There is something more addictive than cigarettes and alcohol in your diet and you probably don’t even know about it. Its SUGAR.

Surprise Surprise!!!!!

And I am not talking about the sugar you add to your tea or coffee, but also the sugar that is in processed food like Ketchup, Mayonnaise, and even in healthy food like cornflakes.

Yes Cornflakes,

A research article in Times of India showed the results of some research done on popular Corn Flakes and Muesli brands. The brands included Kellogg, Bagrry’s, and Good earth. The research found these brands have more than double the sugar prescribed. According to the European Regulation on Health and Nutritional Claims (ERHNC), “sugar content higher than 12.5 gm per 100 gm is considered to be high’. All variants in the study were found to be exceptionally high’ in sugar. And not even a single product had printed the sugar content on its packet. ” For more on cornflakes please read this article we wrote earlier on the website.

I have personally started experiencing the addiction and control that sugar has on you. Since the lockdown, to counter the drop in energies while working from home, I had been regularly consuming Cornflakes and Musli, little realizing that it spiked my sugar levels leading to mood swings, headaches (migraine in my case) and a general feeling of low spirits. I was consuming a packet of cream biscuits regularly and I gained around 10 kilograms during this time. All this happened while I was still working out and aware of my consumption.

It took me until the end of June to figure out what was going. Since July 2020 I have cut out on any sugar in the diet. I drink Black coffee or green tea. I have swapped out sweets and biscuits with fruit. I know these are early days but I already see an effect on my energy, moods and overall general wellbeing.

So why is sugar so dangerous? Here are some of the reasons from my experience as a doctor and some research that has been publicly released globally.

1. Sugar is a dumb substance. It has no nutritional value. Any sugar that you need can be made by the body from fruits and dairy products. These are naturally occurring sugars and give you fiber, vitamins, and proteins in addition to the sugar.
2. Weight gain is an apparent downside to sugar. Sugar disruption the Leptin cycle in the body. Leptin is a hormone that regulates the hunger cycles in the body, any disruption in the Leptin cycle can cause weight gain and hunger pangs. There has been some study on this topic, please read here for more details.
3. Insulin resistance is another reaction to high sugar diets. There is a myth in India that sugar causes diabetes. While sugar does not cause diabetes, but high levels of sugar in the bloodstream leads insulin coming out to regulate sugar, and this causes insulin to be less effective over a period of time leading to prediabetic conditions.
4. Last but not the least sugars are also linked to higher triglycerides level in the body leading to heart attacks.

So what I can recommend you is to cut the added sugar from the diet. Also, please don’t switch to Honey or Jaggery as the effect is the same. Like the rules for smoking cessation or alcohol cut out, you need to brutally cut out the sugar, otherwise it will creep back in one spoon at a time.

Please also keep the following in mind

1. Exercise daily, if you can’t take out 30-40 minutes for exercise you are doomed and will be experiencing high medical costs after 45
2. Eat only homemade food.
3. Check the added sugar quantity before buying anything from the market
4. Load your diet with fruits and vegetables.

Wishing you all a safe reading and better health this year.