Sugar is in my opinion the worst ingredient added to most foods in the modern day diet. Besides the obvious health issues like the effects on your teeth, it can also have harmful effects on metabolism and contribute to all sorts of diseases.

Here are eight disturbing reasons why you should avoid added sugar like the plague.

1. Sugar is not an essential nutrient

Added sugars (like sucrose and high fructose corn syrup) contain a lot of calories with no essential nutrients. For this reason, they are called “empty” calories.

There are no proteins, essential fats, vitamins or minerals in sugar… just pure energy.

2. Too much can overload your liver

Before sugar enters the bloodstream from the digestive tract, it is broken down into two simple sugars glucose and fructose.

  •  Glucose is found in every living cell on the planet. If we don’t get it from the diet, our bodies produce it.
  • Fructose is different. Our bodies do not produce it in any significant amount and there is no physiological need for it.

There is not a problem if we eat a little bit (such as from fruit) however, if the liver is full of glycogen, eating a lot of fructose overloads the liver, forcing it to turn the fructose into fat.

When repeatedly eating large amounts of sugar, this process can lead to a fatty liver and all sorts of serious health problems.

People who are healthy and active can tolerate more sugar than people who are inactive and eat a Western, high-carb, high-calorie diet.

3. Non-Alcoholic fatty liver disease

When fructose gets turned into fat in the liver, not all of the fat gets out, some of it can lodge in the liver. This can lead to Non-Alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a growing problem in Western countries that is strongly associated with metabolic diseases.

4. Insulin resistance

Insulin is a very important hormone in the body. It allows glucose (blood sugar) to enter cells from the bloodstream and tells the cells to start burning glucose instead of fat.

Having too much glucose in the blood is highly toxic and one of the reasons for complications in diabetes, like blindness.

A problem caused by modern day diet, is that insulin stops working as it should. The cells become “resistant” to it. This is believed to be a leading driver of many diseases… including metabolic syndrome, obesity, cardiovascular disease and especially type II diabetes.

Many studies show that sugar consumption is associated with insulin resistance, especially when it is consumed in large amounts. It is not surprising to see that people who drink sugar-sweetened beverages have up to an 83% higher risk of Type II diabetes.

5. Sugar can give you Cancer!

Metabolic problems associated with sugar consumption are known to be a driver in inflammation, a potential cancer cause. Cancer is characterized by uncontrolled growth and multiplication of cells, Insulin is a key hormone in regulating this sort of growth. This is why many scientists believe that having elevated insulin levels from sugar consumption can contribute to cancer.

Multiple studies show that people who eat a lot of sugar are at a much higher risk of getting cancer.

6. Sugar has a unique Fat-promoting effect

Not all calories are created equal. Studies show that fructose doesn’t have the same kind of effect on satiety as glucose. And also that fructose doesn’t lower the hormone ‘ghrelin’ which is responsible for hunger. Which in turn means as well as consuming the high empty calories with no nutritional value, you’re still going to be hungry which means you’re likely to eat more calories…..and we all know what that means!!!

7. Sugar is highly addictive!

Like abusive drugs, sugar causes a release of dopamine in the reward center of the brain. The problem with sugar and many junk foods is that they can cause massive dopamine release much more than we were ever exposed to from foods found in nature.

We’ve all heard the saying ‘oh a little of everything in moderation does you no harm’ well for people addicted to sugar and junk food this may not be a good idea as the only thing that works with true addiction is abstinence!

8. Sugar is a leading contributor to Obesity in both children and adults!

There is a strong link between sugar consumption and obesity many studies have examined this. Especially in children studies show that kids drinking fizzy drinks full of sugar have a 60% increased risk of obesity.

Not surprisingly, people who consume the most sugar are by far the most likely to become overweight or obese. This applies to all age groups, this is mainly down to the way sugar affects hormones and the brain. The fact it leads to decreased satiety and can be addictive means people lose control with consumption and the end result is weight gain!

The evidence is also mounting that sugar, NOT fat, may be one of the leading drivers of heart disease via the harmful effects of fructose on metabolism.

I’ve always said this in previous columns 'one of the most important things you can do if you need to lose weight is to significantly cut back on sugar consumption in your diet!’.

Got a question you’d like to ask Mark? Email your question to: mark@huntpersonaltraining.co.uk