"Our brains are hunting for dopamine and that's why millions of people are addicted to sugar," say the creators of the new sugar killing inhaler. Photo / Getty Images
"Our brains are hunting for dopamine and that's why millions of people are addicted to sugar," say the creators of the new sugar killing inhaler. Photo / Getty Images
I don't so much have a sweet tooth as I have a mouth full of them. In my eyes, it's not just dinner that should be followed with pudding: even in normal times, I often finish breakfast with a square of chocolate and lunch always comes with a biscuit chaser. For the most part, my diet is healthy food cooked from scratch at home, but I find it almost impossible to go without my ultra-processed sweet fixes.
Christmas is, obviously, the time that my sugar cravings hit their peak. Mince pies for breakfast, truffles and panettone by night.. by Twixmas week I find it hard to remember the last time I had something savoury.
All the indulging often leaves me feeling like my body has become accustomed to a higher sugar intake – not surprising, given the science pointing to the fact that sugar can be habit-forming. It may not be classed as a full-blown addiction, but research shows there are large similarities: sugar activates dopamine neural pathways and can trigger addiction-like behaviours, including craving, bingeing and withdrawal.
This is not good news for our health; high sugar intake is linked to a range of conditions, from depression to heart disease. Many will be hoping to make 2022 a year of less, or even no sugar – and along with a multitude of diets and books, gadgets are also arriving to help us tackle cravings.
In the US, a brand called Sweetkick makes mints that claim to cut cravings by making sweet things taste unappealing. They are not yet available in the UK, but the company says they are hoping to launch here soon.
British company Killa Vanilla has another approach to squashing cravings: taking drags from a vanilla-scented inhaler every time you get a hankering for something sweet. For just under NZ$20 you get a yellow stick shaped inhaler, which claims that it can help you kick your cravings for good.
The company claims the inhaler works by initiating something called the "cross-modal sensory compensation effect". In short, when you breathe in through the inhaler, the vanilla scent will be carried to your orbitofrontal cortex, the part of the brain that is also responsible for your sense of taste. And since we are so used to the taste of sweetness when we smell vanilla, a long drag on the inhaler tricks our brain into thinking we have eaten something sweet. Your brain will release dopamine, which makes you feel good and satisfies your sweet craving.
Co-founder Chris Huntly-Gordon says he and his business partner Dominic Chandler started the company after realising how hooked they were on sugar. Huntly-Gordon was using sugar to cheer himself up after a bad day at work, "smashing a twin pack of Jaffa Cakes on the way home".
After reading research on the craving-killing effect of vanilla, the pair put together a prototype inhaler. Within a few months, Huntly-Gordon had nixed his sweet tooth and Chandler had lost 8kg (1st 4lbs). Since then, Huntly-Gordon says he hasn't needed to pick up his inhaler: he has retrained his brain not to crave sweetness.
Switching to artificial sweeteners is not recommended as it won't help you actually quit sugar as your brain is still expecting that sweet hit. Photo / Getty Images
"Our brains are hunting for dopamine and that's why millions of people are addicted to sugar," he says. "We call it hedonistic hunger: you want a pick-me-up, and Killa Vanilla gives you a dopamine rush but to a lesser extent."
He points to studies carried out in supermarkets and school cafeterias in which people who were exposed to an "indulgent, food-related scent" bought less unhealthy foods.
They chose vanilla because of its ubiquity in sweet foods, but in the future are thinking of using the same principle to quash cravings for other foods. "The next step is having more nuance like chocolate, popcorn and cookies," he says.
I order one of the inhalers and give it a try, inhaling through it for two minutes every time I feel a craving hit. On the first day, I use it three times: sneaking away from my desk to have a sniff in the 3pm slump and then twice in the evening after dinner. It works best the first time, but then after dinner I cave and have a few squares of dark chocolate.
I continue using it over the next few days, and do find that my sugar intake goes down a little bit. However, I'm not sure if it's simply the vanilla scent doing the trick; I wonder whether some of the effect is simply down to the two-minute wait it enforces, by which time your craving might simply have passed. It is also an excuse to get up from my desk and have a brief wander, which helps to relieve the boredom that a biscuit might have done before.
After a week I feel more in control of my sugar intake, but am far from getting rid of it entirely like Huntly-Gordon did.
Dr Nicole Avena, an associate professor of neuroscience who studies sugar's effects on the brain at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, says such gadgets could work in principle. "Smell and taste are linked for sure, but you would have to train your brain to find reward from the scent of vanilla in the same way it found reward [from sweet food]," she says.
She sees potential pitfalls for some people, including the fact that your brain won't necessarily always recognise vanilla as the scent of sweet foods. "I've smelled vanilla in my room freshener and other things," she says.
Another problem with the stick is that it could actually increase cravings if used incorrectly. The instructions advise inhaling through the stick for the full two minutes: some studies show that a whiff of vanilla for 30 seconds or less "primes" you for sweet foods coming and actually increases cravings.
Avena says you can dampen your cravings in a gadget-free way, too. She advises her clients to try to pinpoint their "trigger foods": particular sweet or starchy foods which can cause them to overeat. She says that for some people it might be as simple as "keeping cookies out of the house", while other people will get a strong dopamine response to all carbohydrate-rich foods, including things like bread. "It's about what sugars you're finding you can't control," she says.
A new vanilla scented inhaler is designed to trick our brain into thinking we have eaten something sweet. Photo / Getty Images
She advises against going cold turkey from all sugar – it will likely give you a headache and make you feel nauseous for a fortnight as your brain adapts to lower levels of dopamine. Instead, cut down and switch to healthier sources such as fruit.
She does, however, say it's best to reduce the ultra-processed foods in your diet as much as possible because of the particular effects they have on the brain. "If you eat an apple it won't cause that dopamine rush," she says.
The other issue with ultra-processed foods, which includes breakfast cereals, biscuits, and ready-meals, is the high levels of sugar that they contain. The NHS recommends a limit of around 30g of sugar per day, which is shockingly easy to hit with processed foods: the equivalent of a glass of orange juice and a bowl of cereal.
Ultra-processed foods made with artificial sweeteners aren't the answer either, says Avena. "Artificial sweeteners have a similar effect on the brain," she says. "They won't help you in the long-run get off sugar."
A few weeks after testing Killa Vanilla, my cravings creep back a little but are still lower than before. If anything, the inhaler has taught me an important lesson that cravings will often go away if you just wait for a few minutes. Ah, the sweet scent of victory.
