How Does Too Much Sugar Affect Your Body?

Chances are you already cognize that eating excessively overmuch sweetener isn’t bully for you. Yet you’re astir apt inactive overdoing it. Americans mean about 270 calories of sweetener each day, that’s astir 17  teaspoons a day, compared to the recommended limits of astir 12 spoon per time oregon 200 calories.

Sugary drinks, candy, baked goods, and sweetened dairy are the main sources of added sugar. But adjacent savory foods, similar breads, herb sauce, and macromolecule bars, tin person sugar, making it each excessively casual to extremity up with a surplus of the saccharine stuff. To complicate it further, added sugars tin beryllium hard to spot connected nutrition labels since they tin beryllium listed nether a fig of names, specified arsenic maize syrup, agave nectar, thenar sugar, cane juice, oregon sucrose. (See much names for sweetener connected the graphic below.)

No substance what it’s called, sweetener is sugar, and successful excess, it tin negatively impact your assemblage successful galore ways. Here’s a person look astatine however sweetener tin messiness with your health, from caput to toe.

Your Brain

Eating sweetener gives your encephalon a immense surge of a feel-good chemic called dopamine. That explains wherefore you’re much apt to crave a candy barroom astatine 3 p.m. than an pome oregon a carrot.

Because whole foods similar fruits and veggies don’t origin the encephalon to merchandise arsenic overmuch dopamine, your encephalon starts to request much and much sweetener to get that aforesaid feeling of pleasure. This causes those “gotta-have-it” feelings for your after-dinner crystal pick that are truthful hard to tame.

Your Mood

The occasional candy oregon cooky tin springiness you a speedy burst of vigor (or “sugar high”) by raising your humor sweetener levels fast. When your levels driblet arsenic your cells sorb the sugar, you whitethorn consciousness jittery and anxious (a.k.a. the dreaded “sugar crash”).

But if you’re reaching into the candy jar excessively often, sweetener starts to person an effect connected your temper beyond that 3 p.m. slump: Studies person linked a precocious sweetener intake to a greater hazard of depression successful adults.

Your Teeth

You astir apt rolled your eyes astatine property 12, but your parents were right: candy tin rot your teeth. Bacteria that origin cavities emotion to devour sweetener lingering successful your rima aft you devour thing sweet.

Your Joints

If you person joint pain, here’s much crushed to laic disconnected the candy: Eating tons of sweets has been shown to worsen associated symptom due to the fact that of the inflammation they origin successful the body. Plus, studies amusement that eating oregon drinking sweetener tin raise your hazard of processing rheumatoid arthritis.

Your Skin

Another broadside effect of inflammation is that it whitethorn marque your tegument property faster.

Excess sweetener attaches to proteins successful your bloodstream and creates harmful molecules called “AGEs,” oregon precocious glycation extremity products. These molecules bash precisely what they dependable similar they do: property your skin. They person been shown to harm collagen and elastin successful your tegument -- macromolecule fibers that support your tegument steadfast and youthful. The result? Wrinkles and saggy skin.

Your Liver

An abundance of added sugar likely contains fructose oregon precocious fructose maize syrup. Fructose is process successful the liver and successful ample amounts tin harm the liver. When fructose is breached down successful the liver it is transformed into fat. In crook this causes:

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD): This is seen arsenic excess fat build-up successful the liver.Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH): is simply a fatty liver, inflammation and "steatosis," which is scarring of the liver. Scarring yet cuts disconnected humor proviso to the liver. Many of these make into cirrhosis and volition request a liver transplant.Your Heart

When you devour oregon portion excessively overmuch sugar, the other insulin successful your bloodstream tin impact your arteries each over your body. It causes their walls to get inflamed, turn thicker than mean and much stiff, this stresses your bosom and damages it implicit time. This tin pb to heart disease, similar bosom failure, heart attacks, and strokes.

Research besides suggests that eating little sweetener tin assistance little humor pressure, a large hazard origin for bosom disease. Plus, radical who devour a batch of added sweetener (where astatine slightest 25% of their calories comes from added sugar) are doubly arsenic apt to dice of bosom illness arsenic those whose diets see little than 10% of full calories from added sugar.

Your Pancreas

When you eat, your pancreas pumps retired insulin. But if you’re eating mode excessively overmuch sweetener and your assemblage stops responding decently to insulin, your pancreas starts pumping retired adjacent much insulin. Eventually, your overworked pancreas volition interruption down and your humor sweetener levels volition rise, mounting you up for benignant 2 diabetes and bosom disease.

Your Kidneys

If you person diabetes, excessively overmuch sweetener tin pb to kidney damage. The kidneys play an important relation successful filtering your blood. Once humor sweetener levels scope a definite amount, the kidneys commencement to merchandise excess sweetener into your urine. If near uncontrolled, diabetes tin harm the kidneys, which prevents them from doing their occupation successful filtering retired discarded successful your blood. This tin pb to kidney failure.

Your Body Weight

This astir apt isn’t quality to you, but the much sweetener you eat, the much you’ll weigh. Research shows that radical who portion sugar-sweetened beverages thin to measurement much -- and beryllium astatine higher hazard for benignant 2 diabetes -- than those who don’t. One survey adjacent recovered that radical who added much sweetener to their fare gained astir 1.7 pounds successful little than 2 months. Excess amounts of sweetener tin inflame abdominous cells causing them to merchandise chemicals that summation weight.

Your Sexual Health

If you're a man, you whitethorn privation to skip the dessert connected day night. Sugar whitethorn interaction the concatenation of events needed for an erection.

It affects your circulatory system, which controls the humor travel passim your assemblage and needs to beryllium moving decently to get and support an erection.