Thank you so much for touching on this important point. Your observation is spot on.
However, despite all this, there is still less rigor on the well-known aspect of added sugar. I recently wrote an article about it and linked it here as a reference.
Supposedly, Added Sugar No Longer Makes People Diabetic
Who could have imagined this unexpected revelation?
“My intention is not to advocate completely eradicating sugar from our diets but to emphasize that healthy people can survive and thrive without overconsumption.
The quantity of sugar consumed plays a significant role in metabolic health. In moderation, sugar from non-refined carbs can bring benefits to some people.
Nevertheless, excessive sugar intake might unleash a cascade of detrimental effects, like metabolic disorders and insulin resistance, leading to type II diabetes, fatty liver disease, cardiovascular ailments, neurodegenerative conditions, and some cancers.
Interestingly, like normal cells, cancer cells exhibit an affinity for sugar while disdaining fat.
Another facet of the sugar paradox lies in its potential to foster addictive behavior. Our genetic makeup harbors an inherent predisposition towards sugar due to its vital role in our ancestors’ survival.
Sugar has a profound impact on the brain’s dopamine system, with some likening it to a legal drug capable of insidiously engendering addiction by raising deltafosb levels.
Thus, the sugar paradox encompasses its essential nature for survival, the perils of its potential toxicity, and its capacity to instigate addictive tendencies.
Unless we learn to strike a delicate balance among these three dimensions, sugar will persist as a prominent health concern despite being a neutral molecule essential for the optimal functioning of our bodies and brains.
The bottom line is that:
If insulin cannot deliver excessive glucose in the bloodstream to muscles due to insulin resistance and/or hyperinsulinemia, the body quickly converts the excess sugar into fat molecules and stores them as fat for future use (visceral fat).
So, each sugar molecule turning into fat can contribute to waistline growth and make us closer to cardiometabolic disorders and neurodegenerative diseases like dementia.
However, solely cutting sugar is not enough, as there are many more variables for metabolic health.”
