Category: All About Sugar

The Truth About Sugar Addiction

4/23/2016

This is the third of three articles we were asked by Alicia Owen at ImproveEdu last week to add to our site. She wrote:

“I’m a tutor with ImprovEDU. I have been working with a group of students on a project where they are learning about healthy eating and the sugar content in various foods; we found your site carried a variety of useful information including the Mother Jones page which is excellent.

Whilst carrying out group research we came across a number of articles that may also be of interest to you:

Article 3: Slideshow: The Truth About Sugar Addiction

Found on: WebMD.com
Posted by: WebMD.com staff
Reviewed by: Maryann Tomovich Jacobsen, MS, RD

Here is a tantalizing question on the very first slide to get your attention:

“Sugar Detox: Hype or Hope?

A trendy sugar detox diet promises to end your craving for sweets and help you lose weight. But does it work? Here's the truth about sugar cravings and how to tame your sweet tooth.”

Link: http://www.webmd.com/diet/ss/slideshow-sugar-addiction

Are you hooked? Continue on to slide 19, my favorite one, with very “healthy” size butts. If they don’t turn you off sugar nothing will… so we hope.

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10 Disturbing Reasons Why Sugar is Bad For You

4/23/2016

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This is the second of three articles we were asked by Alicia Owen at ImproveEdu last week to add to our site. She wrote:

“I’m a tutor with ImprovEDU. I have been working with a group of students on a project where they are learning about healthy eating and the sugar content in various foods; we found your site carried a variety of useful information including the Mother Jones page which is excellent.

Whilst carrying out group research we came across a number of articles that may also be of interest to you:

Article 2: 10 Disturbing Reasons Why Sugar is Bad For You

Found on: AuthorityNutrition.com
Posted by: Kris Gunnars, BSc

Kris’s take is that added sugar is the single worst ingredient in the modern diet.

However, it’s only true because of the excessive amount we consume most days, whether consciously or unconsciously. Unconsciously? Well, yes, when it is part of our favorite foods, like the ones in our previous post, 15 Foods You Wouldn’t Expect To Have Dangerous Amounts of Sugar.

So what are these 10 reasons according to Kris Gunnars?

1. Added sugar contains no essential nutrients and is bad for your teeth

2. Added sugar is high in fructose, which can overload your liver

3. Overloading the liver with fructose can cause non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

4. Sugar can cause insulin resistance, a stepping stone
towards metabolic syndrome and diabetes

5. Insulin resistance can progress to Type II diabetes

6. Sugar can give you cancer

7. Due to its effects on hormones and the brain, sugar has unique fat-promoting effects

8. Because it causes massive dopamine release in the brain, sugar is highly addictive

9. Sugar is a leading contributor to obesity in children and adults

10. It ain’t fat… it’s SUGAR that raises your cholesterol and gives you heart disease

Link: https://authoritynutrition.com/10-disturbing-reasons-why-sugar-is-bad/

About raising your cholesterol level, I’m sure she means the bad (low density) type….

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15 Foods You Wouldn’t Expect To Have Dangerous Amounts of Sugar

4/23/2016

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This is the first of three articles we were asked by Alicia Owen at ImproveEdu last week to add to our site. She wrote:

“I’m a tutor with ImprovEDU. I have been working with a group of students on a project where they are learning about healthy eating and the sugar content in various foods; we found your site carried a variety of useful information including the Mother Jones page which is excellent.

Whilst carrying out group research we came across a number of articles that may also be of interest to you:

Article 1: 15 Foods You Wouldn’t Expect To Have Dangerous Amounts of Sugar

Found on: NutritionSecrets.com
Posted by: Mike Kamo

According to the writer, Mike Kamo, a major contributor to consuming the unhealthy amount of sugar we do is, that they are cleverly buried in foods marketed as “healthy and wholesome.”

