How Can Sugar Directly Impact The Performance Of Your Heart!

If you’ve been cutting down on sugar to make your waistline thinner, you should probably cut it down for many more reasons. A study in 2014 conducted in the USA put across an alarming fact that a high-sugar diet could result in death from heart disease even if you’re not obese. 

For example, if in your daily diet, there’s a 25 percent calorie intake of just added sugar, you put yourself at risk of dying of heart-related diseases twice as much as compared to just 10 percent of sugar from total calories.

If you’re serious about your health and well-being, now is the time to cut down on sugar methodically as we’ll be showing you how can sugar has an alarming equation with heart-related diseases. Here are some of the key issues happening to the heart due to a high added sugar intake.

What are the risks of consuming excessive sugar?

• Increases chances of type 2 diabetes, further increasing the risk of attracting heart disease and heart failure due to strokes or heart attacks.

• The alarming increase in blood sugar levels, increasing the risk of obesity and cardiovascular diseases.

• Putting a halt to triglycerides (the fat in the blood tied with heart-related diseases) from breaking down. 

• Decreases HDL cholesterol (Good cholesterol) and increases LDL, i.e., the bad cholesterol. Ideally, your HDL levels should always supersede the levels of LDL to avoid cardiovascular diseases. 

• Increases the level of blood pressure by alarming gatherings of sodium within the body.

Where is sugar hidden in your diet? 

Sugar is not just the white, addictive powder you come across daily but is also added to most processed foods that you might just keep buying off from the supermarket. Americans are known to consume alarming levels of sugar daily.

Refined sugar is known to be found in all the sweets that might occupy your pantry. From your favorite yogurt to your ketchup to your salad dressings, it’s like air, it’s everywhere but hidden in disguise.

Americans are known to consume nearly 20 teaspoons of sugar per day, which equates to 66 pounds of sugar in a year, which is a recipe for disaster since it precedes the prescribed amount allowed for human beings. 

If you wish to avoid getting bed-ridden due to any heart-related issues due to sugar intake, it’s high time you control how to limit your sugar intake. Here’s how you can do it. 

Steps to control your sugar intake:

• When you control your sugar intake, you’re not just toning down the chances of attracting heart diseases, but also keep your overall health in check. The FDA, i.e., the Food and Drug Administration body, says that sugar shouldn’t be taken more than 10 percent of the daily intake of calories. That is roughly based on a diet of 2000 calories per day. How to do it?

Read below: 

• When you buy any product that is not fresh like fruits and vegetables, always read the sugar levels on the product. Sugar may be in the form of sucrose, malt, agave, brown rice syrup, etc.

Mostly, all processed foods have added sugar in it, so it’s better to avoid buying processed foods in excess. Instead, you can substitute that by consuming more fruits and vegetables that will naturally tone down your sugar intake. 

Cut down on sugar-based drinks:

If you’re always addicted to drinks like Coke and any form of carbonated soda, now’s the time to think twice before gulping down any of those anymore. Substitute it by replacing it with carbonated water and just add a wedge of lemon or fruit juice to it.

Aim for an ideal balanced diet that is somewhat in the proportion of 30 percent protein, 30 percent good fat, and 40 percent low glycemic carbohydrates. You may slightly cheat around once in a way with this proportion, but sticking to this for most of the time will help you cut down sugar and, as a result of this, reducing the chances of having heart-related issues. 

Avoid getting sucked into by advertisements:

One of the biggest problems with avoiding sugar is seeing sugar everywhere you go. It also doesn’t help that once you start having sugar, it can turn it into a terrible addiction. It’s important to moderate your sugar intake to keep yourself healthy, fit, and prolonging your shelf life. You may come across thousands of advertisements that may attract you to have more sugar, but trust us, the more you avoid them, the better your health gets. 

Increase in blood pressure: 

One of the worst ingredients to affect your blood pressure is sugar. Open Journal, a publication recently wrote about heart health. In that study, it is stated that a high-sugar diet could cause systolic and diastolic blood pressure to go high.

 Additionally, for each sugar beverage consumed daily, your heart disease increases by 8 percent. In simple terms, high levels of sugar intake may lead to hypertension and potentially, strokes and failures in the long run.

A sweet tooth can affect your heart:

It’s a known fact that tooth decay is sometimes caused due to excessive consumption of sugar, but not many know that it’s also directly linked to heart diseases. Even though it’s still not affirmed in research, there have been many conclusive research types that put together tooth decay with heart-related issues that even dentists and cardiologists are talking about the risk of the deadly combination of both. There has been some evidence found about a heart disease having a thicker blood vessel through the neck that may cause infection affecting the heart. 

Direct impact on the heart:

There has been conclusive research undertaken in the last three decades that Americans have drastically changed their calories take by adding more carbohydrates and sugar to it. The extra number of calories in a day due to sugar causes more damage to the hearts. Obese people are touted to have high levels of an enzyme that is related directly to heart muscles.

Bottom line:

The best part about remaining healthy is that it lets you have a clear mental space and keeps you physically fit. It’s extremely important to have a positive mindset and to enable that, you need to keep yourself fit not just physically, but also mentally as well. Do cardio, as it helps in keeping a healthy heart and a healthy mind. If you want more information about the importance of having a healthy and fit heart, you can book an appointment today.