Yes I know, not this again; another blog explaining why you should cut the sweets out of your diet. How about this; you can eat all the sweets you want if you are willing to accept the consequences explained here? Of course the recommendation of many practitioners is to stop consuming processed sugars, and by the end of this blog you may come to that same conclusion on your own.
Let’s start with the brain. Food consumption is directly related to hormone release in your brain. For this purpose we will focus on dopamine. When you eat food, especially food you like, dopamine is released. Its purpose is to tell you that what you are doing is good, and that you should do it again. The levels of dopamine are different depending on what you eat. They also vary depending on how often you eat a certain food. In order to promote a varied diet, the dopamine amounts released when eating actually decrease the more you eat the same thing, except for….sugar. The more sugar you eat, the more dopamine is released by your brain. This is why it’s so difficult to stop at 1 cookie, or 2 M&M’s. Your brain will keep telling you to consume the sugary treat. Other things that have this same effect are dopamine releasing drugs, such as heroine. Often it can feel like eating sugar is an addiction, and that’s because it is. Your brain overloads on dopamine with both heroine and sugar, creating a positive feedback loop, leaving you wanting more and more.
But sugar tastes so good, and you don’t notice the slow physical changes, like weight gain, that can be attributed to over consuming sugar, no matter how much you eat! Even if you can’t see the changes that are happening because of sugar consumption, your body is responding to excess quantities. The increased amount of sugar molecules in your body can compete and inhibit the production of nitric oxide in your blood. Nitric oxide (NO) is important because it is a vasorelaxing substance. When your blood vessels are adapted, either dilated or constricted, to change blood flow, NO helps to return them to their resting state. The presence of sugar in the blood stream causes vasodilation. Excess sugar in the blood also inhibits the production of NO, which then prevents the veins from relaxing. If your blood vessels are constantly vasoconstricted, they will eventually become damaged due to the continued stress. The damage can then lead to complications such as plaque buildup, a cause of heart attacks, and the inability to adapt to changes in blood flow.
When you eat foods with added sweeteners, you are consuming simple sugars. Your digestive system processes them quickly, and as a result, your liver gets flooded with fructose, the most common form of added sugars. Your liver is responsible for converting fructose into usable energy, but when there is too much, it spends all of its energy on the energy production, and doesn’t have any left for its other functions. The lack of energy can lead to the production of uric acid, which then can cause gout, kidney stones, and high blood pressure, or hypertension. Studies have shown that fructose affects blood pressure in other ways too. Overconsumption of fructose directly increases sympathetic tone. Sympathetic tone is the state of your tissues at rest. When the tone increases, your heart rate, cardiac output, and vascular resistance all increase. All of this leads to hypertension.
Still not convinced? Let’s talk your immune system. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition tested the relationship between glucose and neutrophil phagocytosis. Neutrophils are a key white blood cell in fighting bacterial infection. Phagocytosis is the process of white blood cells consuming bacteria. The researchers concluded that high levels of glucose in the blood decreases neutrophil phagocytosis for up to 5 hours post consumption, with a peak decrease around 2 hours. Every time you eat a candy bar, your immune system is weak for 5 hours. If you are one of those people who eats dessert with every meal, your immune system is deficient for the entire day.
So there it is. From this point on you may eat sugar at your own risk. There are plenty of ways to get your glucose intake without consuming excessive amounts of sugar. Next time you get a sugar craving, perhaps reach for some fresh fruit instead, it’s sweet AND has a variety of health benefits.
SOURCES
Avena, Nicole. “How Sugar Affects the Brain – Nicole Avena.” TED-Ed. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 May 2015.
Dinicolantonio, J. J., and S. C. Lucan. “The Wrong White Crystals: Not Salt but Sugar as Aetiological in Hypertension and Cardiometabolic Disease.”Open Heart 1.1 (2014): 1-6.
Jabr, Ferris. “Is Sugar Really Toxic? Sifting through the Evidence.” Scientific American Global RSS. N.p., 15 July 2013. 29 May 2015.
Mozo, Vicki. “How High Sugar Level in Blood Damages the Blood Vessels.” Biology Online. N.p., 25 Nov. 2010. 29 May 2015.
Puzserova, A., J. Kopincova, and I. Bernatova. “The Role of Endothelium and Nitric Oxide in the Regulation of Vascular Tone.” Cesk Fysiol 57 (2008): 53-60.
Sanchez, Albert, J. L. Reeser, H. S. Lau, P. Y. Yahiku, R. E. Willard, P. J. McMillan, S. Y. Cho, A. R. Maggie, and U. D. Register. “Role of Sugars in Human Neutrophilic Phagocytosis.” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 26 (1973): 1180-1184.
