Added sugar is everywhere in the market. It is one major villain of your food which is putting you silently at risk numerous of disease. It creates addiction to your body and hides under many foods with different names. Let’s find out why you should avoid sugar.
Quick Look:
- You can find sugar in natural form and refined or artificial form
- Refined sugar cause non alcoholic fatty liver disease
- Artificial sugar harms cholesterol and triglycerides level leading to cardiovascular disease
- Refine sugar causes insulin resistance and leads to type II diabetes
- Sugar Raise uric acid and can cause chronic kidney disease
- Increase risk of obesity, weight gain and Metabolic syndrome
- Artificial Sugar can cause early aging
- Sugar is related with some cancers
- Artificial Sugar contains no essential nutrients and bad for teeth
Details:
In generic sugar is sweetener and there are various types of sugar.
In most of our food normal sugar contents are glucose, fructose and lactose. Glucose is monosaccharide or simple sugar and found almost all types of food and used as source of energy. Fructose is primarily found in fruits and lactose is found in animal dairy products or milk products.
You will find sugar in two forms, natural sugar and refined sugar or added sugar available in market.
Natural Sugar:
Whole, unprocessed food, such as fruits, vegetables, dairy products, in some grains etc contain sugar which we can call as natural sugar. Natural food with sweetness comes with health benefited nutrients, vitamins, minerals, fiber etc, which controls the release of sugar into bloodstream and helps our body to use the sugar effectively. Fructose in fruits is encased with fiber which affects metabolism of fructose in our body, it helps slow down absorption of fructose and direct assess of it to our liver.
Added sugar or processed sugar:
Artificial sugar is extracted from its origin and processed. It is like free sugar with no essential nutrients such as vitamin, minerals, fiber and proteins. Metabolism of added sugar or artificial sugar is very different from natural sugar.
Added sugar of artificial sweetener has many adverse effects in human body. In today, food industries are using artificial processed sugar as sweetener in many of processed food such as cold drinks, soft drinks, cookies, pastries, sugar, candy, pies etc. And they are hiding it by many different names. Our body is not designed to take the burden of such artificial sweetener.
Major contents of added sugar or artificial sugar are glucose and fructose, which is extracted from fruit source in usually. Glucose is the primary source of energy to our body and is found in rice, pasta, wheat, corn and other grains. Every cells of our body utilize glucose and only a small percentage of it remains in liver, metabolized and stored. That portion in liver is converted to Glycogen, which is non toxic source of energy and utilized by body when needed. However fructose as extracted from origins or fruits and processed has no essential nutrients and can harm your body in many ways.
Refined sugar or Fructose cause non alcoholic fatty liver disease:
Unlike glucose, fructose is primarily metabolized in liver not in body cell. (1)Fatty acid formed during fructose metabolism, deposited in lever.There it converted into free fatty acids, very low-density lipoprotein(VLDL), and triglycerides, and stored as fat. Further it converted into glycerol which turns free fatty acid to triglycerides and helps to deposit more fat leads to obesity, further lead to improper function of liver and digestive problem.(2 3)
Fructose harms cholesterol and triglycerides level leading to cardiovascular disease:(4)
Fructose raises VLDL and triglycerides level. Increase of VLDL and triglycerides raise you unwanted lipid number and can lead to cardiovascular disease. Fructose bonded with protein to form end products called Advanced glycation end products. It contributes to vascular complication by cross linking of collagen which is a factor of vascular stiffening and deposition of LDL in artery wall.(5)
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Fructose causes insulin resistance and leads to type II diabetes:
Pancreas release insulin in relation to glucose level in blood, it helps to glucose to enter to body cells so that it can be processed in body cell and converted into energy instead of fat. Fructose causes insulin resistance in our body. (6)This causes stresses on the pancreas to pump more insulin in response to rising sugar level in bloodstream as cells are unable to receive sugar and over time insulin resistance can lead type II diabetes.
Sugar Raise uric acid and can cause chronic kidney disease:
Metabolism of fructose raises uric acid.(7) Which creates stress in kidney and leads to progress of chronic kidney disease.
