Sugar, the name which tickles our taste buds as soon we hear it, without which the desserts are tasteless, lingers at all age. This savoury ingredient forms an important part of all the delicacies around the world. But let’s face the bitter truth (or must I say the “sweet” truth). Too much of sugar can lead to heart failure. Yes, it is true and it has been proved. A research conducted by University of Texas Health Science Centre at Houston has proved that consuming too much of sugar can greatly increase the risk of heart failure.
Glucose 6-phosphate (G6P) is a compound which builds up when people consume too much of sugar and starch. A single molecule of G6P can lead to improper functioning of the heart and could lead to severe stress to the heart. Around 5 million people suffer from various heart diseases in the US alone. Not only heart diseases, but obesity, too, are wide prevalent in the US.
The chronically high insulin and blood sugar levels are hard on vascular system and therefore increase the risk of heart disease. In addition to increased belly fat, metabolic syndrome also brings with it high triglycerides (fats circulating in the bloodstream), high blood pressure, lower HDL (the good cholesterol) and higher LDL (bad) cholesterol, high inflammation, and a long list of other chronic health conditions.
If scientists want to induce metabolic syndrome in lab animals, they simply feed them a diet high in sugar. Even when sugar comprises just 20% of calories it induces insulin resistance.
In humans, regularly consuming soft drinks, sweetened juices and bakery products are sufficient to increase the risk of metabolic syndrome and heart disease. Sugar has its own regulated path in our bodies but when the consumption becomes excessive, these pathways become unregulated. Your body becomes more effective in absorbing sugar as you consume more and more of it and causes damage. But the good news is even if you take a short sabbatical from sugar consumption it will cause your body to be less reactive to it.
Here we saw how too much of sugar can hazardously affect your heart and body. Researchers have found drugs like rapamycin and metformin which can block the signalling of G6P and improve cardiac power but the treatment is difficult and there has been no new development in the past 20 years. So the only way out of this sweet trap is to control your consumption of sugar and work out daily. A 30 minutes cardio daily can be helpful.
