13 reasons why cutting down on sugar can change your life

Many of us associate sugar with treats. Being obedient or scoring top marks in school meant being treated to a bar of your favorite chocolate, religious festivals and key occasions were always celebrated with family, a bowl of umm ali or chocolate cake. Feeling sad after a fight with a friend? Reach for a quick fix of chocolate or a bowl of ice cream. From childhood to becoming an adult, sugar has truly been an integral part of our journey. We grew up believing it was nice, but is sugar really good for us?

Sugar is a fundamental molecule in biology and human bodies need sugar as it makes up the backbone of our DNA. It is an important source of food energy. During digestion, all food carbohydrates (starches and sugars) break down into single molecule sugars. These sugars are absorbed from the intestine into the blood stream and travel to the cells, where they are used to provide energy for cellular functions.

If sugar is essential for cellular function then why are we told it’s bad for our health? “Unfortunately, refined or table sugar makes up a large part of our diet these days,” explains Dr Wafaa Ayesh, Director of Clinical Nutrition, DHA. “It adds excess calories and displaces other healthy foods in our diet. Too much sugar can cause other deleterious effects such as increased insulin levels, promotes inflammation, causes tooth decay, suppresses the immune system and results in weight gain, which in turn causes an array of health issues.”

If you are looking to take care of your body and lose some weight, reducing the intake of refined sugar in the diet can directly lead to weight loss, helps normalise blood sugar, prevents insulin resistance, gives you more energy and keeps you fuller for longer, advises Dr Wafaa. 

Benjamin Atkins, a 31-year-old British expat who is a Deputy Head Teacher at Sunmarke School, JVT, went down from size XXL to size L in less than six weeks by removing fizzy drinks, chocolates and the two spoons of sugar in his tea. “I have a baby due in 2 weeks and hate exercising. I am not a gym fan so when I read that diet accounts for 70 per cent of your weight loss programme, I thought this was a good place to start. I decided to tackle my eating habits with the mentality that this is not a diet but healthy choices I am making for me.”

Atkins also replaced sandwiches with salads, started drinking more water, stopped eating fast food and removed sugar from his diet. He invested in new scales, which he linked to his iPhone and plotted a graph to visually track his weight loss journey. He stopped accepting food at work meetings as a lot of this was junk. “Being conscious of what you put in your mouth does not mean you stop enjoying eating out,” explains Atkins, who is chasing a new 10kg weight-loss goal. “If I go to brunch tomorrow, I will choose my food wisely and pick things I enjoy eating.” 

You can run from sugar but you cannot hide from it as sugar is not just in unhealthy snacks or fizzy drinks, it is everywhere. Vegetables such as beets, carrots, onions and many others contain sugar; these vegetables are full of fibre and a good source of vitamins and minerals. Eating fruits reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer and yet, a lot of healthy fruits such as strawberries, blueberries, bananas, mangoes and pineapples are high in sugar. 

“A few years back I cut sugar off completely from my diet and today I still pay the price,” says 36-year-old Lebanese resident Rania Badawi Sheikh. “My thyroid and hormones got messed up and metabolism crashed. Later I learned that sugar when taken in certain quantities and at a certain times, it can have a healing effect such as lowering cortisol levels. High cortisol releases excess oestrogen and no woman wants excess oestrogen in her body, especially when she is trying to conceive.” 

Dr Wafaa says, “I would not suggest eliminating sugar completely from your diet. People on the high end of the sugar consumption spectrum show addict-like withdrawal symptoms including anxiety, restlessness and even depression.” 
Since natural sugar is essential to the body and necessary for providing energy, it is advisable to for those cutting down to replace excess refined sugar in the diet with natural sugars such as glucose, fructose and lactose, which are naturally present in fruits, milks and products such as cereals and honey.

Ten-year-old Mitchell Deed from Australia was a total sugarholic who was struggling with paying attention in school. His teachers noted that he was sleepy at the start of the day and had low-energy patches so called in his mum Carolyn for a chat. They suggested revamping Mitchell’s diet and lifestyle choices. 
While Carolyn was deciding on ways to make small changes, she and her son caught an Australian documentary.

The film was an incredibly eye-opening documentary for Carolyn and Mitchell as it focused not only on sweets or fast food, junk and the obvious sugars in processed food but also the sugar found in items that can be low fat or are not as obviously drenched in sugar — cook-in sauces, pasta sauce, juices, yogurts, condiments, sauces, breads and more. 

“After watching the film together my mum and I started looking on the packets of the food in the fridge and the cupboard,” says Mitchell. “We then measured out in cups how much sugar I was having in my school lunch with a packet juice (six sugar teaspoons in a small box) bread (four teaspoons), pasta with red sauce (four teaspoons) and Madeline cakes, with 32 grams of sugar per serving.”

In the two weeks since he changed his diet, not only has Mitchell become the sugar police in his family but he also feels he has more energy and plays more sport and he is not tired all the time. 

“I don’t miss having sweets because when I had sweets I thought they gave me energy but then it makes you feel worse. So now if I have a sweet — as I did this week as my only sugary treat — it makes me feel really lethargic and tired,” explains reformed sugarholic Mitchell.

From cardiovascular disease to diabetes, dental well-being, sleep quality and memory, cutting down on refined sugar is healthy in many ways

Risk of heart disease Added sugar chronically raises insulin levels, which activates the sympathetic nervous system, increasing blood pressure and heart rate, and over a period of time the pressure on the 
heart can lead to coronary heart disease 

Fatty liver Eating too much sugar with limited or no exercise will force the liver to convert the fructose into fat, which can lead to a fatty liver. Eventually the pancreas will be unable to secrete sufficient insulin to drive blood glucose into cells and that’s when people are diagnosed with diabetes.

Insulin resistance When people eat a lot of sugar, it can cause resistance to the hormone insulin, which can lead to obesity or metabolic syndrome.

Type 2 diabetes Because of the harmful effects of sugar on the function of insulin, it is a leading driver of type 2 diabetes, which can cause blindness, amputation or severely decreased quality of life.

Aids the growth of cancer cells There is considerable evidence that sugar, due to its harmful effects on metabolism, can contribute 
to the growth of cancer.

Promotes weight gain Eating food with high fructose content does not cause satiety in the brain or lower the hunger hormone ghrelin and over a period of time it leads to increased calorie intake, which if not burned with exercise leads 
to weight gain or obesity.

No essential nutrients Added sugars such as sucrose and high fructose corn syrup contain a bunch of calories but no essential nutrients. 

Bad for your teeth Sugar provides easily digestible energy for the bad bacteria in the mouth and this leads to tooth decay.

Addictive Sugar causes a large release of dopamine in the brain hence it causes addiction in a lot of people and when sugar is taken away people suffer from withdrawal symptoms, anxiety and depression. 

Aids inflammation and acne Sugar aids inflammation and acts as an acne trigger. Reducing sugar intake dramatically reduces the breakout of acne in mid-life.
 
Disturbing sleep cycle The crash from a sugar high leaves people with a mid-day sluggishness and a desperate need for a nap, which interferes with the sleeping cycle. Giving up sugar allows you to be alert in the day and sleep well in the night.

Impacts memory A diet high in sugar hinders learning and memory. Over time, eating lots of sugar may actually damage communication among brain cells leading to memory loss.

Weight loss Replacing sugary calories with other food groups will reduce the amount of calories eaten, for example trading a sugary granola bar for a handful of almonds and over a period of time will help drop off the pounds.