Sugar Effects On Health
Sugar, a form of carbohydrate, is a natural component of fruit and vegetables, where it is not in concentrated form. Concentrated sugar is found in products such as honey and syrup, which are mainly sugar and water. The most concentrated form of sugar is the brown or white crystals we buy in packets, which are added to drinks or found in sodas, ice cream, milk shakes, cakes, biscuits, cookies, jam, desserts, sweets and chocolate. In this form, the average person in the UK consumes about two pounds of sugar a week.
How Much Is Too Much?
Most of us know that eating too much sugar is bad for our teeth and probably not good for our health. The big question is, how much is too much?
Try looking at it this way. We can only eat a certain number of calories a day without putting on excess weight. If one third of those calories come from sugar, you are eating only two thirds of the vitamin-rich food which you could be getting, since sugar consists of calories and no other nutrients.
If you don’t believe that one third or more of your diet consists of sugar, read on. If you are consuming the national average of two pounds of sugar per week, that comes to about 150 grams a day. Each gram of sugar yields four Calories, making 600 Calories a day from sugar—or about one third of a normal calorie intake for a woman and one quarter of a normal calorie intake for a man. Add to this the 30-40 per cent of our diet that comes from fat, and you can see how dangerously high your diet could be in ’empty’ calories—that is to say foods which provide only calories and virtually no other nutrients at all.
Of course, a national average sugar consumption of two pounds a week means that most people will be consuming either more or less than this amount. If you know that you consume a lot of sugary foods and drinks, your total intake of empty calories could be as much as 80 per cent of your diet.
Your body is not going to react right away to being treated like this. It is very good at coping silently. But in time you could develop vitamin and mineral deficiency symptoms, such as
- Skin problems
- Lacking energy and stamina
- Frequent colds or thrush (yeast infections)
- Period pains or PMS
- Diabetes
- Enlarged prostate.
If your liver does not get enough vitamins and minerals to make essential enzymes, it could start to have difficulty processing wastes and pollutants, which in turn can lead to inflammation in your skin or joints, fluid retention, headaches, lethargy and accelerated ageing. A weakening of your immune system reduces your body’s ability to protect itself against cancer.
Taking vitamin pills to compensate for the empty calories is not the solution. Hundreds of medical studies are showing that the people with the highest fruit and vegetable consumption are those least likely to get cancer and heart disease. These foods contain a lot of important nutrients besides vitamins and minerals.
Hormonal changes
Apart from depriving you of protective nutrients, consuming a lot of sugar makes you produce a lot of insulin, a hormone which allows you to absorb the sugar into your cells. Scientific trials show that high insulin levels encourage high fat levels in your blood, and cholesterol deposits on your artery walls. Your blood also becomes more ‘sticky’, and so prone to tiny blood clots that could lead to a heart attack as you get older.
It really is worth cutting sugary foods and drinks down to 20 per cent or less of your calorie intake, along with most hard fats. It could mean the difference between approaching old age feeling fit and well rather than on a cocktail of medications for high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes.
Selling us sugar
When advertisements for sugar claim that sugar is a ‘good source of energy’, they are not using energy in the normal sense of the word—i.e. helping you to feel more energetic. All our energy needs can be met by consuming a normal diet containing no added sugar at all. In fact, energy is a scientific name for calories, so the ads are really just telling you that sugar will provide you with calories. White or brown makes no difference. The brown colour can be just artificial colouring, and even if it is not, the difference in calories and in nutritional value is negligible.
Obesity and tooth decay
Large amounts of sugar can easily be consumed without a feeling of fullness (satiety), so it is very easy for us to over-consume it and put on excess body weight. Sugar also promotes tooth decay by being turned into acid by bacteria in the mouth.
Nutritionists connected with the sugar industry attempt to play down the role of sugar in obesity and tooth decay. They claim that there is no evidence that sugar itself is responsible for either of these problems, and that it cannot be blamed for illnesses such as heart disease which are linked with obesity. To some extent this is true since overweight and tooth decay are caused by an abuse of sugar rather than by sugar itself. But in most cases this is an unknowing abuse. Most of the public are very poorly informed about the dangers of excess sugar consumption thanks to the power and wealth of the sugar industry, which ensures that the professionals who are officially in charge of our health rarely dare to publicize them. Some of the less well-known among these dangers are as follows.
