Millions of people
globally are overweight or obese and sugar is considered a major factor. Now a
world-first game-changing study suggests drugs used to treat tobacco addiction
could work for sugar addiction too.
Neuroscientist Professor Selena Bartlett from QUT's Institute of
Health and Biomedical Innovation said the study, which has just been published
by international research journal PLOS ONE, shows drugs used
to treat nicotine addiction could be used to treat sugar addiction in animals.
The
publication coincides with another paper by the team -- Prolonged Consumption
of Sucrose in a Binge-Like Manner, Alters the Morphology of Medium Spiny
Neurons in the Nucleus Accumbens Shell -- being published in Frontiers in
Behavioral Neuroscience. It shows that long chronic sugar intake can cause
eating disorders and impact on behaviour.
"The
latest World Health Organisation figures tell us 1.9 billion people worldwide
are overweight, with 600 million considered obese," said Professor
Bartlett who is based at the Translational Research Institute.
"Excess
sugar consumption has been proven to contribute directly to weight gain. It has
also been shown to repeatedly elevate dopamine levels which control the brain's
reward and pleasure centres in a way that is similar to many drugs of abuse
including tobacco, cocaine and morphine.
"After
long-term consumption, this leads to the opposite, a reduction in dopamine
levels. This leads to higher consumption of sugar to get the same level of
reward.
"We
have also found that as well as an increased risk of weight gain, animals that
maintain high sugar consumption and binge eating into adulthood may also face
neurological and psychiatric consequences affecting mood and motivation.
"Our
study found that Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drugs like
varenicline, a prescription medication trading as Champix which treats nicotine
addiction, can work the same way when it comes to sugar cravings."
PhD
researcher Masroor Shariff said the study also put artificial sweeteners under
the spotlight.
"Interestingly,
our study also found that artificial sweeteners such as saccharin could produce
effects similar to those we obtained with table sugar, highlighting the
importance of reevaluating our relationship with sweetened food per se,"
said Mr Shariff.
Professor
Bartlett said varenicline acted as a neuronal nicotinic receptor modulator
(nAChR) and similar results were observed with other such drugs including
mecamylamine and cytisine.
"Like
other drugs of abuse, withdrawal from chronic sucrose exposure can result in an
imbalance in dopamine levels and be as difficult as going 'cold turkey' from
them," she said.
"Further
studies are required but our results do suggest that current FDA-approved nAChR
drugs may represent a novel new treatment strategy to tackle the obesity
epidemic."
Reference:
sciencedaily
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