Dangers of an All Juice Diet
A diet of mostly juices is not healthy. People should avoid an all juice diet and get the bulk of their nutrition from whole solid food. There is several health risk involved with these kinds of diets such as not getting enough fiber in the day. You can accumulate much more sugar and calories than the recommended amounts. Also, you can suffer from germs and bacteria that can build up in juicing equipment if you’re making fresh juice everyday.
There is a big misconception that a diet of mainly juicing is healthier than eating whole fruits and vegetables. I have seen countless commercials advertising the latest diets. One that sticks to mind are the ones selling juicing machines. They try to sell using the idea that these diets will help you lose fat and often show fitness models drinking juice as if that is how they manage to get their physique. They have also claim health benefits such as getting most of your nutrition from a variety of fruits and vegetables. While all of these benefits might be true, there are still the health risks to put up with.
FIBER:
Fiber is any part of plant foods that your body can’t digest. When eaten it passes through your stomach, small intestine, and colon without being absorbed. Fiber comes in two forms. One is soluble. This type forms a gel substance when mixed with water. It is mostly found in foods like oats, beans, apples, carrots, barley and psyllium. The other type is insoluble. This fiber does not dissolve in water and passes through the body intact. It is mostly found in wheat bran, nuts, beans and vegetables, such as cauliflower, green beans and potatoes.
There are many benefits of having fiber in your diet. Soluble fiber helps lower blood cholesterol and glucose level. It forces bile in the intestine to be excreted instead of being absorbed. The liver then makes more bile and uses the cholesterol in your blood. It can also absorb the sugar in your blood and regulate your glucose level. Insoluble fiber helps with your digestion. Since it passes through as a bulky solid, it helps regulate digestion and reduces problems like constipation and irregular stool. This type of fiber can also lower the risk of developing hemorrhoids and small pouches in your colon. A benefit offered by both types is the ability to make you feel fuller without the extra calories due to the mass that they add to your food. This can help with to manage a healthy weight.
In an diet of only juices it is nearly impossible to get your recommended daily fiber. According to the Institute of Medicine men and women under the age of 50 need 38 and 25 grams of daily fiber respectively. The process in which juice is made at home almost entirely removes the fiber in the food. Fruits and vegetables and chopped and grind until only the juice is filtered out in one end and the bulky fiber is collected in another end. If you go on a all juice diet, you eliminate fiber and run the risk of high cholesterol, high glucose levels, weight gain, constipation, colon cancer and all kinds of health problems.
SUGAR:
One component found in nearly every juice is sugar. Sugar is a simple type of carbohydrate. It comes in several simpler forms such as glucose, lactose, and fructose. According to Medical News Today, every 100 grams of white sugar contains 387 kcal or Calories. Fructose the type of sugar found in the fruits that are used to make juice. Unfortunately these fruits may be loading with tons of sugar. For example, a banana can have 17 grams of sugar while a large apple and a large orange can have 23 grams. While preparing a fresh glass of juice, you can quickly add up a lot of sugar if you use a lot of fruits.
There are several risk to having a lot of sugar in your diet. According to Aglaee Jacob some of the main risks are weight gain, diabetes, and an impaired immune system. The weight gain comes from the fact that sugar can be easily converted to fat whenever your body is not in need of energy. Also sugar beverages leave you feeling hungry and craving for more. The immune system also suffer. According to Aglaee Jacob, sugar has been found in studies to lower immunity down to 50% for about 5 hours. In an all juice diet you are having sugar all day and that leaves you with an impaired immune system for most of the day. Probably the most known effect of too much sugar is diabetes. Diabetes can occur if there is too much sugar in your bloodstream and your body can not absorb it into your cells.
CALORIES:
An all juice diet can have a lot of calories. Since the fiber and solid portions are being stripped off, there is more room in your stomach for more calories. The liquid portion contain most of the nutrients but also all of the calories. An active male on an all juice diet might find himself drinking more than his 3000 caloric need in a day due to a sense of not being full. This might leave him craving for more juice and more calories. He can put on a pound a week by drinking 500 more calories each day.
The main danger associated with too much calories is the weight gain. This is because the weight that is gain is usually fat. Too much body fat can lead to all sorts of problems such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, and certain cancers. A stroke is nothing to take lightly. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention about 130,000 Americans die from strokes every year. It is the leading cause of death. This can helped be prevented by sticking to solid foods that are bulky and fibrous. It will fill you up more and stop the craving.
Overall, although juices do have their nutritional benefits, an all juice diet is unhealthy. There are too many health risk involved. A person can gain an excess amount of weight/fat. They can develop different kinds of cancer through out the body including the colon. They can also develop diabetes. They can find themselves hanging on to life due to a stroke. They can impair their immune system through out most of the day. Finally they can find themselves eating buildups of germs from the equipment that they use to prepare fresh juice. People who truly want to be healthy should avoid all juice diets and stick to solid food.
References:
http://health.howstuffworks.com/diseases-conditions/cardiovascular/cholesterol/foods-that-lower-cholesterol2.htm
http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/fiber/art-20043983?pg=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose
http://www.sugarstacks.com/fruits.htm
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/196024.php
http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/damaging-effects-much-sugar-diet-1508.html
http://kidshealth.org/teen/diabetes_center/basics/high_blood_sugar.html
http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2005/healthieryou/html/chapter5.html
http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/publications/usdafoodpatterns/estimatedcalorieneedsperdaytable.pdf
http://www.shapeup.org/bfl/risk1.html
http://www.cdc.gov/stroke/faqs.htm
