Are your kids drinking sugary drinks that may cause Diabetes? This was big news in America but less reported here in Singapore. Recently, New York City tried to ban the sale of enormous sugary drinks of 16 oz or larger, in all public establishments. The drinks companies reacted by going to the courts, and this ban was overturned.
Some people care about public health, and others just want to exploit peoples’ weaknesses and make money. Nothing new there then! This firmly tells us that we’re not going to get much help from the authorities in this matter. The voice of corporate lobbying is just too strong and loud.
“It is totally down to us parents to guide and teach our kids not to wreck their lives by drinking these sugary drinks!”
New research published in the publication ‘Pediatrics’ has shown clear correlations between the taking of sugary drinks at a young age, even as young as two, and weight gain in later years. We are talking about sodas, sports drinks, and any other sugar-added beverages. This includes juice drinks that are not 100 percent fruit juice.
“It shows that by giving your children sugar-sweetened beverages by age two, you set up habits that are very hard to break!”
One sugary drink a day is already too much!
The study clearly found that two year olds drinking just one sugary drink per day did set those toddlers up for weight gain in the near future. Children who drank one or more sugary drink per day were already heavier by the age of five. Even though your child seems to be able to drink these products without gaining weight, it is not OK, they will be become somewhat addicted to the sweeteners and it could destroy their life a little later.
Losing this spare tyre may be easier than you think!
Try substituting sodas and other sugar drinks for mineral water. Learn good habits.
Ask yourself every time – is this doing harm?
Why sugary drinks cause so much weight gain?
1) Caloric intake
Sugary drinks are full of “empty calories”, containing very little (if any) nutritional value, but yet they are still very high in calories. These liquid calories however, do not make you feel full. So someone drinking all these empty calories still need to eat solid food to feel satisfied, obviously increasing further the total amount of calories consumed.
2) How your body reacts chemically to the sugar
These types of sweetened drinks are usually loaded with fructose. Fructose can be harmful to your body by setting up the conditions for not only obesity, but also diabetes.
This “junk sugar” destabilises blood sugar levels and makes your pancreas work overtime. Your pancreas is the organ responsible for secreting the hormone insulin. By doing this the sugar in your blood stream can be absorbed by cells. After years of sugar consumption, the pancreas may start to “wear out”, it becomes dysfunctional, and an individual could become a type 2 diabetic.
50% of children in Singapore today will develop diabetes!!
Already 32% of Singaporeans in their sixties have diabetes and it is anticipated that by 2050 one in two at age 70 will be diabetic. In a country with one of the fastest aging populations, this is hugely significant. Education here is of utmost importance and Total Health Chiropractic Singapore is stepping up to help where it can.
“We know how to avoid Type 2 Diabetes and in most cases we know how to heal yourself from it’s terrible effects. Ask for help and we’ll help you for sure”
Many type 2 diabetics start taking insulin injections when often it would be a better solution to manage their blood sugar levels through proper diet and exercise. However, of course the best solution is to prevent the condition in the first place. We can do this by limiting the consumption of bad sugar, supplemented with a proper diet and regular, moderate exercise.
Here is something disturbing….!
A UCLA study published in the ‘Journal of Physiology’ has recently shown that a diet high in fructose can damage your memory and learning. Fructose, is seen everywhere, usually coming in the form of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). This is a very inexpensive sweetener six times sweeter than cane sugar and is used in most soft drinks, in much of the processed foods we see on supermarket shelves, in condiments, and even in many baby foods.
Sugars can cause brain damage.
In the study they fed rats a fructose solution instead of clean drinking water for six weeks. Then, they tested their ability to remember the way out of a maze.
The results were quite shocking because the rats fed fructose syrup struggled to negotiate the maze. They demonstrated significant impairment in their cognitive abilities. Their brain cells had trouble signalling each other which disrupted the rats’ ability to think clearly and recall the route they’d learned six weeks earlier. So, HFCS causes brain damage, and that’s why you should think twice before allowing your children access to such products.
Additionally, the fructose-fed rats showed signs of resistance to insulin, a hormone that controls your blood sugar. Yes, this is the start of Diabetes! Also, increased insulin levels adversely affects synaptic transmission, that is the firing and transmission of nerve impulses.
Researchers concluded that a high-fructose diet negatively affects the way the brain functions.
According to Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, a Professor of Neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a Professor of Integrative Biology and Physiology in the UCLA College of Letters and Science…..
“Our findings illustrate that what you eat affects how you think… Eating a high-fructose diet over the long-term alters your brain’s ability to learn and remember information.”
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