15 Terrible Things That Happen If

You Eat Too Much Sugar

LAUREN F FRIEDMAN


MAR. 12, 2014, 11:16 AM
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David Paul Morris / Getty Images

How much sugar is too much sugar?
Even one pack of M&M's may be more than you should eat in a
day, newly drafted guidelines from the World Health Organization
suggest.
The WHO used to recommend that you get no more than 10% of your
daily calories from sugar, but now they're considering lowering that to
5%. For an average, healthy adult, that would mean 25 grams, or
about six teaspoons of sugar per day. (That's a little less than what
you'd get from 10 Hershey's Kisses. A single can of Coke has 39 grams
of sugar.)
A teaspoon of sugar in your coffee or a half cup of ice cream won't kill
you all things in moderation but the average sugar intake in the
U.S. is 22 teaspoons per person per day. That's almost four times as
much as the WHO's new guidelines suggest is healthy.
People have been sounding warnings about the dangers of too much
sugar for a long time. As early as 1957, John Yudkin, a professor of
nutrition at Queen Elizabeth College in London, began arguing that
when it came to heart disease and other chronic ailments, sugar not
fat was the culprit.
So what happens if you eat too much sugar? Here's a depressing
rundown.
1. Cavities
Trust your dentist on this one: Sugar is such an enemy to dental health
that one study way back in 1967 called it the "arch criminal" behind
cavities. The connection between sugar and cavities is perhaps the
best established. "Tooth decay occurs when the bacteria that line the
teeth feed on simple sugars, creating acid that destroys enamel,"
Anahad O'Connor explains at The New York Times. Because acid is a
key culprit, sour candies are especially nefarious.
Source: Journal of the American Dental Association, 2009; ISRN
Dentistry, 2013; International Dental Journal, 2013
2. Insatiable hunger
Leptin is a hormone that lets your body know when you've had enough
to eat. In people who develop leptin resistance, this "I'm full" signal is
never received, presenting a major obstacle for weight control.
Some studies have raised the possibility that leptin resistance may be
a side effect of obesity, not a contributing cause. But research in rats
suggests that overconsumption of fructose can directly lead to higher-
than-normal levels of leptin, which can reduce your body's sensitivity
to the hormone. Removing fructose from the rats' diets generally
reversed those effects.
"Our data indicate that chronic fructose consumption induces leptin
resistance prior to body weight ... increases, and this fructose-induced
leptin resistance accelerates high-fat induced obesity," concluded one
2008 study in rats. Still, more research is needed to test whether these
effects hold true in humans as well.
Source: American Journal of Physiology, 2008; American Journal of
Physiology, 2009; British Journal of Nutrition, 2011; Advances in
Nutrition, 2012
3. Weight gain
Other than adopting a completely sedentary lifestyle, there are few
routes to packing on the pounds that work as swiftly and assuredly as
making large amounts of added sugars a staple of your daily diet.
Sugary foods are full of calories but will do little to satiate your
hunger. A 2013 review of 68 different studies found "consistent
evidence that increasing or decreasing intake of dietary sugars from
current levels of intake is associated with corresponding changes in
body weight in adults." Want to lose weight? Cutting your sugar intake
is a good place to start.
Source: British Medical Journal, 2013; American Journal of Clinical
Nutrition, 2013
4. Insulin resistance
When you eat a lot of high-sugar meals donuts for breakfast,
anyone? it can increase your body's demand for insulin, a hormone
that helps your body convert food into usable energy. When insulin
levels are consistently high, your body's sensitivity to the hormone is
reduced, and glucose builds up in the blood. Symptoms of insulin
resistance can include fatigue, hunger, brain fog, and high blood
pressure. It's also associated with extra weight around the middle.
Still, most people don't realize they are insulin resistant until it
develops into full-blown diabetes a much more serious diagnosis.
Source: The American Journal of Cardiology, 1999; American
Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2002; Nutrition & Metabolism, 2005
5. Diabetes
Between 1988 and 2008, the prevalence of diabetes in the
U.S. increased by 128%. Diabetes now affects about 25 million
people in the U.S. that's 8.3% of the population.
One study that followed 51,603 women between 1991 and 1999 found
an increased risk of diabetes among those who consumed more sugar-
sweetened beverages that's soda, sweetened ice tea, energy drinks,
etc. And a massive review of previous research involving 310,819
participants supported this result, concluding that drinking lots of
soda was associated not just with weight gain but with the
development of type 2 diabetes.
Portion control may be especially crucial when it comes to sugar.
"Duration and degree of sugar exposure correlated significantly with
diabetes prevalence ... while declines in sugar exposure correlated
with significant subsequent declines in diabetes rates" even after
controlling for other socioeconomic and dietary factors, concluded a
2013 study of eating habits and diabetes prevalence in 175 countries.
Source: JAMA, 2004; Diabetes Care, 2010; PLOS ONE, 2013
6. Obesity
Obesity is one of the most-cited risks of excess sugar consumption.
Just one can of soda each day could lead to 15 pounds of weight gain
in a single year, and each can of soda increases the odds of becoming
obese, a JAMA study noted.
Sugar may well raise the risk of obesity directly, but the association
could be mediated by diabetes, metabolic syndrome, or other diet and
exercise habits associated with high-sugar diets. And it's possible that
soda is uniquely pernicious, above and beyond other sugary foods.
"The complexity of our food supply and of dietary intake behavior, and
how diet relates to other behaviors, makes the acquisition of clear and
consistent scientific data on the topic of specific dietary factors and
obesity risk especially elusive," concluded one 2006 review. Still, a
more recent review cautioned, "we should avoid the trap of waiting for
absolute proof before allowing public health action to be taken."
Source: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2004; JAMA,
2004; International Journal of Obesity, 2006; Obesity Reviews, 2013
7. Liver failure
Because of the unique way we metabolize fructose, it creates a stress
response in the liver that can exacerbate inflammation. High doses of
sugar can make the liver go into overdrive. That's one reason excess
fructose is a "key player" in the development of nonalcoholic fatty liver
disease, where fat accumulates in the liver in the absence of alcohol
abuse.
People with this diagnosis have been found to have almost double the
soda intake of the average person. Most don't experience any
complications and don't realize they have it. But in some people, the
accumulated fat can lead to scarring in the liver and eventually
progress to liver failure.
Source: Journal of Hepatology, 2007; Journal of Hepatology,
2008; World Journal of Gastroenterology, 2013
8. Pancreatic cancer
A handful of studies have found that high-sugar diets are associated
with a slightly elevated risk of pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest
cancers. The link may be because high-sugar diets are associated with
obesity and diabetes, both of which increase the likelihood someone
will develop pancreatic cancer. Still, one large study published in the
International Journal of Cancer disputed the link between increased
sugar intake and increased cancer risk, so more research is needed.
Source: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2002; The
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2006; Annals of Oncology,
2012; International Journal of Cancer, 2012; Current Opinion in
Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Obesity, 2012
9. Kidney disease
The idea that a high-sugar diet and too much soda in particular
may be a risk factor for kidney disease is still just a hypothesis, but
there's some reason for concern. "Findings suggest that sugary soda
consumption may be associated with kidney damage," concluded one
study of 9,358 adults. (The association emerged only in those drinking
two or more sodas a day.) Rats fed extremely high-sugar diets
consuming about 12 times the percentage of sugar recommended in
the WHO's new guidelines developed enlarged kidneys and a host of
problems with regular kidney function.
Source: PLOS ONE, 2008; Journal of the American Society of
Nephrology, 2010; Renal Physiology, 2011; Advances in Chronic
Kidney Disease, 2013
10. High blood pressure
Hypertension is usually associated with salty foods, not desserts but
eating lots of added sugar has indeed been linked to high blood
pressure. In one study following 4,528 adults without a history of
hypertension, consuming 74 or more grams of sugar each day was
strongly associated with an elevated risk of high blood pressure.
In another very small study following only 15 people, researchers
found that drinking 60 grams of fructose elicited a spike in blood
pressure two hours later. This response may be related to the fact that
digesting fructose produces uric acid, but as one meta-analysis of
the data concluded "longer and larger trials are needed."
Source: Hypertension, 2001; American Journal of Physiology,
2008; Journal of the American Society of Nephrology,
2010; Hypertension, 2012; Hypertension, 2012
11. Heart disease
