This is an edited extract from MiGGi Matters: How to train your brain to manage stress and trim your body by Selena Bartlett, Ph.D.
In the past, in response to a stressful day in the lab, I would have (in no particular order) candies and chocolates, a glass or two of wine, and a second serving of my favourite foods at dinner….
… This was my brain’s particular reaction to stress.
My brain learned to equate happiness with eating sweets. It didn’t take long for my brain to take the extra step and recognise that eating sweets relieved stress. That became my autopilot stress response.
Sugar is addictive: the more you have, the more you want.
Our research [at Queensland University of Technology] had long focused on alcohol addiction. When we turned our attention to the effects of sugar on the brain, it was initially as a control for our experiments with alcohol – until the day my collaborator, an expert in nicotinic receptors, called me, aghast, and said, “Can you believe this? Sugar is having exactly the same effect on the brain as alcohol and nicotine.”
Sugar, we discovered, is as addictive as nicotine, one of the most addictive drugs in the world. Sugar activates a neurotransmitter that activates the nicotinic receptors, the receptors that nicotine binds to. And by the way, artificial sweeteners are as addictive as sugar.
Sugar is as addictive as nicotine, one of the most addictive drugs in the world.
Craving more sugar and giving in to that urge, of course, leads to further weight gain. And the higher our body mass index (BMI), the more difficult it is to stop. Simply put, the heavier we are, the harder it is to stop eating high-fat foods and sugar. Studies conducted with obese adolescents indicate that they had reduced executive function, or impulse control, compared with adolescents of normal weight. Brain-imaging studies showed that these teens had less connectivity between the prefrontal cortex (the impulse-control centre) and the reward centres of the brain.
Why sugar makes us eat more, not less.
Sucrose, or table sugar, is the basic sugar we all know and love. Sucrose = fructose + glucose. That is, sucrose breaks down into fructose and glucose, which have the same number of calories but affect the body in completely different ways.
Glucose, also known as blood sugar, is the key source of energy for our bodies and brains. Insulin, an important hormone, regulates blood sugar … Insulin is secreted when your glucose levels are elevated. Insulin is what facilitates the entry of glucose into your liver and muscle cells.
Fructose is found naturally in many fruits and vegetables – and is now present in up to 75 per cent of all foods – but it is not the preferred energy source for muscles or the brain. It stimulates the “feeding” centre of the brain, the hypothalamus; it tells your brain that you’re not full and to keep eating.
Fructose tells your brain that you’re not full and to keep eating.
Watch out: sugar is everywhere.
Fructose has always been present in our diets, but we’re consuming more sugar than ever before. The amount of soda or sugar-sweetened beverages that we drink, for instance, has increased fivefold since 1950. But sugar isn’t found in only the obvious places, like donuts, cupcakes, and soda. Sugar is embedded in the food chain.
Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has shown that 75 percent of all foods and beverages contain sugar. There are many resources you can read to understand more about the toxic effects of excess sugar on the brain and body.
75 percent of all foods and beverages contain sugar.
Now that I can recognise when I’m stressed, I am able to pause, avoid taking “just a small piece of cake” or eating “only one chocolate,” and respond more rationally: taking a deep breath, walking, or tracing instead. The feelings of stress pass quickly and the need to turn to sugar goes away. I feel full when I eat a normal-sized meal and am no longer comforted by high-calorie, sugary food and drink.
I cannot emphasise enough how important reducing my sugar intake was for transforming my brain and my body. It is much easier to strengthen the thinking part of the brain if we calm the emotional part of the brain first.
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