For many doctors, sugar is called “white poison,” while for some people, sugar sweetens not only their taste, but their life.
Understanding how this substance acts in our body is important to discover its harms and benefits. This discovery can help you control the sugar in your diet and better understand some of your body’s responses to the sweetener.
When we ingest sugar, it reaches the intestine and is broken down into glucose, the source of energy for our body. However, in diabetics, some of the glucose is not used for energy and remains circulating in the bloodstream.
This excess can cause complications, such as: deterioration of the myelin sheath, responsible for protecting our nerves and resulting in a decrease and loss of sensitivity; damage to the blood vessels, facilitating the adhesion of fatty plaques and, consequently, the risk of heart attack and stroke; damage to the eyes, damaging the vessels of the retina and causing diabetic retinopathy, which, without proper treatment, can cause blindness.
Can sugar cause headaches?
Sleep problems, stress, and diet can cause frequent headaches. Analyzing your routine and the connection of these areas with schedules and the constancy of complaints can help identify the real cause of these pains.
The food, specifically, interferes directly in the whole organism and must be observed carefully. Many foods act on the dilation and narrowing of the cerebral blood vessel and, therefore, it is common to have pain after consumption. These foods are:
- Candy: Foods with additives such as dyes can do harm, being: candies, lollipops, and jellies.
- Ready-made seasonings: Soy sauce, ready-made soup, instant noodles, and beef broth have a flavor enhancer called “monosodium glutamate”. This component is a potent headache killer, and there are even studies talking about its toxicity.
- Sausage: Ham, turkey breast, and other sausages usually have nitrite and sodium nitrate in their composition, which are colorings and preservatives that stimulate pain in people already susceptible.
- Cola-based soft drink and coffee: These foods can cause headaches not only because of their consumption, but also because of the withdrawal that many people feel after a period without ingesting them. Caffeine is the main active ingredient in these items, and the ideal is not to exaggerate the amount so as not to addict the body.
- Wine, yellow cheese, and chocolate: This group contains amines, a substance that is difficult to metabolize, which can cause pain in people with a predisposition.
What would happen in your body if you stopped consuming sugar?
Have you ever thought of stopping consuming sugar for a while? This challenge can bring numerous benefits to your body, after all, the excess of sweet foods in our diet can contribute to fatal diseases!
In many scenarios refined sugar takes on the role of the villain, because it collaborates with the increase of fat levels in the body, which can result in complications in the liver, intestine, and heart.
Choosing to cut down on sugar consumption is already a big step in the quest for better health, check out the changes your body may face from this decision:
- Weight Reduction: Depending on the frequency of use, when sugar is cut out there are clear differences within the first few days. This causes a reduction in weight by dropping calorie intake and controlling binge eating.
- Disposition: Sugar acts to reduce the neurotransmitters that keep us alert and active; when we reduce it, we improve brain health and thus, we become more willing.
- Mood: For those who suffer with mood swings during the day, cutting out sweets can help! Sugar aggravates cases of mental confusion and fatigue, increases PMS symptoms, and so reducing it in the diet can lessen mood swings.
- Improved immune system: Cutting sugar strengthens our defenses, this is the result of improved intestinal function and regulation of the microbiota – responsible for the defense part of our body.
- Blood glucose control: Blood glucose is the amount of glucose in the blood. The control of this substance is important to avoid health problems and for this, attention to diet and exercise should be inserted into your routine. By avoiding sugar consumption, you control your blood glucose more effectively and help your whole body.
How to control blood sugar?
The ideal consumption is 6 spoons of sugar a day, the problem is that we easily exceed this limit through foods that we ingest without knowing their composition.
The chocolate bar has, on average, 10 full spoons of sugar. In canned soft drinks and industrial juices, there are from 2 to 10 spoons. If these items are common for you to consume, look for healthier alternatives, such as natural juices, sweets with no added sugar or coloring, etc.
The control of sugar starts from simple habits, start this care by observing what you buy in the market and the composition of these items, foods rich in sugar can bring intestinal problems by the lack of fiber, mineral deficiency and even pre-diabetes.
Pre-diabetes is the so-called “window of time” that exists between the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes and its symptoms. Because of the delay in presenting symptoms, there is a dangerous “window of opportunity” where the glucose level is above normal but not high enough to accurately identify the disease.
In this phase there are no symptoms, so have periodic blood glucose tests. In case you are overweight, over 40 years old, or genetically predisposed to high blood pressure, diabetes, or cholesterol level changes, the attention is doubled.
Even with factors that may contribute to the disease, the condition can be reversed. Lifestyle changes and eating properly are crucial and more effective than the use of medications.
There are nutraceuticals that can also help regulate these blood sugar levels. As natural substances extracted from food, they have their effectiveness proven by scientific studies in major institutions. Take our 3-step test and find out which nutraceuticals can help!