The reality is starkly different, as the list of his 15 foods shows:

1. Flavored yogurt
2. Fruit juices
3. Sports drinks
4. Energy drinks
5. Ketchup
6. Barbecue sauce
7. Pasta sauce
8. Asian sauce
9. Salad dressings
10. Fat free anything
11. Oatmeal
12. Smoothies
13. Dried fruit
14. Breads
15. Baked beans

Link: http://www.nutritionsecrets.com/15-foods-you-wouldnt-expect-to-have-dangerous-amounts-of-sugar/

You wonder though - why do we, as a society, spend so much money on nutritional labeling, and not take advantage of it? After all, each of these products provides the exact amount of sugar and carbs right on the package….

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Sweet Comparison of Sweeteners? See the Infographic and Decide

3/5/2015

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It's hard to know, with all the pro and con studies, spin-meistering and outright skullduggery by people interested in maintaining the status quo, which sweeteners are actually good for your health.

To cut through the knee-deep fog, Northwest Pharmacy (www.northwestpharmacy.com) has created the infographic entitled “A Comprehensive Comparison of Sweeteners”, that you can see below. OK, only the top section of it - go to their website for the rest.

While not the least comprehensive, it does give you an easy-to-reference list of some alternative sweeteners, along with how these substances can help – or hurt you and the environment too.

Even I didn't realize the detrimental effects that Aspartame and Splenda can have on you AND the environment. The effects of these and other food ingredients flowing back into the environment is hardly ever discussed or made part of full product lifecycle studies. That must change ASAP - and if you want it to, send the link to this blog post to all the people you know, who do care about the health of our planet as well as their own!

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10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - Sugar is Definitely Making Us Fat

1/8/2015

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I figured I'd leave the most obvious fact for last - that too many calories from any sugar and carbohydrate source get converted into stored fat if not burned. There are long biochemical, health, and human performance explanations for that. Here is the short version:

Your body stores fat when your insulin/blood sugar levels are elevated.
Eating sugar, of any kind, rapidly raises your insulin/blood sugar levels.
Therefore, your body will store fat it converts from the sugar you eat.

Sugar does give you the calories, but not the feeling that you've had enough. That's why you can have an entire king-size bag of licorice (with its sky high glycemic index) at the movies and come out afterwards ready to go for dinner. So it’s hard to make the connection that the lack of other nutrients in most high-sugar foods actually contributes to eating gobs of them with no physical effects to warn us of the lurking dangers.

So, what’s the solution?

Avoid sugar in all forms.
Look at the nutrition labels. Don’t buy if sugar is listed.
Minimize or eliminate all other carbohydrates too. The body turns them into sugars.

Carbohydrates are often thought of as “essential” macro-nutrients. Essential means - you need them to live. This is simply not true.

If you don’t eat carbohydrates, guess what happens? Do you die? No.

You burn fat.
There’s a lot of biochemistry involved, but it’s basically that simple:

If you don’t eat carbohydrates you are forced to burn body fat for energy. You could burn fat the ENTIRE DAY by just avoiding sugar and other carbohydrates.

Say good by to diabetes and obesity. Welcome to a new you.

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10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - An Overload of Sugar (Specifically in Beverages) Will Shorten Your Life

1/6/2015

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A 2013 study estimated that 180,000 deaths worldwide may be attributed to sweetened beverage consumption. The United States alone accounted for 25,000 deaths in 2010. The authors summarize that deaths occurred due to the association with sugar-sweetened beverages and chronic disease risk such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

This is what happens:

What does exactly sugar do once it enters your body? Sugar is a sticky substance and if it stays in the bloodstream, the particles will start to stick to the cells. The consequence: large amounts of sugar can lead to more wrinkles, a lack of mobility in the joints, dry brittle nails and hair not to mention other health problems.

Additionally, the rise in blood sugar can damage every cell in your body. When blood sugar levels rise too high, sugar can stick to the surface of cell membranes. Once stuck there, it can’t be removed. In a series of chemical reactions, glucose (the only sugar that circulates in your bloodstream) is converted to another sugar called fructose and eventually to a sugar alcohol, called sorbitol, that starts destroying cells to cause every know side effect of diabetes: blindness, deafness, heart attacks, strokes, kidney damage and so forth.

And an American Journal of Public Health study points out that sugar can also interfere with the functioning of a person’s genes, which can speed up the aging process.

Enough said? I Hope!

