 Sugar changes the chemistry of your brain. This was published January 14th on Eureka Alert. The idea of food addiction is a very controversial topic among scientists. Researchers from the Airhus University have delved into this topic and examined what happens in the brains of pigs when they drink sugar water. The conclusion is clear. Sugar influences brain-reward circuitry in ways similar to those observed when addicted drugs are consumed. The results have just been published in the journal Scientific Reports. So this is quotes from the study. There's no doubt that sugar has several psychological effects and there are many reasons why it's not healthy. But I've been in doubt of these effects of sugar has on our brain and behavior. I'd hope to be able to kill the myths as Michael Wintherdahl, Associate Professor of the Department of Clinical Medicine at the University and one of the main authors of the work. The publication is based on experiments done using seven pigs receiving two liters of sugar water daily over 12 period of time. To map the consequences of the sugar intake, the researchers imaged the brains of the pigs at the beginning of the experiment at the first day and after the 12th day of sugar. After just 12 days of sugar intake, we see major changes in the brain's dopamine and opioid systems. In fact, the opioid system, which is part of the brain's chemistry that is associated with well-being and pleasure, was already activated after very first intake says Wintherdahl. Like, the reason why I want to bring this up is not to demonize sugar. I think there's a big difference between refined sugar, which you find in a majority of packaging. So, you know, high fructose corn syrup and all these artificial types of sugars as opposed to the sugars that you can get from nice fruits, right? The point of this is, listen, sugar is a highly addictive substance. And at the end of the day, these highly addictive substance, what happens to the body? You want more of it and when you eat something more of, what do you get? You get more calories, right? So, you start consuming more and changing the neurochemistry of your body, which is not good. This study is a famous study that a lot of people point to and this was done, I believe, in 2007. So, intense sweetness surpasses cocaine awards. So, refined sugars were absent in a diet of most people until recently in human history. Today, overconsumption of diets rich in sugars contributes together with other factors to drive the current obesity epidemic. Overconsumption of sugar-dense foods or beverages is initially motivated by the pleasure of sweet taste is often compared to drug addiction. Though there are many biological commonalities between sweetened diets and drugs of abuse, the addictive potential of the former relative to the latter is currently unknown. Here we report that when rats were allowed to choose mutually exclusively between water-sweetened with, I'll just say water-sweetened with sugar, an intense calorie-free sweetener and intravenous cocaine, a highly addictive hormone substance, a large majority of animals, 94%, prefer the sweet taste of the fucking sugar. So, in conclusion, our findings clearly demonstrate that intense sweetness can surpass, can surpass cocaine reward. Listen, I think especially if you are somebody who's looking to better your life and if you're looking to become, let's say, the best version of yourself, both physically, mentally, spiritually, I think you better look at the fact that sugar is not the most healthiest fucking thing in your diet. And so, simple things that you can do is start reducing the garbage foods that you eat. And so, like I said, this isn't me telling you don't eat fruits. Fruits are fucking great. This isn't me telling you don't have some nice dessert once in a while. That's not the point. The point is to let you know that the sugar changes your neurochemistry. It's more addictive, at least in rat studies, more addicted than fucking cocaine. And majority of the foods, packaged foods, processed foods, let's call it SAT, the standard American diet, it's fucking loaded with artificial sugar, the worst of the worst, high fructose corn syrup. And so, play it smart, man. Like, let's finish off over here. Here we go. Look at this. In quotations, if sugar can change the brain's reward system after only 12 days, as we saw in the case of the pigs, you can imagine that a natural stimuli, such as learning or social interactions, are pushed into the background and replaced by sugar and or other artificial stimuli. We are all looking for the rush of dopamine. And if something gives us a better or bigger kick, then that's what we choose, explains the researcher. When examining whether a substance like sugar is addictive, one typically studies the effects of the rodent brain. It would, of course, be ideal if the studies could be done in humans themselves, but humans are hard to control and dopamine levels can be modulated by a number of different factors. They are influenced by what we eat, whether we play games on our phone or for entering a new romantic relationship in the middle of the trial with potential or great variations in data. The pig is a good alternative because its brain is more complex than a rodent and large enough for imaging to do deep brain structures using brain scanners or using human brain scanners. The current study in mini-pigs introduced a well-controlled setup with the only variable being absence of presence of sugar in the diet, right? And so, the researchers hit something very important here. They talked about dopamine, right? Dopamine. We're highly addictive creatures. People are addicted to social media. People are addicted to porn. People are addicted to video games. People are addicted to anything, anything that they can addict themselves to, to escape reality. And sugar is something passive that people do, right? So it's not conscious. Like, people are conscious when I log into social media. You're consciously doing that. When I, when I'm playing, let's say, video games, people are consciously doing that. But sugar, it's an afterthought, right? People don't think about it. Oh, I just had this, like, bar, snickers bar. They don't think about it. Or I just had this drink. They don't think about it. It's secondary, but it's one of the most dangerous things possible for the health of your mind. And so, analyze yourself, out of yourself. Figure out, are you consuming sugar? I'm not telling you to follow any diet. I'm not one of these diet people. I'm going to do a fuck what you do, to be honest with you. I don't give a fuck of your vegan, paleo, pescatarian, birth, the Aryan, santerian, whatever the fuck you want to do. But what's important is auditing and figuring out what you want to achieve in your life. And it could be that you realize, wait a second, I'm eating too much junk food right now. Or wait a second, I didn't realize that these certain foods that I'm eating that's called healthy has a lot of artificial sweeteners. So the moral of the story is audit the situation you are in your life. Figure out that maybe you might be in this, um, circumstances where you are consuming sugars that's fucking with your mind, fucking with your dopamine, and you can fix it. And I'll leave it at that. Moral of the story, eat less artificial sugar. Peace.