We all know that eating sugary foods is bad for our teeth and will make us fat.  The surprising thing is that sugar is actually deadly.  Did you know that?

Sugar has been directly linked to a whole host of diseases and health problems.  Many of which can be fatal!

Below I'll list just 7 of the many ways sugar is poisonous to your health:

#10 – Sugar Harms Cardiovascular Health & Can Cause Heart Disease:

Harvard Medical School says:

A sugar-laden diet may raise your risk of dying of heart disease even if you aren’t overweight. So says a major study published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Added sugars make up at least 10% of the calories the average American eats in a day. But about one in 10 people get a whopping one-quarter or more of their calories from added sugar.

Over the course of the 15-year study on added sugar and heart disease, participants who took in 25% or more of their daily calories as sugar were more than twice as likely to die from heart disease as those whose diets included less than 10% added sugar. Overall, the odds of dying from heart disease rose in tandem with the percentage of sugar in the diet—and that was true regardless of a person’s age, sex, physical activity level, and body-mass index (a measure of weight).

Source: Harvard

#9 Sugar Can Overload Your Liver

Healthline, says:

Before sugar enters the bloodstream from the digestive tract, it is broken down into two simple sugars… glucose and fructose.

• Glucose is found in every living cell on the planet. If we don't get it from the diet, our bodies produce it.
• Fructose is different. Our bodies do not produce it in any significant amount and there is no physiological need for it.

The thing with fructose is that it can only be metabolized by the liver in any significant amounts.

This is not a problem if we eat a little bit (such as from fruit) or we just finished an exercise session. In this case, the fructose will be turned into glycogen and stored in the liver until we need it (3).

However, if the liver is full of glycogen (much more common), eating a lot of fructose overloads the liver, forcing it to turn the fructose into fat (4).

When repeatedly eating large amounts of sugar, this process can lead to fatty liver and all sorts of serious problems (5).

Source: Healthline

#8 Sugar Consumption Can Lower Cancer Survival Rates

This Huffington Post article says:

In the world of nutrition, it’s hard to talk about sugar without talking about insulin. That’s because insulin is sugar’s little chaperone to the cells, and when too much of it is consumed, or our insulin does not work (probably because we’re eating too much sugar) and the body revolts. One connection that has been well documented in the literature is the link between insulin resistance and cancer . A 2013 study found that sugars in the intestine triggered the formation of a hormone called GIP (controlled by a protein called β-catenin that is completely dependant on sugar levels), that in turn, increases insulin released by the pancreas. Researchers found that β-catenin may in fact affect the cells susceptibility to cancer formation. Further studies have found negative associations between high sugar and starch intake and survival rates in both breast cancer patients and colon cancer patients.

Source: Huffington Post

#7 – Eating Sugar Causes Insatiable Hunger

This business insider post covers why sugar can actually send your food cravings out of control:

The hormone leptin tells your body when you've had enough to eat. In people who develop leptin resistance, this “I'm full” signal is never received, presenting a major obstacle for weight control.

A few studies raise the possibility that leptin resistance may be a side effect of obesity, not a contributing cause. But research in rats suggests that over-consumption of fructose — as in high-fructose corn syrup, which is common in soda — can directly lead to higher-than-normal levels of leptin and reduce your body's sensitivity to the hormone. (Removing fructose from the rats' diets generally reversed those effects.)

“Our data indicate that … fructose-induced leptin resistance accelerates high-fat induced obesity,” concluded one study of rats. And high levels of leptin may actually be an early warning sign of the larger metabolic problems associated with drinking too much soda, a 2014 study found.

More research is needed to confirm sugar's connection to a bottomless appetite, but the results so far are worrisome.

Source: BusinessInsider

#6 – Sugar Is Actually Addictive Like Mind Altering Drugs

WebMD says:

Eating sugar gives your brain a huge surge of a feel-good chemical called dopamine, which explains why you’re more likely to crave a candy bar at 3 p.m. than an apple or a carrot. Because whole foods like fruits and veggies don’t cause the brain to release as much dopamine, your brain starts to need more and more sugar to get that same feeling of pleasure. This causes those “gotta-have-it” feelings for your after-dinner ice cream that are so hard to tame.

Source: WebMD

#5 – Sugar Is Hiding In Products Everywhere & You Probably Didn't Know It

Dr Mercola talks about how high fructose corn syrup is hiding in huge number of food products. Just take a look at ingredient labels and you'll see it everywhere.  Not only that, high fructose corn syrup can actually make sugar consumption even worse that just eating regular sugar!  Dr Mercola says:

One of the primary sources of calories for Americans is sugar—specifically high fructose corn syrup in soda and processed foods. Because of advances in food processing technology in the 1970s, fructose derived from corn has become very cheap and is widely used in the majority of processed foods for increased sales.

Source: Dr Mercola

#4 – Sugar Can Cause Liver Disease

Healthline, in their article, went on to say:

Overloading The Liver With Fructose Can Cause Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

When fructose get turned into fat in the liver, it is shipped out as VLDL cholesterol particles.

However, not all of the fat gets out, some of it can lodge in the liver.

This can lead to Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD), a growing problem in Western countries that is strongly associated with metabolic diseases (6).

Studies show that individuals with fatty liver consume up to 2-3 times as much fructose as the average person (7, 8).

Source: Healthline

#3 – Eating Sugar Shortens Your Lifespan

Huffington Post also says:

An overload of sugar (specifically in beverages) may shorten your life
A 2013 study estimated that 180,000 deaths worldwide may be attributed to sweetened beverage consumption. The United States alone accounted for 25,000 deaths in 2010. The authors summarize that deaths occurred due to the association with sugar-sweetened beverages and chronic disease risk such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Source: Huffington Post

#2 – Eating Sugar Can Lead To Diabetes

BusinessInsider in their 2016 article said:

Between 1988 and 2008, the prevalence of diabetes in America increased by 128%. Today diabetes affects about 25 million people in the US — or 8.3% of the population. Countries with higher sugar intake face higher rates of diabetes.

One study that followed 51,603 women between 1991 and 1999 found an increased risk of diabetes among those who consumed more sugar-sweetened beverages — including soda, sweetened ice tea, energy drinks, etc. And a massive review of prior studies involving 310,819 participants supported the same result, concluding that drinking lots of soda was associated not just with weight gain but with the development of type 2 diabetes…

…Portions seem to be crucial when it comes to sugar and diabetes. A 2013 study of eating habits and diabetes prevalence in 175 countries concluded the following: “Duration and degree of sugar exposure correlated significantly with diabetes prevalence … while declines in sugar exposure correlated with significant subsequent declines in diabetes rates” — even after controlling for other social, economic, and dietary factors.

Source: BusinessInsider

#1 – Sugar Can Directly Cause Cancer

The connection between sugar and cancer growth has been known for some time, but did you know sugar can actually cause cancer? See what Dr. Axe has to say about it: