Sugar comes in many forms beyond the white powder we often associate it as. Some are claimed to be better than others, and some have names you wouldn’t even recognize on an ingredient label. The whole subject of sugar in the health industry is confusing!
“It’s okay in moderation.”
“Your body isn’t designed to digest sugars.”
“Sugar-free products are always healthy.”
“Artificial sweeteners are worse.”
“You need sugar for energy.”
“Sugar is addictive.”
All of these are common claims to do with sugar, opposing one another. One thing is for certain: We are consuming more sugar in our diets than we EVER have before. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the average American consumes 150-170 pounds of refined sugars per year! I am in Canada and the numbers I see here are not too far off. Compare this to the 4-6 pounds yearly consumption of the early 1800s or even the high yearly 90-pound consumption of the 1900s.
You probably think that can’t be right…
That’s A LOT of sugar!
That figure is correct - 150 to 170 pounds a year indeed.
That translates to ¼ to ½ pound, or 30-60 teaspoons, of sugar PER DAY.
It’s hard to believe you’re capable of that, but keep in mind, you are not just
consuming sugar in your coffee and baked goods. It is hidden in the majority of foods
you probably eat rather regularly.
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Hidden Sugars
Sugar is added into foods you wouldn’t expect.
Some include:
Ketchup
BBQ sauces
Tomato Sauces
Marinades
Salad Dressings
Yogurts
Breads
Protein Bars
Peanut Butter
Soups
Canned fruits
Cereals
Crackers
Oatmeal
Frozen Dinners
And so many more!
This list does not include the obvious culprits of soda, cookies, and ice cream, but these are just some (of the many!) surprising ways sugar sneaks into our diets.
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How to Spot Sugars on Labels
One of the main reasons you may not recognize all the sugar you have in your diet is because it very rarely will say “sugar” on the ingredient lists of the food you buy.
Instead, you may see:
Dextrose
Maltose
Glucose
Fructose
Corn Syrup
High Fructose Corn Syrup
Corn Sweetener
Sucrose
Sorbitol
Sorghum syrup
Agave nectar
Carbitol
Evaporated Cane Juice
Galactose
Inversol
Rice malt
Sorbitol
Nectars
As I’m sure you would guess... There is even more than what I included on this list.
A few tips in identifying sugars is looking for words with “ose” or “ides” ending and examining the entire ingredients list as often there is more than one type of sugar in a product.
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If sugar is already in all the food we eat, then why should we care? It’s not like EVERYONE is sick, right?
The problem with excessive sugar consumption is that most health issues do not manifest immediately, and if they do, they are not usually recognized as being caused by our diets.
Mental illness and behavioral problems are often attributed to other sources beyond diet. Allergies, arthritis, and migraines are explained by our environment, stress levels, and response to medication. Immune disorders, degenerative diseases, diabetes, and cancer take time to diagnose, and most people aren’t grabbing their food journals at this point to search for the connection.
However, there is more research being conducted on the effects of sugar on human health by the day.
Let me tell you… It’s not looking too great for sugar’s case.
To best understand how sugar is so dangerous, you must first know what it is made of.
Before sugar leaves the digestive tract, it is composed of two simple sugars, glucose and fructose.
Glucose is an important energy source and easy to obtain. If we are not consuming it in our diets, our bodies will produce it. Simple as that.
However, fructose is different. Our bodies do not produce much of it, and quite frankly, there is no need for it to do so. In fact, there is no proven physiological need for fructose at all.
The relationship between sugar and insulin resistance has become a crucial topic of discussion.
Insulin is one of the most important hormones in our bodies. It is responsible for directing glucose into cells to be used for energy.
However, when our cells no longer respond to insulin, our body receives the message that it needs to produce more. In response, the pancreas makes more insulin. But over time, the pancreas is unable to keep up with the demand and blood sugar is no longer able to be maintained. This is known as insulin resistance.
Insulin resistance is thought to be a big contributor to many diseases, including but not limited to: type II diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome, and cardiovascular disease.
Even after these diseases develop, elevated blood sugar remains an ongoing problem.
This excess is often the reason people with these illness experience other complications, like blindness in diabetes, for example.
It is no secret that obesity is a serious epidemic. One of three children and two out of three adults are either overweight or obese in the United States.
