The best fun during holiday & festive season is to get together & have your favorite meal with your friends, colleagues & family members. This festive season is also called the bulking season as we end up putting on a lot of pounds.
We end up having a lot of sugar-filled festive season since when all friends & family members get together, they realise that we humans are just another type of animal with a biological clock which tells us that winter is the best time to store food & to keep our body warm. However, it is not soon when we realise that these emotional consumption has a far fetched impact on our overall health. AND then wefall for the biggest blunder- trendy restrictive or calorie deficit diet with stringent dietary restrictions. The fact is we forget the difference between tracking numbers- weight /calories & improving our health! We need smarter choices that reduce sugar consumption & can go well with our unique biology.
Ultimately what matters is how we feed microbes living in our gut & obviously sugar is not the food you should feed your microbes with. Let us discuss the dysregulation sugar causes on our biological functions.
- Sugar is an addictive drug: We are programmed to be attracted towards high sugary stuff since our brain runs on sugar (glucose). When we consume sugar, our body starts releasing high levels of Dopamine- a chemical in the brain which is associated with positive rewarding behavior. The more sugar we eat, the more dopamine we produce (pleasure we get) & more addictive we become to sugar. This is one the reason why we have high sugar cravings.
- Sugar consumption does not boost metabolism: Transition of food from stomach to gastrointestinal tract or what we call gut transit time is heightened/accelerated when we have high sugar in our diet. This influences how well digested the food is when it reaches the digestive tract. It stimulates chemical signals that relay hunger messages to your brain. If you are eating food rich in fructose & starch, you may find yourself hungry all the time.
- Sugar you eat promotes body wide inflammation, making pathogens microbes in your gut overgrow: Most of the sugar you eat is not glucose but fructose. Fructose is much sweeter & found in fruits & ultra processed foods. Most of what you eat in chocolate bars is fructose which your body responds very differently. When our cell consumes a high level of fructose, it triggers low grade inflammation. This low grade inflammation increases our cortisol level- the stress hormone which makes you feel depressed. This high cortisol level signals to your gut microbiome that your body is being attacked & your gut immediately shuts down your digestive system which leads to body wide inflammation- release of LPS toxins- root cause of insulin resistance, resulting in type 2 diabetes.
- High sugar consumption leads to gut dysbiosis: Normally sugar gets absorbed in our body very quickly. This essentially means it makes it uncommon for glucose & fructose to make its way to the gut microbiome. This actually is good since simple sugar has a negative impact on beneficial microbes. However if you are on a high sugar diet, some of the sugar can find its way to gut & disrupt the balance of the gut. One of the ways sugar does it is by feeding pathogenic microbes that can overpower beneficial bacteria populations. With heightened chronic inflammation due to high sugar diet, your body gets occupied to help stabilise gut ecosystem, allowing pathogens to overgrow & colonise the gut. This results in gut dysbiosis & overactive immune response.
We generally focus on weight management & calorie deficit diets when it comes to sugar consumption. This essentially means that we maintain a calorie deficit irrespective of what we eat including sugar. This high sugar diet has a crippling effect on overall health. High sugar diet can promote chronic inflammation which can be starting point of other chronic diseases such as diabetes, IBD, Cardiovascular diseases & even mental health issues. Rather than adopting fad diets, you should focus on adopting dietary choices that agree with your unique biology that can optimise your gut microbiome & promote overall health. For more details, how you can make your dietary choices work in favor of stabilizing & balancing your gut microbiome, get in touch with us here .
