One of the properties of sugar is that it is a direct source of energy to our brain and causes a feeling of euphoria. According to Elena Roura, PhD in Nutrition and scientific manager of the Alicia Foundation, the fact that “this energy drops very quickly” is what makes you “feel the need to eat more again”. This is why sugar is considered so addictive. What we need to watch out for, however, is that excessive intake can be harmful.
Roura explains that humans need “our blood glucose to be stable” and that “if we eat a high amount of sugar, our body releases insulin”. This fact ends up causing us to run out of sugar in the blood and this leads to a feeling of hunger, with which Roura concludes that “an excess of sugar increases the risk of obesity, both in children and in adulthood”.
On the other hand, the fact that the amount of sugar in the blood can rise and fall so quickly “can be a risk of developing type 2 diabetes”, explains Roura. It is a disease in which, at its onset, insulin resistance is the first symptom. Over time the body cannot produce enough of it and this ends up causing the glucose or blood sugar levels to be too high. In addition, Roura also warns of other disadvantages of carrying out an excessive intake of sugar: “It can increase the risk of overweight or lead to a degree of inflammation in the body, and all this can be the basis of other alterations of the cardiovascular system”.
In general, Roura recommends “a limited intake of sugar”, but we don’t have to completely eliminate it either. First of all, he emphasizes that the sugar that is linked to other components of the food, such as that found in cereals, legumes or fruit, is “what we need”, and it is the added sugars, which we introduce to food, those that “we must try not to eat in excess”. From here, he considers that cases like snowflakes and nougat on Christmas Day or the King’s tortell do not pose any problem, if we eat them, as long as it is “on special occasions” and “in moderation”. Diana Díaz Rizzolo, professor of Health Sciences studies at the UOC, shares this same vision and explains that “what determines our diet are habits and not a specific intake”, as in this case with Christmas sweets .
The two experts share a similar vision regarding food recommendations. On the one hand, Roura warns that “we must consume the smallest possible amount of ultra-processed foods that contain sugar or other elements such as fructose, glucose, agave syrup or starches, because they are still simple sugars”. Díaz Rizzolo places “foods that do not need nutritional labels” as those that must be “the basis of our diet”, and from there “go up the scale of minimally processed products, such as canned vegetables or fish” to finally “consume the least amount of processed foods”.
In general, in most cases there is a relationship between sugar and sweetness, but in some the lack of a sweet taste does not mean that a food cannot have added sugars. Díaz Rizzolo warns that this fact happens often: “Sauces or sausages, for example, are not products that make us feel sweet, but they can contain large quantities”, especially in industrial products, in which the labels there are other preservatives that are synonymous with sugar.