Sugar Damages Liver of Healthy Men

A 2017 study reveals that eating too much sugar might damage liver of normally healthy men. The researchers found a sugar rich diet was linked to unhealthy high levels of fat in the blood and the liver. The fact is that eating too much sugar can change your fat metabolism in a manner that surges your risk of heart disease. This is another reason to reduce your intake of sugar. Aside the fact that sugar has no nutritional value (empty calories), it makes your liver work much harder.

The study followed the liver health of middle aged men with high and low fat in their liver. It is perceived unhealthy to have too much deposits of fat in the liver. So apparently the men with high fat in their liver have a non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a condition linked to obesity and affects many men. These men had to go on one of two diets: a high-sugar diet, of 650 calories worth of sugar daily for 12 weeks; or a low-sugar diet that has no more than 140 calories of sugar per day.

The researchers discovered that the men with NAFLD who followed the high-sugar diet had alterations in the processes of the body breaking down fats in the blood and using them for energy; changes linked to bigger risk for heart disease, heart attacks and stroke.

But then again similar changes were also perceived in the livers of normal healthy men who had a low level of liver fat at the start of the study.  The men in this group developed higher levels of fat in the liver after changing to high-sugar diet. In addition were alterations in the fat metabolism process similar to the men who already had NAFLD.

Thus, culminating in the summary that consuming high amounts of sugar can alter your fat metabolism in ways that could increase your risk of heart disease. The finding is of great concern since the incidence of NAFLD is growing among children as well as adults.

Although many adults don’t take the high levels of sugar used in the study, but some children and teenager probably get to these levels of sugar intake by taking far too much fizzy drinks and candies. This brings up anxiety over the future health of the younger people, particularly in view of the disturbingly high incidence of NAFLD in children and teenagers, and potential rise of fatal liver disease in adults.

Conclusively, the fact that a sugar-laden diet may increase your risk of dying of heart disease cannot be ignored. Health experts underscore that even a spoonful of sugar, though in excess, could potentially be putting one's heart at increased risk. However, it’s difficult to monitor how much sugar you’re likely to consume in a day, since it’s lurking in several unusual places. Sugar is not only in candy, soda and cookies; it’s in sauces, stock cubes and condiments, snacks, juices, fizzy drinks, yogurts, soya drinks, in fact mostly every packaged food item. While checking ingredient lists helps you cut back on sugar intake, the must do is to prepare your meals from fresh vegetables, grains, pulses, fruits and clean ingredients. Simply cook your meals at home as frequently as possible.  If you must pick prepackaged from a commercial food vendor, make sure it’s a trusted a source.

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