What added sugar may be doing to your metabolism, immune system, gut, Candida balance, and even your mood.
The other evening, I found myself in a restaurant I wouldn’t normally visit, simply because I was there with someone picking up an order. As we waited, I saw a drink bar displaying Kool-Aid, orange soda and other sweetened beverages. I understand this is a typical thing to see at pick up locations, but it caught my attention differently this time.
As I watched people come in to pick up their orders, I started thinking about how much of what we eat and drink is shaped by familiarity, habit and what simply sounds good in the moment. Most of us don’t stop to think about every ingredient in every food or drink we consume.
We eat what we’re accustomed to, what we’re craving, what is convenient, and what is readily available.
And sitting there, glancing at that drink bar, one thing in particular stood out to me.
Sugar.
I knew then I wanted to share more about it.
There is an important distinction that often gets lost when we talk about sugar:
The body needs glucose. The body does not need added sugar; particularly refined, concentrated forms of it.
Glucose is essential. Your brain, muscles and other tissues use it for energy. The problem isn’t the glucose itself.
The concern is the enormous amount of concentrated, added sugar that has become a normal part of the modern diet.
Soda. Sweetened coffee. Energy drinks. Cereal. Granola bars. Muffins. Candy. Desserts. Flavored yogurt. Bottled smoothies. Sauces and dressings.
Sugar is everywhere.
And most people know “too much sugar isn’t good for you,” but that’s usually where the conversation, or knowledge, ends.
I believe we all need to look a little deeper. Our bodies deserve it.
Added sugar doesn’t just affect your waistline. It can influence your metabolism, immune system, gut microbiome and microbial balance, including the environment in which Candida lives.
And that may have implications that extend all the way to the brain.
So, what is considered “high” sugar intake?
Let’s be honest here…the human body does not require ANY added sugar to function healthily (none).
But to add some perspective, the American Heart Association makes an important point: added sugar provides calories but little to no meaningful nutritional benefit, and it recommends no more than 25 grams per day for most women and 36 grams per day for most men.
But notice something: 25 grams isn’t a biological requirement. It’s a limit. That’s a very important distinction.
And lastly, and the most “loose” guideline, the U.S. Dietary Guidelines recommend less than 10% of daily calories from added sugar. On a 2,000-calorie diet, that’s less than 50 grams (12 teaspoons) per day.
So what is the average American consuming?
Americans consume roughly 65–70 grams of added sugar per day on average (about 16–17 teaspoons) this intake exceeds the federal “recommendation” of less than 50 grams per day on a 2,000-calorie diet.
Think about that for a moment…
We’re not necessarily talking about someone sitting down and eating spoonfuls of sugar.
Added sugar is woven into everyday foods and beverages: flavored oatmeal, protein bars, coffee creamers, ketchup, barbecue sauce, pasta sauce, sandwich bread, peanut butter, canned fruit, frozen waffles, bottled iced coffee, and countless other packaged foods.
It’s possible to consume a significant amount of added sugar every day without ever thinking of yourself as someone who “eats a lot of sugar.”
And that brings us to the bigger question:
What happens when the body is exposed to concentrated added sugar…not occasionally, but repeatedly, day after day?
Your body needs glucose. It doesn’t need sugar.
This distinction is incredibly important.
Your body can make glucose. You also get glucose from many different foods, including fruits, vegetables, grains and other carbohydrate-containing foods.
Again, what your body doesn’t require is added sugar; particularly refined, concentrated forms that deliver a large amount of sugar without the fiber, nutrients and other compounds found in whole foods.
Compare a whole apple with a spoonful of sugar. The apple comes with water, fiber, minerals, vitamins, polyphenols and countless other plant compounds.
Sugar comes with sweetness and calories.
The issue is concentrated, refined sweetness stripped away from its natural food context.
A whole orange is not the same thing as orange soda.
An apple is not the same thing as a candy bar.
Berries are not the same thing as a handful of gummy candy.
The food matrix matters.
The challenges arise when sugar becomes constant
Your body is designed to handle carbohydrates.
The problem comes when refined sugar becomes something you are asking your body to process all day, every day.
You wake up and have sweetened coffee.
Maybe cereal or a muffin.
A soda or sweet tea with lunch.
Something sweet in the afternoon.
Dessert after dinner.
Maybe a glass of juice before bed.
