By Brian Farley, Molecular and Cell Biology Postdoc, UC Berkeley
Is Sugar Really a Poison?Sugar isn’t poison, but it definitely isn’t good for you. One sugar in particular (glucose) lies at the core of virtually all of the metabolic reactions going on in your body because it is the primary molecule from which your body “knows” how to get energy. Most of what you eat that’s going to be consumed for energy gets converted into glucose before it gets metabolized.
Given its prominent role in metabolic energy pathways, your body cares a lot about how much glucose is present in both cells and the blood. It has multiple overlapping surveillance pathways that constantly monitor how much glucose is present, and mechanisms for altering its concentration if necessary. Your body has a finely tuned concentration of blood glucose (blood sugar) that it prefers, and it will go to great lengths to keep it there.
Most non-processed foods that we eat force the body and metabolism to “work” (in a sense) for its sugar. Complex carbohydrates have to be broken down into their constituent parts, fats have to be metabolized into sugars, and non-digestible fiber has to be slowly broken down to grant your digestive system access to molecules that will themselves be slowly converted into sugar. In other words, most foods lead to gradual increases in blood sugar because they slowly release sugars.
Foods containing added refined sugars, on the other hand, release those sugars all at once. Your body responds to this rapid increase in blood sugar by making and secreting insulin, which tells cells that there’s an excess of sugar in the blood and that any cells that can should start hoarding and warehousing sugar while it’s around. High levels of insulin essentially instruct your body to start using sugar to make fat. Chronic high levels of insulin will eventually cause your cells to start ignoring it, which causes your body to make and secrete even more insulin; this is the downward spiral that eventually leads to diabetes.
Readily available sugar strongly interferes with your body’s ability to regulate itself, which is why it’s so much more problematic than most other things you can eat. However, our palates LOVE sugar, which is why industrial food producers add it to almost everything. Every time you eat something processed, you’re probably also unwittingly consuming added sugars that interfere with the delicate process of balancing your blood sugar. It’s not a problem if it’s occasional, but if you’re anything like the typical American, it’s way more than occasional!
https://www.quora.com/Is-sugar-really-a-poison/answer/Brian-Farley-3
