{"id":2035,"date":"2023-03-08T05:45:17","date_gmt":"2023-03-08T12:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/?p=2035"},"modified":"2023-03-08T05:46:19","modified_gmt":"2023-03-08T12:46:19","slug":"what-happens-when-you-eat-refined-sugars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/what-happens-when-you-eat-refined-sugars\/","title":{"rendered":"What Happens When You Eat Refined Sugars?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If the old adage, \u201cYou are what you eat [and drink],\u201d is true, then many Americans are giant sugar cubes. According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart.org\/en\/healthy-living\/healthy-eating\/eat-smart\/sugar\/how-much-sugar-is-too-much#:~:text=What%20consumers%20aren't%20confused,the%20recommended%20amount%20for%20women.\">the American Heart Associatio<\/a>n, American adults consume an average of 15 teaspoons of sugar per day \u2013 60 pounds of sugar in a year! Compare those amounts to refined sugar\u2019s recommended daily allowances (9 teaspoons for men and 6 teaspoons for women), and it\u2019s clear that a spoonful of sugar doesn\u2019t help the medicine go down; in fact, it could mean lots of medicines to take and diseases to manage.<\/p>\n<p>Reducing refined sugars is essential to better health, but cutting out sweets and sugary drinks is just half the battle. In this article, we will cover several topics related to refined sugars:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Refined sugars and your health<\/li>\n<li>Hidden refined sugars in your food<\/li>\n<li>Frequently asked questions (FAQS) about refined sugars<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Refined Sugars and Your Health<\/h2>\n<p>It\u2019s no secret that high refined sugar intake leads to obesity and diabetes, which bring with them a host of other health problems. But did you know refined sugars can affect your liver, skin, and brain?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe term sugar, at least in the scientific world, is really just a designation to determine what type of carbohydrate it is, \u201cexplains Samantha Lander, a Functional Diagnostics Practitioner, Certified Personal Trainer, Holistic Lifestyle Coach, and the founder of the holistic medicine practice, <a href=\"https:\/\/seefitpt.com\/\">See Fit<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Refined sugar activates the brain\u2019s reward system, and once your brain gets that first hit from a cookie, chocolate kiss, or piece of cake, chances are you\u2019ll want more and more.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat happens when our energy tanks, our moods swing down, our control falters, and our cravings escalate? We eat more sugar! Sugar brought on the dopamine \u201cWoohoo\u201d moments, which we remember. So, we inadvertently create this perpetual up-and-down swing without realizing sugar is not making things better; it\u2019s making things worse. Not only does this set us up for a difficult road of maintaining optimal energy, weight, and mood; it also raises our risk of insulin resistance and diabetes,\u201d says Lander.<\/p>\n<p>What goes up must come down, and we\u2019re talking about more than just a sugar high. Men and women who consume high amounts of refined sugar (15 and 13 teaspoons per day, respectively) are at a 23% greater risk for clinical depression.<\/p>\n<p>High blood glucose levels, which are common among Type 1 and Type 2 diabetics, can cause the brain to shrink, <a href=\"https:\/\/hms.harvard.edu\/news-events\/publications-archive\/brain\/sugar-brain#:~:text=It%20can%20cause%20the%20brain,the%20development%20of%20vascular%20dementia.\">according to data published by Harvard<\/a>. Restricted blood flow in the brain caused by small-vessel disease, another side effect of diabetes, can lead to cognitive difficulties up to and including vascular dementia.<\/p>\n<p>As sugar is digested, it heads to the liver, breaking down between glucose and fructose. The liver can control how much glucose to hold and how much to send into the bloodstream, but it holds onto all that fructose, even when it\u2019s not needed. Fructose is converted to fat, which has been hinted at as a cause of <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/29408694\/\">non-alcoholic fatty liver disease<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe nutrients that come with the sugars are more important. Pure table sugar has no fiber, vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats or enzymes \u2013 it only has empty calories and no health benefits\u2014just consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Hidden Sugars in Your Food<\/h2>\n<p>Sugar isn\u2019t just on the baking aisle in the five-pound bags, or in the frozen food cooler stacked high with ice cream, or even at the children\u2019s temptation section: the checkout line. It\u2019s throughout the supermarket.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIdentifying the sources of refined sugars and making healthy choices can help you reduce your sugar intake and avoid the many health problems associated with refined sugars,\u201d says Lander.