If you need convincing that refined sugar can wreak havoc on your health, then read the new study that shows that a low-sugar diet, just for a few days, dramatically improves your health. It is a 10-day sugar-free diet. Do you think you can handle it? It may seem easy when you think about it, but sugar is like a drug and it can be difficult to resist. But the benefits are extraordinary.
How to go 10 days without sugar to improve your health?
The study was conducted on 43 obese children with chronic metabolic conditions such as high blood pressure. The researchers changed their diet for 9 days, replacing the snacks and juices they consumed every day with foods that contain the same amount of calories but have a lower sugar level. Instead of sugary yogurts, pastries, and cereal, the children were given bagels, fruit, and pizza to eat.
“The results were extremely visible,” says the main author of the study, pediatric endocrinologist, Robert Lustig. Although these children consumed the same amount of calories and only eliminated sugar from their diet, they saw major improvements in metabolic health such as lower blood pressure, lower blood cholesterol, and insulin. It also improved liver function. This experiment was designed to maintain weight. The children were offered more food once they began to lose weight. The children told the researchers that they felt fuller on this low-sugar diet.
Lustig called this finding “the strongest evidence to date that the negative effects of sugar are not due to calories or obesity.” We can’t say that diets are a lie, but this study also showed that sugar affects our metabolism. The findings tell us one thing clearly, the fact that monitoring the added sugar in your family’s diet is extremely important for improving health and can also have an effect on how the body controls satiety. So, a 10-day sugar-free diet can be extremely beneficial for your health.
Added sugar can appear under different names on the ingredients list, so it’s important to read product labels carefully before buying and opt for unprocessed foods. Listen to the advice of Dr. Lustig who says “Sugar calories are the most harmful, opt for a low-sugar diet if you want to have visible results in a short time”. Also give up juices, and sugar in coffee or tea, replace sugar with honey, stevia syrup, maple syrup, or agave nectar.
