Sugar has become a hot-button topic over the last few years, and for a good reason (or reasons!). Linked to:
- weight gain;
- obesity;
- auto-immune disease; and among other things,
- diabetes.
Sugar is looking more and more like sweet poison.
Today, we’ve gathered together four reasons you may not have heard of for you to ditch processed, refined sugar from your diet.
1. Sugar contains no essential nutrients
While refined sugar is sweet and addictive, it doesn’t have much to give in the way of nutrient value. Sugar is the definition of empty calories: calories derived from food containing no nutrients. At Chef Good we believe in a high nutrient diet. Where every meal is full to the brim with the good stuff, not just kilojoules.
2. Putting your heart at risk
A major study published in JAMA Internal Medicine has found that a sugar-laden diet may increase your risk of dying from heart disease. The study determined that the chances of dying from heart disease rose in sync with the percentage of sugar in the diet. Scary stuff!
3. The effects go beyond weight gain
A study published in Obesity – A Research Journal found the effect sugar has on the body exceeds anything connected to its calories and weight gain.
In the study of children, Dr Robert Lustig replaced calories from sugar with the same amount made up of starches. “Everything got better,” says Lustig, referring to the metabolic improvement in the children.
4. Links to cancer
A 2016 study done on mice found that sugar intake affected a few bodily processes which could promote breast cancer tumour growth in particular.
In another study, from 2017, researchers found that sugar provided fuel to cancer cells in lung squamous cell carcinoma, among other results.
Both of these studies were complicated and very specific. Further research in the area is needed, but links are beginning to appear.
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