Michelle K.

Pyke
Honors 205
Frances McCue
20 November 2016

Breakfast for the Brain

Introduction

Elena woke up in the morning and quickly began her daily routine. She set down an old

teakettle upon the stovetop and silently poured a pitcher of water into its center. Once finished,

she gently turned the switch on the oven and a flame erupted just beneath the teakettle. It was an

ordinary Sunday morning, but unlike

previous weekends, she had a particular

craving for homemade cinnamon rolls. The

fragrance of warm, autumnal spices

intertwined with the promise of a satisfying

breakfast for her sweet tooth delighted her.

Imagine the texture of the light bread

Figure 1: The Temptation of a Cinnamon Roll. Image
against your fingertips once you tear a bite- courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

sized piece and the lingering trail of icing on your upper lip once only crumbs remain on your

plate. Do you crave this sweet dish just like Elena? Why do you suppose that is?

The answer involves a basic ingredient found in kitchen cupboards everywhere sugar.

To be more specific: how sugar influences the brain once you take a bite from a sweet treat such

as a cinnamon roll. Before we go any further, lets explore how the body even knows whether

there is sugar in what we eat.

Chapter I. The Nervous System

Cells, much like humans, talk with one another in order to prevent possible conflicts.

After all, it is better to work together with others on a difficult task rather than by oneself! A

prime example of a hard worker in the body is the neuron.

When you speak with your friend, you use words to

convey your thoughts (or they wont understand you and no one

likes that). Neurons are the same way except that they use

electrical impulses! Neurons are important cells of the nervous

system that send information through electrical signals to

stimulate thought, movement, and sensation. Basically, neurons

call the shots in the body because they can tell muscles to move

so that you can wiggle your fingers for instance.

There are two basic types of neurons in the nervous

system sensory neurons and motor neurons. Figure 2: A diagram highlighting the
Central Nervous System and the
A receptor, such as on your fingertip or your tongue, Peripheral Nervous System. Image
courtesy of Arizona State University:
directly communicates with sensory neurons. It makes School of Life Sciences.

observations about your environment and passes these bits of information on to the sensory

neurons. Sensory neurons are included in the peripheral nervous system (nerves that are not in

the center of the body). If you look at Figure 2, the peripheral nervous system includes all those

lines in blue.

Once a sensory neuron receives a message from a receptor, it sends it directly to the brain

within the central nervous system to be processed; the central nervous system includes the brain

and spinal chord (notice how they are located in the center of the body and are outlined in pink in
Figure 2). Once the brain receives the observation, it translates the language of cells into words

that you can understand. After all, most people cannot possibly talk to cells (their tiny little

voices cannot be heard), so your brain does it for you!

Another type of neuron is a motor neuron. It sends signals in the opposite direction

from the central nervous system to muscle tissues in the peripheral nervous system (from the

brain to nerves in your hand for instance). Motor neurons, as you may guess from the name,

allow you to use your muscles to move your arms and legs, such as waving to your friend as a

greeting in the morning.

Sensory neurons and motor neurons work together very often. For example, if your

mother was cooking in the kitchen and she smelled smoke, she would try to find the source and

extinguish it (it may happen to be the poor cinnamon rolls in the oven)! But this process

wouldnt occur unless the brain identified the strange smell of smoke (all thanks to the receptors

and the sensory neurons) and the motor neurons alerted her muscles to run and grab the fire

extinguisher! That is teamwork at its best!

Not only are there receptors on the skin, but

also on the tongue. The tongue is a muscular organ in

the mouth that has a relatively rough texture. If you

slide one of your fingers gently across its surface, you

can feel the presence of thousands of tiny taste buds

that connect to nerves (see Figure 3)! The tongue is

sensitive to five basic tastes: salty, sweet, bitter, sour,

Figure 3: Just a few receptors on the human
and a rather strange one called umami (otherwise
tongue. There are thousands of them in reality!
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
known as savory). Which category do you think sugar
falls under? If you guessed sweet, then you are correct!

If we return to Elenas pleasant Sunday morning, we can now see that she has poured

herself a cup of English Breakfast tea (the best kind of tea out there in her opinion). After her

first cautious sip, the steaming tea passes along her tongue and down her throat. The taste buds

on the surface of her tongue detect a fairly strong bitter taste and communicate this message to

the brain via sensory neurons. Although other people may not like this flavor, Elena thinks that it

is beyond delicious and takes yet another sip. She may not be aware of this, but after each sip,

her taste buds continue to send signals to the brain about how bitter the tea is. Note that she is

only able to understand what the specific flavor of the tea is once the brain receives the signal

from the sensory neurons. Luckily, this process happens within a split second, so her reaction is

not delayed for too long. Imagine taking a sip of orange juice and not being able to taste its tart

flavor until a minute has passed! By then, the juice would have gone down your throat and into

your stomach. How strange would that be?

