Sugar Addiction

Sugar Addiction: 76 Ways Sugar Can Ruin Your Health

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Sugar, in moderate amounts, is essential to our body. As a carbohydrate, it helps supply you with the energy you need for your daily activities. All of your cells use it. But at the same time, sugar is also a calorie, and once it is in consumed in excess, negative effects to your health will follow. Massive sugar addiction can result in obesity, diabetes, heart damage or failure, cancer cell production, depletion of brain power, and shorter lifespans.1

Moderation is important in this case. Yet avoiding food with high sugar content is definitely easier said than done these days, given the variety of options in stores. Some of the usual suspects include energy drinks, sodas, candy bars, artificial sweeteners, and so much more. Everyone has access to them.

Sugar Addiction

Story at-a-glance

  • Sugar addiction happens due to intense cravings for sweet food. It is triggered by the brain by sending signals to the receptors in our tongue that were not able to develop from the low-sugar diets of our ancestors
  • Here are 76 ways in which sugar could pose a significant threat to your health, divided into four categories: Increased Risk of Diseases and Sicknesses, Nutrient Imbalance or Deficiency, Bodily Impairments, and Behavioral Changes
  • Your emotions might be more important than you think, as newer and more recent studies show that conditioning yourself and analyzing the impacts of your eating habits can help you curb bad practices – sugar addiction included

What Lies Behind Sugar Addiction

Sugar addiction obviously begins when you crave anything that contains this sweet ingredient. Eating sugar triggers production of natural opioids in your brain. These hormones aid in relieving the pain and are triggered in the same way one would consume illegal drugs.2

According to researchers, your tongue has two sweet receptors in it, which evolved during the early times, when our ancestors ate a typically low-sugar diet. As the years went by, people’s tongues were still not able to adapt to sweet treats. This is why when the receptors in your tongue are highly stimulated, it results in your brain sending out excessive reward signals whenever you eat something with sugar in it, which end up overriding your self-control mechanisms. This leads to addiction.

Dr. Robert Lustig, a professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, wrote in The Atlantic that:

“The brain’s pleasure center, called the nucleus accumbens, is essential for our survival as a species… When you consume any substance of abuse, including sugar, the nucleus accumbens receives a dopamine signal, from which you experience pleasure. And so you consume more. The problem is that with prolonged exposure, the signal attenuates, gets weaker. So you have to consume more to get the same effect — tolerance. And if you pull back on the substance, you go into withdrawal. Tolerance and withdrawal constitute addiction.”3

Another major player in possible sugar addiction is the hormone leptin. It is responsible for telling the brain how energy that is stored from fat is to be used. Moreover, it targets taste receptors in your tongue, which could increase or decrease your food cravings. When you lack leptin or if there is a problem with your body’s leptin receptors, then your chances of craving food will be bigger, and more often than not, sugar is always the first pick when it comes to combatting cravings.

76 Ways Sugar Can Ruin Your Health

Too much sugar can lead to detrimental effects to your health. I counted at least 76 ways (yes, you read that right!) in which sugar can cause serious health risks for you. These hazards are divided into four categories: Increased Risk of Diseases and Sicknesses, Nutrient Imbalance or Deficiency, Bodily Impairments, andBehavioral Changes.

Nutrient Imbalance or Deficiency

  1. Upsets the mineral relationships in your body
  2. Chromium deficiency
  3. Interferes with the absorption of calcium, magnesium, and protein
  4. Increases total cholesterol, triglycerides, and bad cholesterol levels
  5. Decreases good cholesterol levels
  6. Lowers vitamin E levels
  7. Body changes sugar into two to five times more fat in the bloodstream compared to starch

Behavioral Changes

  1. Addictive and intoxicating, similar to alcohol
  2. Rapid rise of adrenaline, hyperactivity, and anxiety
  3. Leads to difficulty in concentration, drowsiness, and crankiness in children
  4. Results in decreased activity in children
  5. Reduces learning capacity and can cause learning disorders that could affect schoolchildren’s grades
  6. Increases risk of antisocial behavior
  7. Decrease in emotional stability
  8. Depression
  9. Alcoholism

