We all know sugar is bad for you: bad for your teeth, bad for your waistline, bad for your hormones - bad, bad, bad. When you take a hard, long look at sugar, you realize just how deadly it is.
Sugar is a combination of glucose and fructose. The glucose portion of sugar is relatively harmless - as long as it is eaten in moderation alongside a diet rich in vegetables/fruits, lean proteins and healthy fats. AND as long as it comes from a non-processed source like white rice or potatoes instead of Wonder Bread or Saltines (which could very well have added sugar in them anyway). While we recommend opting for slower digesting, complex carbohydrates like brown rice and sweet potatoes for a variety reasons, unprocessed, 'white' carbs will not harm you when combined with a healthy diet. A classic example would be a person who follows a traditional Japanese diet.
The fructose portion of sugar, however is an entirely different story. It is harmful no matter what. And, as we all know, sugar is not the only sweetening agent that contains fructose. There's high fructose corn syrup too, among others. (Believe it or not, agave syrup, often used in 'healthier' foods, is 90% fructose.)
The scary thing is that sugar (or some substitute) is used in just about everything these days. Bread has sugar. Ketchup has sugar. Some soups have sugar. Salad dressings, certain mustards, cereals, etc. have sugar. If you're eating a processed food, odds are it contains sugar or some sort of sweetening agent.
For those of you who are wondering if you need to stop eating fruit (which has fructose), the answer is no. When nature created the stuff, it also created its 'antidote' - fiber. The higher the fructose content, the more fiber nature pairs with it. Think of how much fiber sugar cane has in it - it's a stick!! However, you should stay FAR AWAY from fruit juices, because they are all fructose and no fiber.
Listed below are 7 disturbing facts about sugar/fructose:
- Fructose is metabolized as fat. Fructose can only be metabolized by the liver. When you take a closer look at that metabolic process inside the liver, you learn that when the fructose leaves your liver, it enters your bloodstream as fat.
- Fructose leads to heart disease. The fat that leaves your liver from the consumption of fructose is the worst kind - VLDL - very low density lipoprotein. Unlike large buoyant LDL that tends to float through your bloodstream relatively easily, VLDL easily attaches itself onto your arteries, causing heart disease and heart attacks.
- Fructose is a chronic toxin. Did you know that fructose has almost exactly the same effect on our bodies as alcohol does? The only difference is that it is 100% metabolized by the liver, rather than having some of it immediately go to our brain and bloodstream, which is what causes the buzz. In all other respects, it is equally as toxic for your body. Unfortunately, it is not regulated by the FDA like alcohol is because it is considered a chronic toxin, not an acute one.
- A diet high in fructose will lead to Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.
- A diet high in fructose causes insulin resistance which can lead to Type II Diabetes.
- Fructose can give you cancer. Cancer is characterized by uncontrolled growth and multiplication. The hormone insulin is a key player in regulating this sort of growth.
- Sugar / Fructose is highly addictive. Like a lot of drugs, sugar causes a massive release of dopamine in the reward center of the brain - much larger than any food in nature would release. This release can be addictive in some people, same as alcohol and drugs can be. If you were to look at the brain scans of a cocaine addict and an obese person, for instance, they would look almost exactly the same. In a famous study by French scientist, Dr. Serge Ahmed, 94% of the rats in the study preferred the water laced with sugar (or saccharin) over the water laced with cocaine. According to Serge, his research "clearly demonstrates that intense sweetness can surpass cocaine reward, even in drug-sensitized and drug-addicted individuals."
There are some nutritionists out there who recommend a diet completely free of sugar / sweeteners. Others recommend to keep it in check - no more than 6 teaspoons in a day or 24 grams. At the end of the day, it's important to know the facts and make a decision that best suits you, your lifestyle and your personality. Some people have such a high propensity for sugar addiction that they just can't seem to control themselves around it. Others are able to control the urge to over-splurge by allowing themselves to indulge now and then. One group should eliminate sugar, the other should simply limit it.
At Evolution Fitness, we do a number of fitness challenges that almost completely eliminate sugar from the participants' diets. (They follow a 90/10 rule which allows the challengers to splurge 10% of their meals, effectively 4 splurges a week.) The feedback we have gotten over the years is that people's taste buds change, along with their cravings. After a few weeks of practically no sugar, most people find that they a.) don't crave it nearly as often and b.) that they require less of it to feel satisfied, most likely because they are more sensitive to it - or rather less desensitized to sugar.
This finding is in line with much of the research out there, which is why we recommend a period of elimination for everyone who is trying to decrease sugar in their diet. This helps the body "hit the reset button" and get back to its original state.
