Sugar, Drugs and The Brain. At 12 in the afternoon, a little six-year-old girl, in deep frustration, throws her 45-pound

Transcription

1 G 1 BLG Dr. Irvin ENGL 1301 November 18, 2017 Sugar, Drugs and The Brain At 12 in the afternoon, a little six-year-old girl, in deep frustration, throws her 45-pound body back onto the living room floor because she couldn t eat anymore candy. Screaming in anger, the child begins to throw her toys around the room. On the other side of town, a thirtytwo-year-old man paces back and forth harassing pedestrians for money at the corner of 25 th avenue. He s waiting for the next opportunity to buy any illegal drug to calm his withdrawal. These two scenarios have one thing in common: an intense craving for a harmful substance. I have a four-year-old niece who drools at the sight of candy, sodas, and cookies while my older cousin Kristin is in and out of rehab for drug addiction. If you take sugar and drugs away, their moods change dramatically which leads me to my question: In what ways is sugar's influence on our brain similar to the affect drugs have on our brain? After diligent research, I ve concluded two things that are interconnected: sugar and drugs affect our brains reward system and the brain develops a tolerance for these stimuli. When I first came up with my research topic, I knew the research would be difficult. The brain is a complex organ in our body, and it takes years of education to gain a good understanding of its functions. First, I researched drugs and the brain. I came across a website designed to publish research from credible backgrounds and realized that most of what I read was the fact that drugs affect the rewards system. At the time I questioned, what is the rewards system and what is its significance? I knew I couldn t write a research paper on the brain

2 Garza 2 without having an understanding of the brains functions and reactions to stimulus, so I did more digging. I found that the rewards system plays a vital role in our behavior when we go back to something we find pleasurable. After this, I researched sugar and the brain, and to my surprise I found a connection linked with sugar and drugs. Once I established this connection, I wanted to find articles that could help explain why drugs and sugar have the same effect on the brain. That s when I found multiple articles about the role of dopamine, a neurotransmitter, that gives us the pleasurable feeling I talked about earlier. Overall, my first finding was that both sugar and drugs affect the rewards system. The second part of my research process dealt with finding what happens after long periods of consumption. I back tracked what I already knew and what I wanted to know more about. Since drugs and sugar had an immediate effect on the rewards system, I wondered, do drugs and sugar have long term affects? I already knew a little bit about the long-term effects of drugs on the brain and that it can make people become tolerant therefore people get addicted, but I wanted to know if this was the same with sugar. I found several neuroscientists specializing in many kinds of addiction including drugs and food who discuss why the two are similar. Toward the end of my research, I realized that the rewards system and tolerance on the brain relate to one another. Since sugar and drugs both have the same effect on the rewards system by the flood of dopamine in that area, then overconsumption of these two substances inevitably led to tolerance. My first finding was that our reward system plays a dramatic role when we choose to intake sugar and drugs. What is the reward systems and what does it do? According to Neuroscientifically Challenged, The term reward system refers to a group of structures that are activated by rewarding or reinforcing stimuli. The stimuli in our case is drugs and sugar. The blog continues to state that When exposed to a rewarding stimulus, the brain responds by

3 Garza 3 increasing release of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine is essential in making us feel good. If we didn t have this type of neurotransmitter, than we wouldn t enjoy the things we normally like to do. For example, in the Neuroscience Department at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, they state, The most important reward pathway in the brain, is the mesolimbic dopamine system Under normal conditions, the circuit controls an individual's responses to natural rewards, such as food, sex, and social interactions, and is therefore an important determinant of motivation and incentive drive. For example, if I find pleasure when I eat a bag of Oreos, the mesolimbic dopamine system is activated and will tell my brain, Hey, the next time you see a bag of Oreos, eat it because the last time you ate some it made you feel good. But what happens under not so normal conditions? Addiction. I ll discuss this in detail later. Teri Doughty, an integrated health coach, wrote an article on her website, All Kinds of Healthy, explaining that sugar is considered a hyperpalatable food. Doughty writes that, A hyperpalatable food is overly agreeable, excessively tasty. Because sugar is hyperpalatable and drugs make you dependent on it, the consumption of these substances causes a surge of dopamine in the brain to release into the reward system and in turn we become dependent. The bottom line is that sugar and drugs alter the brains normal function of the reward system in an unhealthy way. I will like to turn your attention to my second point, the overall effect on the brain when we intake sugar and drugs: tolerance. I discussed earlier that too much dopamine in the reward system can make you reliant on a substance (addicted) and in turn tolerance develops. According to Addict Science, drug tolerance is, a process of accelerating change that makes the Reward System less efficient and requires users to take more drugs to obtain the same high... it alters the nature of the drug-using experience, from liking drugs for their euphoric effects to needing them simply to feel normal and hold off withdrawal. Is this the same for sugar? In a research article

4 Garza 4 on Frontier Media SA, numerous researchers discuss the prolonged consumption of sucrose in a binge-like manner and state that because binge-eating individuals often exhibit a loss of control and an inability to self-limit their sugar intake, it is likely that these behaviors arise as a result of neurological adaptations in brain regions. This reveals the similarity that binge-eating individuals and drug addicts have no self-control because the substance becomes too tolerable that the brain wants more and more of a powerful and addicting substance. In addition, in Gary Taube s mind-blowing book, The Case Against Sugar, he writes, Sugar craving does seem to be hard-wired in our brains. Children certainly respond to it instantaneously, from birth (if not in the womb) onward. Hard wired is correct, but too much sugar and drugs can untangle the wires and leads to our brains becoming tolerant with a dangerous substance. Scary isn t it? Research is hard work. You can t expect to find credible information at first glance because there are tons of information out there. When you finally find credible information, you end up questioning yourself more about the topic. I can see why research papers are so long because more information leads to more questions which is why my research process felt like it was never going to end. It was easy to find credible sources after the first few days, but it was hard to choose the most valuable sources and information I was going to use. I did not want to bore my readers with elaborating too much, so I knew that after everything I read I needed to keep my findings clear and concise. I was in awe when I realized the connection between drugs and sugar and the effects on our brains rewards system because not everyone wants to believe that they can be consuming something harmful. Sugar is widely accepted while illegal drugs are not, so I was definitely stunned. I learned that researching is not my strong suit but with great effort I was able to do a pretty decent job.

