Rewire Your Brain

A high-sugar, high-fat diet has countless health ramifications over time – but what’s the connection? One clue involves the brain, which research suggests is influenced by sugar / fat in a manner that makes you more likely to – you guessed it – crave even more sugar and fat.
Let’s take a look at new study findings to learn why the two should always be consumed in moderation.

Researchers divided volunteers into two groups, giving each member of one group a small pudding daily for eight weeks in addition to their normal diet. Members of the other group also received daily pudding, but with an important difference: While equivalent in calories, one group’s pudding was high in fat and sugar, while the other group’s pudding was low in fat / sugar.

During the eight-week study, members of one group did not gain more weight than members of the other group, and blood sugar / cholesterol levels remained consistent as well. However, how the brain responded to the high-fat, high-sugar pudding was revealing.

Measurements of brain activity suggest that in volunteers who consumed the high-fat, high-sugar pudding daily, the brain region responsible for motivation and reward (the dopaminergic system) was highly activated. In other words, it conditioned people who ate the pudding to prefer rewarding foods – the high-fat, high-sugar variety; and be less inclined to want low-fat, low-sugar foods. (As the authors stated, eating high-fat, high-sugar foods “devalued” low-fat, low-sugar foods.)

If you can’t seem to shake the high-fat, high-sugar diet, now you know why. Talk to your doctor about gradual, achievable steps you can take to break the habit and rewire your brain to crave healthy foods instead.