Why do you want to eat sweets even though you feel full?

After eating, and the resulting feeling of fullness and satiety, we still have a desire to eat more food. But this time the desire is specifically directed towards sweets. What is the reason for that?

When you finish eating, the nerve cells in the brain send a signal to the body that you feel full and satisfied. Despite achieving this fullness and satiety, many people wonder why they have an urgent desire to eat sweets.

Scientists have recently been able to explain the body's need to eat sweets regardless of satiety, according to the German website "Max Planck Gesellschaft" (MPG).

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolic Research have found that this need, dubbed the "sweet stomach," is rooted in the brain, as the same neurons responsible for feeling full are also responsible for the desire to eat sweets later on.

In a study conducted on laboratory mice, researchers found that the activity of the sweet stomach, i.e. the desire to eat sweets, occurs due to the release of the substance beta-endorphin "ß-endorphin" in the body.

Endorphins are chemicals secreted by the body, and they have an effect similar to morphine, relieving pain and giving a feeling of happiness or euphoria, according to the Altibbi website.

The researchers explain that the body's desire to eat sweets after being completely full "makes sense" because sugar provides the body with quick energy. When mice eat sugar after being full, a group of neurons in the brain called POMC releases beta-endorphins, which stimulate the feeling of reward. This pathway in the brain is activated specifically when sugar is consumed in excess, and not when regular or fatty food is consumed.

Interestingly, when the researchers blocked that neural pathway in the brain, the mice stopped eating any more sugar. This only happened in mice that felt full and satisfied, not in mice that were hungry.

The study did not limit itself to testing the matter in mice only. The researchers also conducted brain scans on a group of volunteers who received a sugar solution through the blood.

The researchers found that the same area of the brain in humans reacts to sugar in the same way as it does in mice.

“Sugar is rare in nature but provides energy quickly. The brain is programmed to control sugar intake whenever it is available,” says Henning Wenslau, head of the Max Planck Institute research group and supervisor of the study.

The researchers hope the study will help develop more effective treatments for obesity. “There are already drugs that block opioid receptors in the brain,” says Venslau. “But weight loss is less likely with injections of appetite suppressants.”

"We think that combining it with other treatments could be very beneficial, however we need to do more investigation into this," he adds.

Source: German