The Online Edition of the Annandale High School Newspaper.

The A-Blast

The Online Edition of the Annandale High School Newspaper.

The A-Blast

The Online Edition of the Annandale High School Newspaper.

The A-Blast

The sins of sugar

As you bite into a big piece of a rich and creamy cake, all you can think about is how good it tastes. Although it does taste good,  the sugar inside of the cake may be causing harm to your body.
Sugar is known for its sweet taste and is used in most foods. Even though sugar tastes delicious, it does have a dangerous effect on your body. The most noticeable change sugar causes to your body is weight gain.

When refined sugar, which is the normal sugar used for cooking and sweeteners,  enters the body it causes the pancreas to produce an irregularly large amount of insulin. Too much insulin inside of your body can eventually cause hypoglycemia, insulin resistance and diabetes. Insulin causes your body to feel like its hungry all the time, even if you have just eaten. This is why sugar causes a large weight gain.

Another physical change sugar causes can be seen in your teeth. Sugar causes your teeth to rot, especially if it stays on your teeth for an extended period of time. If you do consume sugar, particularly soda and candy, make sure you brush your teeth right after.
Sugar also speeds up the aging process. When a specific part of the sugar molecule enters the body it combines with a protein found inside of our bodies.  This process is known as glycolisis. Since this causes new structures to be formed in your body,  the firmness of your body tissue decreases.

Inside of your body, when you consume sugar your white blood cell activity rate decreases by 50 percent for the next five hours. Decreasing your white blood cell activity rate causes your immune system to weaken, which means your body will not fight off bacteria as successfully.
Sugar can be a hard thing to get out of a diet, so start by just limiting the amount of sugar you eat everyday. You can also find substitutes for sugar when baking or for sweetening drinks such as Splenda or Equal.

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Although sugar is one of the toughest things to cut out of your life, when you do, your health improves drastically. So next time you see that cake, take a step back and think of the unwanted side affects sugar has on your body.

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The sins of sugar