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9 Reasons To Avoid Sugar As If Your Life Depended On It
By Kris Gunnars
The harmful effects of sugar go way beyond empty calories.
Added sugar is so unhealthy that it is probably the single worst ingredient in the modern diet.
Here are the top 9 reasons to avoid sugar as if your life depended on it (it does).
1. Added Sugar Supplies a Large Amount of Fructose
The reason added sugar (and its evil twin… High Fructose Corn Syrup) is bad for you, is that it supplies a very large amount of fructose.
Sugar (and HFCS) are half glucose, half fructose. Glucose is essential and can be metabolized by pretty much every cell in the body. If we don’t get it from the diet, our bodies make it from proteins and fat.
The only organ that can metabolize fructose is the liver, because only the liver has a transporter for it (1).
When large amounts of fructose enter the liver and it is already full of glycogen, most of the fructose gets turned into fat (2).
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http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-03/9-reasons-avoid-sugar-if-your-life-depended-it
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NaturalHigh
(12,778 posts)I saved the article to read.
Lionessa
(3,894 posts)I have a high sugar (cane sugar, not HFS) diet and am slender and healthy, including my liver. I find lots of these studies to be more than a tad questionable, and based on how many "known" medical opinions that have been debunked over the years, I'll stick with my way. Everyone I know who worries about sugar and uses diet products such as diet coke are obese, everyone I know like myself who just eats and drinks normally without such concern are slim to pudgy but not obese.
Capt.Rocky300
(1,005 posts)who somehow defy the common beliefs. My father started smoking when he was 18 and went through a pack and half or more a day until he died at 93 from old age. Never had cancer or emphysema. Go figure.
Lionessa
(3,894 posts)However, with the sugar, I'm not the only person I know who refuses to be caught up in the diet mania that have no real weight or health issues. I am perhaps the only one who still smokes, I guess one other does, but not most.
The thing I'm pointing out though is that these wisdoms often end up very wrong, I look at replacement hormones as one. I never took them after my early 30's hysterectomy much to the anger and irritation of medical professionals who told me over and over how they were really necessary for a long happy life... not so true these days and I thank myself for refusing to take them.
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)Anecdotal evidence is useless.
still...
I drink diet soda and I'm not obese.
I had a 29" waist until I was 33 and then that gene cut off. How old are you? You're liver's OK now, but in the future.....
Of course the real lesson here is people are different... and genes matter too. You can floss you teeth til the cows come home, but if your genes have decided....your teeth will fall out. Still, genes are not absolute and flossing is still a good idea. It will delay them falling out as long as possible. All science can do if offer guidelines.
Besides fructose is how most humans got their sugar for millions of years so eliminating it may not be so healthy.
Just eat a variety of things in moderation and get some exercise.
Lionessa
(3,894 posts)ErikJ
(6,335 posts)In this article we’re going to talk about the mirror reflection of the MHO: the “metabolically unhealthy nonobese” (MUN). These are lean people with either full-fledged type 2 diabetes or some metabolic dysfunction, such as insulin resistance.
You might even be surprised to learn that skinny people can and do get T2DM. They are rarely mentioned in the media, and there isn’t much written about them in the scientific literature. Perhaps these folks have been overlooked because type 2 diabetes has been historically viewed as a disease of gluttony and sloth, a self-inflicted outcome of eating too much and not and not exercising enough. But the very existence of the MUN phenotype proves that there’s more to T2DM than overeating and a sedentary lifestyle.
Remember that one in three type 2 diabetics are undiagnosed. It’s possible that a significant number of these people that are lean. They don’t suspect they might have T2DM because they’re under the impression that it’s not a condition that affects thin people. This is one of the biggest dangers of the myth that “only fat people get diabetes”.
It’s well-known that high blood sugar can precede the development of T2DM for as long as ten years. It is during this time that many of the complications associated with diabetes – nerve damage, retinal changes, and early signs of kidney deterioration – begin to develop. This is why it’s just as important for lean people to maintain healthy blood sugar as it is for the overweight and obese.
http://chriskresser.com/think-skinny-people-dont-get-type-2-diabetes-think-again
Lionessa
(3,894 posts)ErikJ
(6,335 posts)Most primates evolved eating fruit and berries. The redder the riper and the more sugar which helped us survive. And is good for us.
But a few ripe fruits a day is nothing compared with the average American diet with giant sodas and candy bars, cookies, ice cream, cake.... ad naseum. Even bread turns into glucose in the digestive system further adding sugars. The ave American diet is probably equivalent to eating probably a 100 fruits a day.
At those levels sugar is surely a toxin.
Lionessa
(3,894 posts)ErikJ
(6,335 posts)Geez, I'd hate to see your teeth. Youre not long for this world.
