Dopamine

What has this brain chemical got to do with our nutrition? quite a lot actually, read on to find out how.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter and chemical messenger for your nerve cells.

Dopamine acts on our reward pathway to give us feelings of pleasure, satisfaction, and motivation and also plays a part in our memory, mood, learning, and concentration.

Our reward pathway contains essential survival instincts, such as eating. We must enjoy eating, or else we would not bother, and we would die! However, sometimes, this can work against us. I don’t need a chocolate bar, a big bowl of ice cream, or a bottle of wine but I want it bad! And that’s dopamine talking.

Dopamine drives our motivation for pleasurable things, as well as food this can include shopping and gambling. But unfortunately, the dopamine rush we experience can become addictive, our dopamine receptors and our endogenous opioid peptides (EOPs generating pleasure signals) get down-regulated with chronic exposure, meaning you need more of that chocolate or wine to get that feeling of pleasure and reward, a dopamine ‘hit’.

We need a steady balance of dopamine, not too little (addiction, ADHD, poor memory and concentration, couch potato tendencies with no motivation), and not too much (aggression, paranoia, impulsive decisions and behaviour).

So what affects our dopamine balance?

Nutrition and our genetics

Our genetics play a part, and nutrigenomics is a science studying the relationship between our genes, nutrition, and our health.

Here at Nourish, we can run various nutrigenomic reports using a company called Lifecode Gx.

When looking at dopamine balance and brain health in general, we would run a nervous system report. This report looks at our genetics, and where our genetic SNPs (pronounced snips) lie. We all have them, but some may have SNPs that speed up the clearance of a neurotransmitter meaning lower levels within the brain, and others may have a poor/slow clearance and therefore cause higher levels.

One of the most important factors is to ensure that we include a sufficient amount of necessary nutrients within our diet to support our neurotransmitter pathways. We cannot change the genetic codes we are born with but by utilising these nutrients we can mitigate the pathways in our favour to prevent extremes and create more of a happy balance to support a steady mood, better concentration and lessen impulsive and reward-seeking behaviours. (and this is why I love the study of nutrigenomics)

Hormones and dopamine

Rising oestrogen causes a rise in dopamine. If you feel irritable or aggressive around the time you are ovulating and when oestrogen is high, it can be partly due to the fact your dopamine levels have increased.

Excess weight gain and dopamine

Excess weight gain can be linked to changes in the brain's dopamine system, unfortunately finding it harder to create that happy balance.

This is because excess weight gain and obesity will already be shifting the balance towards higher dopamine and physical stress within the body tips this balance even further. You then see an advert for your favourite food and it’s all you can think about, all of that dopamine is shouting you must get that chocolate! Lighting up this pathway even more.

Our hormone Leptin (that signals satiety) shuttles from our fat cells to our brain to say we are done, that we’ve had enough. Unfortunately, in cases of excess weight gain and obesity, our neurons no longer listen to our leptin signals and we become leptin-resistant.

Leptin can therefore no longer remove the dopamine signal, dopamine remains high causing you to reach for more chocolate, maybe some sweets, and let's wash it down with a sugary fizzy drink leading to a vicious circle.

Stress and dopamine

When we are stressed the body acts in a cascade of hormone communication. The Amygdala part of our brain is always scanning for threats, being chased by a tiger or a huge bill landing on your mat, our reaction to both cause the amygdala to release stress hormones.

When the threat is detected the amygdala activates our sympathetic nervous system (SNS) which raises blood sugar and blood pressure, it then alerts the Hypothalamus (controls hormone release) which alerts the pituitary gland which tells the adrenal glands to release cortisol, this is known as the HPA-axis.

Dealing with chronic stress impacts our ability to reason, by flooding our pre-frontal cortex in the brain with cortisol and dopamine.

Our pre-frontal cortex would, in normal circumstances, keep our behaviour and desires in check. But under fire, our rational decision-making goes out the window and again increases those reward-seeking behaviours with stress turning a small desire into the need for a big dopamine hit, potentially in the form of food and/or alcohol.

Many of the important nutrients needed in our dopamine pathway are often depleted due to our modern diet and stress levels. If you feel you need support to find balance and control and to be able to enjoy things in moderation please reach out, there are many things we can do regarding diet and lifestyle factors to help.