Sugar addiction: the disease of the 21st century.

We explain the causes, symptoms and characteristics of this sweet addiction.

Soft drinks, industrial pastries, dairy desserts, ketchup, alcoholic beverages, etc.... These are all common foods in our Western diet: highly caloric, highly palatable and rich in added sugars. To this list could be added, among many others, the cereals we eat for breakfast, energy drinks, jams, etc.

The food industry makes use of this element so attractive to the human palate, sugar, to enhance the flavor of all these products, causing in the long run a clear dependence on these processed foods.

Sugar: a pandemic in the shadows

The World Health Organization recommends 25 grams of sugar per day, with a maximum limit of 50 grams for adults. However, consumption in Western societies far exceeds this limit, 70 grams per day per person in Spain and 126.4 in the United States (Pablos, 2016). (Pablos, 2016).

Within these rates only free sugars are included, i.e., those added artificially during food processing. Natural sugars present, for example, in fruit, do not constitute a serious danger.

The effects of irresponsible sugar consumption

The counterproductive effects of this high intake of processed sugars are not limited to simple tooth decay, but go far beyond that. While in developing countries the main cause of death is infectious diseases, in developed countries the vast majority of deaths are due to non-communicable diseases. Among these, the vast majority are aggravated by lifestyle and diet; among them are cardiovascular diseases (stroke, myocardial infarction, etc.) and metabolic diseases, i.e. diabetes mellitus, obesity, atherosclerosis, hyperlipidemia and hypertension. The intake of the aforementioned foods and, consequently, the accumulation of excess fats in the body, aggravate these diseases (Álvarez-Campillo, 2009).

Faced with this Western epidemic of sugar addiction, countries such as the United Kingdom are considering taxing the consumption of sugary soft drinks with taxes of up to 20%. with taxes of up to 20%. Others, such as Hungary, set this tax according to the amount of sugar, fat and salt contained in the food. This measure caused many manufacturers to reduce these ingredients to avoid paying more taxes, resulting in positive changes in consumers' diets (Galindo, 2016).

If it tastes so good, why does it feel so bad?

In his book El mono obeso (2010), José Enrique Campillo Álvarez answers this question from the point of view of Darwinian medicine. This medical approach, also called evolutionary medicine, studies diseases in the context of biological evolution.. Based on the assumption that the current "design" of the human being is the result of millions of years of evolution and genetic variation, disease would occur when the human being does not adapt to the demands of the environment.

Our ancestors evolved in contexts where food scarcity was chronic, requiring a great deal of physical exercise to obtain scarce food. This situation, which occurred over millions of years, led to the survival, through natural selection, of those individuals that had the genetic adaptations necessary to make the most of periods of abundance and resist periods of scarcity. Among these adaptations are those that favor metabolic processes that help the accumulation of fat after feeding. There are also those that favor the maintenance of these lipid deposits when food is scarce.

Abundance of food, the first step towards denaturation

However, all this has changed since the development of agriculture and animal husbandry about 15,000 years ago. In contrast to the scarcity suffered by our ancestors, with the development of these technologies came an abundance that had not been seen since our great-great-grandparents the Ardipithecus ramidus lived in lush jungles, full of fruits at their fingertips. This technological development has reached the point mentioned at the beginning of the article.

Today, without expending hardly any energy, we can ingest large quantities of food, despite the fact that in biology there is a universal law that states that every living being needs to "pay" a certain amount of energy through physical activity in order to be able to put something in its mouth. This is the ideal scenario for sugar addiction to appear, because its availability has increased.This is the ideal scenario for sugar addiction to appear, because its availability has increased, but the same has not happened with our biological design.

According to Campillo, it seems that, despite what the popular saying goes, we are not what we eat, but rather, we are a product of what our ancestors ate.. Following the latest scientific research, it is also suspected that the human body requires a certain amount of physical exercise to achieve normal functioning and maintain a homeostatic balance.

For example, contrary to the general belief that the heart of athletes hypertrophies as a consequence of high physical exercise, it would be the organ of the rest of the population that has not acquired the ideal size. Therefore, our body having a design that is not adapted to the circumstances of the current environment, there is an internal shock that gives rise to the diseases of affluence.

What are the diseases of affluence?

Obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia and atherosclerosis often go hand in hand.Therefore, this group of diseases has been framed within the so-called Metabolic Syndrome linked to sugar addiction. This, in turn, usually leads to cardiovascular disease.

A diet with a hypercaloric and unbalanced intake and a sedentary lifestyle could lead, for example, to a progressive accumulation of fat. After ingesting foods containing sugars, these are metabolized and transformed into glucose, which is then distributed throughout the body. When there is an excess of glucose that is not used, it is transformed into fat in the adipose tissue. This accumulation can become excessive in the belly area, and this central obesity is an important risk factor for the development of cardiovascular diseases.

Type 2 diabetes, the number of people affected will grow to 300 million by 2025, is usually found in adults. It is usually associated with obesity and a sedentary lifestyle. It causes a deficit in the assimilation of sugars in the body, which results in glucose accumulating in the blood (hyperglycemia) and cannot be used as a source of energy. Insulin, secreted by the pancreas, is responsible for facilitating the entry of glucose into the cells. People with type 2 diabetes develop insulin resistance, causing these problems. In recent times, its incidence is increasing in children and adolescents due to the abuse of sweets and pastries. The main consequence of untreated type 2 diabetes is myocardial infarction and other cardiac problems.

The term hyperlipemia refers to an excess of circulating fat in the bloodstream. It cannot be dissolved in the blood, fats travel through the arteries, favoring the appearance of cholesterol deposits on the walls of the arteries.. On the other hand, in atherosclerosis, excessive harmful fats form plaques in the arteries. Upon reaching a point of accumulation where blood can no longer circulate, a heart attack (if it occurs in the arteries of the heart) or stroke (in an artery of the brain) would occur, resulting in the death of the tissue that is affected by not receiving blood.

Finally, hypertension would also affect adults and would be another triggering factor for cardiovascular disease, as well as accelerating atherosclerosis. Its visible symptoms may not appear until well into the disease, when the excessive Blood Pressure overloads the arteries so much that it leads to the rupture of one of them.

Preventing Metabolic Syndrome

No one enjoys the prospect of suffering from these conditions, yet the vast majority of the population does nothing to prevent them. Food education and awareness-raising on these issues by health authorities could help to curb, to a certain extent, this epidemic caused by the diseases that are causing theto some extent, this epidemic caused by the diseases of affluent societies. Since the human genome has not changed for thousands of years, the closer we bring our lifestyle to the biological design of our body, the more our health will thank us for it.

Regarding dietary guidelines, as a physician Campillo recommends reducing the current daily amount of calories ingested, reducing the intake of fast carbohydrates (sweets), increasing the consumption of foods containing vegetable fiber and reducing those with saturated fats and trans fats, as well as paying special attention to those foods containing chemicals that may be toxic or pollutants. Regarding physical exercise, in order to balance the balance, a moderate-intensity activity of long duration is recommended. That is, for example, walking for an hour a day at a good pace or jogging for at least forty minutes three to four days a week. A good walking distance would be 6 kilometers a day, or 12,000 steps, if you have a step counter.if you have a step counter.

In conclusion, despite the short-term temptation caused by the succulent foods that surround us, a look to the future and a good information base should help us to avoid certain unnecessary excesses.