Have you ever wondered why it’s next to impossible to resist sugary products? Well, let me first explain a few things about sugar.

Sugar is a sweet substance that originates from plants like sugar cane and sugar beads. It is one giant molecule of carbohydrate with a scientific name called sucrose, which is made up of two smaller carbohydrates called fructose and glucose. Simple sugar like sucrose can be easy to identify. However, sometimes sugar can be disguised under fancy names such as lactose, maltose, dextrose, starch and of course as we mentioned earlier, fructose and glucose. And since sugar is everywhere, it is vital to know its impacts on your brain and body, why it’s hard to resist and what happens when it reaches your taste buds.

You see, as soon as you take the bite of that delicious pastry, it activates the sweet receptors of taste buds on your tongue, which send signals to different parts of your brain, including the cerebral cortex. Once the cerebral cortex processes the sweet taste, it activates the brain’s reward system and releases the feel-good chemical called dopamine. This reward system is not limited to eating sugary food, but also kicks in when you play your favorite video game, watch your favorite show or hang out with your best friends and everything that makes you feel good.

Because of this feel-good factor, you crave sugar and can get addicted to it. Although eating a little sugar is not bad for you, as your body needs it to survive, but overeating it can lead to a series of health issues. For instance, there is a chemical called leptin, a hormone that is made by fat cells. The way leptin works is when it rises, your appetite diminishes, which means leptin is essential in controlling how much you eat as it tells you when to stop eating. But absorbing too much fructose can lead to leptin resistance, a condition in which we don’t know when to stop resulting in obesity.

Also, if you eat more sugar than your body can use in a day, it stores the sugar it doesn’t need in the liver or converts it to fat. When you do this regularly, you damage your liver and build up fat. These extra fats can also enter your bloodstream and form fatty deposits in blood vessels that increase the risk of stroke, heart attack and other heart related problems.