Highly consumed, highly addictive, and highly toxic. This substance is the cause of millions of deaths every year. No, it’s not alcohol, but something that is found in almost every household. This drug, is sugar. Too much sugar can lead to obesity, diabetes and even some cancers, but national awareness, plus personal commitment to good health can help.
Because sugar is everywhere in our society today, we don’t often think of it as poisonous or dangerous but in fact, ‘death by sugar’ is not an overstatement. Research indicates that sugar is the primary factor causing not only obesity but also chronic and lethal disease. Dr. Robert Lustig, a neuroendocrinologist at the San Francisco school of medicine states that “Sugar can act like poison in high doses—and the amount in our diets has gone beyond toxic”
Sugar was not a threat until recently. This is because the amount of sugar consumed has risen drastically. In the 17 hundreds, the average consumption of sugar was at only approximately 4 pounds per year. By 1900 that number had risen to a surprising 90 pounds per year and now, the average person consumes about 125-150 pounds of sugar per year, that’s almost half a pound of sugar daily.
One of the main reasons for our
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Consuming it in high doses throughout the day without fiber to slow it down is much more than our bodies can handle. The over-eating of sugar can permanently damage the liver, just like too much alcohol. Fructose also fools your metabolism and trick your body into gaining weight and does not supress ghrelin, the hunger hormone, so our bodies don’t know when there is too much sugar being consumed. This can and ultimately result in developing obesity. Obesity is a condition where a person has accumulated so much body fat that it has a negative effect on their health, it can result to many other diseases including high blood pressure, high cholesterol and heart disease, as well as cancer and
. . . In this issue of the JCI [Journal of Clinical Investigation], Stanhope and colleagues demonstrate that consumption of fructose-sweetened but not glucose-sweetened beverages for 10 weeks increases de novo lipid synthesis, promotes dyslipidemia, impairs insulin sensitivity, and increases visceral adiposity in overweight or obese adults” (Abstract). Fructose sweetener is another way to say high fructose corn syrup. This study proved that fructose sweetened drinks caused harm to the body and signaled a starting point for diseases such as metabolic syndrome, obesity, insulin difficulties, high blood pressure, high triglycerides, low levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and ultimately coronary heart disease. Not only does high fructose cause stress on the body, but fructose can also cause serious
When the 1970s introduced High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), a cheap sweetener alternative to sucrose in a fructose-glucose liquid form (fifty five percent fructose, forty two percent glucose, and three percent saccharides), it brought extensive numbers of health problems with it (Bray, 2004 & Johnson, 2010 ). Prior to the 70’s, on average, sugar contributed to four percent of daily caloric intake, however over the past four and a half decades, this statistic has increased to whopping sixteen percent, leading some scientist to consider it an “addiction” as they observe the sugar substitute wreak havoc on humans’ bodies worldwide (Butler, 2011). Along with hooking those who indulge sweets to it, High Fructose Corn Syrup also leads to obesity:
First, Too much sugar can cause serious damage health probs, for example, there’s a chance of obesity, heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes. and tooth decay. Like so, Robert Lustig pediatrician in CA, “sugar sweetened drinks are the biggest source of added sugar in the american diet”. Which means there is TOO much sugar in a “America
The article, Is Sugar Toxic?, by Gary Taubes is about how sugar may be the reason why we are all unhealthy and how sugar is not good for the body. This article is similar to the book, Year Of No Sugar, because in the book Eve, the author, talks about Lustig who was someone that she listened to on youtube and the article mentions him. Mr. Lustig states, “It’s not all about the calories”(Taubes), which in Eve’s memoir she says that it is also the sugar that is making us fat. The article exclaims that health effects about sugar go back longer than one may think. Taubes says that high fructose corn syrup has been replacing regular added sugar in soft drinks and other products because refined sugar, “had the reputation as a generally noxious
When it comes to the topic of sugar most of us would agree that it impacted the world. Where this agreement ends ,however, is on the question of whether good or bad. Whereas some are convinced that it was a negative change, others maintain that it was a positive change. However sugar affected the world in a negative way by causing slavery, poor work condition, inequality, and low wages.
