与许多物质过量不同，糖“过量”不会导致毒性反应——尽管在极端情况下，它们会导致脱水，而脱水有其自身的一系列副作用。相反，糖过量会导致两个独立的问题:高血糖和卡路里的过量消耗。每一种都有副作用。
糖高
大多数人在摄入过多糖后首先注意到的效果之一是糖的“高”感，包括一种嗡嗡声，咖啡因的感觉以及一些人的手颤抖或颤抖。高糖是非常高的血糖水平的结果，Lauralee Sherwood博士在她的书《人类生理学》中指出。Blood sugar, while it's necessary in certain concentrations to maintain normal cellular function, is a parameter that the body works very hard to maintain within strict ranges. As such, the body responds to very high blood sugar as an emergency situation, which partially contributes to the buzz or high feeling of a sugar overdose.
糖崩溃
第二种症状是糖“崩溃”，通常在一个小时或更短的时间内高糖。This is a result of the body's compensatory mechanisms working to decrease blood sugar levels to within normal physiological limits, explain Drs. Reginald Garrett and Charles Grisham in their book "Biochemistry." The pancreas responds to high levels of blood sugar by releasing the hormone insulin, which signals cells to take up sugar from the blood. Sugar overdoses lead to pancreatic overreactions, which causes cells to take up far too much blood sugar. As such, a sugar overdose results in very high blood sugar, shortly followed by very low blood sugar, which causes fatigue, nausea, weakness and hunger.
脂肪储存
一旦细胞从血液中摄取了过多的糖，它们就可以利用糖来满足自身的能量需求。然而，过量摄入糖分会导致细胞吸收的糖分远远超过其自身所需。因此，脂肪细胞可以自由地将多余的糖转化为脂肪，而脂肪是人体主要的能量储存介质。这就是身体将糖转化为脂肪的原因。玛丽·坎贝尔和肖恩·法雷尔在他们的《生物化学》一书中指出，脂肪在体内占据的空间更少，重量也比糖轻。糖摄入过量通常会导致大量的身体脂肪储存。