<\/p>\n<p>Reading the Nutrition Facts is a great beginner guide, but not necessarily a hard and fast rule when it comes to fruit and dairy products. Nutrition labels are required to indicate\u00a0any\u00a0sugar, including sugars naturally occurring in dairy and fruits.<\/p>\n<p>If you have recently read labels, you may now know just how much sugar you consume. The Standard American Diet \u2013 SAD \u2013 is filled with foods that are highly processed, loaded with refined sugars, and devoid of quality nutrients. SAD indeed!<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor example, a yogurt on the label may seem high in sugar, but the ingredient list could indicate no added sugar. Therefore, the best method to determine how many added sugars are in your food is to look at the amount of sugar and the ingredient list. Just remember, the less food you have with a nutrition label, the more whole foods, and less added sugars you\u2019ll consume anyway,\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Here are some additional simple tips to help kick those bad sugars to the curb.<\/p>\n<h3>Cleanup on the pasta aisle!<\/h3>\n<p>Did you know that a half-cup serving of pasta sauce can have between 1 and 3 teaspoons of refined sugar? On the high end, that\u2019s up to half of a woman\u2019s recommended amount of sugar for the day. Check nutrition labels for the sugar content before serving up that plate of spaghetti and remember that the carbs in those noodles (if they\u2019re not whole wheat) can turn into sugar too!<\/p>\n<h3>Don\u2019t start off the day with a sugar high!<\/h3>\n<p>Yogurt can be a deceptive source of refined sugars. Fat-free does not mean sugar-free! Just 8 ounces of flavored yogurt can have up to nearly 8 teaspoons of sugar. That\u2019s as much sugar as one cup of chocolate ice cream. Try plain, unsweetened yogurt with fruit, or add 1 teaspoon of honey if you need a little more of the sweet stuff.<\/p>\n<h3>Spill the (sweet) tea!<\/h3>\n<p>Maybe you\u2019ve sworn off carbonated soft drinks for a refreshing bottle of tea. Before you take that plunge, know that the most popular brands of lemon-flavored iced tea have more than 7 teaspoons of refined sugar in a 32-ounce bottle. Take control of the sugar by making your own tea at home.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are creatures that crave pleasure and happiness, which is our birthright! However, happiness comes in many packages. There are many avenues to seek pleasure and happiness without spiking insulin \u2013 accomplishing a challenging goal, cuddling with your partner, laughing, spending time with loved ones, and anything that brings pleasure to you increases your dopamine levels. Start reducing your sugar intake and seek out these resources for happiness instead.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>(FAQS) Frequently Asked Questions About Refined Sugars<\/h2>\n<h3>Q. What is commonly used as a refined sugar?<\/h3>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>A<\/strong>. Heavily processed sugar cane, sugar beets, and corn are the primary sources of refined sugar.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3>Q. How can you tell if a sugar is refined?<\/h3>\n<p><strong>A<\/strong>. Read nutrition labels and look for syrups, juices, and words ending in -ose (e.g., fructose, dextrose, maltose). These are the tell-tale signs of refined sugars.<\/p>\n<h3>Q. What are the differences between natural sugar and refined sugar?<\/h3>\n<p><strong>A.<\/strong> Foods with natural sugars, like unprocessed fruit and starchy vegetables, minimally processed carbohydrates like brown rice and whole grain pasta, and milk and cheese, have components that slow down digestion. Refined sugars may originate from a natural source, like corn or sugar beets, but the processing has removed everything but the sugar, causing quick digestion along with blood sugar spikes and drops.<\/p>\n<br \/>\n<br \/>\n<br \/>\n<h2><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If the old adage, \u201cYou are what you eat [and drink],\u201d is true, then many Americans are giant sugar cubes. According to the American Heart Association, American adults consume an average of 15 teaspoons of sugar per day \u2013 60 pounds of sugar in a year! Compare those amounts to refined sugar\u2019s recommended daily allowances&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":2036,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_yoast_wpseo_focuskw_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[25,301,299,300,93,298],"class_list":["post-2035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-colostrum-benefits","tag-gut-health","tag-health-and-wellness","tag-healthy-eating","tag-healthy-lifestyle","tag-leaky-gut-solutions","tag-refined-sugars"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.7) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What Happens When You Eat Refined Sugars? - Sovereign Laboratories<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/what-happens-when-you-eat-refined-sugars\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Happens When You Eat Refined Sugars?