There is an ongoing war against sugar in all of its forms. We hear that sugar causes hypertension, damages our teeth, gives us wrinkles, steals nutrients from the body and causes numerous conditions and diseases. I could talk all day about sugar and its effects on the human body, but this is not the time and place for that. However, I will use this opportunity to point out to one thing that’s generally never mentioned.
Before sugar enters the bloodstream it’s broken down into two simple sugars: glucose and fructose. If we don’t get glucose from the diet our bodies will produce it to supply energy for our brain. It does so through a process called gluconeogenesis. Gluco meaning sugar, Neo meaning new. Genesis meaning creation. Basically it’s a creation of new sugar (glucose) from “non-sugar” sources. For example, glucose can be derived from protein. That’s how amazing human body is.
But fructose is different. Our cells don’t use it for energy and our muscles can’t store it like they do with glucose. All fructose has to be metabolized in our liver, which has a capacity to store only a certain amount of fructose. It is worth to mention that fruit should be harmless and all that information really applies to high fructose corn syrup and other sweeteners that are used in sodas, candies, energy drinks, breakfast cereals and many more.
With that being said, going overboard with fructose can quickly overwhelm the liver and turn that excess fructose into fat. This fat can basically contribute to three things. Number one, which is quite obvious, it can give us more belly fat, the one you can grab with your fingers. Number two, it can give us visceral fat, a fat that surround our organs like liver or intestines. While you can’t see or grab this fat, it’s the most dangerous one. And number three, some of the fat can lodge in the liver leading to a condition called fatty liver, where fat accumulates in the liver and makes it dysfunctional. The liver cells get damaged, which can ultimately lead to a cirrhosis of the liver. Luckily, our liver is a very powerful organ, responsible for around 500 functions in the body, and most of the damage can be reversed by some lifestyle changes.
We will be gtalking about those changes in our other blog posts. We’ll be talking about things like physical activity, fasting, supplements and right kinds of diets for the sake of a healthy liver. Before that, we ask you to beware of any sweetened products high in sugar and fructose. R|emember that your liver has limited space for these kind of things. However, don’t skimp on fruit! That bowl of strawberries or a single banana won’t overload your liver with fructose, but will add a lot of positive things to your body. Allowing you to take turn for the better.