Increased Risk of Diseases and Sicknesses

  1. Feeds cancer cells
  2. Can induce cell death
  3. Increases fasting levels of glucose
  4. Increases systolic blood pressure
  5. Significant increase in platelet adhesion
  6. Leads to formation of kidney stones and gallstones
  7. Rapid sugar absorption promotes excessive food intake
  8. Obesity
  9. Decreases insulin sensitivity, leading to high insulin levels and eventually diabetes
  10. Reactive hypoglycemia
  11. Headaches, including migraines
  12. Dizziness
  13. Gastrointestinal tract problems
  14. Food allergies
  15. Promotes chronic degenerative diseases
  16. Causes atherosclerosis and cardiovascular diseases
  17. Causes cataracts and nearsightedness
  18. May lead to autoimmune diseases like arthritis, asthma, and multiple sclerosis
  19. Causes emphysema
  20. Contributes to osteoporosis
  21. Contraction of appendicitis, hemorrhoids, and varicose veins
  22. Parkinson’s disease (people with said disease have high sugar intake)
  23. Increases risk of gout and Alzheimer’s disease
  24. Acidity in saliva, tooth decay, and periodontal diseases
  25. Gum disease
  26. Greatly promotes uncontrolled growth of Candida Albicans (yeast infections)
  27. Toxemia in pregnancy
  28. Contributes to eczema in children
  29. Worsens symptoms of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
  30. Increases risk of polio
  31. May lead to epileptic seizures
  32. Could lead to high blood pressure in obese people
  33. Increased consumption in intensive care units can induce death

Bodily Impairments

  1. Has potential to induce abnormal metabolic processes in a normal healthy individual
  2. Suppression of immune system, increasing risk of contracting infectious diseases
  3. Loss of tissue elasticity and function
  4. Weaker eyesight
  5. Premature aging
  6. Increases advanced glycation end products wherein sugar molecules attach to proteins and end up damaging them
  7. DNA structure impairment
  8. Can cut off oxygen to brain via intravenous feedings
  9. Change in protein structure and causes a permanent alteration of protein acts in your body
  10. Changing of collagen structure
  11. Skin aging
  12. Impairs physiological homeostasis of bodily systems
  13. Lowers ability of enzymes to function
  14. Increases liver size by making liver cells divide, increasing the amount of liver fat
  15. Increase kidney size and producing pathological changes
  16. Pancreatic damage
  17. Increase in body’s fluid retention
  18. Affects urinary electrolyte composition
  19. Slows down ability of adrenal glands to function
  20. Compromises lining of capillaries
  21. Brittle tendons
  22. Can cause an increase in delta, alpha, and theta brain waves, which can alter the mind’s ability to think clearly
  23. Causes hormonal imbalances
  24. Increases free radicals and oxidative stress
  25. Leads to substantial decrease in gestation, with a twofold increased risk for delivering a small-for-gestational-age infant
  26. Dehydration among newborns
  27. Affects carbon dioxide production when given to premature babies.

How to Break Sugar Addiction

Don’t fret – it’s not too late to kick those bad habits to the curb. I have a couple of recommendations on how to safely consume sugar without sacrificing your health.

The first would be to appeal to your emotions. Sometimes, when you crave food, it is triggered by an emotional need such as wanting to relieve stress or feel a little bit happier after a tiring day. More often than not, people tend to ignore their emotions when considering whether to eat healthy or otherwise.

I highly recommend the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), a simple and effective psychological acupressure technique that could help you manage the emotional components of your cravings. It has been proven to relieve a lot of emotional traumas, abolish phobias and post-traumatic stresses, break down food cravings, and lessen physical pain and discomfort.

What EFT entails in its practitioners is to have the right mindset when going on a diet or just taking steps to improve on their health. If you’re already curious, you can browse through the basics of EFT here.

