To Sweet or Not to Sweet
Sugar arrives in our body in many different forms, mostly hidden...
contributing to obesity, non-alocholic liver disease and type 2 diabetes and many other health issues...
Refined sugar isn't helping your mind or your body and definitely not doing you any favours, so quitting sounds pretty good, but why would YOU consider removing it from our daily life?
Here's 7 simple reasons why you would want to STOP
and become aware -
- Sugar affects key areas of the brain, causing heart rates to quicken and blood pressure to rise, as well as affecting your moods.
- Sugar suppresses the immune system through decreasing activity in immune system cells that attack bacteria.
- Sugar binds to proteins and fats in the body during digestion to create free radicals that reduce collagen and elastin in the skin, ultimately causing wrinkles and loss of skin elasticity.
- Sugar inhibits mineral absorption, depleting the body of key minerals especially magnesium which is required for proper functioning of every single cell in the human body and essential for calcium absorption and utilization.
- Sugar over consumption impacts heavily on the abody's ability to regulate blood sugar levels, it can lead to insulin resistance, hypo-and hyperglycaemia, pre-diabetes ad diabetes. Uncontrolled blood sugar causes damage to blood vessles, impacts heart health, kidneys, nerves and eyes.
- Sugar causes obesity? Sugar is addictive the more we eat of the hidden quantities, our attention is drawn towards sugar and we crave it, consuming more and more. This puts significant stress on the body, especially the liver, which turns sugar into fat to process it, causing visceral fat to accumulate around the body's organs.
- Sugar is housed in many foods and drinks, you just need to read the labels. Refined carbohydrates - bread, pasta and cakes rank highly! Yes, bread is often not thought of as a refinded carbohydrate. If you can scrunch up a slice of bread in your hand and it stays in a big gluggy ball - avoid it like the plague. So switching to whole grains, steel-cut oats, buckwheat, millet, amaranth and quinoa is a great start. Sauces - for instance often house 55% sugar. Soft drinks, sports drinks and adding sugar to your tea or coffee all contribute to your overloaded consumption. Often low fat yoghurt contains more sugar than ice-cream. This is just the beginning... The average person consumes some 30 teaspoons of sugar per day, mainly from processed foods.
Yours in Health and Happiness