Dangers of Added Sugar in the Diet

As humans, we have a biological tendency to crave three things: Sugar, Salt, and Fat. For the first time in nearly all of our history, we haven’t had to hunt or gather for food, and food is now not only readily available to us but is in excess. Our food today is highly processed, and with this comes the dangers of Added Sugars. Let’s start by first distinguishing the difference between Natural Sugars and Added Sugars. Natural sugars are sugars that occur naturally in a food, such as a piece of fruit, whereas Added Sugars do not occur naturally and are instead added in during the processing of foods. You may wonder how Added Sugars can be dangerous, but there are quite a few ways in which they can be detrimental to one’s health. In 2016, the FDA began requiring that all Nutrition Facts Labels list the grams of Added Sugar. Ingredient lists can be tricky to decipher the hidden forms of sugar in the foods we eat. For example syrups, honey, concentrate, sucrose, and fructose are all words that indicate an Added Sugar on an Ingredient List. Now that we know what Added Sugars are and how to distinguish them, let’s discuss their impacts on our health.

High consumption of Added Sugar has been linked to the increased risk of various chronic diseases, some being Diabetes, Cardiovascular Disease, and Metabolic Disease. It is recommended that 10% or less of our caloric intake per day come from Added Sugars. The American Heart Association recommends women have no more than 6 tsp of Added Sugar per day, which equivalates to about 25 grams or 100 calories. For men, it is recommended to consume no more than 9 tsp, or 36 grams or 150 calories. High levels of Added Sugar can contribute to increased Triglyceride levels that contribute to fat build-up around the arteries and can lead to Coronary Artery Disease or Heart Attacks.

Studies have also linked high consumption of Added Sugars to the increased risk of High Blood Pressure, Inflammation, Weight Gain, and Fatty Liver Disease. Harvard Health found that the majority of Added Sugars come from sweetened beverages such as soda and energy drinks. A study from the National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health found that among participants who drank beverages sweetened with fructose had twice the amount of fat production around the liver compared to the participants who abstained from the sugary drinks (Stanhope 2015). This contributes to Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, as these sugars are often sent directly to the liver for energy storage. As children tend to consume high levels of sugar, consequential poor health outcomes are on the rise, and now about 1 in 10 children is at risk or has developed a form of Fatty Liver.

It is very important to be aware of the dangers of Added Sugar, understand the importance of reading Nutrition Facts labels and ingredient lists, and understand how our health is directly linked to the amount of sugar consumed through the diet.

Written by:

Elizabeth Hoffman, Nutrition Intern Fall 2021

References:

Stanhope, Kimber L. “Sugar Consumption, Metabolic Disease and Obesity: The State of the Controversy.” Critical Reviews in Clinical Laboratory Sciences, vol. 53, no. 1, 2015, pp. 52–67., https://doi.org/10.3109/10408363.2015.1084990.

Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. “Added Sugars on the New Nutrition Facts Label.” U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA, https://www.fda.gov/food/new-nutrition-facts-label/added-sugars-new-nutrition-facts-label.

Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. “Changes to the Nutrition Facts Label.” U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA, https://www.fda.gov/food/food-labeling-nutrition/changes-nutrition-facts-label.

https://www.cdc.gov/nutrition/data-statistics/added-sugars.html