Sugar’s role in gaining weight is much more serious than just adding in some empty calories. Instead, it affects the hormones responsible for satiety and the feelings of satisfying your hunger. Therefore, it leads you to eat more and more. I’m sure you can see the problem here…
Knowing this alone strengthens the case that there is a 60% increased risk of obesity in children for every daily serving of sugar-sweetened beverages in their diets!! It is important to note that weight gain from sugar is often present in the abdominal area.
This visceral fat breeds a higher risk profile for many other diseases, some even lifethreatening.
Therefore, sugar is a leading factor in the rise in obesity among many other serious health complications.
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Fructose, one of the main components of sugar, is metabolized by the liver, but only in significant amounts at a time.
This wouldn’t be a problem if everyone minimized their sugar intake significantly and increased their daily physical activity. Typically the fructose would be turned into
glycogen and be stored in the liver for safe keeping until our bodies were ready to burn this energy reserve.
However, if there is already an ample amount of glycogen in the liver, eating more sugar overloads it. The extra is forced to be turned into fat. This process is the
beginning of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease among other complications.
To take it even further, some studies have suggested that sugar can be just as damaging as alcohol is to the liver even if you’re at a healthy weight!
Luckily, the liver can repair itself, but with continuous sugar consumption, it can never catch a break!
There have been many misconceptions on what causes cardiovascular disease, the role in cholesterol, and what foods help or harm heart health.
Things have been cleared up! Saturated fat is not the culprit. Sugar is!
You heard that right… Sugar consumption is a leading contributor to the #1 killer of this world: heart disease.
Studies have shown that consuming a large amount of fructose can cause a rise in bad cholesterol (LDL), blood glucose, insulin levels, and abdominal obesity. These findings were apparent in as little as 10 weeks.
Please note that all of these factors are major risk factors in developing heart disease.
Here are some more studies linking sugar consumption with heart disease:
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/89/4/1037.short
http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/106/4/523.full
http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/123/3/249.short
Your immune system is responsible for defending your body against illness. That’s a big deal! So for your immune system to be compromised, you are putting yourself in danger of pathogens that can make you very sick.
According to a study through Loma Linda University, 100 grams of sugar can make your white blood cells 40 percent less effective in killing germs. On top of already putting your body in a stressed and irritated state, sugar directly affects your main line of defense against disease!
The most alarming part about this is that the sugar’s crippling effects stay present in your system for up to 5 hours after you eat it!
It’s hard to believe that something that is so prevalent in our everyday diets can cause cancer. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s true.
Cancer is uncontrolled growth and the multiplication of cells. It is also one of the leading causes of death worldwide.
How is sugar related, you ask?
Insulin. Insulin is one of the main hormones responsible for regulating the growth of these cells. It has been concluded that having constantly elevated insulin levels can indeed contribute to cancer.
Do you remember what I had said about insulin and sugar? Consuming sugar raises insulin levels. Now there is a considerable amount of evidence how this contributes to cancer risk and progression.
Here are some additional readings:
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1534735404274167
Sugar also affects our brain quite significantly.
Studies have shown that sugar slows down the brain’s function, hinders new learning, and decreases memory recall. There are also strong connections between high sugar intake and the prevalence of depression and anxiety.
What do you think of when you think of a sugar crash? Is it irritability, decreased mood, brain fog, and fatigue? Now imagine that not going away!
Foods rich in sugar disrupt our brain’s neurotransmitters that work to stabilize our moods. However, if we are continually disrupting the function of these receptors, we no longer have the inherent control over our moods as we usually do. According to
Dr. Kharrazian, a functional medicine expert and author, this is a huge contribution to chronic depression.
Watch this great video on how sugar affects your brain to learn more:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEXBxijQREo
Sometimes we use the word, “addiction” lightly. Saying you are addicted to your favorite food, for example, isn’t necessarily encompassing the real meaning of the word.
According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM),
“Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory, and related circuitry. Dysfunction in these circuits leads to characteristic biological, psychological, social and spiritual manifestations. This is reflected in an individual pathologically pursuing reward and/or relief by substance use and other behaviors.
Addiction is characterized by an inability to consistently abstain, impairment in behavioral control, craving, diminished recognition of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships, and a dysfunctional emotional response.
Like other chronic diseases, addiction often involves cycles of relapse and remission.
Without treatment or engagement in recovery activities, addiction is progressive and can result in disability or premature death.”
