Sugar - The Great DeceiverSugar – The Great Deceiver
Eating sugar in our confections and drinks has become very near and dear to our hearts. We use it as rewards, as gifts, and to comfort ourselves. Most of us really love the sweet taste of sugar, and many of us even crave it. So, before finding out about the truths and myths of concentrated sweets, take the following quiz now and after you finish reading this article. Answer true or false for each statement. Sugar… IS good for my body.
Expanded Definition of Sugar Generally the term “sugar” refers to table sugar, scientifically known as sucrose. On this web page I use the term sugar to include any kind of concentrated sweet, such as corn syrup, fructose, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, maltose, sorbitol, honey, fruit juice, sucanat, date sugar, maple syrup, “raw” or “natural” or “Turbinado” sugar, and Florida Crystals. Although each one may have slight variations on how they affect the body, they basically have very similar affects. So, don’t fool yourself in trying to search for sugar substitutes after you read this information about sugar (concentrated sweets).
Sugar Upsets Body Chemistry
In his research Dr. Melvin Page discovered that ingesting sugar throws the body's calcium and phosphorous metabolism out of balance. He tested people who were healthy. If they had not ingested any concentrated sweets such as sugar, their calcium and phosphorous ratio in their blood would be normal at 2.5. Then, he would have them eat a 4 ounce candy bar, and within 20 minutes, their blood calcium and phosphorous was out of balance and might stay out of balance for six to twelve hours depending on how well or sick they were. When minerals such as calcium or phosphorous go out of balance, it creates a deficiency of functioning minerals and also creates toxic minerals that the body doesn’t know what to do with, so it dumps them out in the urine. When body chemistry is constantly being upset, the body may be constantly dumping calcium. Eventually, the bone stores of calcium and phosphorous become depleted, and people may develop osteoporosis. Often preceding the development of osteoporosis, they will have tooth decay or gum disease because of the upset body chemistry.
Also, the excess calcium that is in the blood that has no phosphorous to relate to can also deposit in soft tissue, which can lead to hardening of the arteries if it lands in the arteries. If too much calcium is going out through the kidney or the gallbladder, a person may develop kidney or gallbladder stones. Excess calcium in the blood can also be dumped in the joints, leading to arthritic processes, or into the bursa, causing a painful bursitis. Basically, upset body chemistry leads to degeneration of the body. However, the degeneration is slow and subtle, and so most people are not aware of it at all.
What do I do to keep from upsetting my body chemistry?
Eat a healthy diet of primarily vegetables, protein and complex carbohydrates (beans and whole grains, shole vegetables). Eat small frequent meals, five to six per day. Develop a plan to stop eating concentrated sweets. (See end of this web page.) Stress Of Sugar on the Glands
Prior to several hundred years ago, people seldom encountered the taste of sugar. Refined sugar was just not available. In the traditional human diet, people mainly ate complex carbohydrates, or starches, which are composed of the same basic material of sugar – glucose. However, the starches take a long time to be broken down in the body and are absorbed slowly into the bloodstream. Sugar needs no digestion and rapidly enters the bloodstream. Therefore, sugar has a much greater impact upon our body’s blood sugar control mechanism than starch does.
At any instance in time, the glucose level in your bloodstream should be 90-110 mg of glucose per 100 milliliters of blood. This equates to a total amount in your bloodstream of about 1 to 3 teaspoonsful at any one time. A candy bar may contain 8 teaspoonsful of sugar, pie 10, ice cream 8, a 12-ounce soft drink 8-12 teaspoonsful of sugar. These concentrated sugar foods release glucose into the bloodstream rapidly. At that point, the body goes into a state of alarm and signals the pancreas to pour out more insulin to bring that blood sugar down. However, before long, there is no more sugar coming into the bloodstream because sugars absorb so rapidly. The blood sugar crashes because the insulin level is now too high. When blood sugar drops (hypoglycemia), people feel anxious, nervous, may feel sweaty, and crave more sweets. At this point, the alarms and flashing lights are going off in the adrenal gland. It then pours out cortisol and other adrenal hormones to pull sugar out of any tissues it can. Thus, it may eat up body tissues to supply sugar to the blood to keep the brain and other vital organs functioning. Over time, the cell membranes deteriorate from the action of the adrenal glands.
