Perils of Dietary Sugar

As a percentage of our overall intake, Americans' fat consumption has dropped in the past few decades, but our sugar intake has increased by 30 percent!

This precipitious rise can be attributed to all the added dietary sugar in our diets. Maybe you avoid offenders like candy and soda. That's a great start, but even things you think of as "healthy" are full of added dietary sugar: juice and sport drinks, breakfast cereals, canned vegetables.

Generally, the more processed a food is, the more sugar it contains. Some spaghetti sauces are loaded with added sugar.

But over time, all that sugar changes how our bodies function, raising insulin production and slowing the metabolic process, so that our bodies turn more and more of it into -- you guessed it -- fat.

Diabetes rates in this country, along with rates of obesity, are simply skyrocketing.

So, learn to recognize that rocket fuel. Whether it's called glucose, high fructose corn syrup, or just plain sugar, it's basically the same nutritionally-worthless sweet stuff. BistroMD can help you learn more about your diet, and if you so choose, help you to lose the weight that added sugar has added to you body.