Sugar Rush — Krista Hanna

Sugar this, sugar that! Sugar is everywhere, even hidden in foods that we’d least expect.

If your anything like me, you have a huge sweet tooth. Sometimes I don’t even realize how much I intake in a day, week, month, and even year. So this post is all about the basics of sugar!

What it is, how it's digested, how much is too much, hidden sugars and food labels, and can you become addicted? I want to educate you all, so you can start living your best life and understanding what your eating and how it can impact your health!

Just so you know this post is on the longer side because there is SO MUCH information on just the basics of sugar. Other future posts, I plan to go more in-depth on sugar addiction, fruit sugars, corn syrup, etc. As a nurse it's my job to educate you on everything health and wellness! So let's get started!

Get this! Sugar has slyly made it's way into our diets. It effects our health and waist lines and is the culprit in obvious favorite foods, such as candy and cookies. Believe it or not though, sugar is practically in EVERYTHING we eat. Today, the sad truth is that Americans are consuming way too much added sugar a year. How much you ask?

On average, about 66 pounds of ADDED SUGAR each year and that's JUST ADDED sugar!!(1)

The average American consumes 19.5 teaspoons (82 grams) every day. (1)

What do I mean when I say added sugar? Any sugar that is added to food or beverages during processing, food preparation, or at the table. Added sugars also provide sweetness that can help improve the palatability of foods, help with preservation, and/or contribute to functional attributes such as viscosity, texture, body, color, and browning capability. (2) There are 61 different names for sugar used in food processing that appear on the ingredients list. Probably, many of them you wouldn't even recognize. HA I know I wouldn't.

That's honestly crazy! Who can keep track? No wonder they're considered "hidden".

What IS Sugar??

Sugar falls into the category of a carbohydrate (which also includes complex carbs; starches, fiber, chitin, and cellulose). Sugars are simple carbs and digest more quickly. Not all carbs do exactly the same thing in our bodies, but many break down into simpler sugars after digestion and others do not.

Sugars have their own group of molecules that have similar structures. This group includes:

Glucose

Fructose

Sucrose

Maltose

Galactose

Lactose

GLUCOSE is naturally formed and found in plants and fruits. In our bodies glucose is either burned for energy or stored in the liver and muscles as glycogen.

FRUCTOSE is found in none other than FRUIT!! Fruit sugars :) It can also occur naturally in sugar cane and honey.

SUCROSE is table sugar. It’s the sugar found in the stems of sugar cane, the roots of sugar beets, and can be found naturally in other sources such as fruit and other plants. That lovely stuff we add to cookies and cakes!

MALTOSE aka malt sugar. Maltose is present in foods in which starch is broken down. Such as bread and brewed beverages.

GALACTOSE is usually found in nature combined with other sugars.

LACTOSE is pretty much milk sugar.

There are two types of plants usually used to process sugar, which are sugar cane and sugar beets. They are harvested, processed, and refined to produce..

...you got it table sugar!

Now that we know WHAT sugar is. Let's see how sugar is digested in the body.

How Sugar Is Digested...

There are two ways that your body can break down sugar. Sugar can be broken down into energy or stored as fat (who wants that?!)

Simple carbs are the ones that are easily and quickly used for energy by the body because of their simple chemical structure, often leading to a faster rise in blood sugar and insulin secretion from the pancreas – which can have negative health effects.

Glucose in our bloodstream stimulates our pancreas to releases a hormone called insulin to take care of the excess sugar. Insulin helps regulate the amount of sugar in your blood and triggers uptake of sugar by cells to either use for energy or store. Any excess glucose gets stored as glycogen, which is our bodies warehouse for future use.

As cells begin to absorb the glucose, the amounts in your bloodstream begin to fall. When this happens, the pancreas starts making glucagon, a hormone that signals the liver to start releasing stored sugar (glycogen). This interplay of insulin and glucagon ensure that cells throughout the body, and especially in the brain, have a steady supply of blood sugar.

check out the video below

Like I said earlier, each of our bodies are unique in processing sugar. Many carbs that we eat are digested in our bodies in similar ways to sugar.