Dr. Lustig’s main focus throughout the presentation was the effects of fructose on the epidemic of obesity. He explains how we as a society place so much stress on fat intake and calories in versus calories out that we tend to neglect what is actually in our food. With much research, it has been determined that fructose does, in turn have an effect on the obesity epidemic. Throughout the lecture, many examples from this research show our biochemical response to our modern diets and are used to explain Dr. Lustig’s point of fructose poisoning.
Lustig (2012) explains and suggests the following: Authorities consider sugar as ‘empty calories’ but there is nothing empty about these calories. A growing body of scientific evidence is showing that fructose can trigger processes that lead to liver toxicity and a host of other chronic diseases… they [Government] must consider limiting fructose and its main delivery vehicles, the added sugars HFCS (high-fructose corn syrup) and sucrose, which pose dangers to individuals and to society as a whole. (p.28) Another process that occurs in the body is that, “sugar dampens the suppression of the hormone ghrelin, which signals hunger to the brain…interferes with the normal transport and signaling of the hormone leptin, which helps to produce the feeling of satiety…and it reduces dopamine signaling in the brain’s reward center” (Lustig, 2012, p. 28). Though these are only a few examples and there are many more such as sugar feeding cancer cells, it should give you a basic understanding of just how bad sugar is for the
In order to prevent the negative effects that come with sugar, people need to slow down on consuming it so
Although sugar is seen as the public’s number one enemy. Nancy Appleton a writer who wrote Suicide By Sugar, blames the government and certain food industries for creating advertisements promoting bad sugars. But also in charge of creating the child obesity epidemic in America, endangering young children’s health in the U.S. Since some foods have artificial sugars, sugar decreases the quality of life in the U.S. Stated by the Journal of the American Heart Association Internal Medicine, “People who consumed more than a quarter of their daily calories as sugar… twice as likely to die” (Health, Richards). This statistic by a credible source pulls the audience in because they are part of that population who intake sugar and can die faster by consuming it.
Sugar, which is in almost everything, is one of the biggest problems. As noted on, “Is Sugar Toxic”, Dr. Robert Lustig, the lead researcher says sugar links to a number of diseases from obesity to heart disease. He also states that 75% of these are preventable. Studies have shown that when we consume sugar, it’s equivalent to when someone does cocaine. Another study by Dr. Cantley has shown that sugar can help cancerous cells grow and multiply.
In the article it reads, “...a sugar-soaked diet can lead to metabolic syndrome and from there to diabetes, heart disease, and even cancer.” (421). By saying this the author effectively reminds us of the seriousness behind this type of dieting by listing, and naming, such malignant
2. Sugar can lead to increased cholesterol, increased fat in the liver and the cavity. Associated with heart disease, diabetes, obesity and cancer. 3. Sugar is the leading cause of obesity and is stored as fat in our body.
Sugar especially is the culprit when it comes to health problems from food. Sugars are addictive empty calories providing no nutritional value thus causing you to over eat and intake excess calories which will turn into fat. Studies even show that the consumption of sugar can cause endorphins to be released into the brain as a reward system or to feel good from the sugar consumed, which causes you to eat more. It is
Processed foods and beverages are the biggest sources of added sugar (and High fructose) in the diet. Sugar is very unhealthy and can have serious adverse effects on metabolism when consumed in excess. Sugar contains a lot of calories, with no essential nutrients. It also causes tooth decay by feeding the harmful bacteria in the mouth. For people who are inactive and eat a processed food, large amounts of fructose from added sugars get turned into fat in the liver.
Consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, which include soft drinks, fruit drinks, ice tea, energy and vitamin water drinks across the globe. Regular consumption of sugary sweetened beverages have been associated with weight gain, obesity and diabetes. The role of sugary sweetened beverages in the development of related chronic metabole diseases such as metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes, has not been quantitatively reviewed . How is consuming sugary beverages harmful to the body ?