Too much of everything is bad for you. Have you ever heard of consumption in moderation? Not too little or too much? Well candy is great, and if our body let us, we could totally have all of our diet made up of this sugary goodness.
But our body’s job is to regulate what’s coming in, and our conscious can either listen to these clues or not, because we also have a sense of self control. If we don’t listen to these cues, then there are health consequences which I will talk about.
Our body has two main ways to regulate sugar consumption: taste signals and hormones.
On our tongue we have taste buds that send signals to our brain making us feel pleasure. It’s the reason that sugar can become so addicting, because our brain tells us it’s greatest thing ever! But our brain also doesn’t like it when we’re consuming too much sugar, and turns the pleasure into disgust, which then makes us feel sick or full.
I see this happen to me when I’m eating cake. Cake is so good, and I love all types of cake, and I love the frosting too. But there is some frosting that is just too much on my body, and when I consume it, I become really nauseous. The frosting that makes me nauseous is usually grocery store birthday cakes. The frosting on those cakes is so thick and sweet, and therefore, too much. The thing with frosting is it’s just butter and sugar, nothing special, and it can easily get overwhelming on our bodies. Therefore, nausea is my body's way of telling me to stop consuming this sugary nonsense. Thankfully I tend to listen to this nausea, and stop eating.
For hormones, they help us balance our hunger and the amount of sugar in our blood. The hormones I will talk about are insulin, leptin, and ghrelin.
Insulin is a hormone that we’ve probably all heard of, as it’s a hormone that many people with diabetes have an issue with. It’s a hormone that regulates sugar in our bloodstream. After we eat, insulin which is made in the pancreas, helps cells absorb sugar to use as energy or store it for later, when we are low on sugar. When insulin is working, all is fine, but when our body can’t produce it or it’s not doing its job, then we have diabetes.
Leptin is a hormone produced by our fat cells, and it tells our brain when we’ve eaten enough and helps the body to reduce its appetite so we don’t overeat.
Ghrelin is the hunger hormone, which is released when our stomach is empty. It makes us feel hungry and when we eat, the levels of this hormone drops in turn making us feel full.
Now let’s move on to digestion, and I’m gonna walk you through the body on the back of a piece of candy. Our candy is the blue raspberry jolly rancher, because everybody knows blue candy is the elite flavour. So our person unwrapped a blue jolly rancher from their Halloween stash, and ate it. Well actually first they sucked on it, because that’s what you do with hard candy. In the mouth, amylase, which is found in saliva, starts breaking down the carbohydrates into simpler sugars. After your candy melts and falls into the stomach, it doesn’t get digested till it reaches the small intestine. In the small intestine our jolly rancher breaks down further from sucrose to glucose and fructose, which can enter our bloodstream. Sucrose is the sugar found in table sugar, which is present in our jolly rancher. But it’s too large of a compound for our body, therefore, it gets broken down. Once the glucose and fructose is in the bloodstream it goes into the liver. If the sugar is fructose it gets converted further to glucose, because that is what our body uses for energy.
Speaking of energy, when we don't have glucose, it gets stored, and a hormone called glucagon releases said stored glucose when we need it. For example, we haven’t eaten for a while, and therefore, we are low on energy. Our blood sugar levels need to stay stable, so glucagon makes sure it does when levels are too low. Insulin on the other hand absorbs sugar when levels are too high and stores it for us as fat or uses it further as energy. When we’re consuming too much sugar, Insulin would store it as fat, and therefore, too much can make us obese. That’s where eating in moderation comes in, because of the health consequences of obesity.
Obesity is one thing when we consume too much sugar, but I mentioned diabetes. Diabetes is insulin resistance, and our body doesn’t listen to insulin, which is Type 2 Diabetes, or doesn’t produce insulin which is Type 1 Diabetes.
Another bad thing that happens when we consume too much sugar is a rise in risk of cardiovascular disease. We talked about how our liver plays a role in sugar digestion, well when we’re consuming too much our liver becomes overloaded which can in turn cause high blood pressure and inflammation which can lead to heart disease.
Too much of anything is bad for us, as I’ve mentioned in the beginning. It’s okay to have the occasional pop, or to have a chocolate bar, but when all we’re eating is sugar, sugar, sugar, our body is bound to give up, leading to serious debilitating health consequences.
It’s important we regulate what we eat, and listen to our bodily cues, because our body is looking out for us. It’s important to listen and maintain our health. Our choices have consequences, so move forward wisely.
