Sugar is Pleasurable
Sugars can activate rewards pathways in our brains due to their sweet taste. When this sense of pleasure is detected, a bundle of neurons called the ventral tegmental area uses the chemical dopamine to send a signal to a different part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens. Once this part of the brain is regularly activated, it turns into an addiction because sugar cravings resemble those of drugs. This is due to the amount of sugar the body has access to; as the reward pathways of the brain get activated more through the increased consumption of sugar, they become sensitized which causes a craving for extra sugar to make up for the sensitization that the normal consumption of sugar causes.
Sugar also causes the slowing of neuronal activity, which can hinder learning & memory by slowing the brain down significantly over time. |
Sugar~Drugs
Because of the activation of the reward pathways that both drugs and sugar cause, their effects are similar in the nervous system. Both are addictive as more is required over time to obtain the same amount of pleasure and their symptoms of withdrawal are comparable.
A study on rats done in 2002 at Princeton University shows that some symptoms of sugar withdrawal include physical problems, teeth chattering, tremors, feelings of helplessness, and impulsive behavior. This might sound familiar as these symptoms are pretty much the exact same in a person going through drug withdrawals. Sugar controls parts of the brain that are also affected similarly by drugs such as morphine, cocaine and tobacco. Overall, the effects of sugar on the brain are pretty similar to those of drugs due to their stimulation of pleasure receptors throughout the brain. |