While everyone knows that they can't base their entire diet on sugar, many fail to realize exactly how much sugar they're eating. No one is surprised to learn that a piece of cake or a cookie contains sugar, but it can also be found in salad dressings, yogurt, and many other “healthy” foods. Just in case you need to be reminded, here are seven reasons why you should cut back on sugar when living with multiple sclerosis.
1. Your body doesn't need half of it. Sugar is actually half glucose and half fructose. Glucose is easy for the body to process, but the only organ that knows what to do with fructose is the liver. All the liver can do with it is turn it into fat.
2. It increases bad cholesterol. As your liver turns that fructose into fat, your bloodstream deposits that fat inside your artery walls. This increases your cholesterol. As your cholesterol goes up, your risk for heart disease and heart attack also increases.
3. There are no nutrients in it. Sugar is nothing but glucose and fructose. There's nothing else in it your body needs. While everyone has heard that junk food is nothing but empty calories, it is important to realize that your body does not require sugar to survive. There are plenty of healthier sources of glucose, and you do not need fructose.
4. You can decrease your body's resistance to insulin. Insulin is supposed to help glucose find its way from the bloodstream and into cells. However, an abundance of glucose forces the body to produce too much insulin. This will make you less responsive to the insulin, and can lead to diabetes.
5. You can't get full by eating sugar. The hypothalamus tells you when you have eaten enough. It does this by looking for glucose in the bloodstream. Unfortunately, since sugar is half fructose, it takes a lot more sugar to get the sensation that you are full than it does by eating other foods.
6. Sugar can be addictive. Another problem with sugar is that it releases dopamine in your brain every time you eat it. This is the reason why it creates a sensation of pleasure whenever you eat something high in sugar. Unfortunately, a release of dopamine can also cause addictive behavior. In fact, many illegal drugs cause the same release of dopamine.
7. You can become resistant to leptin. Leptin is the hormone that is released by fat which tells the body to stop eating. Unfortunately, a diet that is high in sugar blocks the leptin in your body from working. As you consume more sugar, the problem gets worse. People who are obese actually have high amounts of leptin in their bloodstream, but it can't work because of the sugar.
For more information regarding diets recommended specifically for MS patients, refer to the MS – Living Symptom Free book.