Foods with added sugar are everywhere – even in some surprising places. So how easy is it to go without sugar, and what difference can it make to your health?
While I typically eat a healthy diet with plenty of home-cooking, I also have a sweet tooth and tend to consume a chocolate treat or two every day.
That’s not very surprising – overconsumption of sugar is extremely common in our modern diets. It’s bad for our teeth, harmful to our health, and there is even some evidence to suggest that eating too much sugar might lead to long-term cognitive deficits.
As my role involves reporting on health and well-being, I’ve started to worry about eating so many treats, which often contain numerous additives, especially refined sugar. In fact, one of my regular treats contains more than half of my daily recommended sugar intake.
Dietary guidelines in the US recommend consuming fewer than 12 teaspoons of added sugar from food and beverages (around 50g), while in the UK, the NHS recommends people eat less than seven teaspoons (30g) of sugar per day.
In reality, US adults eat more than 16-17 teaspoons (65-70g) a day, according to the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. To put that in context, 4g is about one level teaspoon of sugar.
Giving up all that sugar isn’t easy either. But I decided to see whether it was indeed possible to break my daily sugar habit.
I set myself the challenge of not eating any foods containing added refined sugar for six weeks. I also avoided honey and fruit juice, but I continued to eat natural sugars found in whole fruit, as well as complex carbohydrates, which, when eaten, our bodies break down into the sugar glucose, which provides our body and brain with their main source of energy.
From the outset, I noticed some surprising changes to my energy levels and how I felt. The post-lunch slump went away, but I often found myself listlessly looking in my fridge, trying in vain to find something interesting (sweet) to munch on, feeling as though I was missing out.
Sugar is everywhere
First, it’s worth reflecting on just how much sugar is added to our food. I found it surprisingly hard to avoid. Browsing my local supermarket shelves, I noticed it in foods I didn’t expect, including a deli sourdough sandwich (5.7g of sugar) and a bolognese ready meal (9g).
Many breakfast cereals contain added sugars, and a slice of commonly bought supermarket bread contains about 1.2g of sugar.
Sugar is also abundant in many ultra-processed foods, which have known adverse health outcomes and tend to contain fewer nutrients than whole foods like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
Emerging research also suggests that diets high in sugary foods are associated with greater mental distress, including symptoms of anxiety and depression
There are many different forms of sugar in our foods. Glucose is perhaps the most common, but you can also find fructose in fruits and many syrups, lactose in milk, and sucrose, commonly known as table sugar and one of the main forms of added “free sugar” in our diets.
Free sugars are also found in juices, syrups, and honey as they are not bound up in the cells of our food. These refined free sugars contribute most to adverse health effects.
“We come out of the womb liking sweet tastes, it’s part of mother’s milk in those early days where you’re supposed to be gaining a lot of weight,” says Ashley Gearhardt, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. The problem, she says, is that “we’ve gotten so good at delivering sweetness really cheaply”.
What sugar does to us
Research shows that when we consume high-sugar foods it rapidly increases our blood sugar levels. While that’s a normal process after eating, if they happen too often, we can become resistant to insulin, and the risk of developing type 2 diabetes increases. High-sugar diets are also linked to cavities, inflammation, obesity, Alzheimer’s disease and cancer.
“Diet-related diseases like diabetes are now killing people beyond the scope of alcohol and opiates, and [unhealthy food] is competing with tobacco for being the most deadly substance in the world,” says Gearhardt.
For instance, sugar has been found to increase fat in the liver. In one randomized controlled trial, those who consumed high-sugar drinks for several weeks showed about twice as much fat in their livers, even though they consumed the same number of calories overall.
Fructose – such as that found in corn syrup – is toxic to mitochondria, the cellular machinery that keeps our bodies running, explains Robert Lustig, co-author of the trial and a leading expert on the harms of sugar.
“What it does is it basically knocks out mitochondria, and reduces energy expenditure, so you have to build new ones.” This can make you feel lousy, fatigued, tired, irritable, and increase brain fog, he tells me.
I certainly noticed my energy stayed more level during the day as the weeks of avoiding sugar went on.
The sugars in whole fruits, such as apples, are bound up in the cells, which means our bodies have to work harder to obtain them (Credit: Getty Images)
Emerging research also suggests that diets high in sugary foods are associated with greater mental distress, including symptoms of anxiety and depression.
While all this sounds alarming, as part of a healthy diet , sugar is fine in moderation, but it’s clear that minimizing it would benefit the health of millions who eat too much.
Addictive properties
In the first few days of going without sugar, I craved it intensely, especially when offered tasty treats at social events.
There’s a biological reason this is the case. When we eat sugar, it can alter our brain chemistry in a way that mimics what you see when individuals are addicted to opioids, explains Lina Begdache, a registered dietitian and associate professor of health and wellness at Binghamton University in the US.
Eating sugary food also activates the brain’s reward system. Research suggests that people who experience stronger cravings for sugary foods may also show a greater increase in the “feel-good” hormone dopamine when they consume them – meaning we feel pleasure and reward when we eat sweet foods.
Numerous experts therefore consider sugar to have addictive properties – though this remains an ongoing area of debate.
Other naturally sweet foods, like fruit, can then become less interesting to our dopamine system, adds Gearhardt.
In fact, the stronger the desire for sugar, the greater the reward we feel, which reinforces the cycle and could rewire our brains to crave more of it. For instance, the brains of participants who consumed a high-sugar, high-fat pudding daily for eight weeks became significantly more responsive to sugary foods.
