Halloween is fast approaching, and candy is on every child’s mind. I was babysitting my cousins over the weekend and every chance they could they would sneak into the candy jar and take a handful of candy. Kids eat candy like addicts do drugs, and that got me thinking can candy kill you? At first thought I assumed that yes, just like everything that exists in the world it is possible for it to kill you but often not as the only cause. I started to do some research and was shocked at some of the studies I found.

One study showed that sugar consumption has been linked to a rise in non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes. Worldwide there are 35 million deaths annually from such noncommunicable diseases, additionally certain countries such as Denmark chose to tax foods that are high in saturated fat in an attempt to hinder sugars effect on the body. This same study showcased that sugars effect on the body can be similar to alcohol, it claims that high fructose corn syrup has similar effects on the liver as that of alcohol . This is most likely due to the fact that at it’s base alcohol is fermented sugar.

Sugar messes with the chemicals in the brain which thereby make you remain hungry after you consume it. This causation links eating access sugar to increased body weight and subsequently certain noncommunicable diseases. It has been documented that the last time sugar consumption rose dramatically in the United States, it was associated with a diabetes epidemic. Overweight people are more likely to have a heart attack or become diabetic than someone that is thin.

Robert Lustig, in 2009 gave a lecture called “Sugar: The Bitter Truth,” throughout it he refers to sugar as a “toxin” and as a “poison.” The basis of his argument is that “sugar,” meaning both sucrose and high fructose corn syrup, is toxic. A study branching off of this argument found that High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)  is primarily metabolized by the liver, whereas other sugars are metabolized by the whole body. Consuming natural sugar means a lot less work and abuse on the liver than consumption of HFCS. In a lab study on rats it’s “clear that if the fructose hits the liver in sufficient quantity and with sufficient speed, the liver will convert much of it to fat.” This has been called a fundamental problem with obesity which links it back to the noncommunicable diseases mentioned before. It is unknown whether humans have the same effect to sugar as lab rats, but it is well known that sugar is not good for you due to its lack of nutritious value and that it has often been linked to noncommunicable diseases that cause millions of deaths annually. Does the consumption of sugar kill people, no it does not. But the consumption of large amounts of sugar can be a factor in acquiring diseases later on in life, and that it can make you fat.

–Above is a diagram of what sugar does to the liver.