Reichelt: What science says about the brain and sugar

Paramount Pictures // Special to Western News Knowing the full truth behind sugar and its impact on the brain might take a little of the shine off that Golden Ticket. Even though it’s not easy to break habits like always eating dessert or making your coffee a double-double, Western Postdoctoral Scholar Amy Reichelt stresses that your brain will thank you for making positive steps. We love sweet treats. But too much sugar in our diets can lead to weight gain and obesity , Type 2 diabetes and dental decay . We know we shouldn’t be eating candy, ice cream, cookies, cakes and drinking sugary sodas, but sometimes they are so hard to resist. It’s as if our brain is hardwired to want these foods. As a neuroscientist my research centres on how modern day ‘obesogenic,’ or obesity-promoting, diets change the brain. I want to understand how what we eat alters our behaviour and whether brain changes can be mitigated by other lifestyle factors. Your body runs on sugar – glucose to be precise. Glucose comes from the Greek word glukos which means sweet. Glucose fuels the cells that make up our body – including brain cells (neurons) . Dopamine ‘hits’ from eating sugar On an evolutionary basis, our primitive ancestors were scavengers. Sugary foods are excellent sources of energy, so we have evolved to find sweet foods particularly pleasurable. Foods with unpleasant, bitter and sour tastes can be unripe, poisonous or rotting – causing sickness. So to maximize our survival as a species, we have an innate brain system that makes us like sweet foods since they’re a great source of energy to fuel our bodies. When we eat sweet foods the brain’s reward system – called the mesolimbic dopamine system – gets activated. Dopamine is a brain chemical […]

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