Written by: Health & Wellness Healthy Living

How Sugar Affects Your Heart

Valentine’s Day seems like the perfect excuse to eat your favorite delicious treat. There’s nothing quite like enjoying something sweet from your sweetheart, but did you know how devastating for your health it can be if you consume too much sugar?

We hear a lot about the effects of sugar on our health nowadays, especially when it comes to added sugar. You can even find it in products that you wouldn’t expect to have any, such as ketchup, bread, or barbecue sauce. But is sugar that dangerous for our health and if so, how should we ensure we can avoid it?

Sugar Is Everywhere

If you think you’ll be fine since you aren’t crazy about desserts and sweets, you still may be consuming too much sugar from other products. For example, one can of soda could be enough to satisfy the daily recommended dose of sugar. You shouldn’t exceed 25 grams of sugar for women and 37.5 grams for men. Even if you avoid the obviously sweet foods, you should be aware that even seemingly healthier options, such as fruit yogurt, have a lot of sugar. Start reading labels on products, and you may be surprised at the amount of sugar in some of them.

What’s So Dangerous About Sugar?

As a carbohydrate, sugar can cause an increase in the levels of triglyceride in your blood. Since triglycerides are fat, it’s easy to imagine what kind of adverse effects that can have on your arteries. What’s more, higher than recommended sugar intake has also been linked with lowering the levels of good cholesterol (HDL), increasing blood pressure, and causing various other cardiovascular diseases. This effect is due to increased body weight and fat, which is one of the leading causes of cardiovascular diseases. 

This is why it is so important that people learn how to look after themselves and make sure that they take care of their hearts. You don’t want to find out that you have a heart issue just because you were careless with the amount of sugar you consumed. Of course, it’s not just sugar that you need to look out for, as there can be other contributing factors to one’s health. So, make sure that you read around the subject. It’s important to know how you can look after yourself, and be aware of the things that can happen to your heart. For example, heart cancer is rare but unfortunately real, so although you might think that you would never get it, it’s still a good idea to learn how to take care of yourself to avoid this devastating outcome from occurring.

How to Avoid Sugar

If you want to cut back on sugar in your diet, it’s important to pay attention to what you’re eating. As we recommended earlier, start reading the labels on all of the processed or packaged food you buy. Eat as much fresh food as possible and prepare your own meals. A diet rich in vegetables, fat, and protein will naturally lower your carbohydrate intake.

Unfortunately, sugar is addictive and challenging to give up. To not to be overwhelmed, start giving up things one by one, beginning with the biggest offenders, like soda. After a period of going without sweetener, the things you used to love might taste unpleasant for you.

Keeping Your Cholesterol Low

Avoiding sugar isn’t the only thing you can do to keep your cholesterol low and your heart healthy. A natural fiber supplement like Cholesterade can help you keep those aspects of your health under control. Eating healthy and supplementing well are among the best health practices you can adopt. Those are the right decisions that make the difference between wellness and illness in life.

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Tags: , Last modified: February 5, 2019