None of these things seem dramatic on their own. But add them together, day after day, and the metabolic environment begins to change.
Refined sugar is rapidly absorbed → Blood glucose rises → Insulin rises
The body works to move that glucose into cells and storage.
Do this occasionally and the body can handle it. Do it constantly and you’re creating a very different environment.
The problem isn’t one cookie. It’s the chronic pattern.
Over time, excessive sugar can contribute to impaired glucose regulation, insulin resistance, excess energy storage and metabolic dysfunction.
And metabolism doesn’t exist in isolation. It is connected to everything else.
Including your immune system…
Sugar and your immune system
This is one part of the sugar conversation that doesn’t get enough attention.
Your immune system depends heavily on the metabolic environment in which it operates. And there is some fascinating research showing that large amounts of simple sugar can temporarily affect immune-cell function.
In one classic study, people who consumed large amounts of glucose, fructose, sucrose or honey experienced a temporary reduction in the ability of neutrophils (important immune cells) to engulf bacteria.
In other words, a sugar load temporarily changed part of the body’s first-line immune response.
That doesn’t mean eating a cookie “shuts down” your immune system. It means sugar and immune function are connected.
And when you zoom out, the more interesting question becomes:
What happens when a person repeatedly consumes large amounts of added, refined or concentrated sugar, while also eating a nutrient-poor diet?
Now we’re no longer talking about one isolated sugar spike.
We’re talking about the overall terrain.
Your gut is an ecosystem
Your gut isn’t simply a tube that carries food through your body. It is an ecosystem.
Bacteria live there. Fungi live there. Other microorganisms live there. And all of them interact with one another and with you.
The food you eat influences this environment. So do stress, hormones, medications, blood sugar, immune function and the health of the intestinal lining.
This is why the concept of seeing the entire terrain useful.
Instead of looking at one organism and asking, “How do I kill it?” we can ask a much bigger question:
“Why is this organism thriving here?”
This same question can be applied to many health challenges as an exercise of self-reflection, and Candida is a good example.
Candida isn’t necessarily the problem. The imbalance is.
Candida can naturally live in the human body. Its presence alone doesn’t mean something is wrong.
The challenge arises when the environment changes and Candida is able to grow beyond its normal balance.
This is where the idea that “sugar feeds Candida” comes from. And while that thought is often oversimplified, there is real biology underneath it.
Candida is a fungus that can use glucose as an energy source. It also has sophisticated systems for sensing and responding to sugars in its environment.
Research has shown that glucose and sucrose can influence Candida’s growth, adhesion and biofilm formation.
So yes…sugar matters.
But it isn’t as simple as: Eat sugar → get Candida.
Candida overgrowth is about the environment as a whole, the terrain.
Blood sugar matters. The microbiome matters. Immune function matters. Antibiotics matter. Hormones matter. The intestinal environment matters. And diet matters.
Sugar is one piece of that puzzle…
So what does sugar actually have to do with Candida?
Think about the body as an ecosystem. Candida is living within that ecosystem. Your beneficial bacteria are living there too. Your immune system is constantly helping maintain balance.
Now introduce a diet that is consistently high in added and refined sugar:
You’re providing large amounts of rapidly available carbohydrate.
You’re repeatedly stimulating glucose and insulin.
You’re potentially creating metabolic stress.
You’re changing what is available within the intestinal environment.
And you’re creating conditions that may give certain microorganisms an advantage.
This is why “changing the terrain” is a much more useful concept than simply “eradicate Candida.”
If Candida is thriving because the environment is favorable, killing the organism doesn’t necessarily address why it was able to thrive in the first place.
Change the environment, and you change the conditions.
And then it gets more interesting: Candida and the brain
This is the part of the conversation I find fascinating. We tend to think of the gut and the brain as completely separate systems.
They’re not.
The gut and brain are constantly communicating through the nervous system, immune system, hormones and microbial metabolites.
Side Note Fun Fact: In a human fetus, the brain and the gut begin developing concurrently. They develop in the same embryonic window and share the same tissue origins. As the grow, they remain tethered by a massive “superhighway” of nerves called the vagus nerve. The gut is often referred to as the “second brain.”
Researchers are now paying much more attention to another part of the gut ecosystem: The fungi.
We hear a lot about the bacterial microbiome. But there is also a mycobiome; the fungal community living within and around us.
