What if the root cause of your sugar cravings is not the taste of your food, but rather signals from your gut and brain?
Most people think that the reason we want to eat something is due to the taste of that food—if it’s tasty, we want to eat more of it. It’s even harder to stop when it comes to sweet foods.
However, recent studies reveal that the reason why you crave sweeter foods (or more calories) has to do with the way your brain and gut function. These two forces play a critical role in your sugar cravings, more than the sweet taste of the food itself. By understanding these mechanisms, you can more easily control sugar cravings in your daily life.
Sugar Forms and How They Are Digested in Your Body
Sugar comes in many forms, such as glucose, fructose (found mainly in fruits), galactose, and sucrose, which is also known as table sugar or refined sugar.
There is an abundance of studies showing the negative health effects of sugar, particularly added sugar and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), an artificial sweetener used in processed foods.
Many people may think that fructose is healthier than glucose because it comes from fruits, but this notion is misguided. Your body does not respond in the same way to fructose in fruits as it does to added fructose. As added sugar, fructose is linked to conditions like metabolic syndrome, hypertension, insulin resistance, diabetes, eye damage, and kidney disease. Added fructose can also encourage inflammation and direct your body to make more fat.
Meanwhile, natural fructose found in fruits is accompanied by antioxidants, potassium, vitamin C, and fiber. These nutrients all have health benefits and outweigh any negative consequences of eating fructose. Besides, the quantities of fructose in a piece of fruit and a sweetened beverage are drastically different. For example, the fructose in a peach accounts for approximately 1 percent of the fruit’s weight, whereas fructose in HFCS accounts for 50 percent of the weight of the sweetener.
Glucose comes from the Greek word meaning “sweet.” This is a type of sugar that people get from the food they consume daily. It’s naturally found in plants and foods that contain complex carbohydrates like starches, grains, and legumes.
When you ingest fruits or foods that contain carbohydrates, they will be broken down into glucose and enter the bloodstream, where it’s transported throughout your body. However, blood glucose can’t go directly to your brain—it has to be carried through your blood-brain barrier (BBB) by the most common cell in the nervous system, the astrocyte. Your brain and body use glucose as their main source of energy, and they need this fuel to properly function.
