Sugar is considered one of the most popular food products. People consume sugar in almost every meal (not counting the cases of rejecting sugar intentionally). It was brought to our part of the world about 150 years ago and used to be a very expensive product that was not available to ordinary people. Thus, grams of sugar were sold in pharmacies.
Sugar was first produced exclusively from sugarcane as its stalks contained a lot of sweet juice. Much later, people learned to extract sugar from sugar beets. Currently, 40% of the total sugar in the world is produced from beets, while 60% is produced from sugarcane. Sugar contains pure sucrose, which can rapidly split into glucose and fructose, their absorption lasting for just several minutes in the human body. Afterwards they become an excellent source of energy.
As already known, sugar is nothing, it’s just a highly refined carbohydrate, which is especially true of refined sugar. This product has literally no biological value, except for calories. 100 grams of sugar contain 409.2 kcal.
The norm of daily sugar intake
It should be noted that the human body does not need refined sugar. The average citizen of the United States consumes 190 grams of sugar daily. There are data from various studies in Europe and Asia which say that an adult person consumes 70 to 90 grams of sugar a day on average. This is considerably less than in the United States, but still higher than the norm, which is believed to be 30-50 grams of sugar per day. Sugar is also found in most foods and a variety of beverages, which are now consumed by almost all the inhabitants of the world.
The World Health Organization recommends limiting the daily intake of sugar to 5% of the calories consumed, which means approximately 6 teaspoons of sugar (30 grams). It is important to consider not just the sugar that you put in your tea. Sugar is found in all foods!
Damage caused by sugar
Excessive consumption of sugar has a strong influence on the growing number of cardiovascular diseases. So-called sweet tooth people suffer from metabolism disorders due to the large consumption of glucose; their immune system weakens considerably (see Fact 10); besides, sugar contributes to premature aging of the skin and aggravates its properties, which leads to the loss of elasticity, acne or rash, changes in the color of the face etc.
Sugar acts on the body slowly and irreversibly throughout the duration of a person’s life, causing significant damage to the body.
Sugar contributes to fat deposits
It should be remembered that the sugar, consumed by a person, is deposited in the liver as glycogen. If the supply of glycogen in the liver begins to exceed the normal rate, eaten sugar begins to be deposited in the form of fat, usually on the thighs and abdomen. The consumption of sugar along with fat promotes the absorption of fat in the body. In other words, the intake of sugar in large quantities leads to obesity. As already mentioned, sugar is a high-calorie product, which does not contain vitamins, fiber and minerals.
Sugar creates a sense of false hunger
Scientists have found the cells in the human brain that are responsible for controlling appetite; they can also cause false hunger. If you eat foods with high sugar content, free radicals begin to interfere with the usual normal operation of the neurons, which eventually leads to a sense of false hunger, resulting in overeating and great obesity.
There is yet another reason which can cause a sense of false hunger – this is when the body experiences a sharp rise in blood glucose and then a sharp decline in blood glucose levels. The consumption of sugar usually leads to a rapid increase in the level of insulin and glucose in the body, which eventually leads to a sense of false hunger and overeating.
Sugar contributes to aging
Excessive consumption of sugar can lead to premature wrinkles; they will start to appear on the skin since reserve sugar is deposited in the skin collagen, thereby reducing its elasticity. The second reason why sugar contributes to aging is that sugar is capable of producing free radicals that kill our body from the inside.
Sugar is addictive
As shown by the experiments conducted on rats, sugar causes a fairly strong addiction. When using sugar, the human brain experiences the changes very similar to those that occur under the action of morphine, cocaine, and nicotine. As scientists say, these findings will be relevant for people too.
Sugar robs the body of B vitamins
All the vitamins related to group B, especially vitamin B1 (thiamine), are certainly needed for the digestion and assimilation of all foods that contain sugars and starches. White sugar does not contain any vitamins of group B. For this reason, in order to metabolize white sugar, the body removes B vitamins from the muscles, liver, kidneys, nerves, stomach, heart, skin, eyes, blood, etc. It becomes clear that this could lead to strong deficiency of B vitamins in many organs of a human being.
