What Happens When You Eat Sugar?

Hello Health Champions. I think everyone today  is aware that sugar's not all that great for you  

but because it's everywhere, it's just so easy  to slip up. So today I want to talk about what  

really happens in your body when you eat sugar  so you'll understand exactly why to just say  

no. Coming right up. Hey I'm Dr. Ekberg I'm a  holistic doctor and a former Olympic decathlete  

and if you want to truly master health by  understanding how the body really works  

make sure you subscribe and hit that notification  bell so you don't miss anything. When people talk  

about sugar they're generally talking about small  pieces of carbohydrate and it's interesting that  

even though this is something that's very very  natural and it's very abundant and it's in  

almost every food in small amounts it's  okay and in larger amounts it's devastating  

so small pieces of carbohydrate that  means disaccharides meaning two molecules  

linked together and monosaccharides meaning a  single molecule the most common disaccharide  

is sucrose that's what we're talking about when we  say table sugar white sugar refined sugar they're  

all sucrose which is a fructose molecule  and a glucose molecule linked up together  

and even though that's a super tiny molecule  it's still too big to get into your bloodstream  

so we need an enzyme to split that down the  middle so that we have individual molecules before  

it can get into your bloodstream the other common  disaccharide is maltose and carbohydrate can be  

strung together in thousands of little units  together and then when we eat them as a form  

of starch then the body lops them off two at a  time and the result is maltose so that's a glucose  

linked to a glucose now once we split them up  we get glucose and glucose is what we're talking  

about when we're talking about blood sugar so  when we mention blood sugar blood glucose when we  

measure that we're talking about how much of this  molecule is floating around in your bloodstream  

and the glycemic index that's a measurement of how  quickly the glucose in your blood increases after  

you eat something for glucose that's a hundred  because that's a benchmark that's the reference  

of glycemic index fructose on the other hand has  a glycemic index of only 20. so 100 is really fast  

and 20 is really slow so a lot of people  thought for the longest time that fructose was  

great for diabetics they used it to sweeten candy  and desserts and treats because it didn't trigger  

blood sugar they thought blood sugar was the only  problem and we'll talk about in a moment why it's  

not the only problem sucrose has a glycemic index  of 60 and that's because it's half fructose half  

glucose so it ends up right between 20 and 100  and maltose interestingly has a hundred and ten  

so even though this is linked together for  some reason when you eat maltose by itself  

then it actually has a higher glycemic  index than glucose now in reality we eat  

maltose as starch so bread and rice and potatoes  and all of the starchy things the comfort foods  

they are starch which is long chains of glucose  and we chop them up into maltose so it takes a  

little bit of time to break this up and that's  why most of those starchy foods have glycemic  

indices in the 70s and 80s you want to stay  away from starch because this very very quickly  

becomes glucose now when we talk about health  problems the consequences of eating sugar there's  

two different problems and first we talk about  glucose and that has to do with how it affects  

blood sugar levels and the body really likes  to have a narrow level of blood sugar somewhere  

around 100 so if you're on a low carb you probably  want to be safe from 70 to 110 that's a good level  

and if you eat low carb if you eat protein  and fat and fiber and very little carbohydrate  

your blood sugar is never really going to get  outside this range at all after you eat it  

will rise very slowly it will drop very slowly  and it will be stable now when you eat sugar  

and processed foods your blood sugar will start  jumping because your blood sugar goes up very  

very fast and now you get a blood glucose roller  coaster and anytime it's high you're going to have  

a stress you're going to have a threat to your  nervous system so your body releases tons of  

insulin to bring the glucose down so now you  have hyperinsulinemia too much insulin in the  

bloodstream and when you have a lot of insulin  it's going to drop quickly so now at the bottom  

end of this you get hypoglycemia when your blood  glucose is too low and when you have hypoglycemia  

now you have unstable energy you feel good certain  times you have energy and the next moment you have  

no energy and your mood follows that energy so you  have mood swings the other thing that happens when  

you have blood sugar swings is any time it gets  low and it's unstable you get serious cravings  

and hunger so that's the thing to keep in mind a  calorie is not a calorie because sugar makes you  

