At this point it’s common knowledge that excess sugar isn’t good for you, but the average American still consumes far more sugar than they should each day. What many of us don’t realize is the types of side effects it can have and why it’s so important to regulate our consumption of sugar.
There’s many experts who believe that sugar is one of the worst parts of our modern diet and a key factor in the obesity epidemic that is consuming North America and Western Europe.
Here are the top reasons you should be making an effort to reduce your sugar intake to a minimum.
Excess sugar consumption causes insulin resistance
The main purpose of insulin is to drive glucose into your cells so that they have the energy they need to do basic functions.
When we eat excessive sugar the cells begin to develop a resistance to insulin and in turn our body continues to produce more insulin. When you carry on with the diet for extended periods the insulin levels can get to dangerous levels.
Insulin also helps to tell your fat cells to pick up the fat in your bloodstream and hold onto it. Therefore, when you have large amounts of insulin from eating excess sugar your body is going to hold more fat.
As your body continues to develop a stronger and stronger resistance to insulin, your beta cells in your pancreas wear out and start failing to produce the insulin anymore. This is what causes Type 2 Diabetes.
Most added sugar is in the form of fructose
Typical sugar is often half glucose and half fructose, glucose serves an important function in our body and is metabolized by most cells in our body. In fact, if we don’t consume enough then our body will create it.
However, fructose in its current state serves no purpose and it is metabolized by the liver. But when the liver is already full of glycogen it has no purpose for any extra and so that fructose is instead converted into fat and stored in our fat cells.
Fructose is the cheapest type of sugar and so it is often found in candy, chocolate, bakery goods and other sweet treats. To avoid fructose you should avoid junk food and processed foods that are sweet.
Sugar causes fat deposits in the liver
As we just explained, when we eat fructose it goes straight to the liver and is converted into fat because it has no purpose .
Whilst some of that fat will be sent around your body through your bloodstream and stored in different places, a lot will be stored around your liver. As you can imagine, storing fat around your organs isn’t healthy for you and can cause Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.
Sugar is highly addictive
Whenever we do something or eat something that we enjoy, dopamine is released in our brain and this makes us feel pleasure.
This seems great, right?
The problem is that our brain is designed so that dopamine signals to ourselves that a certain activity is beneficial to us and something that we should be doing.
Firstly, this forms a mental addiction to the food (sugar) that gives you a quick dopamine release.
Eventually, after weeks of eating the same sugary foods your brain becomes accustomed to having certain large dopamine rushes from the sugar and you become reliant on it.
This causes a physical addiction to sugar that has been able to be replicated and studied in rodents.
Sugar causes your blood sugar to spike and crash
Whenever we eat foods a portion of that will be converted into glucose which is needed by our cells as an energy source to perform their specialized tasks and by our brain to function.
The problem is when you eat a sugary snack you hit your body with fructose which isn’t needed and your blood sugar spikes very quickly. This is why you feel good when you eat a snack and it releases dopamine.
Then, about 20-30 minutes after your blood sugar will crash and you feel terrible.
This cycle is repeated through the day as you snack on sugar and your body becomes out of wack and you feel terrible.
There’s been a phrase going around called a ‘sugar hangover’ whilst there has been little to no studying of the idea, it seems that a lot of people complain of feeling a lack of energy after eating excess sugar.
Sugar doesn’t make you feel full
In a study that compared a group of people drinking an energy drink containing either fructose or glucose, the group that had fructose complained that they didn’t feel satiated whilst the group with glucose did.
Glucose drinks had a lower level of the hormones ‘ghrelin’ which is responsible for telling your brain whether you are hungry or not.
The problem with this is that sugar contains a large amount of calories but does little to nothing to make you feel full and therefore you continue to eat more food to satiate yourself.
You might say that it’s about willpower, but your basic human response to hunger is much stronger than willpower and you’re better off just switching to a healthier diet to avoid the problem.