Why is lots of sugar bad for you

The first step is getting educated about how to find added sugars. Register with Atkins today for access to hundreds of recipes , meals, and products free of added sugars. Selected References 1. Bell, S. Michaud, D. Romieu, I. Franceschi, S. Nutter, R. Sensi, M. Geerts, S. Wolraich, M.

A meta-analysis. Schoenthaler, S. Bowman, S. Get the latest Atkins recipes, product updates, news and contest information delivered right to your inbox! Sugar causes glucose levels to spike and plummet. Sugar is very calorie-dense. So you can easily consume a lot of sugar in soft drinks, and in all kinds of food that contain added sugar.

It's not that the sugar calories are more fattening than any other calories. It's just calories are calories, and sugar packs a lot. Rachel Johnson, professor of nutrition at the University of Vermont in Burlington:.

The bottom line is that sugar does one of two things. It either displaces more nutritious foods in your diet, which means you're screening out nutritious-dense foods, or it adds calories to your diet. So if you're adding calories on top of an already nutritious diet that puts you at risk for weight gain. There's been a lot of research in recent years looking at the impact of added sugars — not the sugar naturally occurring in fruits and dairy products. What we know is that added sugars put you at a higher risk for a poor lipid fats profile: Higher triglycerides, lower HDL the good cholesterol and higher LDL levels the bad cholesterol in the blood.

A poor lipid profile increases your risk for coronary heart disease. There's also been some research that has shown that added sugars increase your risk of high blood pressure. And added sugars seem to promote inflammation, and more and more we find that inflammation is not good for the heart. There are several problems with excess sugar.

All types of sugars do promote tooth decay. The more often you're eating sugary foods, then the more often you give that bacteria in your mouth time to go to work on the sugar. When we look at the types of foods that are high in added sugar, they often are not high in nutrition. So eating a lot of sugar is a general indication that maybe you aren't eating as healthy of a diet as you could.

One recent study found that men who ate a high-sugar diet were more likely to develop depression or anxiety than those who ate a diet lower in sugar. Sugar is hiding out where you least expect it—in everything from dressings and sauces to whole grain bread. The mandate was originally scheduled for July , but the FDA released a proposal on September 29 that will extend compliance dates. In the meantime, you can still spot added sugars by doing a deeper dive into ingredient lists, says Turner.

Added sugar can masquerade as many other things, including brown rice syrup, evaporated cane juice, honey, maple syrup, molasses, or anything that ends in ose, including high fructose corn syrup.

Are you ready to quit sugar cold turkey? Good luck. Not only is sugar-free food hard to find, but evolutionary and cultural influences come into play, too. Back when food was way scarcer, our ancient ancestors needed to take every advantage they had to consume high calorie foods. So the human brain evolved to perceive sugar—and fat—as very rewarding, says Schwartz. Today, our brains are still wired for feast or famine, even though you can buy thousands of calories of food for a couple bucks at the local convenience store.