Lionessa
(3,894 posts)whiteners, just normal brushing and flossing. And I have no doubt I'll live to my 90s unless an accident takes me sooner.
ErikJ
(6,335 posts)Do you make and consume massive quantities of sugary drinks or cookies or cakes or what? That is certainly very bizarre.
Lionessa
(3,894 posts)But 5# every week isn't quite a pound a day, though I admit it's close.
Vinnie From Indy
(10,820 posts)Al Pacino in Scarface sitting at his desk with a huge pile of cocaine in front of him. At one point, he sticks his whole face in the pile and emerges with his face looking like a powdered donut.
Do you really eat 5lbs of sugar a week?
Lionessa
(3,894 posts)Politicalboi
(15,189 posts)When I think of skinny diabetics. So being fat is not the only way to have diabetes.
BuddhaGirl
(3,608 posts)The article talks about Type 2
adieu
(1,009 posts)which isn't (always) related to obesity.
Lionessa
(3,894 posts)comparatively, and not just in sugar but in many ways it seems the two Type1's I knew back in highschool and college had very limited diets.
caseymoz
(5,763 posts)This means that any warning they give is in terms of probabilities. Such as, if you smoke, you have twenty-seven times the chance of getting lung cancer in your life as somebody who doesn't (real statistic). If you consume three teaspoons of sugar a day, you have, perhaps, you have twice the chance of becoming overweight and four times the chance of becoming obese (Those last two are not a real statistics. I just use them for examples).
They can't predict that you will come down with an ailment due your sweet tooth any more than they can tell you you're going to die in a traffic accident if you don't wear your seat belts.
They can tell you what's more likely to happen.
However, it's also true that health news is a bit of a racket, though some things are really settled issues. Sugar is terrible for you. Overindulgence makes you more likely to come down with some pretty awful chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease more likely in your lifetime. More likely does not mean you will.
If your physiology is able to tolerate a poor diet and smoking now, you're very fortunate. However, if you're body is resilient now, that doesn't mean it will continue to be. Your physiology changes greatly in your lifetime.
More likely, you will not be able to maintain your health as well as a person, of equal age, who doesn't have your habits.
Lionessa
(3,894 posts)daughters' friends who are at least a quarter of a century younger. I can walk 10 miles, I haul 175# of equipment around when I'm doing my biz thing. People have been telling me my whole life how I need to stop this or that or I'll get fat and unhealthy, and if not "now," then when I reached 20, then it was when I had children, then when I reached 30, then 40, and so on. I'm 52, I got no problems related to food or weight at all. Probably because unlike dieters and such, I don't focus on food like they do and I've always thought that it must be difficult to reduce food intake when that's all you focus on all day, counting and worrying and getting on and off scales everyday if not more often.
caseymoz
(5,763 posts)You would be somewhere on the highest percentile, maybe the highest percentile within the highest percentile of people who could tolerate sugar and smoking. And I will agree no one has found a dieting method better than willpower informed by nutrition. In fact, there's no effective way to fight obesity available.
However, what I'm saying is just because you've thrived so well so far in your life, that doesn't prove that the science demonstrating the harm of sugar or cigarettes is wrong, because the harm is demonstrated in he vast majority of other people. That proves there's physically something about you that's different.
Science likes to investigate people like you because you are an exception. You might be surprised what it could be. Scientists have found a family in Italy who are totally impervious to heart disease. Plaque just doesn't develop in their arteries. And it's a genetic mutation. Physically they're just as strong at 70 as they were at 18. Have you thought of contacting a scientist?
I hate to say, it's not your attitude that's done it either, at least not directly. It's the physiology you were born with (though maybe your attitude is an effect of that physiology).
My mother had a high sugar appetite and smoked just like you. She would never go on diets either. She was a physical wreck by age fifty. Overweight, diabetic, and hypertensive. She lived for thirty years after that, but her quality of life was so terrible. She could do few things to enjoy her years until she died of CPOD, fighting for breath.
Keep the lifestyle you're happy with, but don't recommend it to other people, nor point to it as proof that the science is wrong. The harm of sugar and cigarettes for most of us is too well demonstrated.
Bay Boy
(1,689 posts)..."That proves there's physically something about you that's different. "
If someone eats 5 pounds of sugar a week on top of what would be considered a normal amount of calories how does that person not gain weight? (there are 1755 calories in one pound of sugar)
caseymoz
(5,763 posts)Most people reach their satiation point with sugar well within one pound of sucrose a week. I seriously doubt she eats one pound of sugar a week unless her body is already maintaining a weight of 500 pounds, and apparently, that's not happening.
Do you know what five pounds of pure sugar a week is likely to do to a person of normal weight? I'm just guessing myself. Start with pancreatitis, which will likely shut down any craving you have for sugar, but if it doesn't, than the consequences get worse. I would guess it would probably cause stomach ulcers, which also kill your desire for more sugar. If that doesn't happen, you'll probably go hyperglycemic sometime before you reach two pounds, even if you have no history of diabetes, because your pancreatic islet cells will have exhausted their ability to produce insulin. That's just a start. I can't guess about what the direct neurological effects would be. And the high sugar over a week will likely cause acute inflammation within the arteries from the glucose irritating them, making you vulnerable to a cardiac infarction or occlusion along with other circulatory problems. Then, it might destabilize your heart probably causing tachycardia or even sinus arrhythmia, so don't try it without defibrillators close at hand.
Are you referring to a smaller amount of sugar? Anything is poison in a high enough dosage. By a lot of sugar in somebody's diet, I meant something short of a suicide attempt.
Lionessa
(3,894 posts)So I must be intaking 5#s as I'm the only one who uses my sugar.
caseymoz
(5,763 posts)I'm not saying you're lying. I'm saying you're mistaken I'm saying it's harder to count accurately over days than you think. If you think you're counting, but you're not actually documenting, it's too easy to see what you want to believe; especially if it confirms something remarkable about yourself; especially if you've already spoken to people about it. That's just how the human mind works.
One indication is, where do you find a five pound bag of sugar? I haven't seen one at the grocery store in three years. The bags I find now are all four pounds. That alone suggests that there's some inaccuracy to what you're claiming.
For example of how difficult it is, estimates I've made of my spending turn out to be far lower than I find when I'm keeping track of it on a spreadsheet. Everyone experiences that. And always I make the error on the low side. I want to think I'm being disciplined.
I put away maybe 8 pounds of crystalized sugar per year. (That's an estimate, not documented. That's sugar bought at the store that I add to foods directly). That's not my dieting or being disciplined, either. That's just a measure of my sweet tooth. I don't like that much sugar.
It turns out when I check that the average person in the US consumes 2.5-3 pounds of sugar a week. More than I would have thought. But that's all types of sugars, from all sources. That's not five pounds of added sugar on top of the amounts already in foods.
Lionessa
(3,894 posts)I don't need your approval or your belief. Facts are facts and in this case, I create the fact by the way I ingest sugar, so it's going to remain a fact I create with or without you believing it.
PS Yes, most are now 4# but at the Kroger one brand, I think the Kroger brand is still 5#. I don't keep the bag as I pour it into a container, but I know I have to actually read the bags to be sure to get the right one. If there are no 5# bags where I'm buying that day, I buy a 10# bag and it lasts... two weeks, go figure.
Lionessa
(3,894 posts)seem to be quite a quirk.
As for your last paragraph, I won't do that, since everyone I know who diets and drinks lite and no calorie fake sweetener drinks are all obese. So I will continue to point out that fake sweeteners seem to be more of a problem and real sugar.
reACTIONary
(5,770 posts)Politicalboi
(15,189 posts)And drink about 6 12 oz cans of Coke EACH day. I weigh about 130 lbs. I guess it's more of how your body breaks it down, because I should be as big as a house by now. Of coarse, I hate to have to eat. If I never had to eat again, I would be happy.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)the two are different, and HFCS is much worse for you.
It is still good to cut down the sugar in your life, but some won't hurt you.
thesquanderer
(11,990 posts)...a lot of research seems to indicate that HFCS is actually no worse for you than refined sugar. Google...
This is not a defense of HFCS. The bottom line is that neither are healthy choices.
Which is not going to stop me from eating plenty of it. Sweets are my vice. No drugs, no smoking, no alcohol. Just sweets. Mostly chocolate, which at least has some benefits of its own.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)like it fools your stomach so you don't feel full so you keep eating more. It also has a stronger taste and makes everything taste the same, and nasty (to me at least) plus it cuts into out corn supply raising the cost of damn near everything.
There's more to things than just the chemical makeup, and 5% differences in chemicals can mean worlds of differences (like the difference between H2O and H2O2)
adieu
(1,009 posts)sugar (regular table sugar) is a disaccharide (sp?), made up of a glucose and fructose molecule bonded together. So Sugar is 50-50 glucose and fructose. HFCS is 55% fructose and 40% glucose and 5% some other -ose.
Table sugar isn't any better for you than HFCS. It's that HFCS tastes sweeter (so they can get away with using less) and cheaper to produce. Bottom line is that the quantity of sugar used in almost every processed food, from catsup to soups to frozen dinner plans to whatever else, is just enormous.
alexander9
(8 posts)Very nice article and a complete awareness,I appreciate you for sharing it with us.It helped me a lot in getting awareness about sugar because we use it in out routine but taking something which can causes side effects should be taken in moderation.Keep sharing your knowledge.
