Why Sugar is Toxic

Refined sugar, or sucrose, has absolutely zero going for it because it’s been stripped of all vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that our bodies need to thrive and survive. That’s why we call junk foods “empty calories”—there’s nothing in them to help your body keep its organs, tissues, and cells humming along the way they should.

Here’s what happens when you open wide and shovel sugary foods into your mouth:
First, your body screams, “Oh, no! I’ve just been fed pure, refined carbohydrates. Doesn’t she know I can’t process that unless vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients are present? Doesn’t she or he know I can only metabolize the ‘good’ carbs found in nature’s plants?”

After your body recovers from “sugar shock,” its balancing defenses go into action. There are several ways your body deals with a sugar rush.

1. Tapping Mineral Reserves: The body taps our reserves of minerals, like sodium, potassium, and magnesium, to replace the empty calories. If your reserves are already low from a diet high in empty carbs and low in vegetables, stripping away what little life forces you have left is bad news. Doing so will zap your energy and weaken the defenses that work to keep disease away, which means your organs can’t stay in tip-top shape.

2. Calcium Stripping: Daily high sugar intake can lead to an overly acidic body. To combat that, your body will try to balance your acid/alkaline factor by stripping calcium from your bones and teeth, which can lead to osteoporosis and arthritis.

3. Obesity: One of the organs most affected by your sugar intake is your liver. That’s because the liver is where excess sugar in the form of glucose is initially stored. When you eat refined sugar everyday, your liver will eventually be filled to the brim with glucose. When that happens, the excess glucose is sent back into the bloodstream in the form of fatty acids. Guess where those end up—on your buttocks, belly, breasts, and hips! Now, combine too much sugar with too many starchy, refined carbohydrates (pasta, rice, chips, pretzels, etc.), and you’ve got a recipe for obesity—and heart disease.

4. Impaired Organ Function: After your liver has filled up your inactive body parts (belly, hips, buttocks, and breasts), those fatty acids have to go somewhere else, so your body divvies them up between your heart and kidneys. Eventually your heart and kidneys slow down and the tissues degenerate and turn to fat. Now your body is in real trouble! You’ll have trouble with high blood pressure, a compromised immune system, and even impaired brain function.

5. Toxic Metabolite: Because your body can’t metabolize bad carbs, something called “toxic metabolite” results. That’s when pyruvic acid accumulates in the brain and nervous system, and sugars that have been transformed into alien carbon atoms settle in your red blood cells. Now your red blood cells can’t breathe properly, causing some of them to die off and eventually leading to degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s.

6. Dull Brain: Even in the short term, your brain is affected by sugar. In fact, you’ll feel the effects right away. Sugar dulls your brain, so you’ll feel sleepy. You’ll probably also find yourself forgetting things or having trouble making simple calculations. That’s because the brain needs glutamic acid to function properly. B vitamins help glutamatic acid, a vital compound found in many vegetables; divide the brain’s stop-go responses. Unfortunately, eating refined sugar daily kills off the symbiotic, or “good,” bacteria living in your intestines, and those bacteria are responsible for producing extra B vitamins.

Scared yet? I know I was!