Tonight we are going to discuss sugar and it's additive capabilities. Try to think back to when you were a child, now try to remember the first time you tasted candy. The smell, how it felt, the taste. Now think how it made you feel, you wanted more, you couldn't get enough. The feeling we get when we eat sugar is because of a release of dopamine.When we eat foods that contain a lot of sugar, a massive amount of dopamine is released in an area of the brain called the Nucleus Accumbens. When we eat these foods often and in large amounts, the dopamine receptors start to down-regulate. Now there are fewer receptors for the dopamine. This means that the next time we eat these foods, their effect is blunted. We will need more junk food next time we eat in order to get the same level of reward.
Sugar and other junk foods, due to their powerful effect on the reward centers of the brain, function similarly to drugs of abuse like cocaine and nicotine.
The exact same brain centers are at play. People who have a certain predisposition to addiction become addicted to these foods and lose control over their consumption. In the word we live in today it is easy to fall under this trap of food. Stay Strong!
I leave you with a quote!
"I understood myself only after I destroyed myself.
And only in the process of fixing myself,
did I know who I really was." -UNK.
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