According to a recent survey, close to half of Americans say they eat sweets on a regular basis. But giving in to that sweet tooth can have a detrimental effect on our overall health.
Details of the study were published in the Journal of Translational Medicine. Researchers utilized the UK Biobank to evaluate blood sample data containing health and genetic information for 500,000 participants in the United Kingdom.
Using AI learning to look for patterns within the data, people's food preferences were assigned to one of three groups: Health-conscious (those who preferred fresh fruit and vegetables to animal-based foods); Omnivore (preferred all foods); Sweet-tooth (sweet foods and beverages were preferred). By examining various proteins and metabolites in the blood samples, the researchers found that those in the sweet tooth group had higher C-reactive protein, which is an inflammation marker. In addition, those in that group had higher blood sugar, and worse lipids, which increased their risk of having other conditions like heart disease, depression, cardiovascular disease or diabetes.
A lower risk of heart failure, chronic kidney disease and stroke was discovered in the Health-conscious group and the Omnivore group only had moderate health risks. Researchers state that sugar increases the level of inflammation in the body, which triggers many health issues.
