Wassaup folks? How everyone doing? I just came back from overseas and now back to Malaysia. This will be another post about fructose, and this time, it's about how this simple sugar affects our digestive system, eyes and also cancer. Let's find out.
Filling up on sweets often leads to an upset of stomach. Why? This is because many people have difficulty digesting the fructose in sugar, HFCS and other sweeteners. But it is not only candy munching treaters who are affected by this problem, known as fructose malabsorption or intolerance.
As fructose travels through the digestive system, it eventually enters the small intestines. From there, it normally is absorbed into the bloodstream. But some people absorb fructose less efficiently than others do. In these cases, fructose enters the large intestine, where it is broken down by bacteria, producing large amounts of hydrogen gas. Fructose can also suck water into the colon.
Fructose malabsorption causes a variety of gastrointestinal problems, including abdominal pain, bloating, cramps, flatulence, diarheaa and constipation. Recent research suggests that fructose may be one of the cause of irritable bowel syndrome, a condition which is seemingly becoming more common amongst the society. Previously, the foods and beverages most commonly linked to IBS were wheat and other grains, chocolate and dairy products, as well as alcohol.
If you struggle with gastrointestinal problems, adopting a low fructose diet may help. A 2006 study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that 74% of IBS patients who cut back on their fructose consumption experienced a significant drop in gastrointestinal symptoms.
Next, let's discuss about how consumption of fructose can affect eyes. Cataracts occur when protein in the eye undergo changes and form cloudy or opaque areas on the lens. A variety of visual disturbances may result, including muted colors, loss of night vision, and double vision. Diabetes is a leading cause of cataracts.
Controlling blood glucose levels is the key to preventing common diabetes complications such as vision problems. Meanwhile, eating and drinking too many sugary foods and beverages during pregnancy may increase the risk for a complication called preeclampsia, which causes high blood pressure and loss of large amounts of protein in the urine. Symptoms including swelling of the face and hands, severe and nonstop headaches, stomach pain, nausea and disturbed vision. Preeclampsia also poses a risk to the fetus, because it often forces early delivery, which can result in low birth weight.
Women who develop preeclampsia tend to be overweight and have other conditions of metabolic syndrome, such as insulin resistance and elevated blood fats. The combination of overweight, metabolic syndrome and elevated uric acid suggest that high fructose diet may play a role in preeclampsia.
Moving on, cancer. There are studies suggest that consuming too much fructose may be a risk factor for certain cancers. Researchers at Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that women who consumed sweet foods and beverages roughly 10 times per week were 32% more likely to develop early stage breast cancer than woman who avoided high sugar foods.
Another study done by researchers at Harvard, found that males who consumed the most fructose or refined sugar, had 37% higher risk for colorectal cancer. Furthermore, we know that a high fructose diet can cause insulin resistance and elevated insulin.
As I explained before, your immune system produces inflammation to healp heal wounds and destroy infectious germs. But an overreactive and dsyfunctional immune system can misfire, attacking healthy tissue and resulting in diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. Likewise, persistent inflammation appears to play a role in some cancers. Normally, the body regulates inflammation by turning down the immune system's activity once an injury has healed or an infection is under control. If this regulatory system fails, chronic inflammation may result, causing extensive harm to healthy tissue and organs. In response, the body is forced to continuously repair and rebuild the damaged tissue. With increased cell turnover, comes the heightened risk of producing cells with cancer-causing mutations, which could form malignant tumors.
There are certain infections, which cause acute inflammation, can increase the risk for some cancers. For example, HPV are a major cause of cervical cancer and have been implicated with other forms of disease. Moreover, chronic inflammation appears to increase the risk of cancers such as esophagus, lungs, colon, stomach, pancreas and liver.
Studies have shown us that exposing human cells to fructose causes them to become highly inflamed. Fructose also stimulates the production of free radicals, which are responsible for cellular damage of oxidative stress. And oxidative stress has itself been implicated as a contributor to cancer.
Guys, I will write the final post about sugar and fructose tomorrow. Thats it, my brain is stung with all this sugar craze info sharing stuff and exhaustion from my recent trip. For now, let's depart and have a good day.
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