Consuming too much sugar has serious effects on health, the most obvious one being massive weight gain. Refined sugar accelerates your insulin levels, disrupts your metabolism, and converts these empty calories into belly fat. If these reasons weren’t enough for you to cut sugar from your diet, here are some other reasons to reduce your sugar intake:
Elevated Blood Pressure
Eating sugar increases your weight. However, another thing that shoots up with prolonged sugar consumption is your blood pressure.
High blood pressure can trigger a number of health problems, including kidney damage and stroke. Even people at a normal weight level can cause suffer from high blood pressure because of sugar.
High Cholesterol
Sugar can disrupt the cholesterol balance of your body. An increase in bad cholesterol can cause clogged blood vessels, leading to heart problems.
Heart Attack
You might not realize this but high sugar intake can cause a heart attack. The most obvious example this can happen is by excessive soda consumption.
Impaired Cognitive Function
High sugar intake has been linked to impaired cognitive function as the proteins your brain needs to create memories and respond to stimuli are blocked by excess sugar. A study on the effects of sugar on rats showed a marked difference in the level of brain activity on animals that were fed sugar compared to those that were not.
Sugar Addictions
An experiment about the effects sugar has on reward centers in the brain uncovered a surprising truth. This study revealed that people can get addicted to sugar, as their brain responds to sugar in the same way a cocaine addict’s brain responds to cocaine. This is perhaps the biggest reason why you should cut sugar from your diet.
Skin Problems
Sugar damages the skin in several ways. First of all, it damages elastin and collagen, which are responsible for keeping your skin smooth and making it look young. This means sugar will cause your skin to wrinkle and age quickly. It also triggers different hormonal fluctuations in the body which can lead to acne. So, if you want to look good and young, cut sugar from your diet.