I'm sure you have heard of the glycemic index. If not it's a tool that allows us to rank carbs on a scale from 0-100 based on how quickly and how much they raise blood sugar levels after eating!

Foods with a high glycemic index, like white bread, are rapidly digested and cause substantial fluctuations in blood sugar.

Foods with a low glycemic index, like whole oats, are digested more slowly, creating a more gradual rise in blood sugar.

Low-glycemic: 55 or less rating

Medium-glycemic: 56-69 rating

High-glycemic: 70-100 rating

Eating a ton of high-glycemic-index foods leads to powerful spikes in blood sugar that can lead to an increased risk for type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. (3)

Researchers developed a way to classify foods that takes into account both the amount of carbohydrate in the food in relation to its impact on blood sugar levels. This measure is called the glycemic load.

A food’s glycemic load is determined by multiplying its glycemic index by the amount of carbohydrate the food contains.

High Glycemic Load (+20): french fries, breakfast cereal, sugar-sweetened beverages, candy, etc.

Medium Glycemic Load (11-19):oatmeal, brown rice, whole grain breads, bulgur, etc.

Low Glycemic Load (10 or under):bran cereals, apple, orange, lentils, black beans, peanuts, cashews, etc.

In a large meta-analysis of 24 prospective cohort studies, researchers concluded that people who consumed lower-glycemic load diets were at a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those who ate a diet of higher-glycemic load foods.(11)

Hidden Sugars

Those pesky hidden sugars are disguised by manufacturers on food labels, so many times it's hard to understand how much sugar is really in the food we eat.

Below is a list of these hidden sugars..

Why Do Manufacturer's Use Multiple Different Names for Sugars?

In fact, manufacturers add sugar to 74% of packaged foods sold in supermarkets.(4)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does require food producers to list all ingredients in their foods. Since added sugar comes in many forms (as listed above) it can be a pain in the butt to find them on the ingredients list.

Product labels do list the total sugar content, but manufacturers are not required to say whether that total includes added sugar. Sneaky, huh? It makes it difficult to know how much of the total comes from added sugar and how much is naturally occurring, such as in ingredients such as fruit or milk.

Manufacturers are suppose to list their most prominent ingredients first. By using different names, so they are able to spread sugars out among multiple names that appear in a few places in the ingredients list.

Added sugar is hiding in foods that many of us consider healthy, like yogurt, energy/protein bars, and granola. Not only is sugar added in sweet foods, but to savory foods as well, such as ketchup, breads, salad dressing, and pasta sauce

How Much Sugar Is Too Much Sugar?

The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends no more than 9 teaspoons (38 grams) of added sugar per day for men, and 6 teaspoons (25 grams) per day for women.(4)

The amount a day as listed above is in line with the World Health Organization's (WHO) recommendation. No more than 10% of an adult's calories – and ideally less than 5% – should come from added sugar or from natural sugars in honey, syrups and fruit juice. For a 2,000-calorie diet, 5% would be 25 grams.(4)

It's important to keep track of how much sugar you are consuming, just because of how much is hiding in the foods we love!

One of the scariest effects that sugar has on the body and brain is that it can become addicting. It triggers the happy receptors in your brain, which makes you crave more and more.

Sugar addiction is a blog in itself that I will be following up this fabulous post with. I feel like this topic needs to be talked about more, so more of you and others are more aware. I know with myself, I've had multiple issues with sugar and food addiction and I'm sure so many of you have as well. Let me know what you thought!

xoxo Krista

(11)Livesey G, Taylor R, Livesey H, Liu S. Is there a dose-response relation of dietary glycemic load to risk of type 2 diabetes? Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. Am J Clin Nutr. 2013;97:584-96