What are Free Radicals and How Does Sugar Cause Them?

We may not always take the time to appreciate our health and energy. But every day, our bodies perform incredible balancing acts to boost both our well-being and our energy levels, to keep us alive and keep us healthy.  As part of those efforts, our cells produce waste products and those include free radicals. Normally, free radicals are part of the body’s balancing act. When they are out of balance, though, unstable free radicals can wreak havoc, raising the risk of many dangerous diseases.

What Are Free Radicals?

Free radicals behave like invisible, sneaky thieves in our bodies. They are produced as a normal waste byproduct in our mitochondria, the tiny energy powerhouses within our cells. When molecules divide into single atoms with electrons that lack partners, those atoms are called free radicals. 

Electrons prefer to be paired. To find a match, the free radicals search our bodies to steal electrons from healthy molecules. The free radicals either bond with those electrons to form a new molecule or break down the existing molecule into more free radicals in a domino effect. 

Unstable free radicals continue this chain reaction which is known as oxidation. 

Free radicals may harm our DNA, cell membranes, and other cell parts through the oxidation process. Oxidative damage is another name for free radical damage.

Normally, the production of free radicals is in balance with antioxidants in our bodies and we stay healthy as a result. Sometimes, though, free radicals overwhelm the natural balance. When that happens, we refer to the imbalance as oxidative stress.

What Causes Free Radicals?

Our bodies naturally produce free radicals through metabolism and immune system efforts. When we experience oxidative stress, free radical production may have been increased based on:

• Our diet (especially sugar consumption)
• Our use of medications and drugs
• Our environment, including pollution and cigarette smoke
• Pesticides in our yards
• Alcohol use

Free radical damage may affect our bodies in multiple ways. Let's look deeper.

What Are the Dangers of Free Radical Damage?

Because of oxidative stress, our bodies may have problems fighting free radicals, resulting in cell damage. When free radicals become unbalanced, we may experience:

• Wrinkled skin as our connective tissue, collagen, loses its strength.
• Reduced blood flow to our brain and heart from free radical damage to artery walls, causing cholesterol plaques to accumulate.
• Higher risk of cancer, heart disease, and other chronic diseases.
• Greater inflammation and all that inflammation entails.
• Increased risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia.
• Eye problems, including cataracts.
• Loss of hair and graying hair.

Controlling the balance of free radicals with antioxidants may help us slow and control the damage. The food that we eat and the beverages we drink are key to this balance. That’s why our intake of sugar can make (or break) our well-being. How Does Sugar In Our Diet Cause Free Radicals?

Remember the mitochondria, our energy powerhouses? Mitochondria use glucose to create energy, with free radicals occurring as a part of that process.

Consuming sugary foods and drinks affects the liver, which plays a major role in detoxification.

When the liver has to detoxify the body from excess sugar, inflammation results. The boost of glucose puts the mitochondria into overdrive, producing more free radicals. That increased production affects the balance between antioxidants and free radicals that our bodies need for optimal health.

Over time, a diet high in sugar also causes the insulin in our bodies to decrease. This further increases mitochondrial function, skewing the free radical imbalance even more. And then our livers become overloaded. 

A recent study focused on showing exactly how too much sugar increases the body’s production of free radicals. Study participants who drank an amount of sugar water equal to two cans of cola experienced more than twice as much free radical generation after two hours than the control group. 

Researchers also investigated how that free radical production affected antioxidant levels. They discovered that participants’ levels of the antioxidant a-tocopherol (the active form of vitamin E) decreased by the second hour and stayed lowered in the third hour. 

We should also take seriously that damage resulting from the free radical imbalance may cause plaque to accumulate, according to the study. That plaque can result in cardiovascular disease. 

Best Ways to Combat Free Radicals

As demonstrated by the study, diet plays a key role in the body’s balancing act. The research showed that reducing sugar intake may offer one of the best ways to combat free radicals. 

The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends limiting our consumption of sugar to:

• A maximum of 100 calories daily for women (equal to 6 teaspoons of sugar)
• A maximum of 150 calories daily for men (equal to 9 teaspoons of sugar) 

To put this into perspective, a regular Coke contains almost 10 teaspoons of sugar.

Reading the nutrition labels of processed foods may help us to reduce our sugar consumption. Sugar is added to many types of food, including soft drinks, candy, yogurt, cereal, fruit drinks, and even some salad dressings. Processed food often contains sugar, too. Yes, even if it's savory.

Boosting our consumption of foods high in antioxidants may also help to combat free radicals. These foods include:

• Fruits, including cherries, citrus, and prunes.
• Vegetables, such as broccoli, leafy greens, and carrots.
• Spices, including cinnamon, turmeric, and garlic.
• Nuts, especially walnuts, which have almost twice as many antioxidants as other nuts.

Other ways to combat free radicals include:

• Limiting processed meat like bacon, sausage, salami, and so on which contain preservatives that result in free radical production.
• Reducing alcohol intake to one drink per day.
• Drinking tea, such as green tea, which has polyphenols and other antioxidants.
• Minimizing our consumption of fried foods.
• Getting enough sleep.
• Exercising regularly. 
• Being cautious when using chemicals, including cleaning products and yard pesticides.
• Avoiding smoking, including second-hand smoke.

Remember that free radicals are a normal part of our bodies’ systems and we won't ever be able to remove them entirely — nor do we want to. But we do have the ability to lower the risks of free radical imbalance through our diets and behaviors. 

Reducing our sugar intake may play a key role in helping us to combat free radicals. And achieving that goal can be surprisingly simple. By choosing a bottle of water instead of soda, we can reduce our sugar intake instantly!

In addition to a low-sugar diet, we can empower ourselves to combat free radicals through lifestyle changes. A healthy diet, regular exercise, and enough sleep may all help restore our body’s balance between free radicals and antioxidants. 

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