You need sugar to function, but the human body was not made to consume excessive amounts of sugar. With so much of it going into your system, there’s proof that sugar does more harm than good to the body. Here are some of the things sugar does to your body:
- Damages your liver. The effects of too much sugar or fructose can be likened to the effects of alcohol. All the fructose you eat gets shuttled to your liver. This severely taxes and overloads the organ, leading to potential liver damage.
- Causes weight-gain. It tricks your body into gaining weight and affects your insulin and leptin signaling. Fructose fools your metabolism by turning off your body’s appetite-control system. It fails to stimulate insulin, so you can’t suppress ghrelin, or “the hunger hormone,” which then fails to stimulate leptin or “the satiety hormone.” This causes you to eat more and develop insulin resistance.
- Increases your risk for diabetes and heart disease. Studies have shown that high-glycemic foods, including eating a lot of sugary foods puts you at risk for becoming obese, developing diabetes, and heart disease.
- Causes metabolic dysfunction. Eating too much sugar causes a barrage of symptoms known as classic metabolic syndrome. These include weight gain, abdominal obesity, decreased HDL and increased LDL, elevated blood sugar, elevated triglycerides, and high blood pressure.
- Increases uric acid levels. High uric acid levels are a risk factor for heart and kidney disease. In fact, the connection between fructose, metabolic syndrome, and your uric acid is now so clear that your uric acid level can now be used as a marker for fructose toxicity.