Big or small, wide, or short, our bodies are temples and are an instrumental piece in our daily lives that are often neglected or taken advantage of. Busy schedules are a very common life event, we all run around and often eat on the go which is one of the biggest mistakes in today’s society. Health and nutrition aspects are often overlooked. Statistics show that Americans consume 130 pounds of sugar every year, that equals about 1,767,900 Skittles (Schwartz). Not only does sugar deplete your immune system, cause obesity, or encourage disease, but it also causes depression and lackadaisical characteristics among individuals.
Sugar requires cautious and moderate guidelines when consumed. Primarily, most of us often do not think about our immune system, at all when digesting a high dose of sugar. The immune system is the bodily system that protects the body from foreign substances, cells, and tissues by producing the immune response and that includes especially the thymus, spleen, lymph nodes, special deposits of lymphoid tissue, lymphocytes including the B cells and T cells, and antibodies (Merriam-Webster). Sugar may be considered as a sweet treat to all ages, some individuals even let it control their lives, or take their lives over completely.
This has been proven by several doctors and is sadly discarded to those whom absorb massive amounts of sugar intake. Equally important, some information pertaining to the side effects of soda, sugar, and processed foods can cause extreme harm to the well being of one’s body. The Health Services at Columbia University state that “when you eat 100 grams of sugar, about as much sugar as you find in a 1 liter bottle of soda, your white blood cells are 40 percent less effective at killing germs.
This can cripple your immune system for up to 5 hours after eating sugar! ” According to Southern Botanicals “Sugar impacts your white blood cells by competing for space in those cells with Vitamin C. Linus Pauling did research in the 1970s to find out how the body uses Vitamin C. They discovered that white blood cells need Vitamin C to destroy bacteria and viruses. Sugar and Vitamin C are similar in their chemical structure. When you eat sugar, it directly competes for space in your immune cells with Vitamin C!
The more sugar in your system, the less Vitamin C can get into your white blood cells. ” Thus, preventing the immune system from eliminating any sickness, whether it’s something small, comparable to a sore throat, or to a larger illness such as the flu. Furthermore, in today’s society the term obesity is general knowledge. This term is often occupied by Americans, no matter their age category. Sugar is one of the larger factors in obesity, portion controls are taken out of context and the phrase “less is more” is suddenly forgotten.
As a public it is safe to assume that most people know that obesity may be a lack of self- control and or self-discipline. However, the majority of individuals will argue the statement of: ” it must run in the family” or “they just need extra help with being education about portion control. ” Now, with great repetition, the larger fraction of America has shown that giving up the product of sugar is as hard as attempting to give up nicotine. Now, Sugar is in fact, an extra stimulate and may become extremely additive in an everyday diet and lifestyle.
Sugar becomes more of a necessity upose to a want or just a sweet treat. “Studies over many years have pointed to sugar as, at the very least, an accomplice, if not the perp, behind many of the health ills of modern civilization. Obesity and diabetes are the obvious candidates caused by over-consumption of the sweet stuff. The obesity epidemic has been written about exhaustively for years, and obesity’s good friend, Type 2 diabetes, has increased threefold in the past three decades, coinciding with the explosion of sugary products” (Schwartz).
Moreover, the unpleasant side effects of sugar is not over yet. Sugar is linked to some of the very well-known diseases; Heart Disease, Obesity and Diabetes, increased risk of cardiovascular illness and diabetes in teenagers, High Blood Pressure, Fatty Liver Disease, Cardiovascular Health implications, and failure of brain function. The consumption of sugary foods, drinks, and sweets are not a subject to be taken lightly. Dr. Gary Null, is one of the nation’s most ambitious health advocates. He is the hosts of radio talks shows as well as television.
He has a PhD and has written numerous health related books. In September 2013, a bombshell report from Credit Suisse’s Research Institute brought into sharp focus the staggering health consequences of sugar on the health of Americans. The group revealed that approximately “30%–40% of health care expenditures in the USA go to help address issues that are closely tied to the excess consumption of sugar. ” The figures suggest that our national addiction to sugar runs us an incredible $1 trillion in healthcare costs each year.
The research and evidence based on the negative and life threatening effects of the massive intake of sugar are mind boggling. As has been noted, not only does sugar impact health concerns among all individuals, but it also has extreme ramifications on the economy and health care systems. Dr. Sanjay Gupta appearing on 60 Minutes featured the work of Dr. Robert Lustig, an endocrinologist from California who gained national attention after a lecture he gave titled “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” went viral in 2009.
Lustig’s research has investigated the connection between sugar consumption and the poor health of the American people. He has published twelve articles in peer-reviewed journals identifying sugar as a major factor in the epidemic of degenerative disease that now afflicts our country. The data compiled by Lustigclearly show how excessive sugar consumption plays a key role in the development of many types of cancer, obesity, type II diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease.
His research has led him to conclude that 75% of all diseases in America today are brought on by the American lifestyle and are entirely preventable”(Null). Naturally, there is a very unsettling side effect that comes along with inappropriate amounts of sugar. The awareness of this issue is poor, and not spoken about enough when compared to the obesity and or disease that sugar is linked to. This is the correlation between nutrition and depression. “Depression is more typically thought of as strictly biochemical-based or emotionally-rooted.
On the contrary, nutrition can play a key role in the onset as well as severity and duration of depression” (M. R. Asha,). The topic of self-control is a factor that involves numerous situations in life, but hardly does the thought of life threatening repercussions come to mind. “When we take a close look at the diet of depressed people, an interesting observation is that their nutrition is far from adequate. They make poor food choices and selecting foods that might actually contribute to depression. Recent evidence suggests a link between low levels of serotonin and suicide.
It is implicated that lower levels of this neurotransmitter can, in part, lead to an overall insensitivity to future consequences, triggering risky, impulsive and aggressive behaviors which may culminate in suicide, the ultimate act of inwardly directed impulsive aggression”( M. R. Asha,). Further adding, that UCLA has respect from the majority of the educational world. University of California, Los Angeles is known for some of their most amazing students and their accomplishments, for instances Mayim Bialik who holds her PhD in Neuroscience.
University of California, Los Angeles has 36 academy awards and is among the top 5 U. S hospitals and is number 1 in California. (UCLA homepage). Research has provided that “A new UCLA rat study is the first to show how a diet steadily high in fructose slows the brain, hampering memory and learning — and how omega-3 fatty acids can counteract the disruption. The peer-reviewed Journal of Physiology publishes the findings in its May 15 edition. “Our findings illustrate that what you eat affects how you think,” said Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, a professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a professor of integrative biology and physiology in the UCLA College of Letters and Science.
Eating a high-fructose diet over the long term alters your brain’s ability to learn and remember information. But adding omega-3 fatty acids to your meals can help minimize the damage. ” Sources of fructose in the Western diet include cane sugar (sucrose) and high-fructose corn syrup, an inexpensive liquid sweetener. The syrup is widely added to processed foods, including soft drinks, condiments, applesauce and baby food.
The average American consumes roughly 47 pounds of cane sugar and 35 pounds of high-fructose corn syrup per year, according to the U. S. Department of Agriculture(Schmidt). To conclude, the injurious and suicides of sugar overdosing, not only in sweet desserts, but other highly processed foods is extremely detrimental to everyone’s physical health and mental health. Sugar may begin as a delicious encounter, but it does in fact, contain addictive properties. Leading from immune system deficiency, the unhealthy reality of obesity, may invite disease, or even appeal to depression. The most beneficial favor for the body is to understand before eating. Do not allow sugar in any form to take over your life.