Another way to reduce sugar consumption would be to lessen the amount of sugar that you consume on a daily basis – below 25 grams to be exact – including that from whole fruits.

I also advise you to avoid high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) at all costs. This is a sweetener that is made from corn and found in many of the food items that we eat and drink today. Now, this is considered to be deadly not only because of the amount of sugar that goes in it, but also because of the health risks that can it can cause, most of which were already mentioned above.

Choosing a well-balanced diet tailored to your specific body type helps, with extra emphasis on food rich in fiber, which helps slow down the absorption of sugar, and food rich in high quality omega-3 fats, which are also crucial to lessening the impact of eating excessive sugar. Avoiding food with high sugar content and constantly rehydrating with fresh and pure water are also recommended.

Lastly, exercising every day, along with optimizing your vitamin D levels, getting enough sleep, and managing your stress levels can also help minimize the effects of excessive sugar intake. Exercise in particular is known to improve insulin sensitivity, reduce stress levels, suppress ghrelin (the appetite hormone), speed up metabolism, strengthen bones, and boost your mood.

It can be quite difficult to say no to sweets, especially if you have been  consuming them on a daily basis, but trust me, once you feel the effects that lowering your sugar intake has on your body,  it will all be worth it.

Source:mercola.com

The Truth About Sugar Addiction

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Sugar, in moderate amounts, is essential to our body. As a carbohydrate, it helps supply you with the energy you need for your daily activities. All of your cells use it. But at the same time, sugar is also a calorie, and once it is in consumed in excess, negative effects to your health will follow. Massive sugar addiction can result in obesity, diabetes, heart damage or failure, cancer cell production, depletion of brain power, and shorter lifespans.1

Moderation is important in this case. Yet avoiding food with high sugar content is definitely easier said than done these days, given the variety of options in stores. Some of the usual suspects include energy drinks, sodas, candy bars, artificial sweeteners, and so much more. Everyone has access to them.

What Lies Behind Sugar Addiction

Sugar addiction obviously begins when you crave anything that contains this sweet ingredient. Eating sugar triggers production of natural opioids in your brain. These hormones aid in relieving the pain and are triggered in the same way one would consume illegal drugs.2

According to researchers, your tongue has two sweet receptors in it, which evolved during the early times, when our ancestors ate a typically low-sugar diet. As the years went by, people’s tongues were still not able to adapt to sweet treats. This is why when the receptors in your tongue are highly stimulated, it results in your brain sending out excessive reward signals whenever you eat something with sugar in it, which end up overriding your self-control mechanisms. This leads to addiction.

Dr. Robert Lustig, a professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, wrote in The Atlantic that:

“The brain’s pleasure center, called the nucleus accumbens, is essential for our survival as a species… When you consume any substance of abuse, including sugar, the nucleus accumbens receives a dopamine signal, from which you experience pleasure. And so you consume more. The problem is that with prolonged exposure, the signal attenuates, gets weaker. So you have to consume more to get the same effect — tolerance. And if you pull back on the substance, you go into withdrawal. Tolerance and withdrawal constitute addiction.”3

Another major player in possible sugar addiction is the hormone leptin. It is responsible for telling the brain how energy that is stored from fat is to be used. Moreover, it targets taste receptors in your tongue, which could increase or decrease your food cravings. When you lack leptin or if there is a problem with your body’s leptin receptors, then your chances of craving food will be bigger, and more often than not, sugar is always the first pick when it comes to combatting cravings.

76 Ways Sugar Can Ruin Your Health

Too much sugar can lead to detrimental effects to your health. I counted at least 76 ways (yes, you read that right!) in which sugar can cause serious health risks for you. These hazards are divided into four categories: Increased Risk of Diseases and Sicknesses, Nutrient Imbalance or Deficiency, Bodily Impairments, and Behavioral Changes.

