Introduction:
With its delicious taste and capacity to improve our culinary , sugar has assimilated into the fabric of our modern diets. However, a potentially dangerous ingredient that poses a variety of health hazards sits beneath its deceptively pleasant exterior. In this blog post, we examine the harmful effects of excessive sugar intake, how it contributes to ailments like obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other illnesses. By exposing the unpleasant truth about sugar, we seek to increase awareness and encourage people to adopt healthier lifestyles.
One of the biggest dangers to heart disease is too much added sugar. Here’s how to stop eating sweets so often.
When it comes to health, sugar’s reputation is ambivalent. All foods that include carbs, including fruits and vegetables, grains, and dairy products, all naturally contain sugar. It’s acceptable to eat complete foods that have natural sugar in them. Dairy foods contain protein and calcium, whereas plant foods are rich in vital minerals, and antioxidants.
These foods’ sugar provides your cells with a consistent supply of energy because your body digests them slowly.
Consuming too much sugar
Too much added sugar, which is sugar that food producers add to items to enhance flavour or extend shelf life, can cause issues.
The main sources of sugar in the American diet are soft drinks, fruit drinks, yoghurt, cereals, cookies, cakes, and sweets, as well as the majority of processed meals.
We end up consuming far too much added sugar as a result. That is 384 calories, so.
According to Dr. Frank Hu, professor of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. documented, but one area that may surprise many men is how their taste for sugar can have a serious impact on their heart health.”
Impact on your heart
Dr. Hu and his colleagues discovered a connection between a high-sugar diet and a higher risk of dying from heart disease in a research published in 2014 in JAMA Internal Medicine. During the 15-year trial, those who consumed 17% to 21% of their calories as added sugar
According to Dr. Hu, the risk of heart disease is essentially inversely proportional to the amount of added sugar consumed.
Although the precise relationship between sugar and heart health is not fully known, there do appear to be a number of indirect relationships. For example, excessive sugar overloads the liver. According to Dr. Hu, your liver processes sugar the same way it processes alcohol and turns dietary carbohydrates into fat. This can eventually result in a bigger buildup of fat, which may then develop into fatty liver disease, a factor in diabetes, which increases your risk of heart disease.
Consuming excessive amounts of added sugar can promote chronic inflammation and blood pressure, both of which major pathological paths to heart disease. Because liquid calories are not as filling as calories from solid foods, excessive sugar consumption, especially in sugary beverages, also causes weight gain by deceiving your body into turning off its mechanism for controlling your appetite. This is why eating sugary beverages makes it simpler for people to increase the number of calories in their usual diet.
The effects of added sugar intake — higher blood pressure, inflammation, weight gain, diabetes, and fatty liver disease — are all linked to an increased risk for heart attack and stroke,” claims Dr. Hu.
How much is okay
What quantity of additional sugar is appropriate if 24 tablespoons daily is too much? Since sugar is not a necessary nutrient in your diet, it is difficult to say. RDA set by the Institute of Medicine, which establishes RDAs for other nutrients.
The American Heart Association advises that men and women should respectively limit their daily intake of added sugar to 150 calories (about 9 teaspoons or 36 ) and 100 calories (around 6 teaspoons or 24 respectively. That equates to roughly one 12-ounce can of Coke.
Subtracting added sugar
Keep track of the sugar you add to your meals and drinks as well. Coffee and tea, among other liquids, account for around half of all added sugar. According to a research published in the May 2017 issue of Public Health, around two thirds of coffee drinkers and one third of tea drinkers add sugar or sweeteners to their beverages. The researchers also noted that added sugar accounted for more than 60% of the calories in their drinks.
But Dr. Hu cautions against going overboard in your efforts to reduce added sugar since it can backfire. “You could find yourself looking for other meals to sate your sweet desires,” he says. “These foods may include refined starches like white bread and white rice, which can boost glucose levels, as well as comfort foods heavy in saturated fat and sodium, which also compromise heart health.
Conclusion:
Global health issues such as the sugar risk demand immediate response. We can safeguard our own health and the health of future generations by being aware of the dangers of consuming too much sugar and taking proactive actions to cut back. We can create a society that is healthy, sugar-conscious, and free from the hidden dangers of sugar by working together on education, legislative improvements, and community support.
