique, but every time any sugar is consumed, it kickstarts a domino effect in the brain that sparks a rewarding feeling. Too much, too often, and things can go into overdrive.

Some negative effects of sugar:

• Fast Aging- Sugar can give you wrinkles and adds age to your face. Scientists from Leiden University, Medical Center in the Netherlands measured the blood sugar levels of 600 men and women aged between 50 and 70. They then showed the photographs of these people to 60 separate participants and found that those with higher blood sugar looked older than those with lower blood sugar. In fact for every one millimetre per litre increase in blood sugar, the perceived age of that person rose by five months.
• Sugar is associated with acne – Foods ranked high on the glycemic index such as sugar and refined carbs have been associated with greater amount of acne on the face and body. According to the latest research, a study of Australian men showed that those who ate a diet with a low glycemic index saw a great reduction in overall acne. It was a small study with only 23 men but is still food for thought.
• Sugar intake increases the risk of developing certain cancers – There has been a direct link seen between breast and colon cancer with sugar consumption. This is likely due to the fact that insulin is one of the key factors behind the growth and multiplication of cells and sugar spikes insulin to abnormally high levels.
• Sugar can ruin your teeth – A study done by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that sugar destroys the healthy bacteria in the mouth. This can cause tooth erosion and may dim that bright smile.

What about Sugar and Weight Gain?

There are five reasons why sugar can cause us to gain weight:

• 1. Empty calories – Sugar is the premier definition of empty calories. It has no real nutritional value, no nutrients, no minerals, no protein and no fiber because of this lack of nutrient:
• 2. Sugar makes you feel hungry – And a study by Yale University those who consumes sugar had an increased appetite and desire for more. So not only sugar fill you up with empty calories but it makes you want more of those calories. This process happens when sugar screws up the hormonal levels in the body which leads to:
• 3. Blockage of Leptin and raises Insulin – Sugar blocks Leptin and raises insulin to supernatural levels. Leptin is a hormone in charge of telling us that we’re full and need to stop eating. It also tells us that we have energy and should go out and use that energy. Sugar consumption blocks this hormone from doing its job and from reaching the brain. Sugar also spikes insulin, making it very hard for the body to access and burn the stored fat in our bodies.
• 4. Sugar causes belly fat. Numerous studies have shown direct links from sugar to the accumulation of belly fat. This is the worst kind of fat, is the one associated with all sorts of diseases including the world’s number one killer: ‘HEART DISEASE’. Despite knowing all of this, it’s hard to stop eating sugar because:
• 5. Sugar is Addictive – Similar to drugs like Cocaine. Scientists have shown that sugar causes a very dopamine release in the brain. Studies on neuroplasticity have also shown that drug users have very similar behavioral addictions to those addicted to sugar.

Point blank : Sugar is addicting and it comes without the immediate social repercussions of frequent drug use. That’s why it’s so hard to stop eating it

In general, there’s not a real reason to be eating this food in your diet but only on the rare occasion as a treat.

What about fruits?

Fruits have fiber, vitamins, minerals, water and and tons of nutrients that refined sugar doesn’t have. This is why when studies compared diets with refined sugar to fruit sugar, the negative effects are not the same.

So, yes, overconsuption of sugar can have addictive effects on the brain, but a wedge of cake once in a while won’t hurt you. Reduce your sugar intake and take a balanced diet to live healthier and longer. “Remember Health is Wealth”