It’s impossible to avoid them. For the decades we have been surrounded by sweet and fatty foods and the body is not been dealing good with these eating habits.

Excessive intake of sugar can affect body in many ways and here are some.

Brain

We know that this kind of food is making us fat, but what about the brain?!

Latest studies have shown that fatty and sweet foods shrink our brain. In short, our brain is affected by what is on our plates.

It all starts with our first meals, even before birth. The brain is built up during pregnancy. How the brain is going to function depends on how it was nourished during 9 months of pregnancy. A number of bad effects on children during pregnancy have been known for a long time…

But these days, scientists are looking at the bad effects of nutrition on brain development. In the study made from 23000 pregnant women, it has shown that for women who were eating more junk and sweet food during pregnancy, the emotional health of kids was affected. These kids whose mothers were eating a lot of sweetened food, processed food, were more aggressive, angry, and tense in the first five years of life. If these kids continued with bad eating habits, these symptoms were even stronger with depression, sadness and anxiety added.

Excessive sugar consumption may affect our decision-making and make us more flexible in accepting and doing things that are not good for us.  Excessive sugar intake also may affect our spatial memory. In the study with rats was shown that they were less able to recognize the environment after sugar intake and they were less able to memorize things.

Overfeeding rats did not damage just spatial memory, they also damaged the hippocampus – part of the brain responsible for turning short to long memory, emotions, and learning. Recent studies have shown that in humans excessive sugar intake also interferes with the hippocampus. For instance, only 4 days of eating junk food will have a huge impact on hippocampus.

What is the mechanism? Sugar stimulates inflammatory process by increasing inflammatory molecules. Inflammatory molecules then get outside of bloodstream inside of the brain and affect microlights (cells that eat dead neurons) which start eating live and functional neurons which significantly affects function of the brain.

Glucose has the ability to modify the function of entire brain areas that control emotions and pleasure.  In the experiment with rats, rats were fed with sugar and cocaine at the same time for a week. After the experiment ended, rats would choose sugar solution 4 times more which shows that glucose has bigger addictive potential than cocaine.

Heart

In a study published in 2014 in JAMA Internal Medicine, Dr. Hu and his colleagues found an association between a high-sugar diet and a greater risk of dying from heart disease. Over the course of the 15-year study, people who got 17% to 21% of their calories from added sugar had a 38% higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease compared with those who consumed 8% of their calories as added sugar.

High amounts of sugar overload the liver. Liver metabolizes sugar the same way as alcohol, and converts dietary carbohydrates to fat. Over time, this can lead to a greater accumulation of fat, which may turn into fatty liver disease, a contributor to diabetes, which raises your risk for heart disease.

Excessive sugar intake can raise blood pressure and increase chronic inflammation of body which can lead to heart disease. Consuming to much sugar also contributes to weight gain. All these things (high blood pressure, chronic inflammation, weight gain) are linked to an increased risk for heart stroke.

Teeth

Bacteria that cause cavities love to eat sugar lingering in your mouth after you eat something sweet.

Joints

If you have joint pain here’s more reason to lay off the candy. Eating lots of sweets has been shown to worsen joint pain because of the inflammation they cause in the body.

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Kidneys

If you have diabetes, too much sugar can lead to kidney damage. The kidneys play an important role in filtering your blood. Once blood sugar levels reach a certain amount, the kidneys start to release excess sugar into your urine. If left uncontrolled, diabetes can damage the kidneys, which prevents them from doing their job in filtering out waste in your blood. This can lead to kidney failure.

Skin

Another side effect of inflammation – it may make your skin age faster.

Excess sugar attaches to proteins in your bloodstream and creates harmful molecules called “AGEs”. These molecules age your skin. They have been shown to damage collagen and elastin in your skin -protein fibers that keep your skin firm and youthful.

Take the time to invest in yourself and create a plan with a trainer today to start getting results tomorrow! Health and strength, friends!

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