Vitamin and mineral deficiency
With all the evidence now pointing to the protective effects of eating large amounts of vitamin-rich foods against cancer and heart disease, you could be putting yourself in the high-risk category if you continue to over-indulge in sugary (and fatty) foods deficient in vitamins and minerals.
In fact a high sugar consumption even robs the body of some nutrients. Chromium and some of the B vitamins are used up and lost every time you consume sugar. Chromium deficiency is now strongly linked with heart problems and with maturity-onset diabetes. Numerous other health problems including premenstrual syndrome, chronic fatigue and acne are also linked with vitamin and mineral deficiency.
Fluid retention
By suppressing the formation of ketoacids, high insulin levels caused by sugar consumption can interfere with the body’s excretion of sodium, leading to sodium retention. High insulin levels also promote low blood potassium levels. An excess of sodium and a lack of potassium encourages fluid retention.
Research study
16 individuals were studied before and after consuming 75 grams of sugar (glucose). As levels of insulin rose the urinary excretion of sodium dropped significantly. Natali A et al: Relationship between insulin release, antinatriuresis and hypokalaemia after glucose ingestion in normal and hypertensive man. Clin Sci (Colch) 85(3):327-35, 1993.
Gall bladder disease
Research studies have shown that individuals with gallstones frequently have a higher sugar consumption than those who do not.
Research study
13 test subjects with probable gall stones were given refined (high-sugar) and unrefined carbohydrate diets for six weeks each. The refined carbohydrate diet increased bile cholesterol saturation and the investigators concluded that the avoidance of refined carbohydrate foods could reduce the risk of gall stones. Thornton JR et al: Diet and gall stones: effects of refined and unrefined carbohydrate diets on bile cholesterol saturation and bile acid metabolism. Gut 24(1):2-6, 1983.
Kidney disease
A high sugar consumption can cause enlarged kidneys and kidney damage as evidenced by increased amounts of a substance known as N-acetyl-beta-glucosaminidase. This may lead to kidney stones or to kidney insufficiency.
Research studies
There is evidence that one third of the population shows increased risk factors for kidney stone disease after consuming sugar. These effects of sugar consumption are thought to be due to the increased secretion of insulin, which results in increased calcium excretion by the kidneys. Blacklock NJ et al: Sucrose and idiopathic renal stone. Nutr Health 5(1):9-17, 1987.
Sugar may cause harmful changes to kidney tissue. Ten kidney stone patients and 10 normal controls received 250 grams of sucrose daily for one week. In both groups sucrose ingestion caused a rise in levels of urinary N-acetyl-B-glucosaminidase (NAG), a marker of kidney tubular cell damage. NAG was already at higher levels in the patients than the controls before the study began. Li MK et al: Does sucrose damage kidneys? Br J Urol 58(4):353-7, 1986.
Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and colon cancer
There is now much research which suggests that those with a high sugar consumption have a much higher risk of developing Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, both being severe inflammatory bowel conditions. There is also some evidence of a higher risk of colon cancer. The mechanism for this may be the increase in gut dysbiosis (which see) which occurs when sugar is not adequately digested.
Research studies
In a randomized controlled trial, 20 patients with Crohn’s disease were given either a diet excluding refined sugar, or a sugar-rich diet. In the worst cases, the sugar-free diet reduced the activity of the disease whereas the sugar-rich diet caused exacerbation. Brandes JW et al: Sugar-free diet: a new perspective in the treatment of Crohn’s disease? Randomised, controlled study. (German). Z Gastroentereol 19(1):1-12, 1981.
In a study comparing the sugar consumption of 953 cases of colon cancer with 2845 controls, researchers found that compared with subjects who reported adding no sugar to their beverages, the relative risk of contracting colon cancer was 1.4 times higher for those adding 1 spoonful, 1.6 times higher for those adding 2 spoonfuls, and twice as high for those adding 3 or more. La Vecchia C et al: Refined sugar intake and the risk of colorectal cancer in humans. Int J Cancer 55:386-9, 1993.
Miscellaneous
Research suggests that a high sugar consumption is also linked with a greater risk of short- or long-sightedness, gout, peptic ulcers, liver enlargement due to fat accumulation, adrenal gland enlargement, and acne. The excess insulin levels stimulated by excess sugar can interfere with the body’s production of beneficial prostaglandins, which are required for a host of important functions relating to blood pressure control, fluid and electrolyte balance, and control of blood stickiness and capillary permeability.
Adapted from the Nutritional Health Bible, by Linda Lazarides.
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