Aside from protein and fat, carbohydrate is one of the most important building blocks in order to maintain a healthy body. Carbohydrate will then be turned into a form of glucose or sugar for the body to utilize it. While sugar is a necessity for the body, overconsumption of it can also bring an array of health problems. Therefore, one should be wise when selecting healthy carbohydrates and limiting consumption of processed foods that are commonly high in sugar. On this week's journal, we will be explaining a few reasons why you should limit your sugar intake and prevent its adverse effect on your body. Read on!

1. Triggers bacteria imbalance in your gut

Consuming too much sugar may affect the balance between good bacteria and bad bacteria inside your gut. Aside from affecting your bowel function and metabolism, it can also impact your immunity and hormone production like serotonin. Some allergies and skin conditions like acne, eczema and psoriasis are also linked to the gut, hence treatments for these conditions often involve low sugar diet. This shows why gut health is very much emphasized on overall wellnesss, as healthy gut promotes healthy body.

2. Lowers your immunity

As a continuation from the previous pointer, immune levels are also depending on how healthy the gut is. When imbalances occur in the gut, immunity is also compromised, as it is the case if you're consuming too much sugar.

Research have shown that immune function decreases for at least 5 hours after consumption of sugar, as well as lowered effectiveness of white blood cells for up to 50 percent. Weakening of white blood cells surely hinders the body's ability to fight infections caused by bacteria and viruses, making you more prone to falling ill. Aside from that, overconsumption of sugar also depletes the body of other essential nutrients needed to build a strong immunity. Therefore, this finding should ring an alarm as we are currently in the middle of a pandemic and strengthening immunity is a priority to be taken care of.

3. Causes blood glucose imbalance

A diet high in sugar may lead to blood sugar spikes and elevation of serotonin levels in the brain. This can then lead to sugar crash, where a cycle of craving sugar and tendency to binge on it occur. Moreover, a development of this can further cause insulin resistance, which is a precursor to diabetes type 2.

4. Causes obesity

With certain lifestyles, overconsumption of sugar may lead to obesity. People with sedentary lifestyles are prone to this since they are not moving much and makes their calorie intake larger than the calories they actually burn by moving around and doing exercise. Sugar also affects insulin, as previously mentioned, which is the body's fat-storing hormone and stores these extra calories, affecting your body weight.

5. Makes one prone of osteoporosis and tooth decay

While added sugar tastes delicious for the tastebuds and are addictive, they actually have no apparent nutritional value. A diet high in sugar may cause deficiencies of essential minerals like zinc, sodium, potassium, magnesium and calcium from your body, thus accelerating tooth decay. A link between consuming sugar and osteoporosis is also found, as overconsumption of it in longer period of time may lead to increased calcium loss from the body which can weaken bones.

6. Triggers development of chronic illnesses

There's nothing good that comes out from overdoing things, including overconsumption of sugar. While this ingredient may be popular on food these days, there are also a lot of health risks involved.

For example, sugar triggers insulin resistance, which can lead to the development of diabetes type 2. Some risks from overconsuming sugar can also be seen in development of fatty liver, cancer, as well as Alzheimer.

7. Causes men to lose their mojo

Lastly, overconsumption of sugar can also affect men's health in a negative manner. For example, it can trigger estrogen production in men, which triggers fat to develop around the chest area. Moreover, poor blood sugar control may also cause microvascular damage, nerve damage, as well as erectile dysfunction.