This is what happens to your body when you eat an entire Easter egg

Easter can be a time where moderation is tossed out the window, and the lure of the chocolate egg haul can be difficult to resist.

One chunk of egg can easily lead to another, and then another, and before you know it the entire thing has mysteriously disappeared.

If you take a look at the label, most eggs recommend a serving size of around 25g of choccy, while an average-sized milk chocolate Easter egg weighs around 100g in total - the same as an average-sized Lindt bunny.

A 100g egg has roughly 55 grams of sugar (or 14 teaspoons) and 2,300KJ.

Dr Daniel Atkinson, clinical lead at Treated.com, explained the health implications of an Easter binge to Yahoo Style UK.

“The sense of occasion around Easter eggs makes them a novelty,” he said, “so it can be easy to convince ourselves that the normal rules of nutrition don’t apply.”

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“And while it might (and rightly should) feel like a tall order to eat an entire Easter egg in one sitting, it isn’t completely outside of the realms of possibility for someone to do so.

“Obviously everyone’s metabolism is different, and some people may have medical conditions that make them more susceptible to various symptoms than others.”

But what’s actually going on inside our bodies if you polish off the whole egg? From painful wind to smelly breath, Dr Atkinson explains what exactly is happening to us.

Mouth

Right away, chewing the chocolate causes several things to happen in the mouth. Firstly, the sugar combines with saliva to create an acid.

This acid then begins to attack the tooth enamel and gums; usually within 15 minutes.

After a time, this acid also starts to react with latent bacteria in the mouth and someone may develop a ‘furry mouth’ and halitosis (bad breath).

Stomach

Our stomachs produce acid to digest the food we eat.

But when we consume high amounts of sugary foods like milk chocolate, this can cause acid levels in the stomach to significantly rise.

This can then lead to feelings of pain and irritation in the tummy. Also, when acid levels in the stomach are high, this can cause acid to creep up into the lower end of the oesophagus (acid reflux or heartburn), resulting in further discomfort.

It’s also worth noting that sugar expands when it sits in the stomach, and this can generate trapped pockets of gas, which also cause discomfort and wind.

Brain

Eating a lot of chocolate in one sitting causes the brain to do several things.

Initially, the sugar and various other stimulants found in chocolate are thought to connect with opioid centres in the brain, which release a chemical called dopamine.

This is a hormone which induces feelings of pleasure, and dulls feelings of pain (a sugar-high).

How long these effects last for depends on how much dopamine is released; for someone who has consumed over 100 grams of chocolate, it’s likely this pleasant feeling will begin to dissipate within an hour.

After this, you are likely to experience a ‘sugar-crash’. This is when blood sugar, after being high, dramatically drops.

This can cause feelings of mild withdrawal, irritability, lethargy and a headache.

Heart

After all the sugar has been taken up into the bloodstream, the brain, detecting high levels of sugar in the blood, thinks the body is under attack and releases cortisol (also known as the stress hormone) and epinephrine (fight or flight hormone).

Together, these cause the heart to beat faster and with more force; so blood pressure rises, and it’s even possible that palpitations may occur.

Pancreas

Both the natural and refined sugars in chocolate (lactose and sucrose) are broken down and taken up in the small intestine, before passing into the bloodstream.

The job of the pancreas is to release insulin, which converts sugar in the bloodstream into energy we can use.

However, the pancreas can only produce so much insulin at once, so when very high levels of blood sugar are present, it may not be able to generate enough to deal with the load.

So there you have it, it’s a lot to think about next time you consider going back for another chuck of chocolate.

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