A Craving Like No Other: How sugar and junk food rewires the brain to want more

Who can say no to some wafers? Or to a box of chocolates? Or even better a bowl full of ice cream? A new study reveals that junk food and sweets ‘brainwashes’ you to like them and hence, you reach out to them in the future again.

How exactly do these food items have such impressive powers? Researchers say our brains learn to prefer foods such as sweets, chocolate, cake, cookies and chips — and respond positively when fed them. The study concludes that our brains learn to subconsciously prefer and crave these fatty and sugary foods, even when we stop eating them.

Let’s take a better look at what the study showed.

Sweet study

The research was carried out by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research in Cologne, in collaboration with a team at Yale University and its results were published in Cell Metabolism.

For the study, volunteers were divided into two groups. One received a daily pudding that contained a lot of fat and sugar, while the other group was given a low-fat pudding . This was on top of both groups’ regular diets.

The brain activity of the volunteers in both groups was measured before and during the eight-week experiment. The study team observed that the brain’s responses to sugar and fat-rich foods in the group that ate the daily high-fat and sugar dessert were greatly increased after the eight weeks.

The team found that this particularly activated the dopaminergic system, the region in the brain responsible for motivation and reward.

Also read: Surprise! Junk food could shrink your brain, says new study

“Our measurements of brain activity showed that the brain rewires itself through the consumption of chips and [other junk food]. It subconsciously learns to prefer rewarding food. Through these changes in the brain, we will unconsciously always prefer the foods that contain a lot of fat and sugar,” said Dr Marc Tittgemeyer, who led the study team.

Sharmili Edwin Thanarajah, another lead author of the study, added: “Our tendency to eat high-fat and high-sugar foods — the so-called Western diet — could be innate or develop as a result of being overweight. But we think that the brain learns this preference.”

Dangers of sweets and junk food

Sweet and junk food diets serve no nutritional value to us, is now a known fact. However, people still continue to gorge on junk food. Junk food is easy to consume and even easier to make. It has become so popular that it has become an uprising trend.

Medical experts around the world have expressed concern about people consuming junk food and high sugars. They complain that obesity, which is a worry across the globe, is partially owing to the consumption of junk food. In fact, a 2008 Harvard review of 16 studies reported by PubMed concluded that fast food consumption may be worsening America’s obesity epidemic. Sweet foods and sweetened drinks are also high in sugar that can pack on pounds.

Researchers have also found that regularly eating high-fat and high-caloric foods can change the neurological pathways in your brain, reducing the brain’s ability to regulate calorie intake and can lead to overeating and weight gain.

Also read: Some Like It Quick: Which countries are obssesed with fast food?

Junk food — which is high on sodium — also elevates blood pressure. This, in turn, is a risk factor for heart disease and stroke. A diet high in saturated fat and trans fats also increases the risk of these diseases by clogging the arteries. A 2009 study had actually revealed that the risk of stroke was related to the number of fast food establishments in a neighbourhood.

Junk food and sweets are also responsible for a rise in diabetes cases across the globe. Besides the physical aspects, junk food and those filled with sugars also play havoc on our minds. There are numerous studies that reveal that eating food with low nutritional value can increase irritability, explosive rage and unstable mood.

A dozen studies from countries like Canada, Spain, Japan and Australia have shown that people who eat a healthy, whole foods diet have fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety than people who eat a poor diet (mostly ultra-processed products).

Those who gorge on junk food and foods containing high sugars also struggle with learning issues. Research has found that people who eat lots of junk food don’t perform as well as those who eat healthy diets in simple memory tests. This is because junk food laden diets reduce neuroplasticity – which is essential for us to form new memories and learn new things rapidly.

The bottomline is that eating junk food and sugar does hardwire the brain to think differently and creates a want for this kind of food at all times.

With inputs from agencies

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