Chapter II. The Brain Divided

Remember how the receptors on the tongue can detect what taste food has? If you take a

bite of a sugary snack, the receptors notice that the sugar is sweet and they tell the sensory

neurons that something sweet is in your mouth. The message is then sent to the brain from the

sensory neurons by traveling up the brain stem and arriving at a region known as the cerebrum. If

you look at the diagram below (Figure 4), the cerebrum includes every area that has a color (red,

yellow, blue, and green).

 There are four separate

areas within the cerebrum that

are responsible for processing a

variety of information,

including impulse control

(which may not be very high

when it comes to cinnamon rolls

for Elena at least), memory, and

color. The four basic regions are Figure 4: A diagram of the human brain. Image courtesy of
Science for Kids
commonly known as the parietal lobe, the

temporal lobe, the occipital lobe, and the frontal lobe filled in by yellow, green, red, and blue

in the diagram respectively.

To refer back to the example of sugar, the part of the brain that processes information

about taste is the parietal lobe. It is located at the top of the brain, just behind the frontal lobe.

The journey for a signal about taste does not stop at the parietal lobe but instead disperses

across a vast network of nerves within the brain. A thought then comes to the center of your

mind: I think I should eat more of this. This is your rewards system at work. Can your rewards

system really talk to you as if it were a living and breathing human? Not really, but it does

influence how you perceive what you are eating!

Chapter III. The Rewards System

There are multiple combinations of ingredients in our food that tell the brain cells to

release dopamine, a chemical that controls the brains reward center. As Elena takes her first bite
from her freshly prepared cinnamon rolls, she feels a rush of happiness due to the presence of

sugar and the release of dopamine that follows.

The human body encourages consumption of food in general, even if it may be a modest

bowl of oatmeal. However, the amount of dopamine that is released depends on what we put in

our mouths. The brain evolved to be mindful of new or interesting tastes in order to prevent the

consumption of food that has passed its prime (that moldy piece of cheese in the refrigerator for

example) and to ensure that the body receives all of the necessary nutrients it needs to stay

healthy. A diet that includes a variety of flavors is more likely to accomplish this, so dopamine

isnt stimulated as much when a meal becomes dull. Yes, it is true that steamed broccoli may not

be as tasty for you as say, spaghetti with meatballs, but you wouldnt like spaghetti very much if

you had it for every meal for the rest of your life! After awhile, your dopamine levels while

eating spaghetti would be so low, that you might even want a towering mountain of broccoli

instead (you now have permission to never show your parents this paragraph).

Sugar doesnt follow this rule of

decreasing dopamine levels. The difference

between Elenas sweet breakfast and a bowl

of plain oatmeal is that a high amount of

dopamine is released and doesnt stop even

if she only ate a few servings of her recipe.

Dopamine continues to respond to sugar no

matter how much is eaten, which triggers a

rewarding feeling each time without fault. Figure 5: If a child ate a lot of candy, there would be high neural
activity in his or her brain as noted by the specks of light. Image
Thats why it is common for children to feel courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
hyper for several hours after munching on a few candy bars. They cant help, but feel

overwhelmed with pleasure because there is just so much dopamine in their brains (see Figure

5)! If the rewards system is activated regularly, it actually leads to some serious health issues.

Chapter IV. Sugar and Blood Homeostasis

Within the body, cells are in charge of maintaining a certain level of equilibrium a

balance that keeps an organism healthy, so that it can survive despite the rough conditions of the

external world. If we return to the scene with Elena, we notice that the kitchen is a bit chilly and

she is shivering slightly while wearing her plain cotton pajamas. Within a moment, however, she

decides to return to her bedroom to grab a warm, wool robe. Why would she do this?

When the body temperature of your core (the area around your chest) drops, muscles may

begin to shake in order to release heat energy (which is why people shiver). When Elena puts on

her robe, she traps the warm air surrounding her body, so her core body temperature returns to

normal. She no longer has to worry about a gloomy future with only a peppermint-scented candle

as her only source of warmth. This is an example of homeostasis (pronounced as home-ee-oh-

stay-sees) a word that basically means restoring the natural conditions of the body.

As you may have guessed, homeostasis does not apply to only core temperature. It also

regulates the concentration of sugar in your bloodstream; in other words, how much sugar is

present in a certain amount of blood. Lets say that Elena invites her friend Will over to share her

sweet breakfast. What you may not know is that Will has a special relationship with cinnamon

rolls he doesnt just like them, he loves them (so much so, that he named his first pet dog

cinnamon roll even though its white fur did not have the slightest hint of brown hair). Elena

serves up a small plate with two cinnamon rolls, one for each person, but with one pleading look
from Will, she adds one more for him. Will is terribly hungry this morning and proceeds to

practically inhale his portion, leaving behind nothing but cinnamon dust.

Now how does this relate to

blood sugar levels? Well, we first have

to take a look at some key players in the

human body. First up is the pancreas. It

is a long, flat tissue located deep inside

the belly (see Figure 6). Unfortunately,

it isnt well known because the famous

stomach overshadows it (literally). The

pancreas releases a substance called

insulin, which tells the cells in the Figure 6: A diagram of the basic organs in the human body.
Image courtesy of Science for Kids
bloodstream to absorb sugar.