I know that’s a pretty long definition, but it is important to really know what we’re talking about when we say sugar is addicting.
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter responsible for controlling the reward and pleasure responses of the brain.
When you eat a lot of sugar, a massive amount of dopamine is released in your brain.
As you continue to consume sugar, the dopamine receptors become less powerful, making the response less effective.
More sugar is needed to create that same euphoric, dopamine reaction. This continues into a vicious cycle, much like what happens with drug addictions.
A popular study proved the addictive qualities in sugar with rats and Oreos. The pleasure regions of (previously drug-addicted) rats’ brains were significantly more active when exposed to Oreo cookies compared to cocaine.
(More information on this study is here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1931610/)
A later study showed that the brains of people with “food addiction” reacted to sugar the same way as drug addicts react to drugs.
This is truly proof that sugar can take over our brain chemistry and deliberately make us crave and eat more of it.
While sugar is very obviously a negative contribution to our health and lives, not all sugars are created equally. Some are much worse for us than others, and of course, vice versa.
Up next, I will be going through some sugars that should definitely be avoided as much as possible, as well as some recommended alternatives.
Do you currently use any sugar alternatives?
If possible, avoid these products:
-Aspartame
This chemical sweetener is best known for its appearance in diet sodas. Some people can tolerate it well in the short term, while others report migraines and digestive distress. Regardless of the initial reaction, aspartame has been proved pretty dangerous in isolated situations. For example, the University of Liverpool conducted a study where aspartame was mixed with a common food coloring. The result was clear toxicity to brain cells! Additionally, researchers found that when aspartame breaks down, it creates formaldehyde, a well-known carcinogen. Eeek!
-Sucralose
Sucralose, commonly known as the brand name Splenda, is processed using chlorine!
Researchers are also finding that the waste of those consuming this “sugar” can’t be broken down in wastewater treatment centers. Imagine what that means for INSIDE our bodies!
-High Fructose Corn Syrup
This one may be a bit more challenging to avoid. HFCS is in almost everything. This 18 sweetener plays a huge role in the fat build up in the liver, leptin resistance, and
major weight gain. A study even found that high fructose corn syrup is sometimes laced with mercury! Mercury is a heavy metal linked to heart disease and developmental disorders like autism.
Don’t worry! I will be suggesting some safer alternatives next.
Some safer sugar alternatives include:
-Stevia
Stevia sweetener is an extract made from the leaves of the stevia plant. It has shown to help balance fasting blood sugar levels, cholesterol, insulin resistance, and blood pressure! However, it is important to pay attention to the source of stevia. Some
brands include additives so be sure always to check the label.
-Coconut Sugar
Coconut sugar is a natural sweetener, unrefined, and still contains all of its vitamins and minerals. It does not contribute to the strong fluctuations in blood sugar like other, refined added sugars.
-Raw Honey
Honey has less fructose and provides other health benefits, including promoting heart health and fighting inflammation.
As always, too much of a good thing can be bad. So please keep in mind that these
alternatives do still break down to glucose and fructose in your body and all 19 sweeteners should be used infrequently.
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Although it is ideal, it is not practical to plan to cut sugar out entirely. As I mentioned before, it is hiding in nearly everything! However, finding healthier alternatives, practicing moderation, and being aware of the dangers is the best way to take action on the case against sugar.
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I know that I just shared a TON of information with you and it may be a bit overwhelming.
That is okay! Changing your eating habits and taking control of your health requires a lot of effort but it is incredibly rewarding. You will experience a higher quality of life, maintain a healthy weight, have more natural energy, and can prevent serious illness! There is so much value in kicking sugar to curb and becoming the healthiest version of you!
If you feel like you need support on phasing sugar out of your diet, I am absolutely here to help!
Thank you for taking the time to experience my class - [title].
I love sharing this topic with people who are eager to transform their health, and this group was just fantastic.
If you have any further questions, please post them below and/or email me at mark@markkibyuk.com
I am always here to support you!!!
Videos:
Sugar Basics- done
a. How to read a label for sugarSugar and your GUT- done
Blood sugar and at Storage- done
Hormone mess- done
Why sugar is so hard to break- done
Sugar and sleep- done
Sugar and your Immune system- done
Supplements to support you
Sugar and Nutrient Deficiencies
Sugar and your Mood
Sugar and your skin
Sugar and your weight
Long term effects of sugar
Your next steps