Sugar

Sugar
By Mackenzie Bolland
11P Miss White

Sugar, a fatty tastes substance that is now in all are foods at a high level. We know that when we eat it, its makes are foods taste better, but also at the same time. But what do we really know about it. What do we really know about what it does to our body, and our lifestyle? Many people argue that’s with the increase sugar intake we are now taking, is leading the increase in lifestyle disease’s epidemic. I believe this statement is true, with the increase in sugar levels in are foods is leading to lifestyle diseases. But before we can truly testify anything we have to truly understand we have to break it down into its two ingredients that it is made up of, glucose and fructose.

Sugar, or its natural form, sucrose, is a carbohydrate, which makes it an energy substance. It is also known, as sucrose is a sweet crystalline substance obtained from various plants, especially sugar cane and sugar beef. It is used a sweetener in foods to make them taste better, and is made up off glucose and fructose.

Glucose, called a simple sugar, is a carbohydrate, which makes it a pure energy molecule. For when it’s oxidized in the body, in a process called metabolism, its breaks down the energy for glucose is only storing it. Glucose also produces water, carbon dioxide and some nitrogen compounds and energy, which is taken in by the cells in the body. With every 120 calories, 80% is used up in muscles and cells. The rest of the 20% (24 calories) is sent to the liver to be metabolised.

Fructose is a simple carbohydrate that, together with glucose, makes up sucrose (table sugar). It’s found in many plants kinds like honey, fruits, flowers, and root vegetable. While glucose can be metabolized in all cells in the body, fructose cannot, it can only be metabolized in the liver. When fructose is metabolized in the liver, it is turned into glycogen, which is just stored glucose. The point for glycogen is that its there for the body to use, if it needs extra energy when the body is in a exercising session.

However, if there’s a large intake of fructose, and the liver is full of glycogen, then the body is forced to turn that glycogen into fat. For the liver physically cannot contain all the glycogen, so it’s forced to convert it to fat to store it. This happens when a person has done no exercise to burn up the glycogen in there liver.

The main difference here between glucose and fructose that glucose is constantly being used up to keep the body running. While fructose is only used up when the body is put through a exercise that requires extra energy.

When the body has all this extra weight it requires more energy, to just do the simple little tasks. Because the body needs more energy, we eat more to replace the extra energy, which means more fructose, more fructose means more fat. Also with the extra intake of glucose the body releases more insulin, a hormone that is produced to unlock cells to allow glucose to enter cells from the bloodstream. From this the body goes into an everlasting loop where it must eat more to make up for the extra energy that it needs to carry the extra fat that is being made. Until finally the body contracts diabetes.

Also we eat more because sugar is actually classified as a addiction to the brain. Every time sugar is taken it activates a reward circuitry in the brain and release pleasure we get from it, from the dopamine of the brain. The dopamine acts as a pick up boost in the body, and signals to cells to wake up. As quoted by Lander Quats “Anything that stimulates the reward pathway is going t be interpreted as something that’s necessary for life and needs to be repeated.”

Diabetes is a chronic condition, which means it lasts a long time, often a person’s whole life. Diabetes is where not enough insulin is produced from the pancreas, or none at all. When not enough insulin can’t be produced to carry glucose into cells, then the body starts to not work properly for it cant get enough energy to its cells to keep running properly. With all this extra glucose floating around in the bloodstream with nowhere to go, it builds up. When glucose is built up in the bloodstream, its practically blocking blood from moving through the body easily, creating High blood pressure.

High blood pressure is a serious problem for it contributes to many deadly diseases including heart attack, kidney failure or stroke. For with the extra pressure to push the blood through the body because of the glucose blocking it, it wears out organs in are body faster. Like are heart which may lead to heart attacks, which can kill.

Now that we understand how fructose is killing are body with its extra fat, we need to understand why we are eating so much of it now, compared to a few decades ago.

He is a chart showing the increase of sugar consumption by the average American person. America is one of the most Western countries in the world and also the fattest. We can see that through the years sugar consumption has just kept going up and up. By why is this you may ask? Well there are many factors, which play into the role of why we eat so much sugar in our diet. The main reason is that it’s easier to be unhealthy than to stay healthy.

For nowadays buying unhealthy tasty foods, like fast food, is much quicker and cheaper than buying the ingredients to a healthy meal. For going back to how sugar is addictive, so much sugar is being pumped into these cheap foods that we always crave these unhealthy foods. Its much easier getting Maccas for dinner which taste better and you get quicker, than going home and spending half an hour on a healthy lasagne. So really it’s just a easier way to eat, easier to eat unhealthy.

Also another reasons are dietary lifestyle is so bad is because of parental dietary education to children. Because at an early age a child mind is very influential. For if the parents feed the child a bad diet, like packaged food every night, and doesn’t teach them the important information about eating healthy. Then he will grow up, with his mind thinking that the way he ate as a child is ok to eat an adult. For as a child you don’t decide what you eat, you eat what you get fed. When the that child grows up and has kids, then he will do the same thing as his parents did, and feed his kids a bad diet, doing the same thing that his parents did to him. For it’s hard to break habit of something that you’ve been taught your whole childhood when your brain was still learning.

Because parents aren’t equipped with the knowledge or motivation at home to teach their children lifestyle. Campaigns have been started like “Go for 2 & 5” and “Active After-School Communities” with most been directed at children. Programs like these talk about the healthy choices to make and how to stay active. Most resources and money is being put into schools and advertisement parents to educate children about healthy lifestyle, for the only way to change the tide of increasing lifestyle diseases is teaching the younger generation of how to do better than the generations now. For breaking eating habits of adults who have been eating badly for 20 years is very hard, but teaching a child who is about 10 years old how to eat healthy is much easier. The only way lifestyle diseases can be lowered is with the younger generation, to influence them as they grow, to pick the right decisions.

For really if the child can be taught to resistant the temptation of sugar filled foods, with high levels of fructose in them, then he can go on to teach his kids to eat more healthy. To teach them how much sugar they should intake in there average daily diet to stay healthy without risking of catching a lifestyle disease.

http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/is-fructose-bad-for-you-201104262425

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