This is Your Brain When You Give Up Sugar for Lent

Can you resist? (Shuttershock)

Anyone who knows me also knows that I have a huge sweet tooth.

I always have. My friend and fellow graduate student Andrew is equally afflicted, and living in Hershey, Pennsylvania—the “Chocolate Capital of the World”—doesn’t help either of us.

But Andrew is braver than I am. Last year, he gave up sweets for Lent.

Are you abstaining from sweets for Lent this year, too? Here’s what you can expect over the next 40 days.

How an ADHD Drug Works to Combat Binge-Eating

Maria Raquel Cochez (Wikimedia Commons)

Last Friday, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration approved the use of lisdexamfetamine dimesylate for treatment of binge-eating disorder. Licensed under the brand name Vyvanse, lisdexamfetamine is the first and only FDA-approved medication for this condition.

But Vyvanse has already been on the market since 2007 for once-daily usage in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children and adults.

How does this drug act on two seemingly distinct conditions?