Food & TravelHealth & Wellness

How Sugar Affects Your Heart

There’s nothing quite like enjoying something sweet, but consuming too much sugar can be devastating for your health.

You hear a lot about the effects of sugar on our health nowadays, especially when it comes to added sugar. You can even find it in products that you wouldn’t expect to have any, such as ketchup, bread, or barbecue sauce. But is sugar that dangerous for our health and if so, how should we ensure we can avoid it?

Sugar Is Everywhere

If you think you’ll be fine since you aren’t crazy about desserts and sweets, you still may be consuming too much sugar from other products. For example, one can of soda could be enough to satisfy the daily recommended dose of sugar. You shouldn’t exceed 25 grams of sugar for women and 37.5 grams for men. Even if you avoid the obviously sweet foods, you should be aware that even seemingly healthier options, such as fruit yogurt, have a lot of sugar. Start reading labels on products, and you may be surprised at the amount of sugar in some of them.

What’s So Dangerous About Sugar?

As a carbohydrate, sugar can cause an increase in the levels of triglyceride in your blood. Since triglycerides are fat, it’s easy to imagine what kind of adverse effects that can have on your arteries. What’s more, higher than recommended sugar intake has also been linked with lowering the levels of good cholesterol (HDL), increasing blood pressure, and causing various other cardiovascular diseases. This effect is due to increased body weight and fat, which is one of the leading causes of cardiovascular diseases.

How to Avoid Sugar

If you want to cut back on sugar in your diet, it’s important to pay attention to what you’re eating. As we recommended earlier, start reading the labels on all of the processed or packaged food you buy. Eat as much fresh food as possible and prepare your own meals. A diet rich in vegetables, fat, and protein will naturally lower your carbohydrate intake.

Unfortunately, sugar is addictive and challenging to give up. To not to be overwhelmed, start giving up things one by one, beginning with the biggest offenders, like soda. After a period of going without sweetener, the things you used to love might taste unpleasant for you.

Keeping Your Cholesterol Low

Avoiding sugar isn’t the only thing you can do to keep your cholesterol low and your heart healthy. A natural fiber supplement can help you keep those aspects of your health under control. Eating healthy and supplementing well are among the best health practices you can adopt. Those are the right decisions that make the difference between wellness and illness in life.

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