Having high amounts of sugar in your daily diet can affect a lot more in your body than just your growing stomach. We as American’s already know that we have a weight problem, but we are still consuming astronomical amounts of sugar each year.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that American’s consume 76.7 pounds of sugar a year. Keep in mind though that this is only cane sugar and beet sugar, this doesn’t even touch the amount of high fructose corn syrup we consume each year.
The fact that we consume so much sweet stuff a year (I’m guilty of this also) should have us alarmed. But because many people don’ know what this stuff does to you, beside make you gain weight, let me provide you with a little bit of interesting information.
Sugar in Your Daily Diet Increases the Risk of Type II Diabetes
Okay, so this one is already well known. But I wanted to point out not that sugar causes diabetes, but the symptoms of diabetes because people don’t seem to be afraid of this as much as they should be.
Early signs of diabetes:
- Increased thirst and hunger
- You feel more tired than usual, but you haven’t changed your diet or physical activity
- Blurred vision
- Skin and gum infections that keep coming back
- Injuries take longer to heal
- Frequent trips to the restroom to pee
- Tingling in hands, feet or legs that happen even when you haven’t done something to cut off the circulation
If you don’t take action, still eat the way you have been and stay on your ever widening butt you can expect to enjoy the following:
- An increased chance of a heart attack
- An increased chance of having a stroke
- Pain in the eye and loss of vision from the blood vessels in the back of the eye swelling and leaking
- Kidney damage which causes swelling from the knees down and in the hands, blood in the urine, shortness of breath, decreased oxygen in the blood, nausea and vomiting
Sugar in Your Daily Diet Makes you Look Older
Not only does too much sugar cause significant damage internally, it also shows on the outside. When you have too much sugar in your bloodstream they attach to proteins to create harmful molecules that damage collagen and elastin.
You need collagen and elastin to keep your skin firm and springy, so when they are damaged you end up with wrinkles and saggy skin. (Prevention Magazine)
Sugar in Your Daily Diet Makes You Sick
Not only can too much sugar make you sick to your stomach, it can actually increase your chance of picking up a virus or bacteria. This increased vulnerability is because sugar suppresses your immune system and it can’t fight off even the simplest bacteria for up to 6 hours.
How much sugar will affect your immune system? Per WebMD.com your immune system can be affected with as little as 75 to 100 grams of sugar. This is the equivalent of drinking 24 ounces of soda.
As you can see sugar affects almost every part of our body. So before you reach for that 2nd slice of pie or that jumbo soda at the convenience store think about what you are doing to your body.
