Dangers of sugar-sweetened drinks.

Everything that sparkles or glitters is not gold, so the old saying goes. Interestingly, this maxim finds its application to sugary food and the expanding rates of their consumption these days. Soft drinks of different sorts and assortments including sodas, sports drinks and fruit juices are in vogue Worldwide and while they may be companions with our tongue, they are not that decent to our body.

In spite of the fact that sugary beverages are truly reviving and stimulating, what the producers of these items frequently neglect to tell us is the potential destruction they can wreak on the body organs if consumed in excess.

 Actually, sugar-sweetened beverages have been reported to cause around 180,000 global death annually and to support this fact, various studies have built up solid connections between increased utilization of sugary products and obesity, type 2 diabetesas well as heart diseases and it is worthy to note that no measure of activity or exercise can totally neutralize, as some would like to believe, the deleterious effect of increased sugar consumption.

The dangers we constantly expose ourselves to when we enjoy those sugar-sweetened products are discussed below:

It is of paramount importance to note that sugary beverages are calorie-dense since they provide us with energy for our daily works. However, they offer practically little or no nutritional advantages. Unfortunately, our body does not compensate for these additional calories by reducing the rate at which we consume these products since we hardly feel satisfied with minute intake.

So how does the body then handle this additional heap of calories? The liver will automatically convert it to fats, which eventually sets the stage for obesity and its related issues. Reports have shown that adults who take more than one sugary beverages per day on a regular basis are 28% more inclined to be obese than their folks. Thus, if you are planning to shed that excess weight and enjoy the benefits of healthy weight loss, then you have to place a reduction on those soft drinks.

This is a metabolic disorder in which the body is unable to effectively utilize substrates particularly glucose. Sugar-sweetened drinks have been linked to high rate of insulin resistance by the body in that the hormone insulin is not able to drive glucose from the circulatory system into the cells for metabolism. Consequently, diabetic patients frequently lose weight in spite of their increased food consumption. Research has it that individuals who continuously ingest 1 – 2 sugary drinks every day have a high risk of developing type- 2 diabetes by up to 26%. Tragically, diabetes mellitus is a multi-systemic issue that may harm some organs in the body including the brain, eyes, heart and kidneys.

Many risk factors like obesity, raised triglycerides and Low-density lipoproteins (LDL) are enhanced by sugar-sweetened drinks. Hence, it is justifiable how they contribute to the occurrence of coronary or heart diseases. Men who consume at least one can of sugary beverage have an increased risk (up to 20%) of developing heart attack and this is also applicable to the women.

As pointed out earlier, the risk of obesity is undoubtedly higher among those who enjoy excess sugary beverages and these individuals invariably have an increased risk of developing cancer most especially those malignancies associated with obesity such as colorectal and pancreatic cancer.

For example, various studies have it that the danger of pancreatic cancer is 87% higher among the individuals who drink two or more sugary beverages in a week. Likewise, post-menopausal women with substantial intake of sugary soft drinks are at an expanded danger of developing endometrial cancer.

Research has demonstrated that excess sugar intake among women exposes them to danger of gouty arthritis by up to 75%. Gout is a chronic disease characterized by inflammation in the joints most especially of the toes, knees and fingers and it arises following high levels of uric acid in the blood (hyperuricemia), which solidify and get deposited in the joints. Fructose has been shown to increase uric acid levels and many soft drink manufacturers prefer high-fructose corn syrup for sweetening their products.

Conclusively, these and more are some of the dangers we are prone to when we indulge in continuous consumption of sugar-sweetened products. Therefore, in order to minimize the pernicious effects of sugary drinks on our health and its overwhelming challenges, we can choose to reduce our daily intake TODAY.