10 Ways Sugar Can Negatively Affect Your Health
1. Sugar causes glucose levels to spike and plummet.
Unstable blood sugar levels can leave you experiencing mood swings, fatigue, and headaches. It also contributes to cravings, which begin the cycle of false hunger. By contrast, those who avoid sugar report having fewer cravings while feeling more emotionally balanced and energized.
2. Sugar increases the risk of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
While we all indulge occasionally, foods that quickly affect blood sugar contributes to a greater risk of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Emerging research also suggests connections between these high-glycemic diets and various forms of cancer. These effects are often a result of added sugars working in your body. So, be sure to read those nutrition labels!
3. Your immune function can be affected by sugar.
As if being sick isn’t bad enough, studies have shown that sugar can interfere with the way your body fights disease. Bacteria and yeast feed on sugar, so excess glucose in the body causes these organisms to build up and cause infections.
4. A high-sugar diet can lead to chromium deficiency.
Chromium, a trace mineral, helps regulate blood sugar in the body. While it can be found in meats, seafood, and plant-based foods, 90% of Americans still don’t get enough chromium in their diet because of refined starches. Other carbohydrates can rob foods of their chromium supplies, so limiting your carbs is the best bet for increasing those vital mineral levels.
5. Sugar accelerates aging.
While you most likely know sugar will affect your body composition, it can also mess with your skin by contributing to wrinkles and sagging, After sugar hits your bloodstream, it attaches to proteins. The mix of these proteins with sugar causes the skin to lose elasticity and leads to premature aging.
6. Sugar causes tooth decay.
With all the other life-threatening effects of sugar, we sometimes forget the most basic cosmetic damage it can do. When it sits on your teeth, sugar causes decay more efficiently than any other foods. It’s important to brush your teeth at least twice a day to stop sugars from fueling plaque and bacteria.
7. Sugar can cause gum disease, which can lead to heart disease.
Increasing evidence shows that chronic infections, like those related to dental problems, play a role in the development of heart disease. Many researchers believe that the connection stems from the body’s inflammatory response to infection. Luckily, this works both ways. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle will decrease your risk of common illnesses, which reduces the chance that they’ll become more serious later.
8. Sugar affects cognition in children.
Let’s not forget about our little ones! When New York City Public Schools reduced the amount of sugar in their breakfasts and lunches, their academic ranking increased by 15.7%. Previously, the greatest improvement ever recorded was 1.7%! This study conducted also eliminated artificial colors, synthetic flavoring, and two preservatives, demonstrating the importance of natural ingredients in children’s diets.
9. Sugar increases stress.
When we’re under stress, our bodies immediately kick into fight-or-flight mode, releasing large amounts of hormones. Surprisingly, the body has the same chemical response when blood sugar is low. After you eat a sweet snack, stress hormones begin to compensate for the crash by raising your blood sugar. The result… unexpected anxiousness, irritability, and even shakiness!
10. Sugar takes the place of important nutrients.
According to USDA data, people who consume the most sugar have the lowest intakes of essential nutrients, especially vitamins A, C, B-12, and calcium. The trade-off is especially dangerous for children and teens, who simultaneously consume the most sugar and need the most nutrients for their developing bodies.
Now that you understand the negative effects of sugar on your body and mind, it’s time to be more careful when choosing foods. The first step is becoming educated about how to identify added sugars.
When it comes to convenience and packaged foods, let the ingredients labels be your guide. You would be surprised how many low-carb or “diet” foods contain added sugar.
Sugar is calorie-dense with no nutritional value and can come in many different forms in many of the ingredients we purchase at the supermarket. It is used as a preservative to enhance the sweetness of certain products.
Although we know how much sugar we should be consuming every day, it is difficult to determine due to the many aliases of sugar. Sugar is disguised on the ingredients labels as glucose, fructose, sucrose, maltose, lactose, dextrose, starch, corn syrup, fruit juice, raw sugar, honey, or a combination of them.