The World Health Organization (WHO) determined that the daily consumption of sugar should significantly decrease. Adults and children should consume a maximum of 50 g per day or ideally 25 g per day, which means approximately 2 tablespoons OR 6 teaspoons not full of sugar. If sugar is an important source of energy, Why is it bad for your health?
There are several types of sugar: sucrose, the best known and commonly used in our daily lives; fructose, which is in fruits; and lactose, which comes from milk. The WHO recommendation does not include sugar from fruit or milk in the daily bill.
When we eat these sugars, digestion turns them into glucose, the cells' main fuel. Our brain, for example, doesn't live more than 5 minutes without glucose. It's your essential fuel. When glucose is lacking in the blood, we present the unpleasant symptoms of hypoglycemia: shivering, cold sweat, dizziness, nausea, limpness, feeling faint, or even fainting itself. Newborns without glucose may even have a seizure.
Sugar, therefore, is essential to life. So the question is again worth asking: why does the WHO tell us to restrict sugar to a minimum amount?
Simple as that: because it's not the sugar that's bad for you. It is the amount we eat that, in excess, harms our health. The average sugar intake of Brazilians is around 150 g per day. This is too much. As we have already said, the ideal is below 50 g per day, that is, one-third of the average consumption. Ideally, we should consume one-sixth of the average daily intake, equivalent to 25 g.
Let's understand the harmful effects of excess sugar on the body.
We eat cake, for example. Sugar is digested, turns into glucose, which in turn enters the bloodstream. Very good. But it's no use circulating through the blood; it needs to enter the cells to act. Who "opens the doors" of cells for glucose is insulin, a hormone released by the pancreas.
Too much glucose intake, too much insulin production. Too much glucose, too much insulin. Result: we increase excessively and unnecessarily in weight, which comprises several body functions, and, more than that, we start to develop a certain resistance to insulin.
So we need more and more insulin to store the glucose that keeps coming in as we continue to consume it. Eventually, the chance of developing diabetes is very high. Obesity and diabetes go hand in hand with several other morbidities, such as hypertension and cardiovascular disease, which, together, deteriorate the quality of life of all people.
Therefore, the WHO is absolutely right in determining the reduction of the daily intake of sugar, for all people, from small children.
Be aware that the problem is not the sugar we put in coffee, milk, or cake. It is the sugar that we DON'T see, which is embedded in foods such as pasta, bread, cookies, ketchup, soft drinks, and many others. Pay attention to the labels and do the math.
Understand the effects of sugar on the body and why it is important to reduce consumption
Know what happens to our body when we ingest it, what types and quantities are suitable for consumption and why it is necessary to be careful with it
When Indians, in the 5th century, solidified the sugarcane juice and transformed it into granular crystals, "Sakara" ( coarse sand in Sanskrit ) was born, sugar as we know it. A step with no return was taken by humanity: the ingredient conquered the world too, 1,600 years later, have consumption in the spotlight, especially in places like Brazil, the fifth most obese country in the world. This position was achieved, among other factors, by the increased intake of sugar, which is now present in almost all our meals (although we didn't even realize it).
In difficult times, it's sweets that we throw at ourselves. Science knows that sadness, depression, and stress directly influence our diet. At a time of epidemic anxiety, the effects have come to balance. Doctors call this "emotional hunger": when food not only kills hunger, it lifts our spirits.
Highly palatable foods with sugar come to influence these moments of emotional loss. Eating chocolate and sweets has great appeal. It's tastier and, therefore, pleasurable — says psychiatrist Jose Carlos Appolinario, coordinator of the eating disorders group at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and member of the Brazilian Psychiatric Association (ABP).
Another factor contributing to the high rate of obesity in Brazil is that our meals are increasingly artificial. Rice and beans with steak and natural juice lost space to industrialized foods, such as ready-to-eat sauces, lasagna, pizza, nuggets, and spices.
In common, such processed and semi-prepared foods contain a lot of salt, chemical additives, and sugar. That's right: industrialized salty foods also have sugar added to thicken the food, extend shelf life, and give a visual shine.
In any food, there is sugar. Even the carbohydrate in a snack quickly converts to glucose (the name given to the sugar broken down inside the cell). Absorption is speedy, which requires a very rapid release of insulin from the pancreas, which will peak and fall. Then you get more cravings for sugar - explains Balduino Tschiedel, member of the Brazilian Society of Endocrinology and Metabolism (SBEM).
To warn about the risks of sugar, there is a proposal by the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) to change food labels — the idea is to display very clearly on the packaging, in a black triangle, warnings such as "high in sugar," "high in sodium" and "contains trans fat." The Brazilian Food Industry Association (ABIA) is against it.
Awareness occurs because, in excess, sugar favors the emergence of non-communicable diseases, the main cause of death in the world. These are the problems everyone over 50 starts to worry about: heart disease, cancer, diabetes, kidney disease, metabolic syndrome (high blood pressure, overweight), and mental issues.
In 2012, they were responsible for 68% of the 56 million deaths on the planet, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
WHO recommends that the ideal sugar intake be no more than 10% of daily calories (12 teaspoons of sugar, or 50g). This account does not include natural fruit and milk sugar but table sugar for coffee and soft drinks, honey, and processed foods. Just a 350ml can of cola soda, for example, has 37g of sugar.
The problem is that, according to the Ministry of Health, Brazilians consume 50% more sugar than recommended. We were supposed to take 12 teaspoons a day, but we are 18. Of that total, more than half we put in food ourselves. No wonder almost 20% of Brazilians are obese.
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