5 Garza 5 Finding out the similar effects of sugar and drugs on the brain was important because I wanted to understand why my four-year-old niece throws tantrums when she can t have any more candy or why my cousin Kristen can t learn to say no to drugs. The consumption of the sugar and drugs ultimately unwires our brains reward system to become comfortable with these substances and in turn develops a tolerance for these things even when we don t need it. Millions of people are continuing to harm their bodies for the sweet taste of sugar and the compelling high from drugs like cocaine or heroin. Tragic but true.

6 Garza 6 Works Cited Doughty, Teri. What Is a Hyper-Palatable Food? All Kinds of Healthy, WordPress. allkindsofhealthy.org/2016/02/10/what-is-a-hyper-palatable-food/. Accessed 10 Nov Icahn School of Medicine Neuroscience Department Nestler Lab Brain Reward Pathways. Neuro. neuroscience.mssm.edu/nestler/brainrewardpathways.html. Accessed 14 Nov Klenowski, Paul M., et al. Prolonged Consumption of Sucrose in a Binge-Like Manner, Alters the Morphology of Medium Spiny Neurons in the Nucleus Accumbens Shell. Frontiers, Frontiers, 7 Mar hors_&utm_medium= &utm_content=t1_11.5e1_author&utm_campaign= _p ublication&field=&journalname=frontiers_in_behavioral_neuroscience&id=180620#h 7. Know Your Brain: Reward System. Neuroscientifically Challenged, 16 Jan. 2015, Accessed 11 Nov NIDA. "The Neurobiology of Drug Addiction." National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2 Jan. 2007, Accessed 9 Nov Taubes, Gary. The Case Against Sugar. Alfred A. Knopf, 2016

7 Garza 7 Appendix Doughty, Teri. What Is a Hyper-Palatable Food? All Kinds of Healthy, WordPress. allkindsofhealthy.org/2016/02/10/what-is-a-hyper-palatable-food/. Accessed 10 Nov Teri Doughty is an Integrative Health Coach and was trained at Duke University s Integrative Medicine Center. Doughty runs a blog where she writes articles through research on various topics dealing with health. Her article on hyper palatable foods was posted on February 10, 2016 on her website that is sponsored by WordPress. The author is credible because she as knowledge of food which plays an important role in my paper since sugar is in food. The article is dated in 2016 allowing my reader to see that this is a recent and credible source since it is not out dated. The author wrote this article to educate people concerned about their health and does this by supporting her knowledge with personal experience and reliable background in nutrition education. Icahn School of Medicine Neuroscience Department Nestler Lab Brain Reward Pathways. Neuro. neuroscience.mssm.edu/nestler/brainrewardpathways.html. Accessed 14 Nov The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has a website where their Neuroscience Department publishes information of multiple articles dealing with the brain. The Nestler Laboratory of Molecular Psychiatry provides information that is not dated but can be contacted through phone and address. This site is specifically aimed to inform the public on the brain. Their article was done through their own research in their own lab that is located in New York City.

8 Garza 8 Klenowski, Paul M., et al. Prolonged Consumption of Sucrose in a Binge-Like Manner, Alters the Morphology of Medium Spiny Neurons in the Nucleus Accumbens Shell. Frontiers, Frontiers, 7 Mar hors_&utm_medium= &utm_content=t1_11.5e1_author&utm_campaign= _p ublication&field=&journalname=frontiers_in_behavioral_neuroscience&id=180620#h 7. All the authors on Frontiers Media SA article have backgrounds in psychology and neuroscience. These multiple authors have done extensive research. This source is peer reviewed through a twostep system where one person reviews the article and is followed by a group review. The article was published on March 23, 2016 and has not been recently updated since. The article was written to inform by incorporating in text citations and a list of references. Know Your Brain: Reward System. Neuroscientifically Challenged, 16 Jan. 2015, Accessed 11 Nov Neuroscientifically Challenged is a website that blogs for the public and clears up confusing medical terms that doctors and educated people use. The blog was published on January 16 th, 2015 and was written to inform the audience about tolerance on the brain. The blog is aimed to inform complex terms and research to make it simple for students like me. The blog uses links within the article that takes you to reliable sources and includes a works cited at the end of the article as well.

9 Garza 9 NIDA. "The Neurobiology of Drug Addiction." National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2 Jan. 2007, Accessed 9 Nov The NIDA website is a government based site that is reliable and publishes information for the public. The page was last updated in 2007 and since the site is government based the facts are reliable because the government wouldn t put misleading information. The site contained a table of contents that allows you to navigate the information being sought. The presentation on the site uses in text citations and lists references. Taubes, Gary. The Case Against Sugar. Alfred A. Knopf, 2016 Gary Taubes is a science journalist who seeks to raise awareness on the role of sugar. Taubes published his book in 2016 by Alfred A. Knopf in New York. Taubes book was written to inform and persuade. Taubes uses an excessive number of sources and writes his book using in text citations, a list of references, personal experience and quotes many old and new researches.

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