Nutrient Imbalance or Deficiency

  1. Upsets the mineral relationships in your body
  2. Chromium deficiency
  3. Interferes with the absorption of calcium, magnesium, and protein
  4. Increases total cholesterol, triglycerides, and bad cholesterol levels
  5. Decreases good cholesterol levels
  6. Lowers vitamin E levels
  7. Body changes sugar into two to five times more fat in the bloodstream compared to starch

Behavioral Changes

  1. Addictive and intoxicating, similar to alcohol
  2. Rapid rise of adrenaline, hyperactivity, and anxiety
  3. Leads to difficulty in concentration, drowsiness, and crankiness in children
  4. Results in decreased activity in children
  5. Reduces learning capacity and can cause learning disorders that could affect schoolchildren’s grades
  6. Increases risk of antisocial behavior
  7. Decrease in emotional stability
  8. Depression
  9. Alcoholism

Increased Risk of Diseases and Sicknesses

  1. Feeds cancer cells
  2. Can induce cell death
  3. Increases fasting levels of glucose
  4. Increases systolic blood pressure
  5. Significant increase in platelet adhesion
  6. Leads to formation of kidney stones and gallstones
  7. Rapid sugar absorption promotes excessive food intake
  8. Obesity
  9. Decreases insulin sensitivity, leading to high insulin levels and eventually diabetes
  10. Reactive hypoglycemia
  11. Headaches, including migraines
  12. Dizziness
  13. Gastrointestinal tract problems
  14. Food allergies
  15. Promotes chronic degenerative diseases
  16. Causes atherosclerosis and cardiovascular diseases
  17. Causes cataracts and nearsightedness
  18. May lead to autoimmune diseases like arthritis, asthma, and multiple sclerosis
  19. Causes emphysema
  20. Contributes to osteoporosis
  21. Contraction of appendicitis, hemorrhoids, and varicose veins
  22. Parkinson’s disease (people with said disease have high sugar intake)
  23. Increases risk of gout and Alzheimer’s disease
  24. Acidity in saliva, tooth decay, and periodontal diseases
  25. Gum disease
  26. Greatly promotes uncontrolled growth of Candida Albicans (yeast infections)
  27. Toxemia in pregnancy
  28. Contributes to eczema in children
  29. Worsens symptoms of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
  30. Increases risk of polio
  31. May lead to epileptic seizures
  32. Could lead to high blood pressure in obese people
  33. Increased consumption in intensive care units can induce death

Bodily Impairments

  1. Has potential to induce abnormal metabolic processes in a normal healthy individual
  2. Suppression of immune system, increasing risk of contracting infectious diseases
  3. Loss of tissue elasticity and function
  4. Weaker eyesight
  5. Premature aging
  6. Increases advanced glycation end products wherein sugar molecules attach to proteins and end up damaging them
  7. DNA structure impairment
  8. Can cut off oxygen to brain via intravenous feedings
  9. Change in protein structure and causes a permanent alteration of protein acts in your body
  10. Changing of collagen structure
  11. Skin aging
  12. Impairs physiological homeostasis of bodily systems
  13. Lowers ability of enzymes to function
  14. Increases liver size by making liver cells divide, increasing the amount of liver fat
  15. Increase kidney size and producing pathological changes
  16. Pancreatic damage
  17. Increase in body’s fluid retention
  18. Affects urinary electrolyte composition
  19. Slows down ability of adrenal glands to function
  20. Compromises lining of capillaries
  21. Brittle tendons
  22. Can cause an increase in delta, alpha, and theta brain waves, which can alter the mind’s ability to think clearly
  23. Causes hormonal imbalances
  24. Increases free radicals and oxidative stress
  25. Leads to substantial decrease in gestation, with a twofold increased risk for delivering a small-for-gestational-age infant
  26. Dehydration among newborns
  27. Affects carbon dioxide production when given to premature babies

How to Break Sugar Addiction

Don’t fret – it’s not too late to kick those bad habits to the curb. I have a couple of recommendations on how to safely consume sugar without sacrificing your health.