Have you ever experienced that low blood sugar feeling? What did you do as quickly as possible to get over it? Most likely you drank another soft drink or ate another candy bar, which started the whole degenerating process over again. The liver is also involved in the regulation of blood sugar. As the blood sugar swings wildly up and down day in and day out from eating refined carbohydrates, the glandular system gradually wears out.
Early on in this process of wild blood sugar swings, young people may feel energized by eating sugar. However, it is a false energy that comes from overstimulation of the glandular system. Eventually, people will actually feel tired and sleepy after eating concentrated sweets or any refined carbohydrates because the glands are getting so worn out. When I was in my late thirties, I wondered why my kids got so hyper when we were making chocolate chip cookies and I was so tired. Now I understand. Their glands were still strong enough to pour out lots of stimulating hormones, but mine were worn out. At one time, I was a sugarholic, but now, I avoid concentrated sweets completely. I had to learn the hard way that sweets and refined carbohydrates make me feel tired and irritable.
Long before a person becomes diabetic, they have dysfunctioning in the sugar/glucose regulating mechanisms of their bodies. More and more children, especially teenagers, are living on sweets. I shudder to think what their health is going to be like in the next five to fifty years. The March 2002 edition of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, pages 351-353, stated that, “The American per capita consumption of added sugars went from 27 teaspoons per day per person in 1972 to 32 teaspoons per day in 1996, which is an increase of 23%.”Just in a period of 26 years, the consumption of sugars increased that much. Also, in the Berkeley Wellness Letter of July 1988, it quoted that the average American has cut consumption of table sugar (sucrose) to about 60 lbs. a year but has included other forms of caloric sweeteners including corn syrup and all other forms of sugars so that the per capita consumption of sugar is 150 lbs. per year. Somebody is eating more than that, because I am not eating any of it.
Dormancy of Gluconeogenic Pathway
Gluconeogenesis is the ability to generate glucose from fat and protein stores in the body. With these stores, a person can go for longer times without eating because they can store calories in fat and glycogen. However, when we are constantly eating sugar, this pathway becomes suppressed. If the body never has occasion to use this biochemical pathway, then it atrophies. Because of the atrophy, a person then has to always eat sugar to keep their energy levels up, because the blood sugar drops too low. The body has no ability to extract the glucose from the glycogen or fat stores. With constant ingestion of sugar, the pancreas becomes hair-trigger. It has to instantly secrete a lot of insulin to keep the blood sugar levels from going too high. This constant hyperinsulinism in turn suppresses the thyroid gland. As a person continues to eat sugar constantly day in and day out, their glands finally become exhausted, and then symptoms develop. You have seen the people who have to constantly have a Coke or Pepsi in their hand or are nibbling on candy all day long. Others may go for that coffee break, because coffee also stimulates the release of sugar into the bloodstream, but again, with the spurt of sugar into the blood also comes the spurt of insulin into the bloodstream that keeps our homeostatic mechanisms messed up.
Eating fruit does not cause sugar sensitivities, but when we mess up our homeostatic mechanisms (normal balancing mechanisms of the body) with refined sugar, then, in a sick person, fruit triggers this messed up homeostatic mechanism. Because fruit juices are especially concentrated fruit sugar, they more easily trigger high insulin secretion. Therefore, to allow their sugar sensitivity to calm down and to allow the gluconeogenic pathway to reawaken, a person has to stop eating fruit for at least eight weeks. What do I do?
The New Natural Healing Cookbook gives you a wonderful way to eat to allow your glands (especially the pancreas, adrenals and liver) to renew themselves. Just eat what is in the plan and do not worry about what to avoid.
Sugar Addiction
A person may also become sensitized to sugar. Sugar sensitivity, just like any other food sensitivity, physiologically responds as an addiction. In other words, once you eat some, you have to have more. Have you ever noticed when all the sweets and candies are around at Christmas time, you just have to keep increasing your consumption of them, and it takes quite a while to settle that desire for sweets back down once you get past the holidays?
Was I ever surprised when a doctor told me in 1983 that I needed to stop eating sugar. I thought, “Oh, I can get off sugar for a little while to take care of this problem I am having, and then I will be able to go back to eating it.”Ha! Was I ever fooling myself. When I started eating sugar again, the same old addiction process came back, where I wanted more and more, and I felt lousy again. Sugar had so overstressed my adrenal glands that I had such a low blood pressure that people wondered if I was alive. No wonder I had no energy.
I was also amazingly surprised that once I was off sugar for at least five days, the cravings started subsiding. The physical cravings for sugar actually come under control after being off it those five days because it is out of your system by that time. However, our psychological cravings for sweets are much harder to get rid of. Our culture has so indoctrinated us that sweets are comforting, they are gifts, and they are acts of love. So, we can continue to crave them on an emotional basis. The emotional/psychological cravings probably come from yearnings that we are not even aware of. These yearnings and voids in our lives are best addressed through the spiritual arena.
Sugar addiction can cause mood swings. Just ask teachers about the effects of sweets on their students around the holiday time. They are very aware of the hyperactivity it causes. However, sugar can also cause feelings of depression, low energy, irritability, lack of control, and anger. Sugar addiction certainly contributes to food cravings, especially for sweets and soft drinks, also known as liquid candy.
What can I do?
Stop eating sugar! Don't panic. Don't quit cold turkey. Following the recommendations at the end of this article
Effect of Sugar on Weight and Blood Fat Levels
Sugar contributes to weight gain, to fluid retention, and converting sugar to fat. A triglyceride is just three sugar molecules hooked together to form a triglyceride, which is fat. When people have high blood triglyceride levels, it is generally not from the fats they are eating but more from the sugars, milk, and fruit juices they may be ingesting. This fat then can store as excess weight. Sugar can also indirectly contribute to elevated blood cholesterol. For instance, there is more corn syrup in the diet now, which is basically just an increase of the fruit sugar, fructose. Fructose causes loss of copper in the urine. If there is not enough copper ingested in the diet to replace this lost copper, then cholesterol can increase in the bloodstream.
Sometimes we crave sugar because we need more essential fatty acids in our diets. Essential means we have to eat them. Our bodies cannot make them. So even though the body cannot make essential fatty acids from sugar, it does the best it can with what you are giving it to work with. If the body cannot signal you that it needs essential fatty acids, it tries it’s best to turn those deficient foods (sugar) you are putting in your mouth into something that it can use as a building block for your cells. So you wind up with inferior building material in your cell membranes. The excess triglycerides made from sugar becomes stored fat.
What can I do?
Review the myths and truth about fat. Be diligent in adding essential fatty acids to your diet. At first you probably need fatty acid supplements because your cells have been deficient in them for so long. Take both omega-3 fats and omega-6 fats to balance your fatty acid needs. Omega 3 can be supplemented with flaxseed oil, 1 to 2 tablespoons per day, or Flax oil capsules or fish oil capsules, Super EPA . If you’re digestive abilities are strong enough to handle eating nuts and seeds, include pumpkinseeds and walnuts in your diet. The best omega-6 oil supplement is evening primrose oil because it already contains GLA. Some of us may not be able to convert the omega-6 food we eat into GLA. Evening Primrose Oil bypasses this conversion step for us.
Sugar Is A Naked Nutrient
Sugar is a pure chemical. It has essentially no trace minerals nor vitamins left in it. Trace minerals and vitamins are required to metabolize sugar. The minerals magnesium, zinc, manganese, and chromium are especially needed for sugar regulation. When these minerals and vitamins are not ingested with the sugar, then the body has to rob these nutrients from essential organs in the body. Thus, sugar depletes the body of minerals. Therefore, it may even be called an anti-nutrient as well as being a naked nutrient. B vitamins are very important to the regulation of sugar metabolism also. B vitamins tend to be calming to the nervous system. When they are robbed by sugar, we can understand a little better why sugar ingestion may cause hyperactivity or irritability in a person.
What can I do?
Take a whole food supplement. I have found Body Balance extremely effective in restoring vital nutrients in the body.
Sugar Suppresses the Immune System.
Concentrated sweets suppress the ability of our white blood cells to gobble up bacteria that enter our bodies as shown in a study published in November of 1973 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 26: November, 1973, pages 1880-1884, entitled “Role of Sugars in Human Neutrophilic Phagocytosis.” Phagocytosis is the ability of the white blood cell to engulf the bacteria. The neutrophil is a white blood cell that gobbles up the bacteria. In this study, each person had their blood drawn at fasting and one, two, three, four, and five hours after glucose load. They were fed different forms of carbohydrate to supply this glucose at different times. Then, each time, their blood was drawn at one, two, three, four, and five-hour intervals. Each glucose load consisted of 100 grams of carbohydrate from glucose, fructose, sucrose, honey, or orange juice. All of these concentrated sweets significantly decreased the capacity of the white blood cells to engulf bacteria. For instance, in general, the white blood cell could engulf 16 bacteria in a fasting state, but two hours after ingesting a concentrated sweet, they could only engulf 9 to 10 bacteria. The greatest effects occurred between one and two hours after eating but were still significant five hours after eating one of these concentrated carbohydrates. However, eating a starch (complex carbohydrate) did not cause this drop in the ability to engulf bacteria. A fast of 36 to 60 hours significantly increased the ability of the white blood cell to engulf and destroy bacteria.
After learning about this study, I began to realize why January was the biggest flu season of the year. Prior to that time, I thought we all got the flu in January because we traveled around so much visiting family and friends during the holidays. Therefore, we just were exposed to a lot more germs. However, after reading this study, I began to realize that not only were we possibly exposed to more germs, but our immune systems were suppressed by all the sweets that we were eating, making our bodies less capable of defending themselves. The first holiday season that I got through without eating sweets was a great victory for me.
What can I do?
Stop eating sugar! Don't panic. Don't quit cold turkey. Following the recommendations at the end of this article
Effect Of Sugar on Teeth
Concentrated sweets can cause dental decay without the sweets ever being in the mouth or touching the teeth. Teeth have tubules in them. Fluid is constantly moving outward through these tubules at a certain rate if the body is in homeostasis. However, if you put sugar in the stomach without even touching the teeth by putting it into a capsule, then the fluid starts to move inward into the teeth, which causes decalcification. This inward movement of fluid also allows bacteria to move into the teeth. Therefore, the teeth can decay from the inside out. That’s why your dentist takes x-rays to see if there are areas of dental decay that are not evident by just examining the outside of the teeth.
Sugar Interferes With Digestion
Eating sugar or any concentrated sweet with a protein will cause putrefaction. The protein has to stay in the stomach longer to be digested. Therefore, when sugar is eaten with protein, it doesn’t move out of the stomach as fast as it should, and therefore, neither the sugar nor the protein is digested properly. Putrefied protein goes into the bloodstream as toxins. Eating concentrated sweets with a starch will cause fermentation.
However, the flip side of the problem is that if you eat a concentrated sweet all by itself, the sugar goes so rapidly into the bloodstream that you start that bouncing, high blood sugar/low blood sugar effect that throws your body out of balance and stresses your glands. At least, when you eat it with a meal, the concentrated sweet is more slowly absorbed into the bloodstream. It sure looks like the bottom line is we shouldn’t eat concentrated sweets at all.
Sugar May Promote Aging
Elevated blood sugar can cause sugar to hook onto a protein in an abnormal way. This process is called glycosylation, or browning reaction. If there are not enough antioxidants available, this product can then be attacked by free radicals and becomes an advanced glycosylation end product, also known as “AGES.”
Diabetics are particularly prone to forming these AGES products. Hemoglobin A-1c is an AGES that occurs from their blood protein hemoglobin being linked to sugar molecules. Hemoglobin A-1c is used as a laboratory measure to determine the long-term blood sugar level control in a diabetic.
