To use your nutrition for certain purposes like losing or gaining weight, you have to know the impact that food has on your body after you have eaten it. It not only gives you energy, there is a whole web of possible metabolic pathways which can be induced by nutrients, depending on your body's release of signal substances.

Such substances can be hormones for example, like insuline.

Ever heard of that? Maybe in connection with diabetes mellitus?

Every healthy body is producing this hormone in its pancreatic cells, to regulate blood sugar level and satiety.

Insuline works like a key to the cell, which opens it for glucose (aka. dextrose, sugar) so glucose can be utilised inside of the cell.

Insuline is an anabolic hormone, which means that if it is present in the blood (normally after consumption of carbs), it makes body cells store substances rather than release them.

This applies also to body fat – when you eat and accordingly produce insuline your body fat is not available for "burning“ it to energy. The opposite occurs when diabetes mellitus type 1 manifests – the diabetic person's body has no insuline, so no fat can be stored and the person looses a lot of weight very fast which can end lethal without treatment. Additionally his/her body tries to eliminate sugar via renal excretion, so these people are very thirsty and run to the toilet constantly, losing a lot of water. 

So back to our "small" snacks. They might be small in serving size, but when it comes to energy dense treats, like a bar of chocolate for example, one 100g bar brings a plus of ~ 550kcal to the person's energy intake and if this happens every day, it adds up – one kilogramme of fat tissue consists of about 8.000kcal, which could come from 1.450g of chocolate (15 bars).

Now don't think dark chocolate is something completely different – it is true, there are more healthy nutrients, such as polyphenols in the dark type, but still a lot of fat too - still 400 to 500 kcal per bar. 500 kcal is about the amount of energy you can take up with a good sized, well balanced meal consisting of veg, carb- and protein sources.

You can, of course, occasionally indulge in sweet treats, if it is in small amounts (so to say a small bar of 25g a day) or you cut down on other meals when you want a big portion of sweets like the whole 100g bar, once in a while (!). Comparing the variety of nutrients like fibre, vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids and protein of a balanced plate of "real“ healthy food and a bar of chocolate, the choc will definately not win the race, even if it is the dark version. Therefor don´t make it a habit to skip meals for having sweets instead, it won't keep you full and it won't keep/make you healthy for sure.

Treats should make you happy, but. So make sure that you don´t have to regret your sweet temptations, just keep the amounts low and nourish on healthy wholesome food the majority of your time.

Refined sugar, a pure carbohydrate, without any fibre or other plant contents has become part of western diets just ~ 300 years ago - in evolutionary terms, very recently compared with saturated fatty acids, which are present even in human breast milk. This fact gives scientists around the world to think - it seems more likely to be the recent refined one, rather than the prehistoric naturally occurring nutrient, making us sick. The new villan seems to be found in the 1970ies in this refined carbohydrate. Even the 7-countries-study of 1958/1964 which was primarily used to proof that saturated fat is the main reason for cardio vascular disease in Europe was differently interpretet years later. An Italian researcher thereby found that the food that correlated most closely with deaths from heart disease was not saturated fat, but refined sugar. Even the American Heart Association agrees with elevated sugar cosumption, being a major risk factor for cardio vascular disease, by increasing triglyceride levels, total and LDL cholesterol, and blood pressure, independent of sugars' effect on body weight [5].

Excess sugar is processed in the liver, where some parts of it can be turned into fat. Dr. Robert Lustig provides an interesting comparison between the liver processing of alcohol, fructose and glucose in his talk „The Bitter Truth“. Following the biochemical pathways there are astonishing similarities between fructose and alcohol processing in the liver. Both are converted to uric acid and fat at some point and therefor can lead to dyslipidaemia (like high cholesterols or triglicerides) and fatty liver disease (non- or alcoholic) which is a major contributor to the metabolic syndrome and liver failure. Glucose (aka. dextrose) is mainly stored as glycogen and to a far smaller extent leads to fat in the liver than alohol and fructose do [4].

Sugar is mostly consumed as sucrose or high fructose corn syrup, which both contain glucose AND fructose to the same amount. Glucose alone is rarely used for sweetening because it tastes 25% less sweeter than the previously mentioned sweeteners. Glucose is the only carbohydrate which starch molecules are broken down to, so starchy foods like pasta, potatos and bread (depending on its ingredients) usually do not contain high amounts of fructose and therefor don't lead to fatty liver in the first place. This is a job for fructose and sucrose, entering our diet in the form of sweet beverages like soft drinks, fruit juice and milky drinks (which should be considered as food btw.), sweets, fast food or even some long-shelf-life-bread. Start playing detective when you purchase your weekly groceries if you want to cut down on sugar, you might end up surprised!

To cut down on sugar, many people try to replace it with artificial sweeteners or sugar alcohols (aka. polyols). The long-term health effects are questionable because these substances are not used widespread and only in small amounts. Therefor they are handled with caution by food safety institutions and upper limits are set for artificial sweeteners.

By the way: Even for added sugar a limited consumption is recommended, being less than 10% of the total caloric intake, which would be 50g (x4kcal per gramme = 200kcal) of added sugar in the averave 2000 kcal diet. "Added sugars are sugars and syrups that are added to foods or beverages when they are processed or prepared. This  does not include naturally occurring sugars such as those in milk and fruits" states the United States Agricultural Department.

Thus, brown sugar, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), honey, invert sugar, malt syrup, maple syrup, molasses (golden syrup), fruit nectars, raw sugar, cane juice as well as agave syrup count as ADDED sweeteners.

Whether those sweeteners are "natural" or "organic" makes no dietetic, whilst a great environmental, difference.

Limit your consumption of foods with high amounts of added sugars, such as sugar-sweetened beverages.

Just one 330ml can soft drink contains 35 to 50g of sugar (7 to 10 sugar cubes!) being 140 to 200 kcal and zero vital micro nutritients like naturally occurring fibre, minerals or vitamins!! You can imagine the above picture with sugar cubes instead of ice in the glass to have a more picturesque describtion of the sugar amount in just one can. (Hey wait, are you a soda-drinker? Cutting here could be THE solution to your weight management!)

Where does the limit for sugar come from? Nutrition recommendation boards took the average uptake of sugar and set the limit slightly below that percentage to guide the limitation of energy dense food intake in order to make space for more healthy foods like whole grains and vegetables instead, makes sense. BUT: Does the substitution of sugar with other sweeteners make sense? [6]

Due to possible relations of artificial sweeteners with increasing cancer rates in animal tests (despite the fact that animal testing is necessary to legalize these substances) and the laxative effects of great amounts of polyols I am doubting the attempt of cutting down on sugar this way.

To help you make the switch to a diet lower in sugar, especially for people with overweight (BMI [kg/m²] ≥ 25), artificial sweeteners and polyols can be helpful though!