If the only added sugar that you had was the occasional piece of Halloween candy or some syrup on a pancake, you’d probably be fine.

Those are, for the most part, natural forms of sugar. Having a few treats now and then is a good way to balance our diets.

But added sugar is in everything, and it has devastating effects on your body.

I’m going to show you exactly what it does to the body, and hopefully sway you in the direction of having way less added sugar in your life.

A lot of times, we don’t even know we’re consuming added sugar, because it’s added to so many foods in the grocery store.

On average, you probably consume 77 grams of added sugar every single day. 

That doesn’t even include sugars we get from certain foods, like the lactose in dairy or the fructose in fruit.

If you find that you’re experiencing some of the warning signs I discuss here, you’re not only going to want to cut back on added sugars but natural ones as well.

I don’t have a problem with apples, or even having some dairy in your life, but if you’ve overdone it to the point where you’re having warning signs, it all has to go.

Now, oftentimes dairy and fruit have naturally-occurring fiber that will help negate the amount of sugar that’s absorbed into your system.

That means they don’t have the same insulin-spiking, liver-damaging, or fat storage-increasing effects that pure sugar causes inside the body.

So if you don’t have these symptoms, you can still enjoy those foods, but added sugars have to go.

Here’s what starts to happen to your body when you have added sugar.

Increased Fat

One result of added sugar is increased fat storage inside the body. This is a problem because oftentimes it’s high-fructose corn syrup that gets us in trouble.

High-fructose corn syrup has added sugars that produce triglycerides in your body.

Triglycerides are the fatty substance that floats around in your blood, and that you get measured when you test your cholesterol levels.

When you take in high doses of fructose, your body starts combining it with fat molecules in order to store it in your midsection and your organs.

In fact, one 8-week study fed two groups of people glucose and fructose and tracked their weight gain and the impact on their health.

Both groups gained significant amounts of weight, but the fructose group had higher amounts of pure belly fat, which often equates to liver and organ fat.

Princeton researchers found that fructose is one of the primary obesogens, which are elements that create obesity and belly fat.

Decreased Physical Activity

Studies have shown that added sugars actually decrease physical activity. Not only are you eating the most obesity-forming nutrient, but you’re also exercising less.

The University of Illinois did a study that fed mice a standard American diet that was strong in added sugars.

Even when they varied the calorie amounts, if the amount of fructose and added sugar was high, the mice were less active.

Added sugar makes you lazy, and adds fat instead of burning it.

Increased Risk of Diabetes

50-100 million Americans are affected by diabetes every single year. Added sugars are one of the primary driving forces of type 2 diabetes.

This means that if you can lifestyle your way into this condition, you can lifestyle your way out of it.

I’ve seen so many people overcome type 2 diabetes. and a lot of people improve type 1 diabetes, by controlling the amount of added sugars they eat.

Fructose is probably to blame around the world for record-high numbers of diabetes. 

You can beat it, but you have to get added sugars under control.

Increased Depression

Added sugars actually damage the brain and make you more depressed. You’ve probably felt this after a big, sugar-heavy meal.

One, you feel bad because you made a mistake and ate something you know you shouldn’t have. Two, it physically damages your brain and reduces its plasticity.

On top of that, high-sugar diets and high-added-sugar diets actually decrease the compounds in your brain responsible for protecting you against Alzheimer’s.

There’s a correlation that’s starting to form between the amount of sugar that you eat, diabetes, depression, and Alzheimer’s.

Alzheimer’s and dementia are actually being referred to as type 3 diabetes, and prominent studies have linked the three together.

In 2015, a study on postmenopausal women showed that the higher amount of added sugar in their diet, the more depression occurred. 

Those that were focused more on fruits, veggies, and clean eating had way better mental capacity and were way happier in life.

Research showed that 1,000 seniors that ate simple carbohydrates and added sugars would have a decline in cognitive function within 3-7 years.

Increased Heart Disease

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, those that have a diet that’s made up of 25% added sugars are more than twice as likely to die from heart disease.

1 out of 10 of us falls into that category, so it’s no wonder that heart disease is exploding in the world.

If you’re having sugar-sweetened beverages or grain-based desserts and pastries, heart disease is up.

According to the Journal of Nutrition, teenagers who have a diet high in sugary drinks and candy already show signs of clogging in the arteries and cardiovascular risk.

Increased Blood Pressure

For every sugary drink you have, there’s an 8% higher risk of hypertension. This is because taking in all of this added sugar stimulates the sympathetic nervous system.

Your sympathetic parasympathetic nervous systems control your blood pressure. 

The more sugar that you eat, the more stimulated the sympathetic nervous system is, and the higher your blood pressure is.

To quickly reduce blood pressure you can stop eating sugar, and also try a simple breathing exercise called paced breathing.

Sagging Skin

Sugar actually makes you look older! Collagen and elastin are compounds in our body that help keep skin tight and younger-looking, but sugar affects them.

When sugar is in the diet and spikes insulin, it takes up the place of amino acids that are supposed to build collagen and keep our elastin strong.

This is why skin gets saggy: it doesn’t have the nutrients that it needs.

A study by Clinical Dermatology says that eating sugar is one of the worst things you can do for your skin.

Those are the obvious warning signs that show that it might be time to give up on any kind of sugar. 

If you want to avoid going down the road to diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, dementia, and depression, here’s what you can do.

Blood Tests

You can look at fasting insulin levels, blood glucose levels, and A1C levels. If any of those three are off, it’s time to get them under control.

You want to get your blood sugar at least below 100. Your A1C should typically be below 5.5.

The one you may want to monitor even more is fasting insulin. 

If insulin is under control, your body’s shuttling glucose and sugar where they need to go, and your metabolism will be under control.

Increased Thirst

If you’re having a lot of thirst, that is your body trying to respond to increased amounts of insulin and glucose in your blood.

It’s trying to flush sugar out of you, so it makes you thirsty. Sometimes after big meals, it almost feels like I can’t get enough water.

That’s the body trying to get rid of all that extra fructose, glucose, and insulin that’s in the bloodstream. 

Going to the bathroom a lot is also going to damage your skin in the process, and that’s a fast track to a lot more infections and long-term skin damage.

If you have an itchy scalp, and cracking damage on the hands and nails, you probably have too much sugar in your body and you’re not hydrated enough.

Vision Problems

The eyes require adequate hydration, and if sugar is dehydrating us, hydration is going to be lacking in the eyes.

If the fluid level in the eye is not where it needs to be, that’s going to create vision issues.

This will make it harder to focus, and there can even be damage to the blood vessels, and can even lead to permanent vision loss if not addressed.

Summary

I think a great next step is to start adding sugar substitutes that aren’t toxic so you don’t have to give up sweetness altogether.

I’ll walk you through the grocery store in my video and show you proper alternatives, so you don’t get chemical toxicity from them, and don’t spike your insulin.

This is a great next step to dealing with sugar in your life so it doesn’t have long-term effects.