Sugar is as bad as Alcohol

Alcohol is one compound that we have demonized over the years and yes, it deserves the bad PR it's getting because anyone who has taken alcohol to will be certain that it isn't good for their body even when they do not know what it is affecting inside them.

We all know that alcohol comes bearing gifts but in the short term and the long term with acute exposure coming with CNS depression, blood vessel dilation, hypothermia, rapid heart rate, slowed pupil response, diuresis, hypoglycemia, and motor control loss. Still, when you continue to experience this for a very long time, it could lead to the chronic result of taking it which includes blood disorders, electrolyte depletion, hypertension, heart disease, malnutrition, obesity, pancreatitis, fatty liver disease, fetal alcohol syndrome, and finally addiction.

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So we can all come to an agreement that alcohol isn’t good, but there is something else that we consume that doesn’t give us the acute result of alcohol but gives us part of the chronic result from alcohol and we consume it daily. This substance can lead to hypertension, heart disease, high blood triglycerides, pancreatitis, obesity, fatty liver disease, and addiction. Just like alcohol, this substance is processed primarily in the liver and continuous consumption is terrible to the body. I am talking about Fructose.

The table sugar you put into your tea, your milk, and flour is made up of one molecule of glucose and one molecule of fructose and when it comes to the presence of fructose, it is found in honey, fruit juice, corn syrup, and the majority of the sweet things we consume. When we consume glucose from food like bread, only 20% of it will reach the liver, and it will be metabolized by the body. With glucose around the liver, the pancreas needs to be stimulated to make insulin which enables the storage of glucose in the liver as glycogen which is the reserve tank for energy when necessary. When there is excess glucose in the body, De Novo Lipogenesis begins which is the conversion of glucose into fat that is stored as VLDL.

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Alcohol on the other hand is processed like a toxin in the liver, with about 10% being processed in the stomach, another 10% by the kidneys, muscles, and the brain. With alcohol, the liver needs to work 4 times what it would normally do. In the liver, it is converted into Acetaldehyde which then generates reactive oxygen species that damage proteins in the body and cause other negative effects.

Whatever remains is converted to citrate which is then converted into VLDL. The liver will send these fats out as free fatty acids to the muscles and that can lead to muscle insulin resistance. The fat that didn't liver the liver can then turn out to become lipid droplets in the thereby becoming fatty liver disease. This can lead to inflammation which would damage the liver and lead to insulin resistance within the liver.

When you take sugar also, the body great fructose just as it would treat ethanol because it is not useful to the body and so it is processed in the liver. It is converted to pyruvate and gets to the mitochondria which is converted to VLDL leading to increased risk of heart disease, and visceral fat accumulation. It also exists in the cell as free fatty acids which are stored in the muscles leading to insulin resistance in the muscle. If the fat accumulates in the liver, we get non alcohol fatty liver disease. JNK-1 is also a byproduct of fructose and it promotes inflammation.

So we know alcohol is different from sugar, but are they truly different?