A study from Ohio University tells us, why we crave for a cup of coffee in the morning and a chocolate bar makes you feel good when you feel low.
Just like alcohol or drugs, food and spices can excite, calm or rattle the brain, "The distinction of what is a drug and what is food is blurring completely. Natural things are also drugs," The New York Post quoted Gary Wenk, a professor at the Ohio State University and Medical Center and the author of the new book Your Brain on Food, as saying.
Different foods stimulate different regions of the brain, releasing chemicals like dopamine and serotonin that promote well being. On the flip side a lack of certain amino acids can cause depression.
The up lifting feeling brought about by coffee and chocolate isn't caused by caffein alone, but also a rush of dopamine that triggers the brain's pleasure receptors, Wenk said. Chocolate also releases a form of opiate that causes that la-la feeling.
Potatoes calm people down by releasing glucose into the blood, as does milk, especially in babies.
The down side is that the brain always wants too much of what is bad for the body, like sugar to communicate with other neurons and is particularly ravenous for it in the morning. "Things that are often good for the brain aren't good for the body. You just can't live on Twinkies and doughnuts and beer," said Wenk.
Source: New York Post, ANI and as reported by Hindustan times.
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