Thursday, August 18, 2016

Sugar, Artificial Sweetener Addiction Treatment

Neuroscientists said in a study in PLOS ONE, drugs used to treat nicotine addiction could be used to treat sugar addiction in animals. The study coincides with another paper by the same neuroscientists in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.

Once and for all, we can admit that long chronic sugar intake can cause eating disorders and impact on behavior.

Excess sugar consumption elevate dopamine levels which control the brain's reward and pleasure centers in a way that is similar to many drugs of abuse including tobacco, cocaine and morphine. After long-term consumption, this leads to the opposite, a reduction in dopamine levels. This leads to higher consumption of sugar to get the same level of reward.

The found that FDA approved drugs like varenicline, a prescription medication trading as Champix which treats nicotine addiction, can work the same way when it comes to sugar cravings.

To the researcher's surprise, the study also found that artificial sweeteners could produce effects similar to those obtained with table sugar.

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