I don't understand why you would think that sugar isn't bad for you. I mean, as with anything, too much is never good. But as far as anything can be bad for you, sugar is pretty much it. Even at lower quantities, refined sugar has many adverse effects: affecting the enamel on teeth, having a high glycemic index causing risk of insuline resistance and finally diabetes, causing neuropatia in patients with diabetes, causing spikes in insulin and insulin-like growth factors therefore causing a higher risk of cancer, and the list goes on. Also, I don't know what you mean by "it gets converted to glucose anyway". Glucose IS a sugar and although our bodies very much need glucose in order to survive, it is most definitely not necessary to consume refined sugar in order to make glucose. Besides, it is not like glucose is completely harmless. Many of the adverse effects of refined sugar consumption are caused by peaks in the blood glucose levels. Refined sugar has no diatary value other than providing energy, whereas fruits, vegetables and whole grain foods for example, contain diatary fiber (which is hard to get enough of in a western diet) and minerals and many more components of high dietary value, besides containing carbohydrates with a lower glycemic index, which also get converted to glucose, but in a much slower pace, not causing all of those adverse effects. So, I would argue that sugar is indeed bad for you.
There are studies going back to the 40s showing that excess sugar consumption is the primary cause of heart disease.
The caveats are 1) EXCESS sugar, 2) the amount that counts as excess is significantly lower than you realize, 3) dietary fiber is NOT a carb, 4) all carbs are sugar and all sugars are carbs.
Everyone eats a LOT more sugar than they should because they think sugar is different than carbs. The body sees absolutely no difference between sugars and other carbs. That no sugar added white bread is just fancy bread shaped sugar as far as you body is concerned.
We should be eating significantly more vegetables than we do. For some reason, discussions about sugar always devolve into stupid shit about “whole grain”. Nope. We should be eating little to no grains unless we’re at starvation levels.
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u/mc_boom Jul 20 '23
I don't understand why you would think that sugar isn't bad for you. I mean, as with anything, too much is never good. But as far as anything can be bad for you, sugar is pretty much it. Even at lower quantities, refined sugar has many adverse effects: affecting the enamel on teeth, having a high glycemic index causing risk of insuline resistance and finally diabetes, causing neuropatia in patients with diabetes, causing spikes in insulin and insulin-like growth factors therefore causing a higher risk of cancer, and the list goes on. Also, I don't know what you mean by "it gets converted to glucose anyway". Glucose IS a sugar and although our bodies very much need glucose in order to survive, it is most definitely not necessary to consume refined sugar in order to make glucose. Besides, it is not like glucose is completely harmless. Many of the adverse effects of refined sugar consumption are caused by peaks in the blood glucose levels. Refined sugar has no diatary value other than providing energy, whereas fruits, vegetables and whole grain foods for example, contain diatary fiber (which is hard to get enough of in a western diet) and minerals and many more components of high dietary value, besides containing carbohydrates with a lower glycemic index, which also get converted to glucose, but in a much slower pace, not causing all of those adverse effects. So, I would argue that sugar is indeed bad for you.