Calories in Sugar and How to Tame Sugar Cravings

How many calories are there in sugar? This will depend on the type of sugar you’re consuming.

For a granulated sugar, per serving of 0.1 ounce cube contains 9 calories.

But you’re not only consuming 1 cube of granulated sugar. If you’re eating cereals, you’re adding more calories to your sugar intake. This is especially true if the sugary food you’re munching on contain simple sugars. It’s a type of sugar that doesn’t contain essential vitamins and minerals and it’s digested quickly. As a result, you’ll reach out for more.

What’s the recommended number of calories in sugar you must take each day?

The American Heart Association provided a formal guideline on sugar intake. According to them, a woman must not consumer more than 100 calories of sugar per day. It’s about 6 teaspoons of sugar.

Men, on the other hand, must not exceed 150 calories of sugar each day.

Excessive intake can lead to some metabolic abnormalities and may cause life-threatening medical conditions, such as diabetes.

It doesn’t matter what type of sugar or syrup you’re eating. The recommendation is focused on overall sugar consumption.

Unfortunately, all of us do exceed to that limitation. This is because the calories in sugar described relate to all sugars, from processed foods to fruits and vegetables.

Effects of consuming more

Most of us don’t notice them. But eating more sugar than what is recommended can negatively affect our appetite. This means that we won’t be satisfied with our serving of sugary breakfast. Instead, we look for more. The problem is we crave for more unhealthy foods.

Why? This is because simple sugar consumption can cause a spike in our blood sugar and insulin. As a result, we feel hungrier than before. We continue to eat until we’re fully satisfied.

Whatever sugary food you’re eating, it’ll always leave you wanting for more.

So, how can you help your body to stop craving for sugary foods?

Taming your cravings for sugar

Eat a bit

Just give yourself a little bit of sugar just to satisfy your cravings. A small cookie will do. It can help you stay away from feeling denied and prevent you from eating too much. Be mindful of what you’re eating.

Practice cold turkey

It’s tough but it’s worth it. Cutting sugary foods from your diet can surely help tame your cravings. They’ll diminish after a few days.

But some people will find it difficult to do so. As long as you’re determined to tame your sugar cravings, you can easily train your taste buds to get full satisfaction by eating less.

Chew some gum

This, too, can help reduce your sugar and food cravings. But make sure that the gum isn’t rich in sugar as it can hurt the health of your teeth.

Eat fruits

Instead of reaching for cake or chocolate, you need to eat fruits. Hence, it’s advisable that you keep fruits handy. In this way, you can easily pick one when sugar cravings hit. With fruits, you’ll get fiber and essential nutrients.

Eat regularly

Dietitians do encourage individuals to eat every 3 hours. This will help stabilize blood sugar level. It’ll also cut your hunger and cravings for sugary and fatty foods.

New Diagnostic Testing for Ebola Virus Has Been Developed

Diagnostic testing is done for a variety of reasons. Its most important role is to diagnose a disorder. Other reasons will include evaluation of the disease’s severity and monitoring of the treatment’s response.

It can also be used for more than one purpose. A blood test, for instance, can be done to know your RBC count. It’ll be repeated after you’ve undergone treatment. This is done so your doctor will know as to whether or not the treatment is effective.

What fluids are analyzed?

The most commonly used fluids are the following:

- Blood

- Urine

- CSF

- Synovial fluid

Sometimes, your sweat, saliva and other fluids from your digestive tract are extracted to be analyzed. There are times when diagnostic testing must only be done when the disorder is present.

Ebola virus diagnostic testing

There’s a new diagnostic testing for Ebola virus. It’s been made by IES Diagnostic, Inc. This is surely a great turning point to help us fight against Ebola. Unlike the old method, this new screening can be used as early as 24 hours after the patient has made contact with someone suffering from this condition. This is a great improvement since the old method may take days to weeks before the virus is detected.

The new diagnostic testing is known as Rapid Ebola Pre-Symptom test. Within one day of exposure, the virus can be detected. Researchers are now anticipating that there will be more tests to follow that can detect the virus within a few hours of infection.

How it detects the virus?

It utilizes a drop of blood to detect, not the virus, but the interferons being produced right after infected with the virus. These interferons are known as signature. They’re produced only when the patient’s cells are infected. The test will find that signature before the virus itself can be identified.

As previously mentioned, other diagnostic tests are only effective when the virus has already replicated to a certain level that the person is already contagious.

Because of this development, we can now avoid lengthy procedures and unnecessary quarantine. The old method has limited sensitivity that may result in giving out false negative. This means that a person without the virus will still be quarantined, which may cause unintentional spread of this deadly disease while it decreases chances of survival.

The new diagnostic test for Ebola virus, on other hand, can detect the effects of the virus as early as possible, thereby, reducing chances of virus being spread.

Risks and results

Every diagnostic testing entails some risks. An injury may occur during the test. You may also need to undergo further testing, i.e. if the result turned out to be abnormal. This means that you need to pay more for it.

This is one of the reasons many doctors will only request tests if they deemed the examination to be necessary in helping them diagnose a disease.

As regards to the latest diagnostic testing for Ebola virus, it’s not yet available in the Philippines. It’s also too early to say if this test could indeed help in diagnosing the virus.