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Added Sugar Levels in Starbucks Drinks Are Immense

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"Starbucks sugary drinks aligned on a table"

The hot grape chai tea, mochafrappucino and pumpkin spice late are the most sugary drinks.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – The Action on Sugar campaign analyzed 131 hot drinks served by the franchise and concluded that added sugar levels in Starbucks drinks are immense. Some of the beverages that the famous coffee shop was preparing for its customers contained up to 25 teaspoons worth of sugar.

Sure, Starbucks is good for the social component of your life, but from the health point of view, it is a ticking diabetes bomb. A report that was recently made public said that the famous coffee shop franchise serves drinks that have up to 25 teaspoons worth of added sugar.

The daily recommended dose of sugar recommended by the NHS is of 30 grams. A teaspoon of granulated sugar measures around 4 grams. That means that a single Starbucks beverage covers more than three times the daily recommended dose of sugar.

According to data provided by the CNN, 25 teaspoons of added sugar are three times the intake recommended by the Heart Association of America, the NHS, and the CDC. Also, the sugar quantity that was found in a single Starbucks hot beverage was also around three times the added sugar amount in an average glass of Coca-Cola. The fizzy drink was, up until now, considered one of the most sugary beverage on the market.

The Action on Sugar campaign that sponsored and published the report describes itself as being a sort of advocate for human health. It seems that the group behind the campaign is made out of health specialists, nutritionists, and even doctors. One of their main goals is to convince people to consume less sugary food and beverages.

According to the report that was released by the health-promoting organization, the most sugary Starbucks beverage is the mulled fruit flavored chai tea with hot grape. The drink was reported to contain 25 teaspoons of added sugar. This means that the added sugar levels in Starbucks drinks are immense.

Other health-hazard drinks that the company is offering to its loyal customers are the whipped cream mocha frappuccino with white chocolate that contains 18 teaspoons worth of sugar and their signature beverage, the Starbucks hot chocolate that comes in venti size contained no more than 15 teaspoons of added sugar.

The chai latte was reported to contain 13 spoons of added sugar while the famous seasonal latte with pumpkin spice flavor and whipped cream contained 10 spoons of added sugar.

One of the researchers from the Action on Sugar organization, Kawther Hashem, advised the people to treat the Starbucks beverages as more of a treat that you give yourself on rare occasion than an everyday habit.

A spokesperson from Starbucks declared that they are actively trying to reduce the sugar quantities from their drinks and have lighter options that they can offer to their clients. Even though the added sugar levels in Starbucks drinks are immense, the company does display all of this nutritional information both in their store and on their on-line profiles.

The added sugar levels in Starbucks Drinks are immense, but other companies aren’t offering healthy solutions either.

For example, a medium sized vanilla chai from Dunkin’ Donuts contains around 11 teaspoons of added sugar while their hot macchiato has 7. A McDonald’s large mocha is estimated to have the same amount of 11 teaspoons in its componence and a mocha from the competing KFC contains no less than 15.

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Dietary Guidelines Address Cholesterol, Saturated Fats and Sugar

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"greasy fast-food"

Saturated fats are one of the main concerns in the American diet.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – The eight edition of the dietary guidelines address cholesterol, saturated fats and sugar. The guidelines did not change significantly ever since the seventh edition that was released in 2010, but they focus more on dietary cholesterol, added sugars, saturated fats and they also included the consumption of coffee as a healthy habit.

According to the latest edition of the dietary guidelines aimed at the American people, coffee is not an enemy anymore, but rather an ally of a healthy lifestyle, if consumed with moderation. The FDA advises that the caffeine intake shouldn’t surpass 400 mg a day. But they do make a note that people who don’t usually drink coffee shouldn’t take it up just because it is now considered healthy.

The 2015-2020 dietary guidelines address cholesterol, saturated fats and sugar as the main concerns the American people should have when calculating their dietary requirements and planning a meal. The novelty of the new dietary guidelines is the fact that dietary cholesterol is no longer considered a health threat.

The previous guidelines limited the consumption of dietary cholesterol to 300 mg per day, but the latest issue says that it is no longer considered a factor in the process of building a healthy lifestyle. While they do say there is a need of additional research on the link between blood cholesterol and dietary cholesterol level, it seems that nutritionists and dietitians are not blaming it anymore for the heart problems of the American people.

But that doesn’t mean that fast food restaurants should be assaulted by people thinking it’s ok to eat food high in cholesterol. The dietary guidelines focus on the ever increasing intake of trans fats and saturated fats in the American plates. Cholesterol may have been removed, for now, from the list of dietary enemies of the blood vessels, but saturated fats are still responsible for hypertension, blood clots, diabetes and even stomach problems, like gastritis.

The last on the list of novelty subjects on which the dietary guidelines focused in the 2015-2020 edition is sugar. It is a well-known fact that the majority of processed foods, drinks and desserts that are on the present moment available on the American market are packed with added sugar.

Only a single Coke can contains approximately 7 teaspoons of added sugar, if you also count the sugar in the morning coffee, in the dough from which the morning bagel was made, from the slice of pizza and the ketchup on top you had for lunch and the from the dressing you drizzled on top of your salad at dinner you get an astonishing result.

Food in America is packed with added sugar, which is why the average citizen consumes almost double the daily recommended dose.

The new dietary guidelines address cholesterol, saturated fats and sugar. The FDA recommends the people to change their diets slowly to avoid stressing out the body.

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Psychological Stress Can Increase Diabetes Risk

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1

According to a study recently published in the journal Diabetologia, serious life events in childhood, such as illness or death in the family, a new child or adult in the family, divorce or separation, and constant domestic conflicts and fights in the family can triple the risk of developing Type-1 diabetes (T1D)

Even if the causes of T1D are unknown, a new research has found that both genetic and environmental factors are involved in the development of the disease. This form of diabetes is usually contacted after the body’s own immune system has attacked and destroyed most beta cells in the pancreas, the organ that is responsible with the production of insulin.

“This study concludes that the experience of a serious life event, which reasonably indicates psychological stress, during the first 14 years of life may be a risk factor for developing Type-1 diabetes,” was mentioned in the statement which accompanied the research carried out by specialists from Linkoping University in Sweden.

The study performed on 10,495 participants. At least one of four data gatherings were performed when the children were aged 2 to 14 years. From the entire sample, 58 were later diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. The researchers obtained the age at diagnosis from the national register SweDiabKids.

The scientists measured family psychological stress using forms filled out by parents assessing important life events, parental worries, parenting stress and parent’s social support.

The team noted that this increase in risk for type 1 diabetes was in close relationship with serious life events in early years of life was as important as birth weight, enterovirus infection or infant nutrition factors.

Genetic predisposition remains the most important of all factors after comparing each one individually. Type 1 diabetes risk increased 12-fold, within the study, for those with a first-degree family member whom has already suffered from type 1 diabetes, which was approximately four times higher than the boost associated with serious life events.

The researchers added that “psychological stress should be treated as a potential risk factor, and should be examined further in future epidemiological studies, for instance in relation to genetic risk.”

The team identified the beta cell stress hypothesis. It suggests that the child’s experience of an important life event may contribute to beta cell stress which causes both increased insulin resistance and increased insulin demands. This is due to the physiological stress response.

Image Source: Highlands Health System

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