Consumption of Fructose highly correlates development of obesity, Metabolic Syndrome:
Consumption of fructose is associated with an increased risk of obesity, weight gain and Metabolic syndrome which is a combination of metabolic and cardiovascular risk determinants which raises the risk of heart disease and other health problems such as diabetes and strokes. (8)
Artificial Sugar cause premature aging:
Fructose bonded with protein through a process called glycation to form an end product called Advanced glycation end products or AGEs. It causes inflammation and damages adjacent proteins. AGEs affect nearly every type cell of our body and one of the factor of aging and age related chronic disease and degenerative disease.(9)
Sugar is related with some cancer:
A recent study published in the journal of Nature Communications, that yeast with overactive influx of glucose over stimulated one particular type of proteins that is often found mutated inside human tumors, which would then allow cells to grow at faster rate.(10)
Artificial Sugar contains no essential nutrients and bad for teeth:
Sugar contains only calories, no essential nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, proteins, essential fatty acid, so it is called empty calories.
Sugar provides substrate for action of oral bacteria which further causes tooth demineralization and damage to tooth.(11)
Sugar is addictive:
Regular consumption of sugar, may cause addiction for it.(12) For that reason if you are consuming it regularly it will tempting you take more.
Major Source of Added Sugar:
The major sources of added sugars include regular soft drinks, sugars, sugar candy, cakes, cookies, pies, Alcoholic beverages, Processed snack foods, and fruit drinks (most fruit drinks contain considerable amount of added sugar); dairy desserts and milk products (such as ice cream, sweetened yogurt and sweetened milk); and other grains (cinnamon toast and honey-nut waffles in general). In many of such day to day used foods, artificial sugars hide. We are giving a list here, so beware before buying any packaged food. Make a habit to read label.
Different names of added sugar in label:
Sugar also hides in many foods by different names with a long list. Some of the names where sugar hides includes: Agave nectar, Barbados sugar, Barley malt, Barley malt syrup,Beet sugar, Brown sugar, Buttered syrup, Cane juice, Cane juice crystals, Cane sugar, Caramel, Carob syrup, Castor sugar, Coconut palm sugar, Coconut sugar, Confectioner’s sugar, Corn sweetener, Corn syrup, Corn syrup solids, Date sugar, Dehydratedcane juice, Demerara sugar, Dextrin, Dextrose, Disaccharides, Evaporated cane juice, Fructose, Fruit juice, Fruit juice concentrate, Glucose, Golden sugar, Golden syrup, Grape sugar, Honey, HFCS (High-Fructose Corn Syrup), Icing sugar, Invert sugar, Malt syrup, Malt powder, Maltodextrin, Maltol, Maltose, Mannose, Maple syrup, Molasses, Muscovado sugar, Organic raw sugar, Palm sugar, Panocha, Powdered sugar, Raspadura sugar, Raw sugar, Refiner’s syrup, Rice syrup, Saccharose, Sorghum Syrup, Sucrose, Sweet Sorghum, Syrup, Treacle, Turbinado sugar, Yellow sugar, Sugar molecules ending in “ose” (dextrose, fructose, glucose, lactose, maltose, sucrose) and more
Alternate to added sugar:
Avoiding artificial sugar in today almost impossible, but controlling it beneficial to health. Some alternative to artificial sugar are
- Natural Fruits, dates, coconut, banana
- Stevia: Stevia is a natural sweetener. Almost 150 time SWEETER than sugar, so small quantity of stevia replaces large amount of sugar. Stevia does not increase blood sugar level, is useful for type 2 diabetics. Stevia posses zero calories, and most importantly,You can plant stevia even in a flower pot. One-two leaves are enough to sweeten your drinks.
- Unrefined Organic cane sugar in moderate way
- Use organic raw honey in moderate way
Daily recommendation of sugar intake:
As per American Heart Association, daily intake of added sugar (13)
Above are some top reasons for avoiding sugar. So, make habit to read label before buying any package food, protect your body from villain, choose some healthier alternative to sugar. And finally take control over artificial processed sugar.
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Source & Ref:
1. http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/86/4/895.full
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2673878/
3. http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/89/6/1760.short
4. http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/HealthyEating/Nutrition/Added-Sugars-Add-to-Your-Risk-of-Dying-from-Heart-
Disease_UCM_460319_Article.jsp#.WR5pqjclFkg
5. http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/106/4/523
6. http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/89/6/1760.short
7. http://ajprenal.physiology.org/content/290/3/F625.short
8. https://themedicalbiochemistrypage.org/fructose.php
9. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3257625/?tool=pubmed
10. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01019-z
11. http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/4/881S.full
12. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/
13.http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/HealthyEating/Nutrition/Sugar-101_UCM_306024_Article.jsp#.WU0vWbZLdkh