The first would be to appeal to your emotions. Sometimes, when you crave food, it is triggered by an emotional need such as wanting to relieve stress or feel a little bit happier after a tiring day. More often than not, people tend to ignore their emotions when considering whether to eat healthy or otherwise.

I highly recommend the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), a simple and effective psychological acupressure technique that could help you manage the emotional components of your cravings. It has been proven to relieve a lot of emotional traumas, abolish phobias and post-traumatic stresses, break down food cravings, and lessen physical pain and discomfort.

What EFT entails in its practitioners is to have the right mindset when going on a diet or just taking steps to improve on their health. If you’re already curious, you can browse through the basics of EFT here.

Another way to reduce sugar consumption would be to lessen the amount of sugar that you consume on a daily basis – below 25 grams to be exact – including that from whole fruits.

I also advise you to avoid high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) at all costs. This is a sweetener that is made from corn and found in many of the food items that we eat and drink today. Now, this is considered to be deadly not only because of the amount of sugar that goes in it, but also because of the health risks that can it can cause, most of which were already mentioned above.

Sugar Addiction

Story at-a-glance –

  • Sugar addiction happens due to intense cravings for sweet food. It is triggered by the brain by sending signals to the receptors in our tongue that were not able to develop from the low-sugar diets of our ancestors
  • Here are 76 ways in which sugar could pose a significant threat to your health, divided into four categories: Increased Risk of Diseases and Sicknesses, Nutrient Imbalance or Deficiency, Bodily Impairments, and Behavioral Changes
  • Your emotions might be more important than you think, as newer and more recent studies show that conditioning yourself and analyzing the impacts of your eating habits can help you curb bad practices – sugar addiction included

 

Sugar Addiction Is Like Drug Abuse And We Should Treat It The Same

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sugar addiction

In America, nearly every packaged food contains some amount of sugar; as a result, our tolerance for sweets has gotten higher and contributed to obesity and diabetes.

A spiral into years or a life of drug abuse can be mentally and physically destructive, but what if sugar addiction reaped the same consequences? Amid the United States obesity epidemic — as well as increasing rates of diabetes and heart disease — researchers are beginning to see sugar addiction in a new light: as something nearly as damaging to health as drug dependence.

In a new study out of Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Australia, researchers suggest that in the future, sugar addiction may be treated the same way as drug addiction. Their research showed that rats addicted to sugar could be treated with nicotine addiction drugs. Like alcohol and drug addiction, consuming high levels of sugar increases dopamine levels and activates the same reward pathways in the brain.

“Excess sugar consumption has been proven to contribute directly to weight gain,” Professor Selena Bartlett of QUT’s Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, an author of the study, said in the press release. “It has also been shown to repeatedly elevate dopamine levels which control the brain’s reward and pleasure centers in a way that is similar to many drugs of abuse including tobacco, cocaine and morphine.”

After people eat significant amounts of sugar every day for a long period of time, they experience a reduction in dopamine levels — which spurs them to eat even more sugar to get the same high. It’s a cycle of addiction that leaves a person constantly unsatisfied and reaching for more. Quitting sugar, meanwhile, can cause withdrawal: “Like other drugs of abuse, withdrawal from chronic sucrose exposure can result in an imbalance in dopamine levels and be as difficult as going ‘cold turkey’ from them,” Bartlett said in the press release.

In the study, the researchers examined the effects of varenicline, an FDA-approved drug used to aid in smoking cessation, on rats that were addicted to sugar. Varenicline is typically used alongside counseling in helping people kick smoking to the curb; it’s taken in pill form every day and is known as a neuronal nicotinic receptor modulator. The researchers found that the drug was effective in curbing chronic sugar addiction, and concluded that it might be a pathway for obesity treatment if further research supports it.