This in turn can lead to excessive nervous excitability, severe indigestion, a feeling of constant fatigue, loss of vision, anemia, muscle and skin diseases, heart attacks and other problems.
Sugar affects the heart
The well-known link between excess sugar consumption and cardiac activity was established long ago. White sugar influences the activity of the heart muscle rather strongly and negatively. White sugar is capable of leading to the strong lack of thiamine, which may cause the degeneration of the cardiac muscle tissue and the development of extravascular fluid accumulation, eventually leading to cardiac arrest.
Sugar depletes the energy reserve
Many people believe that if they consume sugar in large quantities, they will have more energy since sugar is essentially the main energy source. But this is not true.
Firstly, there is a strong thiamine deficiency in sugar and the body cannot complete carbohydrate metabolism, which makes it impossible to produce the needed output of energy. This leads to the fact that a person has marked symptoms of fatigue and markedly reduced activity.
Secondly, the excess of sugar can lead to hypoglycemia, which is accompanied by the following symptoms: dizziness, lethargy, fatigue, nausea, irritability, and strong tremor of limbs.
Sugar is a stimulant
Sugar is a real stimulant according to its properties. When there is an increase in blood sugar levels, the person feels increased activity; there is a certain state of excitation, and revitalization of the sympathetic nervous system is observed. For this reason, we can notice that our heart rate is markedly increased after the use of white sugar, there comes a small rise in blood pressure, an increase in breathing rate, and the tone of the autonomic nervous system as a whole is increased considerably.
Due to changes in the biochemistry of the body that are not accompanied by any excessive physical activities, a person has the feeling of certain tension aimed at dissipating the resulting energy. That is why sugar is often called “stress food”.
Sugar deprives the body of calcium
Sugar affects the changes in the ratio of blood calcium and phosphorus: the calcium level usually increases, while the phosphorus level gets reduced. This is the reason for the violation of homeostasis in the body. The ratio between calcium and phosphorus continues to be violated for more than 48 hours after having consumed sugar, while homeostasis continues to be disturbed for quite a long time.
Due to the fact that the ratio of calcium to phosphorus is strongly disturbed, the body cannot fully absorb calcium. The best ratio of calcium and phosphorous is 2.5: 1, and in case this ratio is violated and the amount of calcium significantly exceeds the desired dose in relation to phosphorus, excessive calcium is not used and absorbed by the body.
Calcium will be removed with the urine or will form fairly dense deposits in any soft tissues. Thus the intake of calcium may be sufficient, but if calcium is supplied to the body together with sugar, it will be useless. That’s why people must be warned that the calcium in sweetened milk is not metabolized by the body as it should, which in turn enables the development of such diseases as rickets and all other diseases associated with calcium deficiency.
The presence of calcium in the body is required for the metabolism and oxidation of sugar, and since sugar contains no minerals, calcium begins to be taken directly from the bones. The lack of calcium in the body is the reason for osteoporosis, as well as the diseases of teeth and the weakening of bones. Rickets and calcium deficiency may be partly a consequence of the large consumption of white sugar.
The most compelling factor
Sugar reduces the strength of the immune system by 17 times! The more sugar is contained in our blood, the weaker the immune system is. What makes diabetes complications so dangerous? The answer is sugar. In case of diabetes, the body cannot metabolize sugar and gradually accumulates it in the body. The more sugar is accumulated in the blood, the less and less we have to rely on the immune system.
The immune system of a sweet tooth gets weaker by 17 times only for 4-8 hours, until the chocolate is metabolized and removed from the body, but the people suffering from diabetes always have large amounts of sugar in the blood. So their immunity does not protect them! That’s why diabetes causes fatal complications: the whole secret is in the impact of sugar on the immune system. Sugar literally paralyzes it!
For people to avoid problems with their health, it would be better to eliminate as much sugar from their diet as possible. Still, it would be impossible to remove 100% of sugar from the diet because small doses of it are needed for the normal functioning of the human body. However, the consumption of refined sugar should be excluded from the diet by 99%. So give up eating sweets if you can.
