Sugar is quickly ousting fat as the food to avoid, with recent headlines declaring it ‘addictive’ and ‘as dangerous as alcohol and tobacco’.
With all this media attention, perhaps you have started considering quitting, or at least significantly reducing your sugar intake? By ‘sugar’ we’re talking about free sugar, i.e. that which has been added and is found in processed foods, as opposed to the natural sugars present in unprocessed fruits and vegetables. Natural sugars have many benefits as these are bound together with fibre, vitamins and minerals.
The impact of sugar depends on how much you consume, the type of sugar and how fast it gets from the stomach and into your bloodstream. All carbohydrates (including sugar) are eventually broken down in the body into glucose. However, if that carbohydrate or sugar is bound with fibre, fat and/or protein (as with fruits and vegetables) then its absorption and release is slower, which means sugar peaks are avoided.
Insulin is the key hormone that deals with distributing sugar, transporting it from the bloodstream to the cells for energy generation. But, if it is not needed there, the sugar will be packed away as fat. So if you want to control your weight, controlling your blood sugar and keeping your insulin levels as low as possible is key.
Avoiding blood sugar peaks ensures that insulin is not being overworked and is able to transport the sugar to the cells. If the hormone begins to be inefficient, it can lead to insulin resistance – which is increased levels of insulin and sugar in the blood. In its early stages this is associated with weight gain and fatigue. Longer term it is also associated with health problems including Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer, metabolic syndrome, polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Bearing all that in mind, here are eight reasons to curb your sweet tooth and reduce free sugars:
Tooth decay – the link between sugar consumption and tooth decay is well established and scientifically proven. Levels of decay drop as levels of sugar also decrease, especially when the intake of free sugar drops below 10% of total calories consumed
Obesity – sugar consumption raises insulin levels, stimulating fat storage. In the long term, too much sugar can cause insulin resistance
Cancer – being obese increases the risk of cancer and some scientific studies have directly linked the intake of sugar with a higher risk of several cancers
Heart disease – the risk of heart disease doubles for those who consume 25% of their calories as sugar, compared to those who consume 7%
Diabetes – recent research has shown a lower risk of the disease when sugar is reduced in the diet. 1 in 16 people currently has diabetes, with the number of diabetics more than doubling since 1996
Faster ageing – diabetics age faster due to a process called glycation which occurs when sugar levels are elevated and causes premature wrinkling, as well as many other detrimental effects
Higher cholesterol – increased sugar consumption raises the amount of LDL cholesterol (the bad one)
Asthma – it was found that children who drank more than half a litre of soft drinks per day are significantly more likely to have asthma.