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If the old adage, \u201cYou are what you eat ,\u201d is true, then many Americans are giant sugar cubes. According to the American Heart Association, American\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/what-happens-when-you-eat-refined-sugars\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sovereign Laboratories\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SovereignLaboratories\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-03-08T12:45:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-03-08T12:46:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/shutterstock_242270665.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"667\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Samantha Lander\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SovereignLabs\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@SovereignLabs\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Samantha Lander\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What Happens When You Eat Refined Sugars? - Sovereign Laboratories","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/what-happens-when-you-eat-refined-sugars\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What Happens When You Eat Refined Sugars?","og_description":"If the old adage, \u201cYou are what you eat ,\u201d is true, then many Americans are giant sugar cubes. According to the American Heart Association, American","og_url":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/what-happens-when-you-eat-refined-sugars\/","og_site_name":"Sovereign Laboratories","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SovereignLaboratories","article_published_time":"2023-03-08T12:45:17+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-03-08T12:46:19+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1000,"height":667,"url":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/shutterstock_242270665.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Samantha Lander","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@SovereignLabs","twitter_site":"@SovereignLabs","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Samantha Lander","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/what-happens-when-you-eat-refined-sugars\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/what-happens-when-you-eat-refined-sugars\/"},"author":{"name":"Samantha Lander","@id":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/be7bee08e48476d64e5cc31e4e75da51"},"headline":"What Happens When You Eat Refined Sugars?","datePublished":"2023-03-08T12:45:17+00:00","dateModified":"2023-03-08T12:46:19+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/what-happens-when-you-eat-refined-sugars\/"},"wordCount":1190,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/what-happens-when-you-eat-refined-sugars\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/shutterstock_242270665.jpg","keywords":["gut health","health and wellness","healthy eating","healthy lifestyle","Leaky gut solutions","refined sugars"],"articleSection":["Colostrum Benefits"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/what-happens-when-you-eat-refined-sugars\/","url":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/what-happens-when-you-eat-refined-sugars\/","name":"What Happens When You Eat Refined Sugars? 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After spending a considerable amount of time doing \u201call the right things\u201d without seeing any results, she decided to seek out the root cause of her health problems. Samantha was no stranger to the natural abilities of the human body. As a young athlete, Samantha first set goals for herself in team sports such as synchronized swimming, water polo, and field hockey. In high school, she focused on rowing, where she was a member of the St. Louis Rowing Club &amp; one of a team of eight young women who were ranked nationally. Samantha\u2019s perseverance to improve her health and her athletic ability created a career path as a Functional Diagnostics Practitioner. After receiving her B.A. in Sports Management &amp; Functional Movement from the University of Michigan in 2003, she decided to open her own holistic practice, See Fit. Today, she works with clients to identify the root cause instead of a \u201cband-aid\" approach. Using an individualized, holistic path, she incorporates lifestyle, diet, rest, exercise, stress reduction, and supplementation to help her clients achieve their ultimate health and wellness goals regardless of their current age, gender, and ability.","sameAs":["https:\/\/sovereignlaboratories.com"]}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2035"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2037,"href":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2035\/revisions\/2037"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sovereignlaboratories.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}