Our love for sweets has been a complex source of pain and pleasure. From thediscovery of sugarcane in New Guinea in 8000 B.C. tothe present, sweet snacks can be found everywhere. They’re tasty, quite easy to buy, and convenient to eat.

Online businesses, restaurants, vending machines, cafeterias, and even gas stations are all good places to look for your favorite sweets. The fact that such a wide variety of sugary food is available at one’s fingertips daily makes it even more likely that you will consume these addicting treats.

From candies and chocolates to pastries and desserts, these food items further enhance the sugary flavor and appeal. Fortunately, some of these goods are available in small amounts, allowing people to eat just a small portion of what they want without feeling guilty later.

Still, many individuals are addicted to sweets and are constantly drawn to them. However, too much sugar can be harmful to the body. It’s common knowledge that eating sweets can lead to weight gain and the risk of diabetes.

As such, those who are addicted to sweets should exercise caution. Read on to learn about the health concerns that consuming too many sweets can cause, as well as the simple strategies to overcome this addiction.

5 Important Reminders for People with Sweet Tooth

1. It can lead to unhealthy weight gain

Obesity rates are rising worldwide, and added sugar, particularly from sugar-sweetened beverages, is considered a major contributor. Beverages loaded with sugar such as sodas, juices, and sweet teas are found to be high in fructose, a kind of simple sugar.

Too much intake of this type of sugar found in starchy foods can boost your hunger and desire for food more than glucose. Excessive fructose consumption can also lead to leptin resistance, a hormone that controls hunger and informs your body when it’s time to quit eating.

Simply put, sugary beverages do not satisfy hunger, making you consume more of them. This may result in weight gain. Drinking plenty of sugar-sweetened beverages has also been linked to an increase in visceral fat, a type of deep abdominal fat linked to diabetes and heart disease.

1. It’s a risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes

Over the last decades, the global prevalence of diabetes has more than doubled. Again, excessive sugar consumption and the risk of diabetes usually go together. Obesity, which is frequently induced by consuming too much sugar, is identified as the leading cause of diabetes.

In addition, long-term high-sugar consumption leads to insulin resistance, a hormone produced by the pancreas that controls blood sugar levels. Insulin resistance raises blood sugar levels, putting you at a higher risk of diabetes. If youlove drinking soda, youmay find it more difficult to control your diabetes, according to other studies.

• It can increase your risk of developing cancer
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Excessive sugar intake may also increase your risk of developing certain malignancies. To begin with, a diet high in sugary foods and beverages can lead to obesity, which increases your cancer risk dramatically.

Additionally, high-sugar diets create inflammation in the body and may lead to insulin resistance, both of which raise the risk of cancer.

Research involving almost 430,000 adults found that consuming more sugar than is ideal was linked to an increased risk of esophageal cancer, pleural cancer, and small intestine cancer.  Another study discovered that women who ate sweet buns and cookies more than three times per week were 1.42 times more likely to develop endometrial cancer than women who ate these foods less than 0.5 times per week.

• It can result in a fatty liver

Consuming too much fructose has long been associated with an increased risk of fatty liverpartly because fructose is exclusively broken down by the liver unlike glucose and other sugars, which are taken up by various cells throughout the body. Fructose is turned into energy or stored as glycogen in the liver.

However, the livercan only store so much glycogen and the excess is converted into fat. A surplus of sugar in the form of fructose overwhelms your liver, causing non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a disorder marked by too much fat buildup in the liver.

Individuals who consumed sugar-sweetened beverages regularly had a 56% higher risk of getting NAFLD than those who did not, according to a research of over 5,900 adults.

• It can predispose you to heart disease

High-sugar diets have been linked to a higher risk of a variety of ailments, including heart disease, the leading cause of mortality worldwide as per the National Center for Health Statistics.

Obesity, inflammation, excessive triglyceride, blood sugar, and blood pressure levels are all risk factors for heart disease, according to research.

Moreover, excessive sugar consumption, particularly from sugar-sweetened beverages, has been related to atherosclerosis, a disease characterized by fatty, artery-clogging plaques.

According to a study of over 30,000 participants, those who consumed 17% to 21% of their calories from added sugar had a 38% higher chance of dying from heart disease than those who consumed only 8% of their calories from added sugar.

Wrapping Up

Too much sugar in your diet can have several detrimental health consequences. Excessive consumption of sweetened foods and beverages can result in weight gain, fatty liver, and an increased risk of heart disease, among other things.

As such, you must minimize your sugar intake as much as you can. Keep track of how much sugar you put in your food or drinks and stick to eating a healthy diet.