Sugar: your friend or your enemy?
The sweet truth about real and fake sweet
Reading time: 4-5 min
Sugar is one of the mosttalked about nutrients and often in a negative sense. It would your make you fat, tired and sick. This is somewhat strange considering that sugar in the form of glucose the fuel of every cell in your body. There is a smell around it, so to speak. One sugar is not the other, and these days it is bursting with artificial sugars in food. Those who think a sweetener in coffee is better than for example cane sugar gets cheated.
Sugar, starch and carbohydrates
The three basic substances that make up food are carbohydrates, proteins and fats. In this item The focus is on carbohydrates. E r exist many types of carbohydrates, including starch. Glucose is a so-called single carbohydrate and that’s what we now just sugar call. Fructose is a dual carbohydrate and this we know as fruit sugar, because the divalent carbohydrates most commonly found in fruitand. Multiple carbohydrates are molecularly more complex and only taste sweet when you chew them to pieces. Think forexample the carbohydrates (starch) in a sandwich. If you take those but chews long enough, you break down the long chains of carbohydrates and arise the short carbohydrate chains. The sweet taste that then arises is the glucose that is released from the long multiple carbohydrates.
Sugar is quick energy
Your body can act in two ways get energy from food. Carbohydrates are suitable for the rapid combustion and fats for slower combustion. The carbohydrate burn turns on at your breakfast and the othere, the fat burning, comes on when you sleep so you don’t wake up from hunger and have to pop into the fridge at night to some snacking.
Sugar: more than taste alone
If you eat sugar, it provides glucose directly energy to your muscles, brain and organs. Without sugar, you can your literally don’t function. And if you eat no sugar at all, then zelfs the proteins and fats you ingest – if it needed – converted into glucose to keep your body running. And wat we often forget: also many enzymes in the body are made up in part of sugar molecules. Sugar is so not only an energy supplier, but also a building block.
In fact, glucose can enter into all kinds of combinations, for example with amino acids. Then new substances are formed, the so-called sugar proteins, with exotic names such as ribose (necessary for cellular metabolism), fucose, galactose and mannose. Sugars are therefore essential everywhere in your body!
But that’s not the whole story …
One sugar is not the other
We eat mostly refined sugars. There is an important difference between natural sugars and the refined variants, such as white crystalsugar, cane sugar and glucose–fructose syrup. Natural sugars contain by nature all kinds of accompanying helpsubstances such as minerals and vitamins. As a result, they cost the body few energy and nutrients to digest. Refined sugars are stripped of the natural minerals and extract vitamin C, calcium, magnesium and B vitamins from your body during the digestion process. If you don’t have enough of these in your diet, your body will rob them from your bones and muscles. ‘Empty’ sugars thus deplete your body.
Avoid the peaks and valleys
Slow, complex carbohydrates, such as those found in legumes, whole grains and tubers, provide much needed fiber, B vitamins, enzymes and minerals in addition to glucose (energy). Because they are broken down more slowly, they provide stable blood sugar levels and long-lasting energy. Therefore, the rule of thumb is: the sweeter the taste, the more processed the sugar is, the more taxing it is for your body.
Especially the “sugar spikes” you experience after eating a lot of sweet are a drain. Your blood sugar rises at lightning speed, you feel a little hyper and then down. After the spike inevitably comes the valley. This often results in you continuing to eat sugary foods throughout the day just to feel ‘high’ on sugar, overflowing with energy.
That in itself is a tragedy for your body, but it could be worse….
Artificial sweeteners: appearances can be deceiving
Many people reach for light products containing artificial sweeteners (such as aspartame, sucralose or acesulfame-K) in hopes of living healthier lives. Unfortunately, this exacerbates the problem. Light products demand even more minerals and vitamins to be broken down and require more energy, and therefore the craving for more sugar actually worsens. Research points to hefty consequences, including disruptions in gut flora, glucose intolerance, insulin resistance, hypoglycemia (sugar dips) to type 2 diabetes.
Your metabolism benefits from low sugar. And what we consider normal these days (a cookie with coffee) is actually already way too much. To disguise this fact, the food industry invents a few more names for sugar every year. On the site of 100% suikervrij.nl you will find no less than 45 names for sugars and artificial sweeteners.
So what are the good sugars?
Good sugars, which have at least some mineral content, are the types in the list below. Use them in moderation.
- Maple syrup
- Primal Sugar
- Guava syrup
- Cane sugar molasses
- Fructose from organic fruit
- Raw honey
- Stevia (in pure form)
- Xylitol (from birch bark)
These sugars often also contain trace elements and polysaccharides that contribute to cell building and immune function. Certain mushrooms such as Shiitake, Reishi, Maitake and Chaga are known for their medicinal properties because of the specific polysaccharides (multiple sugars) they contain.
Glycobiology: how sugar makes your cells talk
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of sugar is its role of it in cell communication. Cells “talk” to each other via glycoproteins – combinations of sugars and proteins – which are on the outside of the cell wall sitting. This mechanism plays a key role in our immune system, the recognition of foreign bodies en even in determining your blood type. This science is called glycobiology: the study of glycoconjugates (sugar compounds) such as glycoproteins and glycolipids. This shows how sugars such as mannose, galactose and fucose are not “empty calories” but indispensable information carriers in your body.
When is sugar harmful?
Refined sugar takes minerals and is quickly harmful to your body, so always choose unrefined forms of sugar. The most harmful are artificial sweeteners. Your body literally can’t do anything with those and the causes damage in its degradation. You’re saddling your liver with it, so to speak. It has to process it all and get rid of it.
An excess of something is always harmful, but each person has their own ‘margin‘. One person works a kilo of sugar, processed in different types of food, a day and is not bothered by anything for years. The other already feels his body running wild at the slightest bite sugar.
Sugar is not black and white
Sugar is not necessarily bad. It depends on the source, form and quantity. Choose:
- Whole grain, natural sugars (such as in fruits, tubers, whole grains)
- Minimally processed sweeteners (such as raw honey, guava, primal sugar, maple syrup)
- Slow carbohydrates Which come in along with fiber and micronutrients
Sugar is essential for energy, cell repair and even communication at the cellular level. But as with many things in life: balance is the key.
Literature:
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Mergenthaler, P., Lindauer, U., Dienel, G.A., & Meisel, A. (2013). Sugar for the brain: the role of glucose in physiological and pathological brain function. Trends in Neurosciences., 36(10), 587-597.
Varki, A. et al. (2017). Essentials of Glycobiology. (3rd ed.). Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.
Ludwig, D.S. (2002). The glycemic index: physiological mechanisms relating to obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. JAMA, 287(18), 2414-2423.
Gaby, A.R. (2005). Nutritional factors in depression. Alternative Medicine Review., 10(2), 124-136.
Suez, J. et al. (2014). Artificial sweeteners induce glucose intolerance by altering the gut microbiota. Nature, 514(7521), 181-186.
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https://greenmedinfo.com/blog/4-artificial-sweeteners-linked-nightmare-bacteria1
