Did you know that Americans consume more sugar in one day than our ancestors did in an entire year? It's true.

When you hear "sugar problems", most commonly, you think about sugar and diabetes. But that's only one disease on a long list of complications caused by excessive sugar in our bodies. The bottom line is that our bodies cannot properly function in a healthy manner with the toxic amounts of sugar we are consuming.

The pancreas has the important job of lowering sugar levels in the blood. It does this by producing and sending a hormone called Insulin into the bloodstream. Think of insulin as a gatekeeper. Insulin tells specific cells to open and take enough sugar for energy. These cells respond and take what they need from what is available.

When insulin's job is finished, what happens to the rest of the sugar? Great question. The remaining sugar in our bloodstream is stored as saturated fat! Don't forget, saturated fat is the main culprit in heart disease. Heart disease is on the rise and most people don't even know the right lifestyle choices to make to avoid it!

Due to the excessive amounts of sugar consumed, the pancreas is always working harder to produce more and more insulin. Eventually, our cells start to disregard insulin's instructions by not accepting sugar or other nutrients that enter the cell similarly. This is called insulin resistance. And this chain reaction eventually leads to diabetes.

Also when our pancreas is exhausted from overworking and insulin is flooding our bloodstream, we increase the release of stress hormones. Our bodies are now in a stressed state in which our immune system will no longer function properly.

High sugar intakes also make it difficult for our cells to receive other necessities such as vitamins. Vitamin C enters the cells of our body just the same as sugar. So when these "insulin gates" on our cells no longer work properly, our bodies now run the risk of being deficient in vitamin C. We all know that vitamin C plays an important role in our immune system, so once again our immune system is forced to work below its capabilities.

Magnesium is another vitamin deficiency that is caused by excessive sugar intake. Magnesium has the very important job of relaxing our muscles. These muscles include the heart and blood vessels. When these muscles cannot relax like they are supposed to, they stay constricted and tight. Sounds like high blood pressure? Exactly!

Magnesium deficiency is not the only contributing factor in high blood pressure when discussing the side effects of a diet high in sugar. High insulin levels cause sodium retention. We all know sodium retention causes fluid retention. This dangerous combination of constricted vessels and fluid retention over time can cause heart disease.

Earlier we were discussing an increase in stress hormones produced due to high insulin levels. LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) increases in the body when these levels stay persistently high.

If not controlled through diet, exercise and stress reduction insulin resistance will lead to Type 2 diabetes, immune system dysfunction, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and heart disease which are the leading causes of death now in our society.