Read for some dopamine insights!

Imagine a world where you are surrounded by candy, unicorns and rainbows. That's what a good dopamine hit can feel like. Almost too good to be true right? There is a lot of research that has been conducted around the effects of dopamine on our body and this week we have done a deep dive into its effects on blood glucose.

In this week's Metablog, we are discussing the impact of the “feel-good” neurotransmitter dopamine on a vital metric, the green tea-esque chemical messenger and methods to correctly measure your heart rate variability.   

• How dopamine impacts blood glucose
• GABA: The brakes of the brain
• This week’s Meta Insight: Common mistakes in measuring HRV

Did you feel good after you ate breakfast today? Think about some foods that make you feel good and how you integrate them in a healthy way into your diet. 

Let’s get into it!

I FEEL GOOD

How dopamine impacts blood glucose

When was the last time you felt a rush of satisfaction? It might have been after a few too many hours spent doom scrolling on Instagram, after hitting a pace on your last run that you’d been working towards for ages, or even after eating that dessert that you had been looking forward to for a while.

When you feel this rush, it is because your brain produces a chemical called dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, or chemical messenger, responsible for several key functions in the central nervous system. Conventionally, it is known as the ‘feel-good’ or ‘pleasure’ chemical even though it does not produce pleasure. Instead, dopamine connects feelings of pleasure, gratification and reward with certain behaviours by controlling the brain’s reward centres and pathways.

Dopamine is produced in various parts of the brain: the striatum, substantia nigra, ventral tegmental area, pituitary gland and pathways of the hypothalamus. Dopamine receptors are located primarily in the central nervous system and less prominently in the kidney and vascular system. The type of dopamine receptor determines its function, but overall these receptors are responsible for cognition, memory and sleep to name a few. 

So how does this impact the blood glucose level?

Although studies have not proved a definitive correlation between dopamine and blood glucose levels, the answer lies with insulin. Recently, however, promising developments have been made. 

Insulin controls carbohydrate, lipid and protein metabolism, providing glucose access to our cells. Together with glucagon, insulin helps maintain a state called homeostasis, an internal equilibrium. Over time, people with high insulin resistance develop high blood sugar levels. If you have low insulin resistance, that indicates high insulin sensitivity (beneficial for your health). 

Researchers at the Institute of Diabetes Research and Metabolic Diseases in Munich examined the interaction of the homeostatic and reward systems in the striatum. During a study, insulin was administered to 10 healthy male participants to investigate lower dopamine levels and a change in the brain’s network structure. Participants demonstrated a stronger increase in functional connectivity in the brain for 45 minutes after insulin was administered. The results indicated that insulin modulates dopamine release in the striatum, which affects brain activity and connectivity. The team believes that changes in this network can be a driver of obesity and related diseases.

At the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam, endocrinologist Mireille Serlie conducted several experiments to explain the underlying reason behind this improvement. She recruited 15 individuals, all non-diabetic. Serlie found that administering Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) increased insulin sensitivity in all subjects. High insulin sensitivity allows cells to use blood glucose more effectively, reducing blood sugar. Additionally, Serlie administered a dopamine-depleting drug to 10 healthy males to find that their insulin sensitivity decreased across the board. This finding further reinforced the connection between dopamine and glucose regulation. Her team also activated neurons in the striatum of mice. As these cells released more dopamine, the rate of glucose uptake from other cells increased. She concluded that the striatum plays a pivotal role in regulating glucose metabolism throughout the body.

DBS may be unrealistic for most patients with diabetes, but the uncovering of this pathway has opened the door for less invasive brain therapies to target dopamine in the future.

Ultra Take:

It is human nature to want to replicate this feeling, so you seek out more of the behaviour that led to the dopamine production. But an excess of any of these things will eventually catch up to us. Whenever we scroll through social media, our brain releases a small amount of dopamine. This is because we experience what feels like an unlimited amount of stimuli from these platforms that in turn provide a rush of dopamine to our brain to make us feel pleasure. Hours of scrolling through social media can affect our mental health as well as put excess strain on the eyes.  Integral to preventing or managing diabetes is maintaining healthy blood sugar levels.

Want to read more about this “feel-good” chemical? Read here.