Effects Of Added Sugars

 

12 Potential Signs You’re Eating Too Much Sugar

Upset stomach, irritability, and sluggishness are all possible warnings you're overdoing it on the sweet stuff.

Julie Revelant

By Julie Revelant

Medically Reviewed by Kelly Kennedy, RD

March 30, 2021

Medically Reviewed

stacked sugar cubes

Overdoing it on sugar can show up in surprising ways throughout your body.Yaroslav Danylchenko/Stocksy

Sugar gets a bad rap, but the truth is that it’s a vital source of energy and essential to our survival. Of course, not all sugars are the same. Fructose found in fruits and vegetables and lactose in dairy-rich foods are natural sugars we don’t have to be as concerned about because these foods also have fiber and calcium, for example. Added sugars, however, which are often found in processed foods, are those we could do without, and most of us consume too much of them.

According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020–2025, the average American consumes 270 calories of added sugars, or 17 teaspoons, each day.

Added sugars are anything that’s added to food to make it taste sweet, and this includes natural sugars like honey and maple syrup. “Even though they may be more wholesome than table sugar, it’s still contributing more calories but not much in the way of vitamins and minerals,” says Jessica Cording, RD, a health coach in New York City and author of The Little Book of Game Changers.

Sugar is sneaky and can hide under 61 different names, according to the University of California in San Francisco. Despite your best efforts to make healthy food choices, you could be getting more sugar than you bargained for.

Negative Effects of Sugar on the Body

Per Harvard Health Publishing, when we eat sugar, most of it gets broken down and absorbed in the small intestine. 

Specialized enzymes attack larger molecules and convert them into three simpler sugars: glucose, galactose, and fructose. The liver and muscles store some of the glucose as glycogen, a molecule that can be turned back into glucose when your body needs it.

When glucose enters the bloodstream, however, levels of blood glucose rise. In response, the pancreas secretes insulin to help glucose get where it needs to go in your body. 

If you’re consuming large amounts of added sugar, the cells can become resistant to insulin over time — a risk factor for systemic inflammation, type 2 diabetes, and other chronic conditions.

According to a study published in November 2016 in the journal Nutrients, consuming too much added sugar has also been linked to weight gain and obesity, risk factors for heart disease, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, and cancer.

“Excessive intakes of added sugars impact our energy, mood, weight, and disease risk,” Cording says. “Across the board it can impact our physical and mental well-being.”

“In order for us to function as smoothly and as normally as possible, we need our blood sugar to be operating in the Goldilocks zone of energy,” says William W. Li, MD, a physician in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and author of Eat to Beat Disease.

Are You Eating Too Much Sugar?

The recommendations for limits on added sugars vary among industry groups. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020–2025, which are published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture, recommend limiting calories from added sugars to no more than 10 percent each day. For someone who consumes 2,000 calories a day, that’s a maximum of about 12 teaspoons worth...

Source: Everyday Health 

Inserted by Zimbabwe Online Health Centre

For more information follow /like our Facebook page :Zimbabwe Online Health Centre

email :zimonlinehealthcentre@gmail.com 

Twitter :zimonlinehealthcentre 

@zimonlinehealt1

YouTube: zimbabwe online health centre

Instagram: Zimonlinehealth

Website:www.zimonlinehealthcentre.co.zw