The problem arises when any of these products are damaged by free radicals and become AGES. They have powerful, deleterious effects on the tissues of the body. These AGES crosslink and form sticky networks as the proteins bind to the AGES. This can cause blockage of arteries, stiff joints, and cataracts. In fact, many diabetic complications are attributed to these AGES including nervous tissue problems.
Because complications in diabetics are remarkably similar to signs of aging, it has led scientists to believe that AGES are involved in the aging process. This process is more accelerated in diabetics but can take place more slowly in non-diabetics and contribute to the aging process.
Therefore, sugar may also contribute to degeneration of the body through attaching itself to proteins and precipitating this aging process in the body.
What can I do?
You tell me.
Sugar Is an Offending Food
It weakens the strong and destroys the weak. Once you eat a concentrated sweet, the blood sugar jumps around for at least 12 hours. This upset in body chemistry leads to degeneration of the body. My friend Dr. Bruce Pacetti once told me that Dr. Melvin Page told him this story. The devil sat down one day and thought about how he could get humans to destroy themselves by something they did. He thought whatever it was should look good, taste good, smell good, and feel good, and it would have to tear up the body very slowly and subtly. And that is how he came up with sugar.
It destroys the body so subtly that we don’t even know it is happening. We think it is wonderful. It tastes good. We give it as gifts, as bribes, as love offerings, but all the time, it is destroying us. The cruelest part of the story is that it had to be used by the most sincere people on the most innocent, for instance, cookie and cake sales to raise money at school, and sweets and candies as treats for our children. The American Cancer Society sells See’s Candy to raise money. Sugar destroys the children. Some studies have shown that sugar addiction may lead to other problems such as alcoholism and drug addiction.
Now it’s time to take the quiz again and see if you will score it any differently.
Sugar… Sugar (sucrose) is good for my body.
So, What Are You Going to Do in Regards to Your Intake of Sugar?
Here’s what I suggest.
Do some things to build yourself up nutritionally before attempting to stop eating sugar (remember that means any concentrated sweet). Once you have replenished some of the nutrients your body needs, you most likely will not have such strong sugar cravings. If you think you do not crave sugar, try going completely off all sweets for 5 days. Remember to read labels. Sugar is hidden in many, many processed foods. Better yet just eat according to the Get Healthy eating plan in Dr. Jo’s the New Naturally Healing Cookbook. See how your body responds. You may discover hidden sugar cravings. These cravings were not evident before because you were daily consuming sugar whether you recognized it in your food or not. Work through this process as a family. None of us can abruptly change eating habits that may have been in our families for generations. But you can make a difference now to yourself, your children, grandchildren and the generations to follow. I will support you through this process in providing resources.
Changing your mind set is the first step in freedom from the bondage of ill health. You can make a difference in the state of your health. You are not a victim. Congratulations on breaking out of the deception about sugar and being willing to change. The Healthy Habits web page may help you with your mind set.
1. Replenish your vitamins and minerals in a concentrated whole food supplement form such as Body Balance.
2. Be diligent in adding essential fatty acids to your diet. At first you probably need fatty acid supplements because your cells have been deficient in them for so long. Take both omega-3 fats and omega-6 fats to balance your fatty acid needs. Omega 3 can be supplemented with flaxseed oil, 1 to 2 tablespoons per day, or Flax oil capsules or fish oil capsules Super EPA . If your digestive abilities are strong enough to handle eating nuts and seeds, include pumpkinseeds and walnuts in your diet. The best omega-6 oil supplement is evening primrose oil because it already contains GLA. Some of us may not be able to convert the omega-6 food we eat into GLA. Evening Primrose Oil bypasses this conversion step for us.
5. Eat smaller balanced meals 5-6 times per day to slowly drip glucose into your blood. Smaller, more frequent meals take the stress off the glands and allow them to regenerate. Smoothing out the swings in blood sugar helps keep you from craving sugar because you are avoiding dropping into low blood sugar reactions
6. Have fun reacquiring sensitive taste buds. Once you are totally off sugar, other foods will start tasting much better to you.
7. Stop eating all sugars and concentrated sweets.
For more help, read Nancy Appleton’s book, Lick The Sugar Habit.
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