Recent research has shown that sugar has a back channel to your brain. The average American eats more than 100 pounds of sugar each year and excesses have been linked to an increased risk for type 2 diabetes and overweight. Why do we love sugar so much?
Sugar not only triggers taste buds on the tongue but it also switches on an entirely different pathway that begins in the gut. In the intestines, signals that travel via the vagus nerve directly to the brain, announce sugar’s arrival, where the response is an appetite for more. This gut-to-brain pathway is very specific. It responds only to sugar molecules, not to artificial sweeteners and not to fructose, the sugar found in fruit.
Though this study was conducted in mice, the researchers believe that this same sugar-sensing pathway exists in humans as well.