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10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - Sugar is Hidden in Many Everyday Foods We’d Not Suspect

1/4/2015

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While many of us strive to avoid the "normal" sugary culprits (candy, cookies, cake, etc.) these days, we often are duped when we discover that most of our favorite foods also contain lots of sugar, especially in the form of corn or high fructose corn syrups.

Examples include tomato sauce, fat free dressing, tonic water, marinates, crackers and even bread. Worse, we went to a sushi place in a nearby mall a while ago and found that even the ring of rice was sweetened! Subsequently, we started to check the ingredient list of sushi and other traditional Japanese foods, as well as kimchi (a traditional Korean condiment) at Mitsuwa, a Japanese supermarket in Edgewater, NJ. Guess what? Most had sugar, corn syrup, or high fructose corn syrup listed.

So much about traditional, fresh, and fermented foods considered to be the pinnacle of healthy and wholesome fare - and never contained any sugar or other sweetener, much less corn and high fructose corn syrup before.

It’s truly “buyer beware” now - so be careful!

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10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - Sugar Implicated in Weakening Your Brain Power

1/3/2015

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Think back to your childhood — do you remember downing more sweets and sugar than you probably should have? I hope you enjoyed youth back then, because unfortunately, all this sugar may have accelerated the aging process.

A 2009 study, published on the PLOS open access website, found a positive relationship between glucose consumption and the aging of our cells. It can manifest itself and can be the cause of something as simple as wrinkles to something as dire as chronic disease.

But there is other alarming evidence that sugar may affect the aging of your brain as well. This study published 2012 in the Journal of Physiology described how excess sugar consumption was linked to deficiencies in memory and overall cognitive health. Another study from a Georgia State University team, conducted on rats (yes, yes… I know), showed similar findings.

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10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - Sugar and Alcohol Have Similar Toxic Liver Effects

1/2/2015

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A 2012 paper in the journal Nature suggested that warnings should be placed on sugar similar to warnings we see on alcohol. The authors showed evidence that fructose and glucose in excess can have a toxic effect on the liver as the metabolism of alcohol.

It turns out that ethanol (aka alcohol) in alcoholic beverages undergoes similar metabolism in your body as fructose does. Both increase the risk for several of the same chronic conditions i.e. hypertension, myocardial infraction, dyslipidaemia (lipogenesis), pancreatitis, hepatic dysfunction, obesity, and malnutrition.

Finally, if you think that your slim stature keeps you immune from fructose causing liver damage, think again. A 2013 study found that liver damage from sugar, especially fructose, could occur even without excess calories or weight gain.

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10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - Your Sugar “Addiction" May or May Not Be Genetic

1/1/2015

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If you've ever said, "I'm completely addicted to sugar," you might actually be correct. A recent study of 579 individuals found that those who had genetic changes in a hormone called ghrelin consumed more sugar (and alcohol) than those who did not have this gene variation.

Ghrelin is a hormone that tells the brain you're hungry. Researchers think that the genetic components that effect your ghrelin release may have a lot to do with whether or not you seek to enhance your neurological reward system through your “sweet tooth.” Findings of this study were similar to a study conducted in 2012.

The question, though, is: How come sugar “addiction” only started to come to the fore since the 1970s? What’s the likelihood that up to 70% of the developed world’s population would become prone to acquiring this particular genetic impairment in less than two generations? Until someone actually calculates it, or proves it with “genome forensic,” we should be very skeptical about accepting the claim that the genome of most of us has been affected that way in such a short time. I know I am.

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<<Previous

The Truth About Sugar Addiction

10 Disturbing Reasons Why Sugar is Bad For You

15 Foods You Wouldn’t Expect To Have Dangerous Amounts of Sugar

Sweet Comparison of Sweeteners? See the Infographic and Decide

10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - Sugar is Definitely Making Us Fat

10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - An Overload of Sugar (Specifically in Beverages) Will Shorten Your Life

10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - Sugar is Hidden in Many Everyday Foods We’d Not Suspect

10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - Sugar Implicated in Weakening Your Brain Power

10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - Sugar and Alcohol Have Similar Toxic Liver Effects

10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - Your Sugar “Addiction" May or May Not Be Genetic

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