It's not just rotting teeth and obesity you're risking: From dementia to liver damage, the real toll of too much sugar
Mince pies, pudding and brandy butter, chocolates, - Christmas truly is the season of sugar. The average British adult will consume the equivalent of 32 teaspoons of the stuff on Christmas Day alone, according to the British Heart Foundation. UK guidelines recommend that we should have no more than 50g - or around ten teaspoons - of sugar a day. But surveys suggest the average British adult goes over this by two teaspoons - much of this coming from sugars added to our food by manufacturers.
And sugar does more than rot your teeth: in recent months many experts have argued that it's sugar, not fat, that's to blame for our obesity epidemic. Yet sugar is not just full of calories. Some scientists are claiming that, calorific content aside, a sugary diet is harmful because it alters crucial processes and hormone levels in the body. So can we safely indulge our sweet tooth over the Christmas period? Dr Mark Vanderpump, an endocrinologist at the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust in London, says that while most healthy people can get away with the odd sugar binge, there is 'quite a large population in this country who are on the borderline of diabetes, and if they put enough pressure on the system, it may just tip them over the edge'.