If you’re still not convinced of the evils of sugar in your diet and in your blood, a new discovery should make you a believer. Research now shows that as sugar climbs in the body, your ability to breathe and your heart’s facility for pumping blood are both hampered.Scientists at the University of Washington and Boston University examined the mechanics of how the heart and lungs rely on electrically charged proteins to stretch and then retract. These proteins are necessary to support and build healthy connective tissue.
But when sugar levels climb, the proteins no longer perform this function as effectively.
This crucial characteristic of the proteins is known as ferroelectricity. It consists of a response to an electric field in which a molecule switches from having a positive to a negative charge. Only recently revealed in animal tissues, this property has been traced to a substance called elastin. When elastin is exposed to sugar, the elastin protein sometimes slows or stops its ferroelectric switching. That can harden those tissues and, eventually, cause the degradation of arteries and ligaments.
“This finding is important because it tells us the origin of the ferroelectric switching phenomenon and also suggests it’s not an isolated occurrence in one type of tissue as we thought,” says researcher Jiangyu Li, a associate professor of mechanical engineering. “This could be associated with aging and diabetes, which I think gives more importance to the phenomenon.”
The researchers in this study focused solely on how this phenomenon affects aortic tissue, but they believe it also compromises other tissues that rely on elastin like the lungs and skin.
http://easyhealthoptions.com/alternative-medicine/nutrition/more-evil-linked-to-sugar/