After quickly eating his first cinnamon roll, the receptors on Wills tongue are on high

alert. There isnt just a little sugar available; it is raining sugar, my friends. But fear not, because

this hasnt gone past the notice of the pancreas. It quickly releases a special chemical messenger

called insulin into the bloodstream. Insulin politely asks the cells if they could please absorb

some sugar if it wouldnt bother them but lets face it, insulin probably screams at the top of its

non-existent lungs that all cells must hereby absorb sugar or may be put to death (or something

along those lines). The cells are okay with this demand because sugar makes them have more

energy so that they can play longer!

Sometimes, however, there is still too much sugar, so it is converted into a substance

known as glycogen and stored in the liver (a large organ that is above the stomach but hidden by
the rib cage see Figure 6). The members of the glycogen family are loud and wild guests and

the poor liver feels overwhelmed. It tries to calm them down by playing a soft melody on the

piano. As each glycogen molecule listens, they magically transform into giant blobs of fat! There

is now a new problem for the liver. The glycogen molecules keep bumping into one another and

breaking all of the livers beautiful decorations. The liver is astonished by this and decides to

throw them all out of its home. The family of fat sulkily walks away, but soon find others just

like them! They have entered the city of Fat Tissue and have been happily residing there ever

since.

Will may not realize it yet, but the city of Fat Tissue is growing in numbers. Because he

consumes cinnamon rolls daily (they are just so delicious!), his blood sugar levels are

considerably higher than normal, which may be bad news for him. There is a chance that he

could develop hyperglycemia (pronounced as hi-per-gly-see-me-uh), a disease that causes blood

vessels (those red and blue lines that appear underneath your skin) to become damaged and

blocked. Unfortunately, if this is true, Will also has a high risk of heart disease and stroke among

others. In short, Wills body no longer wants to be friends with sugar and its annoying, hyper

self.

Chapter V. The Challenge

Within the global community, a growing concern is that individuals are eating too much

sugar. After all, it is one of the most common ingredients in packaged or natural food. Try

grabbing your favorite snack in the afternoon (maybe some yogurt, dried fruit, or a granola bar)

and checking its nutritional label yourself. It is very likely that there is some amount of added

sugar in it!
 Expert panels worldwide agree that you should eat no more than 6 teaspoons (25 grams)

of added sugar per day for women or 9 teaspoons (38 grams) for men. Yet, the average American

consumes roughly 19.5 teaspoons (82 grams) of added sugar per day! Why are experts

concerned about high levels of sugar consumption?

Studies have found that people who regularly eat a large amount of sugar have trouble

avoiding it when given the choice. For example, lets say that Elena loves to collect different

types of candles in her free time. No matter what time of the year, she always buys a candle

when she catches sight of it in a store. However, one of her friends distracted her one afternoon

and she could not buy a vanilla-scented candle. Later that day, she could not stop thinking about

the candle and became very irritated since there was no way she could buy it now. She also feels

very tired and wants to always take a nap instead of meet with her friends for tea. This is how

some people act when they cant get sugar when they have developed a habit of eating it very

often. That doesnt sound very fun, does it? At this point, you might be worried that you are

overeating sugar, but rest assured, there is a solution ahead (and it might be more fun than you

think)!

During the weekend, visit your

local grocery store with another family

member. With this person, write out a list

of items that you will buy at the grocery

store (for example, whole grain pasta and

apples). Your challenge once youre at the

store is to:
Figure 7: Notice how bright red those strawberries are! They would
be a nice addition to your grocery basket. Image courtesy of Flickr.
 1. Choose a collection of items that represent all colors of the rainbow (an example of

this could be a basket with some tomatoes, carrots, celery, whole grain bread, and a can

of black beans). Note that this does not include the color of a packaged item!

2. Avoid foods that list more than five ingredients or ingredients that you cant pronounce

on the nutritional label (if either one of you tries to put something that falls within this

category in the basket, remind them about this rule).

3. Agree on one treat that the whole family can share during the week (remember that the

previous rules also apply to this one though).

The point of this activity is to explore the market for healthier alternatives to sugary snacks

(dried fruit is a great one for those who do not know where to begin). Try to encourage the rest

of your family to participate and feel free to tweak the rules a bit to make it even more fun

(always keep fresh fruits and vegetables somewhere in the mix)!

Now back to our story with Elena, Will tries grabs one more cinnamon roll from the

baking rack, but Elena stops him. She tells him about how too much sugar can damage his body

and invites him to go grocery shopping with

her that afternoon! Will happily agrees and

since that fateful day, he no longer has a

cupboard filled with cinnamon rolls, but one

with all shades of the rainbow. He does keep a

single cinnamon roll in the center, though

Figure 8: Will does not have to sacrifice his love for just for a Sunday morning breakfast.
cinnamon rolls after all. Image courtesy of Be
DifferentAct Normal (a cooking blog).