When I was in school in the nineties, I remember TV advertisements that would regularly play warnings about the harmful effects of tobacco smoking. The result is that twenty years later, I see fewer people smoking than in the nineties.
We now need precisely that kind of campaign against sugar. It is one of the most harmful substances in our food leading to a plethora of illnesses and disease. Among them is diabetes, cancer and heart disease. Sugar is in almost every fruit and cereal that we eat, but in natural foodstuffs it is beneficial for us. It is the added processed white sugar in cakes, cookies, colas, chocolates, biscuits, white bread, flavoured yoghurt, and in mithai that we must be careful about.
For those of us who ape the western diet and eat these foodstuffs regularly, it means that by the end of an average day, we have taken in almost 24 spoons of white sugar. These are statistics mentioned on a Harvard website related to health. The National Cancer Institute of the USA says that translates to an extra 384 calories in your day.
The case is not against wholesome natural foods which too are high on carbohydrates, for these natural foods also come packed with fiber, minerals and antioxidants, protein and calcium. Our bodies consume and digest these foods slowly taking time to process all these ingredients and the natural sugar here is good for us as it offers us a steady supply of energy for our cells.
We are talking against sugars that directly hit our bloodstream and which come in sweet drinks, some of them with five to six spoons of sugar! It gives us an instant spike in our sugar levels and wears off fast as well. It is this yo-yo effect that eventually causes type 2 diabetes.
Ten Harmful Effects of Sugar in Our Body
1 It causes Obesity. All the foods packed on supermarket shelves contain fructose, a simple sugar that increases our hunger and desire for more food. Eventually excess fructose causes resistance to leptin, the hormone that regulates hunger. It is leptin that gives us a signal to stop consuming more food.
2 Leads to Heart Disease: According to healthline.com, too much sugar causes obesity, inflammation and higher triglyceride levels, leading to blood sugar and blood pressure, both of which create havoc with our heart – by upto 38 per cent.
3 Acne and Bad Skin: In teenagers, acne can be a nightmare. And it is directly linked to excess sugar intake. Higher sugar intake spikes our blood sugars leading to androgen secretion, oil production and inflammation: all culprits that bring about acne.
4 Linked to Cancers: Some cancers are being directly linked to a diet high in sugars. Sugar-laden diets lead to inflammation and insulin resistance, and these are linked to certain cancers.
5 Sugar Affects our Mental Health: A research study that tracked 8,000 people for two decades showed that men who took four teaspoons of sugar daily were more likely to develop depression than those who took just two teaspoons of sugar.
6 Accelerates Ageing: Yes, excess sugar even makes our skin less taut. Eventually our sugar fixes will be to blame for our wrinkles and even our cellular ageing.
7 Energy-drainer: You think you are getting a quick sugar fix with a sweet drink or snack. Agreed it makes your sugar spike, but it also equally quickly brings it down. That’s because your quick snack lacks protein, fiber and fat. Just a plain sugar snack like chips and cookies will only lead to blood sugar swings and eventually cause imbalances in our energy levels.
8 Beware of Fatty Liver: A medical fact is that complex sugars are broken down gradually by our cells, but fructose heads straight for the liver, which breaks it down. While the liver stores the necessary amount needed by the body as glycogen, the excess is turned into fat. This causes fatty liver disease.
9 Cavities in our Mouth: From my childhood, this is all I remember being warned about the risk of taking too much sugar in food. I was told repeatedly that it would cause cavities in my teeth and I would need painful dental treatment. In these past 20 years, a whole new narrative is now being built around the harmful effects of sugar.
10 Old-age problems: Some other problems that come naturally with sugar are gout, kidney disease and dementia.
Most of us young people dismiss that, but we are eventually going to become old, so let us put a stop to our excess sugar intake today.
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