PUNCH
The rainy season is here and it comes with a lot of goodies. You get to see fruits and lots of vegetables. Crassocephalum crepidioides (Ebolo), Crassocephalum Biafra (Worowo), Amaranthus viridis (Tete analyse), and Purslane are some of the vegetables that come with the season, no one plants them! Try to take advantage of nature’s magnanimity, your health will thank you.
You must have heard about terms like sucrose, glucose, and fructose. Let me talk briefly about them. Sucrose is another name for plain white table sugar. It is made up of two other sugars: glucose and fructose.
Glucose is your body’s preferred carb-based energy source. Your body breaks down the carbohydrates you eat into glucose and releases it into your bloodstream. Fructose or “fruit sugar” is a simple sugar that occurs naturally in ripe fruits and sweeteners. It is in small quantities in some vegetables.
Fructose in fruits and vegetables is safe, however, diabetics should not forget that not all fruits are safe for them. As an added sweetener in processed foods, fructose can have a severe metabolic impact.
Last week, I started the list of ways sugar can impact our health negatively, let us proceed:
6: Can lead to fatty liver
A high intake of fructose has been consistently linked to an increased risk of fatty liver. Fructose is a common type of sugar, with one major source being high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), used to sweeten soft drinks, cereals, baked goods, and some beverages.
Unlike glucose and other types of sugar, which are taken up by many cells throughout the body, fructose is almost exclusively broken down by the liver. In the liver, fructose is converted into energy or stored as glycogen and the excess amounts are turned into fat.
Large amounts of added sugar in the form of fructose overload your liver, leading to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, a condition characterized by excessive fat build-up in the liver. An animal study found that feeding mice a high-fructose diet for long periods led to the deterioration of their intestinal barrier, liver inflammation, liver tumours, and signs of fatty livers compared to a control group.
A study of over 5,900 adults showed that people who drank sugar-sweetened beverages daily had a 56% higher risk of developing non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), compared to people who did not.
- May accelerate the skin aging process
Wrinkles are a natural sign of skin aging. They appear eventually, regardless of your health. However, poor food choices can worsen wrinkles and speed up the skin aging process.
Advanced glaciation end products (AGEs) are compounds formed by reactions between sugar and protein in your body. They are suspected to play a key role in skin aging. Consuming a diet high in refined carbs and sugar leads to the production of AGEs, which may cause your skin to age prematurely.
AGEs damage collagen and elastin, which are proteins that help the skin stretch and keep its youthful appearance. When collagen and elastin become damaged, the skin loses its firmness and begins to sag.
- May increase your risk of depression
While a healthy diet can help improve your mood, a diet high in added sugar and processed foods may contribute to changes in mood and emotions. It may even increase your chances of developing depression. High sugar consumption has been linked to cognitive impairments, memory problems, and emotional disorders like anxiety and depression.