The study may be the first to find that FDA-approved nicotine drugs may be effective against sugar addiction, but it’s not the first to find that sugar, sodium, and fat can act like hard drugsto our brains and bodies, physically rewiring our brains. As a result, it’s important to investigate potential treatment options for sugar addiction, as its health consequences can be as negative as those of drug addiction. In fact, sugar can impact nearly every part of your body— including your heart, brain, kidneys, and sexual health.

“We have also found that as well as an increased risk of weight gain, animals that maintain high sugar consumption and binge eating into adulthood may also face neurological and psychiatric consequences affecting mood and motivation,” Bartlett said in the press release. The researchers note, however, that more research will be done before doctors can begin prescribing nicotine drugs to treat sugar addiction or obesity.

Sugar addiction ‘should be treated as a form of drug abuse’ .

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Withdrawal from chronic sugar consumption would be similar to going ‘cold turkey’ from drugs, say Australian scientists
  • sugar_RF_GETTY.jpg
sugar_RF_GETTY.jpg
Chronic exposure to sucrose can cause eating disorders and change the behaviour of individuals 

It is widely thought to affect the brain in a similar way to cocaine, and now a new study has suggested people addicted to sugar should be treated in the same way as other drug abusers.

According to researchers from Queensland University of Technology (QUT), excessive sugar consumption increases the dopamine levels in a similar way to other drugs such as cocaine.

The study found that long-term consumption of sugar will eventually cause a reduction in dopamine levels. That means, they say, people need to consume higher and higher levels of sugar in order;to reach the same reward levels and avoid mild states of depression.

The researchers also found in a separate study that chronic exposure to sucrose can cause eating disorders and change the behaviour of individuals.

Professor Selena Bartlett, a neuroscientist from the university’s Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, says the research indicates that drugs used to treat nicotine addiction could be used to treat addiction to sugar.

“Excess sugar consumption has been proven to contribute directly to weight gain,” she said. “It has also been shown to repeatedly elevate dopamine levels which control the brain’s reward and pleasure centres in a way that is similar to many drugs of abuse including tobacco, cocaine and morphine.

“We have also found that as well as an increased risk of weight gain, animals that maintain high sugar consumption and binge eating into adulthood may also face neurological and psychiatric consequences affecting mood and motivation.”

Beat Sugar Addiction in One Week with Peppermint

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Refined sugar is unbelievably addictive. Professor Hoebel of Princeton Universityfound that “sugar stimulates receptors to activate the same pathways that are stimulated directly by drugs such as heroin or morphine.” The Journal of Psychoactive Drugsstated in a study published in 2010 that ‘Sugar addiction” follows the same pathways in the brain that a habit-forming drug does. Sugar addiction is a difficult habit to break for many people, especially when the body and digestive tract become so overrun with yeast, candida, parasites and other sugar-loving bacteria that not eating sugar triggers intense withdrawal symptoms.
Fortunately, you can beat sugar addiction using natural tools such as peppermint essential oil.
Alan Hirsch MD studied peppermint’s ability to directly affect the brain’s satiety center, which triggers a sensation of fullness after meals. He found that inhaling peppermint can directly affect your brain’s satiety center, the ventro-medial nucleus of the hypothalamus.

How to Use Peppermint Essential Oil

You can also use a diffuser and inhale deeply as cravings come on. Applying peppermint essential oil to the feet also helps.

  • Apply several drops (2-4) with a carrier on location, abdomen and temples
  • Mix 2 drops of coconut oil with 2 drops of peppermint essential  oil. Apply the mixture down the inside center of your wrists.  Do it every morning and evening.

Sugar Addiction Doesn’t Just Lead To Obesity; It Affects Your Heart Health, Brain Function, And Even Your Sex Life

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sugar high
The adverse effects a high-sugar diet can have on the human body include more than just obesity. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

In moderation, sugar is essential for a healthy body. Millions of years ago our ancestors relied on sugar-rich fruit for survival. Not only did the nutrient give them enormous amounts of energy, but it also helped in the storage of fat — something which could be the difference between life and death during hard times. Those who didn’t consume enough sugar had neither the energy nor physical capabilities to reproduce and therefore were unable to pass on their genes.

