Sugar is one of the most prominent & popular addiction. One thing you should eliminate/reduce consumption from your diet is Sugar. The variants of sugar that you should eliminate from diet are granulated sugars, high fructose additive & dozen of others. We are not referring here to fruit sugars, but processed variants such as refined beverages, bakery items, candies & other modified sugar & sugar products.
So why you should eliminate/reduce consumption of processed sugar?
- Added sugar does not offer any nutrients: Added sugar such as sucrose & high fructose corn syrup contains large number of calories without any essential nutrients. Sugar foods does not contain protein, essential fats, vitamins & minerals. Intake of such sugar foods also erode your teeth.
- Added sugar ~ high in Fructose can impact your liver: Before sugar enters into bloodstream from the digestive system, it is broken down into two simple sugars-glucose & fructose. Glucose is found in every living cell on planet & humans manufacture glucose for energy production. Our body does not product fructose & as such there is no need for it. Fructose can only be metabolized by the liver. This is not a problem if you have consumed fruit or just had workout session. This is because Fructose is converted in glycogen & stored in liver. However, if you consume excess sugar or your physical activity is low, your liver would be full with glycogen. Eating lot of fructose overloads liver & makes it convert fructose into fat to reallocate energy into body. Excess consumption of sugar also leads to non alcoholic fatty liver disease. This is normally prevalent in western countries among people suffering from metabolic diseases. However it is nowhere related to people consuming sugar through fruits.
- Insulin Resistance: Insulin is an important hormone in your body. Once you consume something( excludes fat) if gets converted into glucose( sugar). Insulin is a conduit through which glucose travels to cells from bloodstream & tells cells to start burning glucose instead of fat. Elevated sugar levels leads to release of insulin in high numbers & is one of the reasons for complications of diabetes. Constantly telling cells to burn glucose by releasing higher number of insulin creates insulin resistance & is considered to be the main reason for diseases such as metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular diseases specifically type-2 diabetes.
- Fat retention:Different foods have different impact of brain & hormones High intake of sugar spikes insulin level & elevates blood sugar level. This essentially results in your body not burning fat until sugar & insulin level dissipates.
