Hormone Disorder Could Be Caused by Sugar

Here's another reason to reduce the amount of sugar you eat. Researchers have determined that if you eat too much sugar, the gene that regulates your levels of estrogen and testosterone can be turned off. In a recent press release, the BC Children's Hospital Foundation said that this discovery would help physicians when they are diagnosing hormone disorders. Common hormone disorders include PCOS, and type 2 diabetes.

Prior to this discovery, doctors assumed that insulin contributed to the reduction of the gene that regulates our hormones, SHBG, in our bodies. Physicians had come to this conclusion because pre-diabetic, overweight people typically had both a low level of SHBG and a high level of insulin.

This groundbreaking study proves that how our liver metabolizes sugar is what affects SHBG, not our insulin level. Researchers said that physicians can now use the SHBG amounts in our blood to monitor how our liver is functioning.

Armed with this information, physicians can intervene long before problems become apparent.

How the liver is involved
Sugars are metabolized in the liver. When someone eats too much sugar, their liver changes the sugar from sugar into fat (a lipid). When our bodies have too many fats, SHBG gene shuts down.

About the SHBG gene
Our bodies have a gene referred to as the SHBG, or sex hormone binding globulin gene. This gene regulates the amount estrogen and testosterone that our bodies produce.

When the SHBG gene shuts down, our body senses that it does not have enough hormones, and produces more testosterone and estrogen, regardless of the current levels of testosterone and estrogen currently in our system.

Having an excessive amount of these hormones puts us at risk of infertility, uterine cancer, acne, and polycystic ovaries.

Abnormal amounts of SHBG genes are also implicated in several other diseases, including cardiovascular disease and a person's risk for developing type 2 diabetes.

"We discovered that low levels of SHBG in a person's blood means the liver's metabolic state is out of whack - because of inappropriate diet or something that's inherently wrong with the liver - long before there are any disease symptoms," said Dr. Geoffrey Hammond, the scientific director of the Child & Family Research Institute in Vancouver, Canada, and professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of British Columbia.

Sugars
Both fructose and glucose are sugars. Fructose and glucose are used to make table sugar. Fructose is also a common ingredient in hundreds of food products, including syrups, low-fat products, and sweetened beverages.

Sources:
Child & Family Research Institute (http://www.bcchildrens.ca/)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid