Carbohydrates and Happiness

We’re all drug addicts. You may not be stealing cars to buy meth, but you rely on some sort of stimuli to make you “happy”…”happier”…”happiest”.

What is happy? This may sound like a stupid question, but seriously? What makes you happy? If you lost all your possessions, would you still be happy? If you lost your job, your career, if you had no professional accomplishments, would you still be happy? What if you lost the person you cherish the most?

Scientifically speaking, our body makes chemicals that make us feel happy. The lack of these chemicals makes us feel sad. Or angry. Or guilty. At any point in time, you are feeding your body multiple inputs. Maybe you got a promotion at work, argued with your spouse, skipped lunch, almost got hit by a cab, and then saw an ex-boyfriend on the train. You feel as though you should be happier about the promotion – it must be your spouse’s fault! What do you do? Grab the wine, watch television, intensify that negative emotion? Distract yourself by thinking about the ex-boyfriend?

I don’t mean to go on a tangent – the point of food addiction is coming up, I promise. My point here is that nothing is ever going to be perfect. Ever. If you’re not satisfied with not being satisfied, you look for outside stimuli to make you feel “happier”. One of these stimuli is food – specifically, carbohydrates. Because they are necessary for survival, carbohydrates naturally produce a hormone which makes us feel happy. Relying on this stimulus is what can cause food addictions.

LESSON 1: SEROTONIN

Serotonin was discovered in 1948 as a substance in blood serum responsible for vasoconstriction (serum that gives tone). The majority of serotonin in the body is found in the gastrointestinal tract, where it regulates intestinal movements. Serotonergic neurons synthesize the rest of serotonin in the central nervous system where it is used by the brain to send signals through the central nervous system.

Serotonin’s affects on the body are INHIBITORY. It reduces appetite, sexual behavior, and suppresses pain perception.

LESSON 2: IMPACT ON CARBOHYDRATES WITH SEROTONIN

Serotonin-releasing brain neurons are unique in that the amount of neurotransmitter they release is controlled by food intake. The two main processes by which food impacts the formation of serotonin in the brain are insulin secretion and the plasma to tryptophan ratio.  

INSULIN: YOUR TICKET INTO THE PARTY

Imagine your cell as a huge party, and glucose as a girl. Your cell wants to keep the ratio of dudes to girls in equilibrium. If you have a party full of dudes, you have two options: either you’re going to eat carbs (your body sends signals that make you want carbohydrates, which we’ll discuss later), or you break down previously eaten substances to release glucose into the bloodstream. Once the party senses girls outside (cell senses glucose in the bloodstream), signals are sent to the pancreas to release a hormone called insulin. Insulin “unlocks” the cell and allows the glucose to get inside.

In doing so, it also kicks out amino acids (dudes). These dudes travel to other party sites such as the heart and liver….except tryptophan! We’ll abbreviate this amino acid as TRYPTO. TRYPTO prefers the bloodstream and is a bit of a loner amino acid.

The serotonin in your gut cannot pass the blood-brain barrier, but TRYPTO can. The release of TRYPTO, stimulated first by the consumption of carbohydrates and secondly by the uptake of other amino acids by primary organs of the body, can pass through the blood-brain barrier. The receptors for creating or not creating serotonin are not amino acid specific.

This is important, so let’s take a second to think about this. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. We eat protein. If you eat a steak, you eat a bunch of amino acids. Valine, leucine, isoleucine…these are just a few. They all have very specific roles in the body. Tryptophan is another amino acid that you would ingest by eating a steak. Its function (among others) is creating serotonin.

So when we eat a steak, we eat a bunch of these amino acids, which all pass through the blood brain barrier. The chances of TRYPTO binding are much smaller with a larger pool of incoming amino acids. However, if you flood the brain with tryptophan – as is what happens when you eat carbs- you have a much higher chance of creating serotonin.

I know I said that carbohydrates stimulate this cascade. Fructose, the disaccharide (sugar) found at highest concentrations in fruit, has a slightly different effect on the body and does not cause this same reaction. We’ll talk about that another time, but for now, know that I am referring to carbohydrates that break down into glucose in the body (the majority of complex carbohydrates that we eat such as grains, pasta, bread, cereal, etc).

LESSON 3: IMPLICATIONS

You may have read lesson 2 and been surprised to learn those things. The beautiful (and somewhat terrifying) thing, though, is that our bodies already knew all of that. We are programmed to desire carbohydrates because our brain and red blood cells NEED them to survive. We are given a positive response to eating them so that we keep eating them. This is a natural control mechanism put in place by our bodies for our survival as a species. Think about it. If sex was terrible, would we reproduce as much? If drugs weren’t effective, would we have drug addicts?

Much as people can have drug addictions, we can also get addicted to the “high” that comes with eating carbohydrates. We get a burst of serotonin from them, so we feel happy. It’s actually meant as n appetite suppressant. Serotonin makes you feel satisfied even if your stomach is not full. It makes you feel emotionally stable, less anxious, more tranquil, and more focused and energetic.

LESSON 4: USE CARBS TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

Use carbohydrates and the resulting serotonin effects to your advantage. As a dietitian, I don’t recommend that the general population looking to maintain or lose weight consume more than 50% of diet from carbohydrates. You’re basically giving your body a drug, the best thing you can do is keep your doses low. The more carbohydrates you give your body, the more serotonin you’ll be creating and then a resulting lack of that serotonin will cause a dip in your mood and make you crave that high amount.

Have I thought about putting together meal plans for something like this? Certainly. There is a part of me, though, that wants you to really truly live and understand the concept of living in a flux. Following a diet isn’t going to make you happy if you aren’t happy with your life. Losing weight isn’t going to make you happy if you aren’t happy with your life.  Get my drift? The real key to avoid food , or any, addiction is to not feel the need to cope.  Being happy with yourself and how you interact with the world is the most powerful way to create serotonin.