The plot of the film Things I never told you (1996), the celebrated first film by director Isabel Coixet, begins with Ann, the main character, finding a woman crying inconsolably in the supermarket because she cannot find the ice cream she could get. like it, like she’s an addict needing her drug. It’s an exaggeration?
The ability that the sweet taste, characteristic of cakes, tarts or chocolate, has to lift the mood is well known . And the reason is purely biological: these foods increase the levels of certain neurotransmitters – the substances responsible for transmitting information between neurons in the brain – that function as antidotes to sadness and stress: dopamine, serotonin, adrenaline …
An example: when we eat sugar, an amino acid called tryptophan penetrates the blood-brain barrier -which protects the nervous system from harmful substances present in the bloodstream- and stimulates the release of serotonin , a fundamental hormone in our body that regulates sleep. digestion, sexual desire, aggressiveness and mood control, among other things.
A study from the University of Leuven in Belgium showed that this improvement in mood is not purely subjective . To avoid a supposed placebo effect related to the presentation of food, the researchers made volunteers ingest sugar through a gastric tube after having induced feelings of sadness with classical music accompanied by melancholic faces. Even so, his mood improved after the ‘kick’.
