The holidays season is over, but your sugar cravings are still here. On the reasons why your body craves sugar while you try to maintain a healthy eating approach.
Christmas is well over, you set yourself several goals for improving your lifestyle, including those on healthy eating, but your body continues to crave sugary snacks - biscuits, chocolate, desserts, why is it happening?
There are several physiological as well as external factors for sugar cravings. Let’s see some of the main ones.
Christmas is well over, you set yourself several goals for improving your lifestyle, including those on healthy eating, but your body continues to crave sugary snacks - biscuits, chocolate, desserts, why is it happening?
There are several physiological as well as external factors for sugar cravings. Let’s see some of the main ones.
Reason One - winter mood:
Dark cold winter months mean that a lot of us are affected by the seasonal affective disorder, or SAD. What exactly causes SAD in some people and spares others is not fully understood, however, reduced sunlight in the winter months is the most common interpretation. In some people this reduced amount of sun exposure will produce lower serotonin levels changing their mood for the worse, and also bring higher levels of the hormone melatonin making them sleepy, lethargic and feeling depressed.
Eating sugary foods elevates our mood, albeit temporarily, as sugar activates the brain’s reward system. When we eat sweets, chocolate, pastries, ice-cream and other sugary foods we get the so-called dopamine effect. The hormone dopamine is released as part of the motivation and reward system in the nucleus accumbens part of brain. Dopamine - considered both a neurotransmitter and a hormone - is produced in response to a stimulus, it is involved in regulating our attention, mood and motivation. The initial dopamine release reinforces the behaviour that has led us to getting the reward, such as eating sugary foods. Over time, people need more of a stimulus, in the form of a chocolate bar, for example, in order to get the same dopamine ‘hit’.
This brings me to Reason Two for why you may have sugar cravings:
If you add sugar-added foods to your eating daily, you will soon get your body accustomed to having dopamine released. This neurological pathway response to sugary foods is believed to be much stronger than cocaine addiction.
We have evolved to give preference to sweet tastes in our palate; sweet taste perception s known to be attributed to two G-protein-coupled receptors, T1R2 and T1R3, located on our tongue. When researchers stimulate these receptors by the foods rich in either natural sugars or artificial sugar sweeteners, the generated sensation is highly rewarding. In one fascinating study published in 2007, rats were given a choice to either choose to press a lever that would deliver them doses of intravenous cocaine or a lever to deliver water sweetened with saccharin - one of the most popular artificial sweeteners used in food manufacturing. Having previously no exposure to either substances, virtually all the rats (94%) preferred saccharin to cocaine. Here’s a peculiarity, the rats were given different choices: be exposed to just cocaine (to test how strong their addiction would be and how quickly they will develop it), to be exposed to saccharin (posing the same questions) and also to both saccharin and cocaine. When the latter was tested, i.e. the rats had a choice to have cocaine or saccharin, they immediately developed a strong and stable preference for lever S (saccharin), which became statistically significant as soon as day 2 of testing. The researchers concluded that saccharin induced the brain to produce dopamine levels more intense than those seen in cocaine.
This type of experiment would be completely unethical in people, thus we get to rely on rodents’ tests, as a standard preliminary before humans are tested. This preference for sweet tastes (such as coming from artificial sweeteners and natural sugars) calls for a revisit of our understanding of the hierarchy of addictive substances, such as cocaine and possibly other drugs of abuse.
We have evolved to give preference to sweet tastes in our palate; sweet taste perception s known to be attributed to two G-protein-coupled receptors, T1R2 and T1R3, located on our tongue. When researchers stimulate these receptors by the foods rich in either natural sugars or artificial sugar sweeteners, the generated sensation is highly rewarding. In one fascinating study published in 2007, rats were given a choice to either choose to press a lever that would deliver them doses of intravenous cocaine or a lever to deliver water sweetened with saccharin - one of the most popular artificial sweeteners used in food manufacturing. Having previously no exposure to either substances, virtually all the rats (94%) preferred saccharin to cocaine. Here’s a peculiarity, the rats were given different choices: be exposed to just cocaine (to test how strong their addiction would be and how quickly they will develop it), to be exposed to saccharin (posing the same questions) and also to both saccharin and cocaine. When the latter was tested, i.e. the rats had a choice to have cocaine or saccharin, they immediately developed a strong and stable preference for lever S (saccharin), which became statistically significant as soon as day 2 of testing. The researchers concluded that saccharin induced the brain to produce dopamine levels more intense than those seen in cocaine.
