What Does Sugar Do to Your Body? These Are the Dangers...

We almost all love sweets, but many people also wonder what all that sugar does to your body. In some cases, you know you're consuming sugar, but unfortunately, food also contains a lot of hidden sugars. Think of peanut butter, tomato sauce, or muesli, for example.

That's also why you probably consume even more sugar than you realize. Don't be alarmed: the average Dutch person eats 57 grams of added sugar per day! That amounts to 20 kilos per year. Too much of our daily calories come from sugar.

And that can pose health risks. Sugar consumption is linked to various chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and it contributes to the development of obesity. In this blog post, you'll read all about what sugar does to your body and what the dangers are.

When we talk about sugar, it's also important to understand the difference between natural and refined sugars. Your body doesn't typically distinguish between these two types of sugar. Both natural and added, refined sugars consist of a mixture of glucose and fructose.

So whether the sugar comes from an apple or pear, or added sugar in ice cream, these are essentially the same substances, and your body processes them the same way. Natural sugar is therefore no healthier than added sugar.

There is a difference in how you ingest these sugars. Refined sugar is added to products like cookies, licorice, soft drinks, and the like. These contain hardly any nutrients and no fiber. This causes the sugars to be absorbed very quickly!

This can cause your blood sugar levels to fluctuate significantly, quickly leading you to crave more sweets. One of the dangers of sugar is its addictive nature.

When you eat products that naturally contain sugar, like fruit, you consume the sugars along with fiber. It's precisely this fiber that ensures the sugars are absorbed much more slowly. Your blood sugar levels won't fluctuate significantly in that case.

In addition, the fiber ensures you feel full after eating, so you're less likely to overeat. And fruit is, of course, very healthy too.

You can eat something sweet, but at the same time you also get vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, substances that are good for your health.

Do you also love sweets, but are you worried about the dangers of sugar? You might also be consuming too much sugar. There are a few signs that this might be the case:

• You constantly crave sugar
• After eating sweets you regret it
• You often suffer from intestinal problems
• Often tired for no apparent reason
• Suffering from binge eating
• Very thirsty
• Frequent headaches
• After eating you experience an energy dip
• Mood swings
• Weight gain
• High blood pressure

Sugar has a significant impact on your health, and these symptoms are already clear. If you want to know exactly what the dangers of added sugars are for your body, read on below.

Eating a lot of sugar can cause an imbalance in gut flora. Gut flora consists of billions of microorganisms that live in the intestines. In 2022, research was conducted on mice to investigate the effect of a diet high in sugar and fat [1] .

After a few weeks, the mice's microbiome had changed dramatically. There was a clear decrease in one specific bacterium (SFB), while other bacteria increased significantly. However, SFB is crucial for health, as it plays a role in maintaining the immune system.

Furthermore, the bacteria are also important in combating inflammation in the digestive tract. The researchers indicate that sugar was indeed the cause of this. In the mice fed a diet without sugar but with fats, there was no decrease in SFB bacteria.

If you're wondering what sugar does to your body, one of the consequences of eating too much sugar is the risk of insulin resistance. When you eat, your body produces insulin. This hormone ensures that sugar from the blood is absorbed into your body's cells.

However, if you eat a lot of sugar, it can make your body less sensitive to insulin. This leads to insulin resistance. Insulin's job is to ensure your blood sugar level doesn't get too high. Insulin resistance prevents insulin from working properly, and blood sugar levels can become too high. This is unhealthy.

Ultimately, insulin resistance can lead to type 2 diabetes. Fortunately, you can slow this process yourself and prevent diabetes in the first place. By making healthy choices, eating less sugar, and exercising more, your cells will eventually become more sensitive to insulin. This way, you can prevent the development of type 2 diabetes.

High sugar intake can cause deficiencies in certain vitamins and minerals.

Vitamin D3: Research shows that a high fructose intake can lead to increased activity of a specific enzyme responsible for vitamin D breakdown. At the same time, it can cause another enzyme, involved in vitamin D production, to become less active.

This means fructose can stimulate the breakdown of vitamin D while disrupting its production. The result is a potential vitamin D deficiency.

Magnesium

There's also a link between sugar and magnesium. High blood sugar and insulin concentrations are associated with lower magnesium absorption. Furthermore, the kidneys excrete more magnesium.

However, magnesium has the important task of stabilizing blood sugar levels. This creates a vicious circle in which blood sugar regulation is disrupted, but at the same time too much magnesium is excreted [2] .

Vitamin C. One of the other dangers of sugar is a vitamin C deficiency. Glucose and vitamin C use the same transporters to enter cells. Consuming too much sugar can limit your body's absorption of vitamin C.

If you're interested in what else sugar does to your body, you can also look at its effect on your sleep. There are several reasons why sugar can cause sleep problems.

First, it appears that people who eat a lot of sugar sleep less deeply. This is because sugar is a stimulant that provides a lot of energy. This makes falling asleep and staying asleep more difficult.

In addition, sugar causes chronic low-grade inflammation in the body. This inflammation can disrupt your sleep.

One of the consequences of high sugar consumption is the glycation of red blood cells. Red blood cells are responsible for transporting oxygen through the blood. Glucose also binds to these red blood cells. The more glucose you have in your blood, the more the hemoglobin will glycate.

Glycated hemoglobin is called AGEs (advanced glycation end products). These compounds can eventually damage your blood vessels and lead to dangerous complications. Damaged blood vessels can impede blood flow, which in turn can damage your organs and nerves. You can read more about this below.

