How Excess Sugar Affects the Body
It is common knowledge that consuming too much sugar isn’t good for one’s health. Yet it seems people are not taking this fact seriously. It seems nobody cares – until the adverse consequences appear.
The recommended ‘added’ sugar consumption per person per day is six teaspoons for women and nine teaspoons for men. The term ‘added’ means it’s on top to the sugar found naturally in foods like fruits and milk. On average, however, people consume 20 teaspoons of added sugars per day.
It’s difficult to determine the amount of added sugars in softdrinks, candies, baked goods, and sweetened dairy that one conveniently every day, even several times a day. Even savory foods, like breads, tomato sauce, and protein bars, can have sugar, making it all too easy to end up with a surplus of the sweet stuff. The average 20 teaspoons daily added sugar consumption per person would seem like a modest estimate.
Added sugars are also hard to spot on nutrition labels since they can be listed under a number of names, such as corn syrup, agave nectar, palm sugar, cane juice, or sucrose. “No matter what it’s called, sugar is sugar, and it can negatively affect your body in many ways,” Locke Hughes, at www.webmd.com, writes. Hughes expounds further on how sugar can mess with one’s health, from head to toe:
Brain. Eating sugar gives the brain a huge surge of a feel-good chemical called dopamine, which explains why a person is more likely to crave a candy bar at 3 p.m. instead of an apple or a carrot. Whole foods like fruits and vegetables don’t cause the brain to release as much dopamine, so the brain starts to need more and more sugar to get that same feeling of pleasure. This causes those “gotta-have-it” feelings for your after-dinner ice cream that are so hard to tame.
Mood. The occasional candy or cookie can give a quick burst of energy – or “sugar high” – by quickly raising blood sugar levels. When the levels drop as the cells absorb the sugar, one may feel jittery and anxious, a.k.a. the dreaded “sugar crash”. But reaching into the candy jar too often, can have an effect on one’s mood beyond that 3 p.m. slump: Studies have linked high sugar intake to a greater risk of depression in adults.
Teeth. Mother is right to tell her 12-year-old kid that candy can rot the teeth. Bacteria that cause cavities love to eat sugar lingering in the mouth after one eats something sweet.
Joints. If one has joint pain, there’s more reason to lay off the candy: Eating lots of sweets has been shown to worsen joint pain because of the inflammation these cause in the body. Plus, studies show that sugar consumption can increase the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis.
Skin. Another side effect of inflammation from high sugar consumption: It may make the skin age faster. Sugar attaches to proteins in the bloodstream and creates harmful molecules called “AGEs,” or advanced glycation end products. These molecules do exactly what they sound like they do – age the skin. These have been shown to damage collagen and elastin in the skin – protein fibers that keep the skin firm and youthful – resulting in wrinkles and saggy skin.
Liver. An abundance of added sugar may cause the liver to become resistant to insulin, an important hormone that helps turn sugar in the bloodstream into energy. This means the body isn’t able to control the blood sugar levels as well, which can lead to type-2 diabetes.
Heart. With excess sugar, the extra insulin in the bloodstream can affect the arteries, part of the body’s circulatory system. It causes their walls to grow faster than normal and get tense, which adds stress to the heart and damages it over time. This can lead to heart disease, heart attacks, and strokes.
Pancreas. When one eats, the pancreas pumps out insulin. But if one is eating way too much sugar and the body stops responding properly to insulin, the pancreas starts pumping out even more insulin. Eventually, the overworked pancreas will break down and the blood sugar levels will rise, setting the person up for type-2 diabetes and heart disease.
Kidneys. If one has diabetes, too much sugar can lead to kidney damage. The kidneys play an important role in filtering the blood sugar. Once blood sugar levels reach a certain amount, the kidneys start to let excess sugar into your urine. If left uncontrolled, diabetes can damage the kidneys, which prevents it from doing its job in filtering out waste in the blood, and leads to kidney failure.
Body Weight. The more sugar one eats, the more he’ll weigh heavy. Research shows that people who drink sugar-sweetened beverages tend to weigh more – and be at higher risk for type-2 diabetes – than those who don’t. One study even found that people who increased their sugar intake gained about 1.7 pounds in less than two months.
Sexual Health. The man may want to skip the dessert on date night: Sugar may impact the chain of events needed for an erection. “One common side effect of chronically high levels of sugar in the bloodstream is that it can make men impotent,” explains Brunilda Nazario, MD. This is because it affects the circulatory system, which controls the blood flow throughout the body and needs to be working properly for men to “rise to the occasion.”