As a result, the human brain evolved an interesting survival mechanism: a near-insatiable desire for sweetness. Sadly, in modern days this evolutionary edge often does more harm than help. Many, especially in the United States, consume far more sugar than is needed for survival. While weight gain and teeth decay may be the most obvious consequences of excessive sugar consumption, there are many other “hidden” effects of consuming too much of the sweet stuff.

Heart

When consumed, sugar enters into the blood stream, and at high levels blood sugar has adverse effects on our most important organ: the heart. In a 2013 study published in theJournal of the American Heart Association, researchers found that large amounts of sugar, particularly glucose, stressed out the heart and decreased the muscle’s function. If left to progress for too long, this eventually leads to heart failure, The Cleveland Clinic reported.

High amounts of fructose, another type of sugar commonly found in artificially sweetened food, lowers levels of “good” cholesterol, Women’s Health reported. This can trigger the production of a certain type of fat known as triglycerides, which travel from the liver to the arteries and increase your risk for experiencing a heart attack or stroke.

Brain

A 2002 study conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles, stumbled upon a frightening link between excessive sugar consumption and brain health. The study found that diets high in sugar affected the neuronal and behavioral plasticity associated with a chemical known as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). This leads to decreased function in the ability to efficiently form new memories and store new information. Other research has also linked low levels of this chemical to depression and dementia.

Kidneys

The kidneys play an important role in filtering our blood, so high levels of sugar in the blood can cause excessive work and subsequent damage. High amounts of blood sugar are known to be one of the main contributors to type 2 diabetes. Many years of excessive sugar filtration seriously compromise kidney function and this may lead to waste products leaking into the body.

According to the American Diabetes Association, the eventual result of decreasd kidney function is kidney disease. If left untreated, the kidney will completely fail. Individuals with kidney failure need to receive an organ transplant or have their blood filtered by a machine via dialysis.

SUGAR_PREVENTION_finalEating too much sugar can affect many parts of the human body. Photo courtesy of Tantika Tivorat viaPrevention

Sexual Health

Because high amounts of sugar in a diet can affect blood flow, excessive sugar consumption is also linked to erectile dysfunction in men. A 2005 study from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine found that one particular sugar interferes with the chain of events needed to achieve and maintain an erection. The blood sugar, O-GlcNAc, is present in elevated levels in those with diabetes and has been observed to interrupt the enzyme responsible for a successful erection, News Medical reported.

A 2007 study also found that consuming too much fructose and glucose could turn off the gene that regulates the levels of active sex testosterone and estrogen, two important human sex hormones.

Joints

Arthritis is a term used to describe various types of joint pain and inflammation. According to a 2002 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, in elevated levels processed sugar can increase the inflammation which causes joint pain. For this reason, those who suffer from chronic arthritis are advised to keep their sugar consumption low, although individuals of various health descriptions will benefit from a low sugar diet.

Skin

Dr. Nicholas Perricone, a dermatologist and nutritionist, told The Huffington Post that large consumptions of sugar are “a burst of inflammation throughout the body.” Just as the inflammation caused by sugar can lead to joint pain, this same inflammation breaks down the collagen and elastin in our skin.

The unfortunate result of this is an acceleration of the aging process and increased sagging skin and wrinkles. Those with high sugar diets are also more likely to develop insulin resistance, which can cause excess hair growth and dark patches to appear on the neck and in body creases.

Liver

The liver is not immune to the effects of excessive sugar consumption. High sugar diets lead to fat build-up in the liver which, in some cases, causes the liver to become inflamed. If left untreated, this will eventually have the same effect on the liver as excess alcohol consumption, which leads to the formation of scar tissue, a condition known as cirrhosis.

“The most common cause of liver cirrhosis is alcohol, and after that it’s fatty liver disease, from bad diet,” Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a London cardiologist and member of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges obesity group told The Daily Mail.