As if there weren't enough to be concerned about if you're a smoker, two recent studies have identified some interesting risks and benefits of combining smoking with the consumption of foods, including cheese, beer, wine (due to the presence of Resveratrol), turmeric, fava beans and pickles. Many decades ago when tricyclic anti-depressant drugs were introduced to the market they presented some nasty side-effects, including death, when the patients consumed any of these foods. The side-effect became known as the "cheese-effect."
The "cheese effect" is due to the ability of these anti-depressant drugs to block the enzyme monoamine oxidase (MAO) and the fact that cheese, beer, wine and the other foods contain high levels of the amino acid tyramine. Ordinarily, tyramine is easily metabolized and inactivated in the body and brain by MAO. Unfortunately, when MAO is inhibited the consequences of consuming these foods include wild fluctuations in blood pressure, nausea, headache, rash, dizziness, heart palpitations and vomiting.
Smoking inhibits MAO. The more a person smokes, the greater is the inhibition of this critical enzyme throughout the body. You can easily see the potential problems that might arise when a smoker decides to have a glass of wine or beer with their cheese and crackers. Suddenly, you become very nauseous and your heart feels as though it's going to pop out of your chest. Your first thought, of course, is that there's something wrong with the food and you begin to question the culinary skills of your host.
The interesting and rather complex interaction between smoking and eating cheese does not end with these sickly feelings. In contrast to its effects upon MAO, smoking actually activates an enzyme in the brain that is responsible for converting tyramine into the neurotransmitter dopamine. The simplest way to explain the purpose of dopamine is to say that it is responsible for allowing you to feel pleasure. Indeed, neuroscientists have believed for many years that virtually everything humans enjoy somehow involves triggering the release of dopamine in our brain's pleasure centers. Nicotine has also been found to trigger the release of dopamine.
Taken together, these discoveries suggest that smokers can expect some quite interesting chemical reactions to develop in their bodies at the next wine and cheese party they attend. The consequences of the nicotine and tobacco smoke (both of which seem to play different roles in this process) would act together to produce additional dopamine from the contents of the diet and, furthermore, to induce the brain to release that surplus dopamine within the brain's pleasure centers. A double-whammy of pleasure!
Smoking, drinking wine and eating cheese at the same time is therefore simultaneously more rewarding and more dangerous!
© Gary L. Wenk, Ph.D. Author of Your Brain on Food (oxford, 2010
