You definitely know how dangerous it is to overdo carbs, especially sugars, because they bring lots of health harm to your body, affecting its activity, vitality, and vital functions negatively. If you're trying to lose extra weight and get rid of annoying body fat, you’re probably trying hard to limit sugar in your daily meals. But have you ever asked yourself what exactly happens in your body when you eat sugary stuff? Let me show you some pictures that explain how sugar affects your body, here are the main ones.
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Your brain reacts to sugar just like it does to cocaine
You might be surprised by this example but it's very true. Research and scientific studies have shown that eating sugar triggers your body to release chemicals like dopamine and serotonin, which make you feel happy. Your brain reacts to this like it does to drugs such as cocaine and other narcotics. When you eat a piece of candy, your body feels its effect and pushes you to eat more, so you end up eating a lot.
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High insulin levels in the blood
You surely know what role insulin plays in your body as it controls your blood sugar levels. Every time you eat sugars, your body releases insulin to get rid of extra sugar in your blood and bring levels back to normal. But if you eat too much sugar, your body pumps out high levels of insulin to deal with this spike, which can cause a sudden drop in sugar and make you feel tired and weak.
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Feeling lazy and sluggish
If you want energy throughout your day and don’t want to feel sluggish, lazy, or sleepy, you should cut down on sugar. Eating too much sugar makes you feel tired, hungry, or even thirsty more often. So always keep a balance of nutrients in your meals and add proteins and fibers while cutting down on carbs.
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Gaining excess weight
It’s known that sweets and sugary foods are high in calories that increase your body weight and store annoying fat, especially around the belly, waist, and hips , depending on your body shape. Plus, these foods lack proteins and natural fibers, which means you gain a lot of weight and lose many useful nutrients that keep you healthy, active, and energetic.
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Getting severe obesity
Earlier, we talked about how eating too much sugar causes noticeable weight gain soon after. But over time, this turns into severe obesity that’s hard to stop or avoid. This only makes things worse. It also affects your blood insulin levels and raises your risk of diabetes and other diseases like heart and blood vessel problems.
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Fat buildup in the liver
Scientifically, we know the liver stores extra sugar from the blood by turning it into glycogen. When your body needs energy, the liver turns glycogen back into glucose. But if you eat too much sugar, the liver converts some into glycogen but turns the rest into stored fat. This harms your liver health and can cause many diseases and health risks.
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Risk of blood vessel problems
Having high sugar levels in your blood not only affects the liver or causes diabetes, it also harms all body systems, especially blood vessels that deliver blood to cells. If blood with high sugar passes through narrow vessels, it exposes you to many health issues like damage to eyes, nerves, brain, kidneys, liver, and raises the risk of heart attacks.
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Signs of aging appear
If you always try to look young and spend a lot on skincare and UV protection creams, but still consume lots of sugar, you become more prone to aging signs and wrinkles. Sugar breaks down collagen that keeps skin tight, fresh, and youthful. So, you should cut back on sugar.
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Tooth decay
You might be surprised to learn sugar itself doesn't directly harm teeth or cause decay. The real cause is bacteria in your mouth that feed on sugar and produce acids that destroy tooth enamel, which protects teeth. Once enamel is damaged or lost, your teeth become more vulnerable to decay, leading to visits to the dentist to fix the damage.
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Belly fat buildup
The liver plays a key role in making triglycerides, simple deposits in the blood that help repair damaged tissues. Eating lots of sugar leads the liver to produce more triglycerides than your body needs, so the body stores the extra as fat around your belly and waist. The more sugar you eat, the more this fat builds up, increasing your waist size and body weight.
Risks to mental and psychological health
You need to cut down on sugar if you want good mental health and mood. Lots of studies have shown sugary foods hurt your body. They can make you feel sad and depressed. They also harm elderly people's mental state if they eat too much sugar. It can cause dementia and other age-related diseases.
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High blood pressure
Eating too much sugar can raise your blood pressure and make it unstable. Sugar intake affects insulin and activates the nervous system, which leads to noticeable blood pressure rises. So it's common for diabetics to also have high blood pressure.