And emerging research is finding differences in the gut fungal environment of people experiencing depression and other mood disturbances.
Candida is one of the organisms being investigated. This doesn’t mean depression can simply be reduced to “you have an overgrowth of Candida.”
The more interesting possibility is that fungal imbalance may be one piece of a much larger gut-brain imbalance.
And that makes sense when you look at how interconnected the body actually is.
How could the gut influence your mood?
Think about what happens when the gut environment becomes disrupted…
The balance between microorganisms changes. The intestinal environment changes. Immune signaling changes. Inflammatory signaling changes. Microbial metabolites changes.
And all of these signals communicate with the brain.
At the same time, the microbial ecosystem influences pathways involved in neurotransmitter production and metabolism, including pathways important to brain function.
So the conversation isn’t really:
“Does Candida cause depression?”
It’s a much more interesting question:
“Could an unhealthy gut environment, including fungal imbalance, be contributing to the signals reaching the brain?”
Research has found that gastrointestinal Candida colonization can alter behavior, personality, stress-hormone signaling and other aspects of the gut-brain axis.
Because the brain doesn’t exist in isolation. The brain is part of the terrain, too.
The cycle works both ways
And there’s another piece that often gets overlooked. The relationship between the gut and brain goes in both directions.
Stress affects digestion.
Stress hormones affect the gut.
Poor sleep affects metabolism and immune function.
Depression can affect appetite, food choices and daily habits.
All of these things can influence the microbial environment. And then the altered gut environment sends signals back toward the brain.
So you can end up with a cycle:
Stress leads to…
→ disrupted gut environment → microbial imbalance → increased opportunity for Candida → altered immune and inflammatory signaling → changes in gut-brain communication → fatigue, brain fog, low motivation or mood changes
→ more stress
→ further disruption of the terrain.
This is why simply taking something to “kill Candida” may not be the whole answer.
The question should be:
What created the environment in which Candida was able to thrive?
Don’t confuse fruit with refined sugar
If someone hears “sugar feeds Candida,” they may decide they need to eliminate every piece of fruit.
Again…
A whole apple is not a candy bar.
A bowl of berries is not soda.
A fresh orange is not orange juice from concentrate with added sugar.
Whole fruit comes with fiber, water, minerals and plant compounds.
It is a completely different food experience than isolated refined sugar.
The goal isn’t to fear every carbohydrate molecule. The goal is to move away from concentrated, processed sweetness and return carbohydrates to their whole-food context.
Will there be cravings? Yes.
Anyone who has tried to cut out added and refined sugar knows how surprisingly powerful the cravings can be.
I experienced this myself when I first gave it up for three months. About three weeks in, I was shocked by how strong the cravings had become. I remember thinking, Is this how withdrawals feel? It was actually a gross feeling and eye-opening to recognize just how much of a hold sugar had on me, even though I had considered myself a very healthy eater before this.
I took it even further. I cut out not only obvious sources of sugar, but also starches like rice and potatoes, and even foods like carrots.
That experience made me realize how much sweetness we can consume without consciously thinking about it.
And one of the most empowering things about stepping away from added sugar:
You don’t have to live without sweetness. You can relearn what sweetness actually tastes like. And in turn, begin to transform not only your health, but your relationship with food.
The Bigger Picture
Ultimately, I don’t think the most useful question is:
“Is sugar bad?”
The better question is:
“What kind of environment am I creating inside my body?” (This is a powerful question, even outside of the sugar consumption topic)
Your food affects your metabolism.
Your metabolism affects your immune system.
Your immune system interacts with your microbiome.
Your diet influences the microbial ecosystem.
Your bacterial and fungal communities interact with each other.
Your gut communicates with your brain.
And all of these systems are constantly responding to the environment around them. That’s the terrain.
This knowledge is worth paying attention to. It isn’t about obsessively trying to eradicate every microorganism living inside your body. Moderation and balance are two very important and fundmental baselines for life. Extreme lifestyles in either direction, is not manintaining balance or considered phyically and mentally healthy.
This is about recognizing that what we repeatedly put into the body helps shape the environment in which the body has to function.
And sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do isn’t to add another supplement. It’s to stop giving the body something that is continually working against the environment you’re trying to create.
Change the terrain and give the body a better environment in which to restore, function and maintain optimal health. Live and be your best self.
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