Love Those Sweets Stashed in Your Fridge? 5 Reasons You Should Avoid Them

While fruits and vegetables may not always feel appetising, most people can’t keep away from sweets and desserts. Unfortunately, by doing this, we are harming ourselves. Processed sugars that go into making these desserts and sweets have a high calorific value and negligible amount of nutrients. For this reason, sugar is also known to have empty calories.

Here are a few more reasons you should stay away from sweets and start eating a healthier diet.

1. It deposits fat cells in your liver: Processed sugar has a very high level of fructose in it. Unlike glucose, fructose, is not needed by the body. When we eat fructose, the body converts it into fat and deposits it in the liver. Over tie, these fat deposits can build up and trigger liver diseases.
2. It makes the body resistant to insulin: Insulin is a hormone essential for the conversion of glucose into energy. However, eating excessive amounts of processed sugar can make the body resistant to insulin. This makes the pancreas produce excessive insulin, which further leads to elevated blood sugar levels. This can also trigger conditions like type II diabetes.
3. It reduces immunity: Sugar causes inflammation, which reduces the efficacy of the immune system. It also raises blood pressure and keeps white blood cells from doing their job thus putting you at a higher risk of falling sick. By reducing your good cholesterol level, sugar also increases your risk of suffering from cardio vascular conditions such as heart attacks and strokes. Sugar has even been linked to Alzheimer’s disease.
4. Sugar affects your sleep: Eating large amounts of sugar can cause stress and anxiety. It also keeps your body from relaxing and tenses the muscles. Thus, eating a sugary sack before going to bed can keep you tossing and turning and not allow you to have a good night’s sleep.
5. Sugar causes weight gain: Weight loss is one of the most visible effects of cutting down sugar. By making your body resistant to insulin energy gets stored as fat instead of being used up. Sugar also makes the body resistant to leptin which is responsible for telling the brain when we’ve had enough to eat. This makes us eat more and more even though the stomach is full.

Additionally, sugar triggers the release of dopamine and is addictive. When combined these factors make a person consume more than is needed and causes conditions, such as obesity. If you wish to discuss about any specific problem, you can consult a dietitian-nutritionist.