By Dietitian Manoli Mehta
Founder of Tattvum – Discover Wellness
Gulping spoon full of sugar makes you revolve around the determination of being healthy and fit rather than accomplishing and achieving a desired weight and physique.
Or simply say, it’s a sugar, candy and chocolate that has made the entire population dawning to sweetness like bees to honey!!
Sugar is also known as Sucrose (table sugar), a combination of two monosaccharides- glucose and fructose. Sugar offers zero nutritive values and no health benefits. Hence, it is just like an empty calorie intake or a sweet poison that you might be loading your body with.
Sugar is sweet poison:
1. Sugar- A risk to Heart Disease-
Adding extra sugar than needed in your diet can increase the risk factor of several heart diseases by leading to high blood pressure, obesity and inflammation. A high sugar diet stimulates the liver to release more harmful fats into the bloodstream. Hence, high-sugar diets and sugary food items are best to avoid keeping heart diseases at bay.
2. Sugar- A risk to Fatty Liver-
Like glucose and other sugar types, sucrose too is exclusively broken down by the liver. And having an excess of sugar in the form of table sugar might overload your liver, leading to Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD), a medical condition characterized by excessive fat build up in your liver.
3. Sugar- A risk to Accelerated Skin Aging-
Wrinkles are the utmost natural sign of ageing but premature wrinkles can appear on the skin due to poor food choices like eating too much of dietary sugar. Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs) are the compounds stimulated by reaction between sugar and protein inside your body that also damages collagen and elastin, the agents that provide your skin with elasticity and youthfulness.
4. Sugar- A risk to Obesity and Diabetes-
Risk to obesity and insulin resistance has been doubled up in the last thirty years. Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas that regulates blood sugar levels. Obesity and insulin resistance is often caused because of high sugar intake and considerably associated with diabetes risk.
Sugar can actually trick your brain making you think that you are not full, so you may tend to over eat. Some research suggests that sugary drinks and foods make the regulation of calories by your body really harder and thus contributing to a cascade of risk factors and lifestyle diseases.
Follow these tips to reduce your intake of added sugars:
- Swap energy drinks, juices and sweetened teas for water and unsweetened soda water.
- Sweeten plain yoghurt with fruits like berries instead of buying flavoured, sugar-loaded yoghurt.
- Consume whole fruits
- Use natural nut butters in place of sweet spreads like Nutella.
- Avoid alcoholic beverages that are sweetened with juice, honey and agave.
- Focus on fresh, whole ingredients when it comes to doing your weekly food shopping.
Conclusion:
Instead of indulging in refined and high sugary food items, have fructose sugar (fruits) and also enjoy other nutritive values required by your body for an optimal living. Or else make a healthy choice over table sugar by opting for jiggery, dates and coconut sugar in moderation.
