glucose intolerance and diet

picture warm, gooey cookies, crunchy candies, velvety cakes, waffle cones piled high with ice cream. is your mouth watering? are you craving dessert?

glucose intolerance and diet, why? what happens in the brainthat makes sugary foods so hard to resist? sugar is a general termused to describe a class of molecules called carbohydrates,

and it's found in a wide varietyof food and drink. just check the labelson 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 justin 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 affects the brain. what happens when sugar hits your tongue? and does eating a little bit of sugarmake you crave more? you take a bite of cereal. the sugars it contains activatethe sweet-taste receptors, part of the taste buds on the tongue. these receptors send a signalup to the brain stem,

and from there, it forks offinto many areas of the forebrain, one of which is the cerebral cortex. different sections of the cerebral cortexprocess different tastes: bitter, salty, umami, and, in our case, sweet. from here, the signal activatesthe brain's reward system. this reward system is a seriesof electrical and chemical pathways across several differentregions 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 getwhen 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 examplesof things and experiences that also activate the reward system.

but overactivating this reward systemkickstarts 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 stomachand eventually into your gut. and guess what? there are 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 shouldproduce more insulin

to deal with the extra sugaryou're eating. the major currencyof our reward system is dopamine, an important chemical or neurotransmitter. there are many dopaminereceptors in the forebrain, but they're not evenly distributed. certain areas contain denseclusters of receptors, and these dopamine hot spotsare a part of our reward system. drugs like alcohol, nicotine, or heroin send dopamine into overdrive,

leading some peopleto 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 rareamong dopamine-inducing foods. broccoli, for example, has no effect, which probably explains why it's so hard to getkids to eat their veggies. speaking of healthy foods, let's say you're hungryand decide to eat a balanced meal.

you do, and dopamine levels spikein the reward system hot spots. but if you eat that same dishmany days in a row, dopamine levels will spike less and less,eventually leveling out. that's because when it comes to food, the brain evolved to pay special attentionto new or different tastes. two reasons: first, to detect food that's gone bad. and second, because the more varietywe have in our diet, the more likely we areto get all the nutrients we need.

to keep that variety up, we need to be ableto recognize a new food, and more importantly, we needto want to keep eating new foods. and that's why the dopamine levels offwhen a food becomes boring. now, back to that meal. what happens if in placeof the healthy, balanced dish, you eat sugar-rich food instead? if you rarely eat sugaror don't eat much at a time, the effect is similarto that of the balanced meal.

but if you eat too much,the dopamine response does not level out. in other words, eating lots of sugarwill continue to feel rewarding. in this way, sugar behavesa little bit like a drug. it's one reason people seemto be hooked on sugary foods. so, think back to all thosedifferent kinds of sugar. each one is unique,but every time any sugar is consumed,

it kickstarts a domino effect in the brainthat sparks a rewarding feeling. too much, too often,and things can go into overdrive. so, yes, overconsumption of sugarcan have addictive effects on the brain,

but a wedge of cake oncein a while won't hurt you.