Many of us have heard about the dangers of sugar and try to give it up or replace it with a healthier product. In comes the next best thing — fructose. It can be added to drinks and pretty much any other dishes that you want to sweeten up. But is it really a healthier option? Maybe regular sugar still has some fight in it. Let’s dig in!
Sugar is absorbed by the body very quickly after entering the bloodstream. It is usually broken down into glucose and fructose: one’s good for the mind, and the other one nourishes the body. Glucose is essential for the correct functioning of our brain and helps the metabolic processes of the body. Lack of glucose can negatively affect the functioning of the nervous system, mental abilities and can dampen your immunity. If you’re under a lot of physical and mental stress, you should not exclude sugar from your daily diet.
Moderate consumption of sugar allows you to fight off depression and certain nervous disorders. However, if you go overboard with the feel-good snacks, be prepared to face the consequences, namely, excess weight. Eating all those cupcakes, muffins, and candies will make it hard for your body to cope with such an energy bomb, forcing it to distribute the excess sugar throughout the cells. After that, the glucose levels normalize, and the cycle repeats.
Excess sugar can lead to many unpleasant health conditions, the worst of which would probably be diabetes. Sugar also has a negative effect on teeth and can cause tooth decay. Just in general, consuming too much sugar is bad for you, and in some cases, it is better to stay away from putting more glucose into your body. And yet, many adults and children would munch on sweets uncontrollably to cheer themselves up.
So should you replace regular sugar with fructose? Is that’s an easy “yes”? Fructose, aka fruit sugar, is found in almost all fruits, berries, and honey. The caloric value of fructose is pretty much the same as refined sugar, but at the same time, it is sweeter. However, you need to understand that fructose does not satiate our hunger, so we can consume more fructose sweets than is necessary, which in turn will also lead to obesity.
Fructose is not that bad for the teeth. However, it is broken down very slowly and produces no insulin. As a result, a person may experience carbohydrate starvation. You can solve the problem by eating a small piece of chocolate, but fruits and berries will not help in this case.
Who can really benefit from consuming fructose are people with diabetes. But for a healthy body, it is quite detrimental. Fructose, like regular sugar, can cause excess weight, but that’s not all. Since you don’t feel full after consuming sweets made with fructose, your body thinks you need to eat more. This type of sweetener causes significant liver damage, dysfunctional disorders, and insulin resistance in large quantities.
So, in the end, both fructose and glucose have their good and bad sides, but the main takeaway from this non-scientific article is that you should consume everything in moderation, and you’ll be just fine!