13 August 2021
Sugar - sweet death?
Sugar is a sweet death. Have you heard this expression?
Today we propose to understand what sugar is and how it affects our health.
Sugar can be different: simple and complex, natural and synthetic, explicit and hidden, refined and unrefined.
It should be noted right away that today we are considering refined sugar, which we deliberately eat every day (sugar, sand, sugar cubes) or which we don’t know about when consuming various foods (the so-called hidden sugar, which is contained in 75% of products from the supermarket - yoghurts, sausages, sauces, fitness bars).
What is sugar?
Sugar is a carbohydrate that consists of 2 molecules (disaccharides): 1 GLUCOSE and 1 FRUCTOSE = SUGAROSE.
Glucose is very important for our normal functioning. After all, it is what provides us with 60% of all energy.
Fructose is not so much interesting to our body as glucose. But, nevertheless, it is a strategic store of energy, which is accumulated in the liver in the form of glycogen.
Either way, sugar is the easiest and easiest way to get energy. So far, as you can see, sugar is not a concern. But everything, of course, depends on the quantity. As long as we consume a normal amount of sugar, everything is fine. But as soon as we cross a certain quantitative line, we find ourselves in a very dangerous zone.
WHO recommends consuming no more than 5% of all calories in the form of simple carbohydrates (including sugar). This is about 6 tsp. = 25 g for women and 9 tsp. sugar for men = 45 g.
What is the danger of excess sugar in our diet?
1. Sugar causes ageing, provoking such a phenomenon as glycation. As a result, collagen and other proteins of youth turn into dense structures, and end products of glycation accumulate in our bodies, poisoning us. The synthesis of normal proteins becomes more difficult and all tissues and organs age.
2. ️Sugar weakens the immune system, making it 17 times more vulnerable.
3. ️Sugar - devours our energy. There is sugar - there is energy. But we constantly want more. And if we do not increase the "dose", depression, mood swings (emotional swings) will begin to develop.
If 50 years ago a person annually consumes an average of 35 kg of sugar per year, now this figure is catastrophically large - 70 kg of pure sugar!
