JULY 2019 | 21
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REFINED TASTE
But first, to sugar school –
because there’s a difference
between ending a box of
Maltesers in one sitting and
making a fruit bowl vanish.
All sugar in the body is
converted into glucose.
When glucose levels are
high enough, your pancreas
will release insulin, which
preps your cells to take in
glucose. It’s then used for
energy or stored as glycogen
for later. Once glycogen
stores are full, any remaining
glucose is converted into fat.
‘The sugar derived from fruit
[fructose] is metabolised in
the liver, meaning it takes
longer to enter the blood,’
says dietitian Jo Travers,
author of The Low Fad Diet.
The granules that are added
to foods to sweeten them
and that you heap into your
tea, however, are sucrose,
which is made up of fructose
and glucose. Because the
glucose is readily available,
by the time the fructose
has been metabolised,
glycogen stores are already
full, which means more
fructose is stored as fat
than when it’s eaten alone.FLIGHT OR BITE
Your body responds to a
Lion bar in the same way it
responds to an actual lion.
‘A sudden influx of sugar
into your bloodstream will
trigger a stress response,
characterised by the release
of cortisol,’ says dietitian
Nicole Rothband. And
much like it does when
you’re about to become
lunch, your body goes
into fight-or-flight mode.
Think: a racing heart and
the sweats. In response
to the perceived threat,
glycogen is released from
the muscles or liver, rather
than from fat stores, as
it’s more readily available.
Useful if the threat is
someone trying to eat all
the eggs from your Haribo.SUGAR RUSH
Feeling sweet? Sugar will
do that. It triggers the
release of dopamine –
it’s the reason a night in
with Ben and Jerry is so
appealing after a bad day.
Consider yourself a regular
victim of the sugar rush? A
US study* found that sugar
has no discernible effect
on children’s behaviour, so
it’s doubtful it would affect
yours. But it does make your
body work overtime. ‘When
your blood sugar levels go
up, your body pumps out
a load of insulin to mop it
up in an effort to reach a
state of equilibrium again,’
explains Travers.OUT OF (ALL)
SORTS
Consume too much sugar
and you could suffer an
almighty comedown. ‘When
you’re producing all that
insulin, the body tends to
overshoot,’ says Travers.
Insulin then funnels all the
sugar into your cells, and
a dramatic drop in blood
sugar follows, symptoms
of which include sweating,
shaking and feeling dizzy.
The sugar struggle is real.CONFECTION
COMPLEXION
Feel like sugar is coming
out of your pores? You’re
not far off. ‘A high-sugar
diet leads to the production
of advanced glycation
end-products [AGEs]’, says
nutritional therapist Alice
Mackintosh. Meaning?
‘Sugar binds to collagen,
which undermines the
structure and function of
the collagen in your skin,
making it appear saggy and
unhealthy,’ says Rothband.
Essentially, AGEs, well, age
you. The process has been
delightfully dubbed ‘sugar
sag’. Sag off, we say.Been papped with some ‘mysterious white powder’? (Read: your pal’s posted a pic
of you licking doughnut dust off your hands.) This is your body on the white stuff...I mainline sugar
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN...Sugar
crashPhotography | LUCKY IF SHARP