Emotional Eating - We are born liking sugar as much as breastfeeding

We are born liking sugar as much as breastfeeding

To “like” something means that your reward response is stimulated in your brain in response to whatever it is that you like. Things that stimulate a large reward response can induce addiction. Some analgesics (things that reduce pain) function in part by inducing this same reward response. Sucrose (table sugar), glucose and low-calorie sweeteners have been shown to reduce pain in newborn infants as effectively as being held and breastfed by their mothers. Specifically, during blood draw, 31% fewer newborns cried if they were being breastfed and those who did cry cried for a 33% shorter duration compared to newborns using a pacifier during non-maternal holding [Phillips RM et al., Ambul Pediatr 5 (2005) 359]. If we measure how much babies ‘like’ something by how much their crying is reduced, we enter the world ‘liking’ sweet tastes as much as we do our own mothers…

Sugar is an analgesic for newborns

• Feeding infants 2 ml of 12% sucrose solution prior to blood collection reduced crying in infants by 50% and they returned to zero crying in 1/3 the time (1 min instead of 3 min) after the procedure. In the same study it was shown that providing infants a pacifier with sucrose solution on it (instead of a pacifier with just water on it) reduced crying 31% during subsequent circumcision procedures [Blass EM et al., Pediatrics 87 (1991) 215].
• This work was repeated with sucrose reported as “far more analgesic than water on a pacifier” by Kaufman GE et al., Am J Obstet Gynecol 186 (2002) 564].
• Glucose is also effective [Okan F et al., Eur J Pediatr, Epub ahead of print 4 Jan 2007].
• Sugar substitutes also significantly reduce crying time and pain score [Ramenghi LA et al., Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed 74 (1996) F129].