According to the CDC, among U.S. adults, 29% have hypertension, 42.4% are obese, and 10.5% have diabetes.
Prediabetes, the condition where the blood sugar is above normal but not high enough to be type 2 diabetes, is present in 88 million Americans or 1 in 3.
Hypertension, obesity, and diabetes increase the risk of death in someone who acquires COVID-19.
One way to control all of them, blood pressure, blood sugar, and lose weight, is to limit or avoid simple sugars.
Excess intake of sweets increases the level of insulin and causes fat deposition in a sedentary individual. The persistent level of high insulin or hyperinsulinemia leads to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. The relationships between dietary sugar, diabetes, and obesity are well known, but here is something you may not know.
Dietary Sugar Can Increase the Blood Pressure
A review of twelve studies showed a connection between the intake of sugar-sweetened beverages and hypertension. The greater the consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks, the higher the blood pressure.
A bigger meta-analysis of 39 trials looked at the relationship between sugar intake and its relationship to blood pressure and lipid profile.
They found that the higher the sugar intake, the higher the blood pressure, triglyceride, total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and HDL.
Diabetes and Hypertension Damages the Blood Vessels
The damage starts at the prediabetes stage, which can begin as early as the teenage years.
High blood sugar causes several biochemical reactions at the cellular levels in all blood vessels of the body. That is why diabetic complications can affect all organs and increase the risk of heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure, and blindness.
If the blood vessels are diseased, a new injury can easily tip them over.
COVID-19 Attacks the Blood Vessels
A report about the autopsy of COVID-19 victims showed extensive damage to the blood vessels.
New research might explain the mechanism behind a constellation of odd COVID-19 symptoms, such as strokes in young people, delirium, purple toes and children with Kawasaki-like vascular inflammation.
A University of Florida research professor and virology expert, John Lednicky, contributed to a new study that supports growing evidence of COVID-19 being more than a viral respiratory illness. It’s also an infectious disease of the vascular system, the research team says.
Among the autopsied cases, many have comorbidities.
The patients ranged in age from 34 to 94. Each had some form of preexisting condition, such as hypertension, diabetes, coronary artery disease, chronic kidney disease, asthma, heart failure or obesity.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 binds to ACE2 receptors and from there enters the cells, multiplies, and causes cell death.
The ACE2 receptors are present on the respiratory cells and in all the blood vessels and the human heart.
Eliminating Sugar is One Way of Lowering COVID-19 Risk
Dietary sugars can increase weight, blood pressure, worsen diabetes and cholesterol levels. All of which worsens the COVID-19 outcome.
Do this Challenge
Take your blood pressure in the morning upon waking up. An automatic, digital blood pressure cuff will do if no one can get your blood pressure.
After having a typical sugar-sweetened coffee and sugared cereals or Danish pastry or anything sugar-laden, check your blood pressure within 30 minutes and see if it will go up.
You can o this experiment at any time of the day. As long as you do a before and after blood pressure test with any starchy or sweetened meals.
The sugared foods can include any dessert or even a meal with large amounts of pasta, white or brown rice.
Once you know which foods can elevate your blood pressure, you can put that in your “foods to avoid” or “foods to cut down on” list.
Once you follow that diet, your blood pressure may have better control, and you may need fewer medications.
In summary, cutting down or eliminating dietary sugars and starches lower the risk of getting very sick with COVID-19 and reduce the long-term risk of diabetes, strokes, and heart attacks.
Related Readings:
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Diabetic Complications, Pancreatitis, and COVID-19
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How Long do Covid-19 Patients Get Hospitalized?
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Blood Vessel Damage in Severe Covid-19 Patients
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Human Organs Targeted by Covid-19
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Physician Deaths from Covid-19
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Why Scheduled Surgery Has to Wait in Covid-19
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What Happens to Critically-ill Covid-19 patients?
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The Covid-19 can Attack the Brain.
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Who Gets Cardiac Injury in Covid-19?
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