Top Five for Episode #22: Top Five Shocking Dietary Facts About Sugar

For this week's episode, we watched two movies, the dark comedy "Sexy Evil Genius," and the documentary "Hungry for Change," and while the first movie was a good flick, it's the second that I really urge everyone to sit down and take the time to watch.

www.imdb.com

From IMDB: HUNGRY FOR CHANGE exposes shocking secrets the diet, weight loss and food industries don't want you to know about deceptive strategies designed to keep you coming back for more. Find out what's keeping you from having the body and health you deserve.

The documentary went in depth about our countries struggle with a silent killer: sugar.

Five Shocking Facts about Sugar:

#5. Studies have shown that sugar is more addictive than heroin - In fact, this film adds that it is an opiate, or a morphine-like substance. In the 1900's people consumed about 15 grams of sugar a day. Now, people are consuming between 28-150 grams per day because it is hidden in our food.

#4. Sugar promotes belly fat - Adolescent obesity rates have tripled in the last 30 years and childhood obesity has doubled and one of the culprits that has caused this may be the fructose-laden beverages more people are consuming. A 2010 study found that excess fructose intake actually caused fat cells to mature.

#3. Sugar hides in many everyday "non-sugar" foods - While many strive to avoid the "normal" sugary culprits (candy, cookies, cake, etc.), they often are duped when they discover some of their favorite foods also contain lots of sugar like tomato sauce, fat free dressing, tonic water, marinates, crackers and even bread.

#2. Sugar and alcohol have similar toxic liver effects on the body - There has been evidence that shows that fructose and glucose in excess can have the same toxic effect on the liver as the metabolism of ethanol -- the alcohol contained in alcoholic beverages had similarities to the metabolic pathways that fructose took. Further, sugar increased the risk for several of the same chronic conditions that alcohol was responsible for.

#1. Sugar may sap your brain power - Sugar has been known to accelerate the aging process. Aging of the cells consequently can be the cause of something as simple as wrinkles to something as dire as chronic disease but there is other alarming evidence that sugar may affect the aging of your brain as well. A 2009 study in rats found that excess sugar consumption was linked to deficiencies in memory and overall cognitive health.