This type of experiment would be completely unethical in people, thus we get to rely on rodents’ tests, as a standard preliminary before humans are tested. This preference for sweet tastes (such as coming from artificial sweeteners and natural sugars) calls for a revisit of our understanding of the hierarchy of addictive substances, such as cocaine and possibly other drugs of abuse.
Reason Three for sugar cravings: seasonal
Alcoholic drinks that Christmas season has plenty of contain high levels of sugar. Wines and cocktails are particularly high in sugar. Because sugar itself does not add any nutritional value to the body, you may feel peckish all the time, reaching for both sugary snacks and also the foods called highly palatable foods - such as crisps, salted nuts, and other finger foods.
Reason Four why sugar cravings are particularly bad in the winter
Lack of sunshine in the winter months here in the UK means that the body does not get enough vitamin D3. D3 is both a vitamin and a hormone, which is involved in so many biological processes in the body. D3 plays an important role in the health of mitochondria (which produce energy in the cells), so depending on the availability of D3 in your body, mitochondria will utilise oxygen to produce energy. For this reason, deficiency of vitamin D3 is often associated with fatigue, feeling low and also having muscle weakness and pain.
Having low levels of vitamin D3 can put you into a bad mood and can even lead to depression. D3 is actively involved in the synthesis of several neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and dopamine, these are known for regulating our mood, it is also a crucial modulator of the various neurotrophic factors, such as the nerve growth factor (NGF), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and neurotrophin (nT)-3. Neurotrophic factors assist brain neurons in their healthy state of growth and migration. D3 is therefore believed to may be an effective factor to prevent the progression of depression.
In a study with a follow-up of 4 years, which set to examine a potential causality between vitamin D 3 deficiency and depression, it was found that people with vitamin D3 deficiency were 75% more likely to develop depression when compared to those with adequate D3 levels. This result remained unchanged after controlling for relevant confounding variables, including physical activity, chronic disease, cardiovascular disease and antidepressant use.
If your levels of D3 are optimised, there are other nutritional culprits beyond this vitamin that may cause you feeling easily fatigued, inert, lethargic and even have anhedonia.
If your levels of D3 are optimised, there are other nutritional culprits beyond this vitamin that may cause you feeling easily fatigued, inert, lethargic and even have anhedonia.
Low iron - iron transports oxygen to red blood cells, enabling them to supply the whole body with oxygen. Low iron levels are known to cause fatigue and feeling low mood. Some people miscue these states with depression.
Low Vitamin B12 - there are several other types of anaemia that are not caused by iron deficiency, but by low levels of vitamin B12 or B9 (folate). Both are involved in keeping the nervous system healthy, and low levels of these vitamins cause fatigue, lack of energy, muscle weakness and low mood, including depression.
Low Vitamin B12 - there are several other types of anaemia that are not caused by iron deficiency, but by low levels of vitamin B12 or B9 (folate). Both are involved in keeping the nervous system healthy, and low levels of these vitamins cause fatigue, lack of energy, muscle weakness and low mood, including depression.
If you think you may have deficiency in the above, do a simple blood test to get your mind at peace.
Reason Five for sugar cravings in the winter months
Over the holiday season, when you were given boxes of chocolates, and biscuits, and sweets, and panettone, and Christmas pudding you may have eaten fewer protein foods, unknowingly lowering your protein intake, as the consumption of sweet foods increased. The recommended daily minimum of protein consumption is about 0.8g per kilo of body weight; thus if less than 10% of your daily energy comes from protein sources, it may be considered deficient in protein.
Low protein intake may turn detrimental for your body, when it starts to break down muscle tissue to meet its energy needs, leading to muscle loss. This results in weakness and decreased energy levels, making you feel exhausted. Swelling in the hands and feet is also associated with low protein consumption, as the proteins that circulate in the blood - albumin, in particular, help keep fluid from building up in your body tissues.
So here you have 5 reasons for craving sugary foods in the winter months.
However, if you find that after you’ve checked yourself for these, none of them ring true for you, and your sugar cravings are persistent, you may have insulin resistance.
However, if you find that after you’ve checked yourself for these, none of them ring true for you, and your sugar cravings are persistent, you may have insulin resistance.
This is the condition when your blood sugar is raised, but it is not diagnosed as prediabetes or diabetes type 2 yet. Check out my Help Yourself section, where I list the symptoms of insulin resistance (and craving sweet foods is a distinct one) and offer a Diet Plan to get rid of it for good.
Do you think there might be other reasons for your sugar cravings? Write in comments, I’d love to hear your story.
Stay healthy, be joyful!
Love,
Katya
Love,
Katya