It is not a good idea to consume more sugar than we need, especially if we have diabetes. However, adding liquid sugar to our food is the worst choice we could make.
This type of food is the most harmful to metabolism and is difficult to digest. It is worse than solid food.
Here are some reasons why we should consider changing the drinks we love to a healthier alternative. It may be hard, but maybe this article will inspire us.
The Dangers of Liquid Sugar
Popular beverages like soda contain this form of sugar. Plus, we can consume a huge amount of liquid sugar without feeling full. These beverages can stack inside the belly after digestion and can cause many problems.
Moreover, fruit juices can have the same effect as soda or other Horizon that contain liquid sugar. Here you can see how much sugar and calories are in 12 ounces of the most popular beverages out there:
- Healthline: 175 calories and 32 g of sugar;
- Healthline: 148 calories and 37 g of sugar;
- Healthline: 151 calories and 39 g of sugar;
- Healthline: 175 calories and 42 g of sugar;
- Healthline: 118 calories and 23 g of sugar;
- Healthline: 143 calories and 34 g of sugar;
- Healthline: 226 calories and 54 g of sugar.
How Is Liquid Sugar Different from Typical Sugar?
The calories that liquid sugar has can cause problems for the brain.
The brain can’t properly register them like it can register solid food. According to research, if we drink the calories, we will not feel full, but if we eat them, the brain will consider them as food and make us feel full.
People who participated in the research drank 450 calories of soda but had a stronger appetite than the other participants who only ate the calories directly.
Therefore, it seems that liquid sugar affects hunger differently than typical sugar does. Another research showed that the people who ate an apple felt fuller than the people who drank apple juice.
As a result, the body didn’t register the drink as food.
If We Drink Beverages with Sugar We Gain Weight and Eat More Calories
If we eat any type of sugar too often, we will gain weight. That is because sugar contains a huge amount of harmful fructose. For example, corn syrup has 55% fructose and 45% glucose, whereas table sugar has 50% glucose and fructose.
Therefore, they both have the same effect on the consumption of calories. Plus, a study shows that even honey, fruit juice, and Horizon contain sugar and may have the potential to cause weight gain. The reason behind this is fructose.
It seems that too much fructose in the body can lead to excess fat in the belly. Besides it is very easy for the body to consume more sugar and fructose by drinking beverages because they don’t satisfy our hunger.
Even if we try to control how much weight we gain, it is still important to control the intake of sugar and fructose. According to a study that lasted for ten weeks, participants drank 25% of calories in the form of beverages.
This caused their insulin sensitivity to decrease and the excess fat in the belly to increase. Therefore, if we want a successful diet for burning excess fat, maybe we should focus on one that is not rich in fructose.
How Liquid Sugar Affects Insulin and Blood Sugar
Liquid sugar can harm our metabolism by increasing our blood sugar and insulin resistance. This may even lead to an increased chance of developing type 2 diabetes, as some studies claim.
Therefore, if we consume a lot of these beverages, we will increase the level of fructose in the system in a short period. According to 11 types of research, the 300,000 people who participated, consumed one or two beverages daily.
These people had a 26% higher chance of developing diabetes type 2. As a result, their insulin resistance was highly affected and connected with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
As a result, the excess fructose in the liver can become excess fat, or in other words, stored in the liver as a form of glycogen.
So, we should start avoiding the regular consumption of this kind of sugar daily and teach children to choose healthier alternatives.
Liquid Sugar Can Negatively Affect the Heart
There is a reason why this kind of sugar can cause heart disease. The more fructose we consume, the easier it is for it to stack in the molecules of the bloodstream and affect the heart. Other facts can cause the same kind of problem, for example, triglycerides.
According to research, obese people are not the only ones that can be affected by liquid sugar. Even a moderate dose of this sugar can lead to changes in the size of the LDL particle and increase the CRP inflammatory marker.
But, liquid sugars can especially harm people who have insulin resistance.
In the research that lasted for ten weeks, results showed that people who took 25% calories in the form of beverages, like soda, for example, had an increased chance of getting risky heart diseases.
How Much Is Enough?
It is important to know how to control the intake of sugar, especially liquid sugar. Research shows that if we consume 0-25% of calories from these drinks, we still have a chance of developing heart disease.
Only the people who didn’t drink them at all had no adverse effects.
So, if we follow a 2,200-calorie diet, one soda can give us 143 calories, It is best to say that we might have to replace the sugar-rich beverages with natural organic juice completely. Two ounces of this juice is enough for one day.
So What Should We Drink?
Water is always the best solution, but if we want more flavors we need to try these drinks instead:
- Cold herbal tea;
- Hot or cold coffee with milk or cream;
- Sparkling water with a slice of lime or lemon;
- Cold black or green tea with lemon.
Lastly, it might be problematic for us to stop drinking sugary drinks immediately. But take your time and try to make a new habit, a healthier one.
Source: HealthLine | Web MD | Healthline | NCBI | The American Journal of Nutrition
