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Written By: Editorial Team | Updated : August 25, 2018 3:48 PM IST
You either crave for something sweet to eat after dinner or something salty when it comes to food cravings. And for some, it is both. But from where do these cravings generate? Let us know about the reason behind the causes of sugar and salt cravings.
Salt craving causes:
Excessive salt cravings actually show that you are deficient in this essential mineral. When you don't have enough salt, your body starts to crave it as your body controls the intake of salt. The regulation of increased salt cravings when you aren't getting enough is part of a biological system in your body known as your salt thermostat. In order to keep you from dying of salt loss, this system was formed over a hundred million years ago.
Salt craving can occur simply due to your lifestyle, or they may indicate a much more serious underlying health condition. However, those salt cravings try to bring your body's salt status back to optimal levels. So probably it is not a good idea to fight our salt cravings. Try to consume salt regularly in a healthful way, if you literally crave for salt. The trick is cutting down on sodium-filled packaged food because you cannot overeat salt via homemade cooking
Sugar craving causes:
Sugar cravings don't mean that your body and your brain have become dependent on sugar. The body can become insulin resistant after just a few weeks of consuming high amounts of sugar. Overeating sugar can keep your body dependent on its continual intake. After you consume large amounts of sugar, your blood sugar can drop too low, and low blood sugar levels signal the brain to increase sugar cravings in order to raise your blood sugar levels again. This keeps you in a cruel cycle of sugar dependence. Our brains start releasing dopamine to levels far greater than we're biologically evolved to handle when we consume sugar. These dopamine spikes and if they occur frequently enough then this can lead to dopamine deficiency in the brain which means when you don't eat sugar, all you do is crave it and think about it. During those periods of dopamine deficiency, you can feel sluggish, sad, foggy with an inability to focus and a deficit of attention. These side effects of overeating sugar are what is known as the sugar blues.
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