A high sugar intake leads to the formation of AGEs. They are formed when proteins or fats combine with sugar in the bloodstream. This is called glycation. Your body can normally eliminate these AGEs. But if you consume too much sugar, they form faster than your body can eliminate them.

The accumulation of AGEs can cause problems throughout your body. High levels of AGEs are linked to a number of (serious) chronic diseases, such as osteoarthritis, kidney failure, heart attack, high blood pressure, stroke, and diabetes [3] .

People with type 2 diabetes are at high risk of developing peripheral arterial disease (PAD). High levels of AGEs can accelerate the disease, ultimately leading to an increased risk of limb amputation and even death.

Eating a lot of sugar has a significant effect on dopamine receptors. If you eat licorice, chocolate, or other sugary products, dopamine is released in the brain. This makes you feel satisfied and happy.

But if you continuously eat sugar, you'll need more and more to get that same happy feeling again. You eventually become desensitized to dopamine [4] . Sugar can therefore cause your reward system to become overloaded.

It's easy to understand that one of the dangers of sugar is that it easily leads to obesity. We find sugar very tasty, and because it induces feelings of satisfaction, we quickly overeat. Who can limit themselves to just one cookie, piece of chocolate, or licorice?

After eating sugar, you'll quickly feel hungry again (due to the dip in your blood sugar). This creates a vicious cycle of hunger and overeating. It can even lead to uncontrollable binge eating, where you can barely stop eating.

Sugar isn't the only reason many people are overweight or obese, but it certainly plays a significant role in the obesity epidemic.

If you're wondering what sugar does to your body, you might also wonder if it can cause cancer. There's no evidence that high sugar consumption directly causes cancer or accelerates cancer cell growth. However, there is an indirect link between sugar and cancer.

Eating too much sugar (especially added sugars in processed foods) puts you at high risk of overweight and obesity. And there's already extensive research showing that obesity is a significant risk factor for developing various types of cancer.

In fact, obesity is the leading cause of cancer, after smoking, that you can prevent.

Besides the problems mentioned above, sugar can also damage the brain. High sugar consumption leads to the production of inflammatory substances. Animal research shows that a high-sugar diet caused brain inflammation (neuroinflammation) after just one month.

In addition, sugar can disrupt your emotional well-being. The peaks and troughs in blood sugar levels disrupt dopamine regulation. This can lead to anxiety or even depression.

Research also suggests that high sugar intake can increase the risk of conditions like ADHD. A healthy diet, with plenty of fruits and vegetables, actually appears to have a protective effect on the brain [5] .

Sugar itself is already dangerous to the body. But when you combine this sweetener with the fungus Candida, the two compounds each other. Candida is a fungus that naturally occurs on and in the human body. If you are healthy, it normally doesn't cause any symptoms.

However, overgrowth of the fungus can occur. Candida uses the sugar we eat as an energy source. The fungus proliferates and demands more and more energy, in the form of sugar. This increases your craving for sugar, which in turn fuels the Candida's growth.

Symptoms that a chronic Candida infection can cause include fatigue, intestinal discomfort, headaches, and depression. The advice for a Candida infection in the intestines is to eliminate sugar from your diet and eat plenty of healthy vegetables. Many alternative practitioners recommend following a Candida diet.

Sugar is a source of energy for our bodies, but almost all of us eat far too much of it. Do you also recognize the dangers of sugar and want to cut down? Then use the tips below to help you avoid sugar.

There's usually a reason you feel a sugar craving coming on. If that happens, stop immediately and ask yourself: do I really want to eat this? What will it do to my body? It probably turns out you don't want sugar right now. Maybe you're bored or feeling sad (emotional eating). In that case, you can choose an activity that helps you feel better.

It's also possible that your body needs energy. In that case, choose a healthy energy source, such as a whole-wheat cracker with cheese or a handful of nuts.

Many people get the urge to snack after dinner. Watching television is a typical activity where you can't resist this urge. Try to distract yourself. Take a walk (a very healthy way to get some exercise) or pursue a hobby.

This doesn't even have to be long. But if you can delay your craving and distract yourself, the craving often disappears quickly, and you've been able to avoid eating sugar.

You'll make it much easier to quit sugar if you keep healthy snacks at home or at work. For example, bring some fruit with you. The sweet taste of fruit satisfies your cravings, but it also provides you with fiber and other healthy nutrients.

Fruit is more filling than candy and also contains much less sugar. Other healthy alternatives include yogurt, a piece of meat or cheese, nuts or seeds, or a cracker with unsweetened peanut butter.

After reading all this information, you might be wondering if you should completely avoid sugar. That would certainly be quite difficult, and you'd probably miss it. But luckily, you can still indulge in a delicious pastry or that tasty chocolate every now and then.

But do try to keep the dangers of sugar in mind. Make sure you keep your consumption under control. For example, you might enjoy a piece of cake on a birthday.

Another good tip is to try to eat enough fruit and vegetables on such a day, to ensure that you can limit your consumption of sugary products as much as possible.

If you do want to eat something sweet, do so after a meal. This way, you can minimize the harmful effects on your body. It will also help prevent you from overeating because you've already consumed a whole meal.

It's also wise to limit your sugar intake from now on. For example, allow yourself a maximum of one sweet treat per week. With these tips, you can still enjoy the sweetness of sugar, in moderation.