According to the USDA, the average American consumes over 152 pounds of sugar each year, increasing 39% since the 1950s. It is almost impossible to remove every gram from your diet, but you should be aware of the its negative impact on your health. From obesity to metabolic syndrome to coronary heart disease, sugar lays the foundation for many modern diseases.
Eating Sugar Makes You Fat
Insulin uses the calories you consume and stores them into your fat cells. Carbohydrates, especially refined carbohydrates like sugar, help contribute to this process. As it continues, your body demands more insulin which creates more stored calories and expanding body fat.
Fat-storing cells are particularly sensitive to a rise in insulin. Even those who aren’t diabetic experience this cycle: you eat sugar, your body secretes insulin, and fat cells horde the calories.
Eating Sugar Clogs Your Arteries
If you have high triglycerides, a proven way to reduce that number is to quit eating sugar. While health authorities divert everyone’s attention by talking about the dangers of saturated fats, sugar is causing great damage to the health and wellness of many people.
Through a process called glycation, the sugar you eat attaches to proteins. Its sticky molecules attach to your artery wall, causing it to harden. As your blood pressure increases, the force causes this sticky attachment in your artery to pull, resulting in a tear. Toxic, disease-causing bacteria then invade the injury. Your immune system protects you by sending white blood cells and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) to the site for healing. The LDL doesn’t cause the injury, but is sent to help heal the damage that was originally caused by sugar.
Just like any other injury, the spot where the tear occurs then becomes swollen and invites more damage. The repeated cycle of injury and repair builds up and becomes clogged. When arteries are examined and there is evidence of clogging due to cholesterol build-up, it is because the cholesterol was used for damage control.
Eating Sugar Raises Uric Acid Levels
Uric acid, which is more commonly known as the culprit in gout, has been found to be associated with cardiovascular diseases, such as high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, and metabolic syndrome.
Excessive sugar in the diet raises uric acid levels. The tissues that surround your heart and blood vessels are damaged by these elevated levels. This tissue damage increases your risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.
Eating Sugar Regularly Increases its Toxic Effects
The more sugar you eat, the better your body becomes at absorbing it. The better your body becomes at absorbing sugar, the more damage it causes.
Sugar’s effects are cumulative. The more you eat it, the greater the damage that is done to your body. You can end this cycle by drastically reducing the amount of sugar you consume. Your body has the ability to reverse these toxic effects if given the chance to heal.
The average person continues to eat more and more sugar, and each day the internal damage it causes increases. It is no coincidence that cardiovascular disease and obesity continue to grow, as well.
Cutting the sugar habit is a difficult, but rewarding, challenge. Two weeks of going sugar-free is an attainable goal that could place you on the path to improved health. Try beating the sugar habit, starting today!