Tamarack on Nostr: This Is Your Body on Sugar By [7]Alice Callahan Animations by Rosa Sawyers Oct. 30, ...

This Is Your Body on Sugar

By [7]Alice Callahan Animations by Rosa Sawyers
Oct. 30, 2024

For all of human history, the natural sugars in fruits, vegetables and
other plants have served us well. They have provided essential fuel for
our body’s most important processes.

But now that sugars have been processed into more potent forms and
added to so many foods and drinks — sodas, candies, breakfast cereals,
salad dressings, breads — most of us are getting more sugar than our
bodies were meant to handle.

Over time, excess consumption of these added sugars can increase the
risk of health problems. Here’s how that may play out in various parts
of your body.

The Mouth

The potential issues from added sugars start in your mouth. Here,
certain bacteria break sugars down and produce acids, which can
eventually erode your tooth enamel.

Your saliva is able to neutralize these acids, but if you keep
consuming sugary foods and drinks throughout the day, it won’t be able
to keep up. Acid levels will remain high, [8]increasing your risk for
cavities.

A diet high in sugary drinks like soda and juice can also change your
mouth’s microbiome — increasing the number of acid-producing bacteria
and decreasing the beneficial ones. That may make you even more
susceptible to cavities.

The Gut

Most sweet foods contain several types of sugars. In the small
intestine, they are broken down into simple sugars — mainly glucose and
fructose.

Your body can easily absorb glucose from your intestine, but some
people have trouble absorbing fructose, which is found in high amounts
in many fruit juices, sweeteners like agave syrup, and drinks sweetened
with high fructose corn syrup, like sodas. If fructose lingers in your
gut, bacteria can ferment it, which may cause gas, bloating and
abdominal pain.

Young children tend to have more difficulty absorbing fructose than adults, but it can contribute to irritable bowel syndrome symptoms in people of all ages.

The Pancreas

When your blood sugar rises, your pancreas releases insulin, a hormone
that helps glucose enter your cells to be used for energy. As your
cells pull in the glucose, your blood sugar returns to normal.

Eating foods high in added sugars can cause large blood sugar spikes.
When this happens repeatedly, over years, your cells can become less
responsive to insulin. This is called insulin resistance. Your pancreas
compensates by making more insulin, but eventually, it may not be able
to make enough to keep your blood sugar levels in check. This is how
Type 2 diabetes develops.
The Brain

Glucose provides essential fuel for your brain. When your blood sugar
rises, glucose molecules cross into your brain, where brain cells use
them for energy.
But if you have a big blood sugar spike and a surge of insulin, your
glucose levels may plummet an hour or two later. That can leave you feeling irritable, tired and hungry — and perhaps craving something sweet again.

Sugar — its taste in your mouth, its absorption in your gut and even
the sight or smell of a sweet food that you love — causes dopamine to
surge in your brain. That’s an evolutionary signal that propels you to
keep eating easy sources of calories.
Some research suggests that frequent doses of sugar can alter the brain’s reward system, increasing our cravings for sweetness and sometimes making it hard to cut back.

The Liver
Consuming too much added sugar can cause the liver to convert extra sugars, especially fructose, into fat. That fat may then accumulate in
the organ.
Over time, this can contribute to what used to be called nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, now known as [9]metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, or MASLD. An estimated four in 10 people worldwide have the condition — many of whom don’t know it, since it
typically doesn’t cause symptoms until it’s advanced. It’s the fastest
growing reason people need liver transplants in the United States.
Fat Storage

Consuming too much sugar can also increase your risk for obesity. This is especially true if you drink a lot of “liquid calories,” like from
sodas or sugary coffee drinks, which tend to leave you feeling less
sated than solid food. That makes it easy to consume more calories than
your body needs, leading to weight gain.
Some studies suggest that the extra fat manufactured from fructose by
your liver is especially prone to accumulating around the organs in your belly. This type of fat, called visceral fat, causes inflammation
and insulin resistance and is strongly linked with cardiovascular disease.

The Heart
Excessive sugar consumption has also been linked to high blood
pressure. And some of the extra fat made from sugars in the liver can be released into the blood, increasing levels of triglycerides and LDL,
or “bad,” cholesterol. Over time, this can clog your blood vessels.
High blood pressure and high cholesterol — along with excess weight that may come from consuming sugary foods and drinks — can increase
your risk of heart disease.
The Joints
Consuming a lot of sugar can also increase your risk of gout — a
complex form of arthritis that causes painful inflammation of the joints, especially in the fingers, toes and ankles. When fructose is
broken down in the liver, it creates uric acid, which can accumulate in
the joints and cause this kind of inflammation.
How much sugar is too much?

If you’re concerned about the occasional sugary treat, don’t be.
Gorging [10]on Halloween candy once a year won’t cause a chronic
condition (though it may cause a stomach ache). But years of consuming
more added sugars than recommended — along with other aspects of your
diet, genetics, sleep and stress levels — may contribute to your risk.
Federal health officials recommend that no more than 10 percent of your
daily calories come from added sugars. If you consume 2,000 calories
per day, this works out to no more than 50 grams of added sugars per day.
That leaves plenty of room for sweetness, like a teaspoon of honey in
your tea (about five grams) or Ghirardelli dark chocolate (three grams
per serving of their Intense Dark 86 percent cacao version). But some products, like sugary drinks, can quickly put you over the limit. A
20-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola contains 65 grams of added sugars, for
example, and a 16-ounce Caramel Swirl Latte from Dunkin’ has 35 grams.
The American Heart Association sets a stricter limit of 6 percent of calories consumed — or no more than about 25 grams per day for women and 36 grams per day for men.
On average, people in the United States consume about 67 grams of added
sugars per day.
Nearly two-thirds of that amount comes from sugary drinks, sweet snacks, desserts and candy. But added sugars are also found in many
packaged products like condiments, pasta sauces, sliced breads, granola
and sweetened yogurts. You can check the “added sugars” line on nutrition labels to see if any are present. You may be surprised by
what you find.
Sources
We consulted Dr. Miriam Vos, a hepatologist at Emory University School
of Medicine; Dr. Frank B. Hu, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology
at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Kimber L. Stanhope, a
research nutritional biologist at the University of California, Davis;
Ashley Gearhardt, a professor of psychology at the University of
Michigan; Michael Goran, a professor of pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine of USC; Paula Moynihan, an adjunct professor at Adelaide Dental School in Australia; Vasanti Malik, an assistant professor of
nutrition and chronic disease prevention at the University of Toronto;
and Alexandra G. DiFeliceantonio, an assistant professor of human nutrition, foods and exercise at Virginia Tech.
Edited by Julia Calderone. Produced by Deanna Donegan, Hang Do Thi Duc,
Claire Merchlinsky and Meredith Rizzo.