Heart disease may not get as much time in the spotlight as diseases
like cancer and AIDS, but it is in fact the number one cause of death in
the United States. While smoking and a sedentary lifestyle have long
been acknowledged as major risk factors. Conditions associated with
excess sugar consumption, like diabetes and being overweight, are
also already known risk factors for heart disease, and recent research
suggests that eating too much sugar might stack the odds against your
heart health especially if you are a woman.
In one study of rats with high blood pressure which may offer clues
for further research but can't be directly extrapolated to humans
heart failure came fastest when they were fed a diet high in sugar
(when compared to high-starch and high-fat diets). And a CDC study
of 11,733 adults concluded that there is "a significant relationship
between added sugar consumption and increased risk for CVD
[cardiovascular disease] mortality." When participants got 17% to 21%
of their daily calories from sugar, they were 38% more likely to die
from heart disease than those who limited their calories from sugar to
8% of their total intake.
Source: Journal of Hypertension, 2008; American Journal of
Cardiology, 2012; JAMA Internal Medicine, 2014
12. Addiction
Doctors don't all agree the "food addiction" you read about in diet
books is a real thing, but there's recently been some research
indicating that the disorder might be possible in humans. And there is
evidence that rats can become dependent on sugar, further supporting
the idea that similar behavior might be present in humans.
"In some circumstances, intermittent access to sugar can lead to
behavior and neurochemical changes that resemble the effects of a
substance of abuse," noted one study that found sugar-addled rats
displayed bingeing, craving, and withdrawal behaviors.
Source: Obesity, 2002; Behavioral Neuroscience,
2005; Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 2007; Neuroscience
and Biobehavioral Reviews, 2008; Appetite, 2011
13. Cognitive decline
Obesity and diabetes are both risk factors for cognitive decline and
Alzheimer's, so it's no surprise that studies are beginning to find a link
between excess sugar and these cognitive conditions. The reasons for a
possible relationship between a high-sugar diet and dementia later in
life are still unclear.
Is there a direct dietary association? Is the real link between diabetes
and Alzheimer's only? One recent study found rats that had diets high
in fat and sugar could dull emotional arousal and contribute to
memory impairment. And another study in humans found an
association between diets high in high fructose corn syrup and
reduced performance in the hippocampus. Researchers are currently
investigating the many open questions, with some urging caution until
more evidence is gathered.
Source: American Journal of Alzheimer's, 2009; Journal of
Gerontology, 2010; Behavioral Neuroscience, 2011; Current Opinion
in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care, 2013; Nutrition Journal,
2013; Behavioral Neuroscience, 2013
14. Nutritional deficiencies
If you're scarfing down lots of excess sugar, you're probably skipping
over the things you should be eating instead. "High-sugar foods
displace whole foods (eg, soft drinks displace milk and juice
consumption in children) and contribute to nutritional deficiencies,"
noted a statement from the American Heart Association. In a study of
568 10-year-olds, as sugar intake increased, intake of essential
nutrients decreased. And in a 1999 study, researchers from the
Department of Agriculture found that when people got 18% or more of
their calories from sugar, they had the lowest levels of essentials like
folate, calcium, iron, Vitamin A, and Vitamin C.
Source: Family Economics and Nutrition Review, 1999; Journal of
the American College of Nutrition, 1998; Circulation,
2002; American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2003
15. Gout
Gout used to be considered a disease limited to the rich, but as our
diets have changed, this painful form of arthritis has become more
common across all sectors of society. Certain foods like organ meats
and anchovies that are associated with gout have high levels of
something called purines, and when your body breaks them down, it
produces uric acid. A buildup of uric acid is what often leads to gout.
But uric acid is also a byproduct of fructose metabolization, and now
newer research is suggesting that too much sugar could be a risk factor
for gout as well. "Consumption of sugar sweetened soft drinks and
fructose is strongly associated with an increased risk of gout in men,"
concluded a 2008 study that tracked thousands of patients for more
than a decade.
Source: British Medical Journal, 2008; Advances in Chronic Kidney
Disease, 2012


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