Is Sugar Toxic?

[mckitterick]

First, read this NYT article on why sugar is so dangerous to your health. I'll wait.

I stopped eating refined sugars a year ago, and within two weeks I lost 10 pounds. I also started feeling healthier almost right away. This is why: Not only does sugar (cane, corn, you name it - refined sugar) make us fat, but it also causes insulin resistance. This makes it a primary cause for diabetes and metabolic syndrome. That means sugar causes heart disease. Worse yet, because of all these effects, it promotes cancer.

There's a terrifying thought, considering that it's in almost every prepared food you find in the grocery store.


Click the image to see the NYT article.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to give up refined sugar for one month. See how much your body responds.

Starting today, I'm giving up on diet soda, as well. Why? One's body sees the artificial sweetener and produces insulin in response... so the most dangerous aspect of sugar - that it promotes these diseases - can't be avoided by using artificial sweeteners in place of sugar. I've been noticing soreness in my guts, what appears from all symptoms to be a gall-bladder issue. Therefore, my body is responding to diet soda by producing insulin and increasing my triglycerides (blood fat) from artifical sweetneners.

*sigh*

I'll report in a month on how that's going. I hope to hear from YOU, too!

Good luck.
Chris

Comments

[squirrel-monkey.livejournal.com]

Except that this article is wrong about sugar vs HFCS -- by the author's own admission, fructose is the issue, so more fructose IS more problematic. Plus, there's research to back it up: http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/91/22K07/

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Oh, true; I think he was just trying to make clear that ALL refined sugar is toxic.

[siro-gravity.livejournal.com]

his point being that sucrose is made with glucose (which is ok) AND FRUCTOSE. that is why table sugar is bad for you.

and why fructose in fruit is NOT bad for you is because it comes "packaged with an antidote". the antidote is fiber.

see? i listened to that dude's every utterance. LOL!!

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Fantastic point, that! Fiber = good. Sugar = bad. Unfortunately, doctors (including mine) think that we need to get our fiber from bread, as the food pyramid says. If we all really ate 7-11 servings of bread each day, we'd be fat and experiencing lots of other ailments.

I used to follow those instructions and, because of it, suffered much joint pain and intestinal upset. I dropped the wheat (and most grains), dropped another 20 pounds, and - for the first time in my life, stopped suffering knee pain.

On the other hand, now I get all the fiber I need from fruit and vegetables. For the first time ever (again), I have - ahem - regularity.

Anecdotally, this seems pretty pursuasive to me.