hungry the second problem is fructose which even  though it doesn't affect blood sugar hardly at all  

it is a stress on the liver it's a huge burden  because the liver is the only tissue that can  

metabolize fructose then all the fructose  has to pass through the liver the fructose  

turns into glucose the liver converts it and  then that turns into fat and we end up with  

a fatty liver a non-alcoholic fatty liver disease  and that goes hand in hand with insulin resistance  

and type 2 diabetes then if you put the two  together now you have a double whammy you have  

the liver clogging of the fructose and you have  the roller coaster blood sugar from glucose so  

now you end up with weight gain the belly fat you  get insulin resistance fatty liver type 2 diabetes  

but also you get the whole slew of  things associated with metabolic syndrome  

which is hypertension high blood pressure as well  as cardiovascular disease and even dementia but as  

if it wasn't enough that sugar is directly causing  the majority of things that kill us it affects a  

whole bunch of other things as well your digestive  tract for example it starts with the mouth and  

it causes cavities that's what we tell our kids  you can't have sugar because it causes cavities  

well it also interferes with mineral absorption  so it's related to mineral deficiencies  

and then it gets really interesting because one  of the most intricate one of the most central  

pieces of human health is how our gut is doing our  microbiome you have more life forms in your gut  

than you have cells in your body and when you  eat sugar you selectively feed everything you  

don't want in your body so the pathogenic bacteria  the yeast and the fungus and the parasites they  

love sugar it's like a buffet when you feed them  sugar so now you get an imbalance you get a war  

zone down in your digestive tract where you're  supposed to absorb all these nutrients and as  

a result of that war zone you get a leaky gut and  because of the leaky gut pieces that are too large  

they're supposed to not pass through now they pass  through that leaky gut and you get food allergies  

which further sets you up for autoimmunity  all because of sugar but it goes even further  

sugar affects your hormonal system your endocrine  system insulin is one of the most powerful  

hormones in your body it has a tendency to sort  of wipe out and dominate all the other hormones  

hormones determine everything about your behavior  as far as hunger and satiety and sleep cycles and  

metabolism and so forth and normally we have  really small amounts like parts per million  

to parts per billion nanograms worth of this stuff  so it's very sensitive it's very very delicate and  

insulin is kind of like a sledgehammer in a china  shop all right it just wipes out it flattens  

all the other hormones and if you have some  hormone imbalances i suggest you first fix insulin  

and then you look at what all the other hormones  are doing before you go and take any other measure  

one common problem is hypopituitary,  an underperforming pituitary because  

insulin resistance is associated with a low grade  inflammation which desensitizes it keeps the  

pituitary from responding the way it's supposed to  and as a result we also get hypothyroid when the  

pituitary isn't issuing the proper orders to the  thyroid and of course another cause of hypothyroid  

is autoimmune Hashimoto's next we have adrenal  fatigue anytime your blood sugar fluctuates  

but especially at the hypoglycemic part and  when you're stressed then your adrenals have  

to compensate for those blood sugar swings  and make cortisol so now you're stressing  

out your adrenals as a result of that PCOS,  polycystic ovarian syndrome very common in women  

it is an insulin resistance problem it is a common  cause of infertility as well as irregular periods  

females start developing male traits such as  hirsutism which is unwanted body hair such as  

dark thick hair on the upper lip male pattern  baldness and in men the opposite can happen so  

men can start developing feminine  traits like man boobs for example  

and because this often happens later in life  like 50 60 years old then a lot of times it's  

like grandma starts looking like grandpa and  vice versa so think about this and take care  

of it because it's really tough on the grandkids  when they can't tell grandma and grandpa apart  

and here's a quick summary of everything that  sugar causes and now because you're really smart  

and you've watched a lot of videos on this channel  you understand the amazing recuperative power  

restorative powers of the body so if sugar causes  all this then you now understand that stopping to  

eat sugar has a really good chance of reversing  all or most of this at least to some degree  

so just say no if you enjoyed this video and you'd  like to learn more about how to get truly healthy  

i think that video would be a great one to watch  next thank you so much for watching i'll see you  

in the next video now if you've gotten some  benefit from the information on this channel