Excessive sugar consumption has become a growing national problem invading the American diet.  Most prepared foods found in the local grocery store contain sugar from salad dressings and sauces, to breads and beans. Sugar is also found naturally occurring in foods such as complex carbohydrates like vegetables, pastas, and fruits.  These are good for you.  The undesirable simple sugar is added to foods such as sodas, sweetened beverages, icings, candies and packaged snacks, foods that a lot of us, unfortunately, enjoy.  Your health suffers when you eat these things in excess, even if the effects aren’t obvious, like weight gain or bad skin.

As flu and cold season approaches, it’s important to know that while you’re enjoying another Twinkie or your third Pepsi for the day, your body’s immune system is fighting to stay in top form.  According to Dr. Jim Sears*, excess sugar is one culprit in a lineup of things that depress the body’s immunity.  Remember back in high school when you learned that white blood cells fought off foreign bacteria in the body?   Eating even simple sugars like honey, the table sugar you pour on your cereal, and fructose and glucose, which can be found in prepared foods, causes a fifty-percent drop in the white blood cells’ ability to eliminate bacteria. However, eating complex carbs, like starches, didn’t reduce the effectiveness of the white blood cells.   Less than a half hour after you take in a sugary food or beverage, your body’s ability to fight off bacteria is suppressed.  This effect could last up to five hours. We wash our hands religiously, cough into our sleeves politely and wipe our noses with disposable tissues but not many people think about the negative effects¯aside from weight gain¯ that food can have our bodies.   We like sugar.  It gives us a jolt when we need it, plays a part in rewarding us for doing a good job, and basically satisfies certain cravings.  Consume a product that has added caffeine paired with too much sugar and you set yourself up for a flight that ends up crashing.  Is it worth it?
Would you ever eat 10 teaspoons of sugar right out of the container?  According to Webmd.com, a typical 12-ounce can of soda has 10.7 grams of sugar.  In the typical 2,000 calorie a day diet, the United Nations and the World Health Organization recommended guidelines in 2003 that sugar should only make up 10% of our daily calories.  That’s equivalent to 8 teaspoons of sugar a day.  How much sugar are you consuming? Is it proportional to other foods you eat that are more nutritious and life-sustaining? Are you aware of ‘hidden’ sugars found in foods such as high-fructose corn syrup and other sweeteners? How much of the energy that you take in from sugar do you rely on to get through your day?   Our next article will discuss the different types of sugar found in foods and alternatives.

*askdrsears.com

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