Your Body on Sweet: The Alarming Impacts of Added Sugar

Sugar is unavoidable, it’s in nearly everything we eat, from candies, bread, cereals, deserts and even things that don’t taste sweet. Unlike sugars that are naturally found in fruits and vegetables and other whole food. The bulk of the sugar in our diet has been added by food manufacturers during processing or packaging. Many people rely on quick processed food and snacks for meals, since these products often contain added sugar, it makes up a large proportion of our calorie intake. Eating too much sugar in a short period of time may contribute to acne, weight gain and tiredness, while eating sugar over a longer period of time increases the risk of chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and heart diseases. It doesn’t matter how one feels about taking sugar, excessive sugar intake can affect the body health negatively.

Below are ways excessive sugar intake can affect body health:

Increase Body Weight: Increase in weight is no longer anything new, but the more sugar you consume the more you are likely to gain more weight. According to some research done people who drink sugar sweetened beverages tends to gain more weight easily and they are at a higher risk to have type 2 diabetes than those who don’t take too much sugar. Some study found out that people who increase their sugar intake can gain about 1.7pounds in less than two months. Excessive intake of sugar can inflame fat cells causing them to release chemicals that increases weight gain.

• Affects the Kidney: In the case of diabetes, too much sugar intake can lead to kidney damage. The kidney plays an important role in filtering your blood, once blood sugar level reaches a certain amount, the kidney starts to release excess sugar into your urine. If the amount of sugar intake is not controlled this can lead to diabetes that can cause damage to the kidney, which prevents the kidney from performing the job of filtering out waste in the blood, this can also lead to kidney failure.

• Causes Cardiovascular Diseases: According to a study a study done in 2014, it was found that people who got 17-12% of their daily calories from added sugar has a 38% higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease (CVD) than those who consume 8%of added sugar. For those who consume up to 21% or more of their energy from added sugar have the risk of cardiovascular disease doubled (CVD).

• Causes Aging Skin: Consuming of excess sugar in the diet can lead to the formation of advance glycation end products (AGEs) which plays a role in diabetes. However, thy also affect collagen formation in the skin. According to medical news today some evidence suggest that a high number of AGEs may lead to faster visible aging. Although scientist need to study this in humans more thoroughly to understand the impacts of sugar in aging process.

• Drains Energy: Food that are high in added sugar quickly increase blood sugar and insulin levels, leading to increase in energy, however this rise in energy level is fleeting. Products that have more amount of sugar but lacks protein, fiber or fat can lead to a brief increase in energy which can cause sharp drop in blood sugar, this is often referred to as a crash. Having a constant blood sugar swing can lead to a major fluctuation in energy levels.

• Risk of Developing Gout: Gout is an inflammatory condition characterized by pain in the joint. Added sugar also raise the amount of uric acid levels in the blood, increasing the risk of developing or worsening gout.

• Affect the Brain: Eating too much of sugar gives the brain a huge surge of a feel-good chemical called dopamine, which explain why you are more likely to crave for a candy than an apple or a carrot. This is because whole food like fruits and vegetables don’t cause the brain to release as much dopamine, the brain starts to want more sugar to get the same feeling of love for sugar.

• Affects the Liver: Added sugar are high in fructose, fructose has been consistently linked to an increase risk of fatty liver unlike glucose and other types of sugar that are taken up by many cells throughout the body. Fructose is almost exclusively broken down by the liver and is converted in the liver into energy or stored as glycogen. Large amount of added sugar in the form of fructose overloads the liver, leading it to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NFLD), condition caused by excessive fat build-up in the liver.

Summary: sugar can be very tasty to eat, but too much added sugar can have many negative effects to our health these can lead to weight gain, blood sugar problems, an increase in heart diseases and other serious conditions. Try as much as possible to reduce the amount of sugar you take instead go for healthy diets based on whole foods and fruits.