Natural Way - Death by sugar

Death by sugar may not be an overstatement. All the evidence is in that sugar is a major factor causing obesity and chronic disease. Processed sugar is a sweet old friend that may secretly already be planning your demise. There’s a sea of research suggesting that it is not all ‘sweet az’. Science has now shown beyond any shadow of doubt that sugar in all its forms is taking a devastating toll on our health.

Sugar is loaded into soft drinks, fruit juices, sports drinks, and hidden in almost all processed foods. Now most infant formula has the sugar equivalent of one can of Coca-Cola, so babies are being metabolically poisoned from day one of taking formula. No wonder there is an obesity epidemic in this country.

Today more than 25% of New Zealanders are obese and an additional one-third are overweight. Compare that to 1890, when a survey of white males in their fifties revealed an obesity rate of just 3%. In 1975, the obesity rate in this country had reached 10%, and since then it has more than doubled. Carrying excess weight increases the risk for deadly conditions such as heart disease, kidney disease and diabetes. We don’t have to be a scientist to notice our expanding waistline. Stroll through any shopping mall or schoolyard, or perhaps glance in the mirror.

If our diet was like that of people a century ago, we'd consume about 15g of sugar per day. Today we can beat that easily by getting it from the 73g per day available from just two cans of soft or fruit drinks. In vegetables and fruits, the natural sugars are mixed in with vitamins, minerals, enzymes and beneficial phytonutrients, all which buffer and moderate negative effects of these various sugars. Amazingly, many people unknowingly or otherwise, consume more than 130g of sugar in one form or another per day.

The explosion of soft-drink consumption is one of the major causes of sugar addiction. Today, 55% of sweeteners used in food and beverage manufacturing are made from corn, and the number one source of calories in this country is found in processed fruit and fizzy drinks in the form of high fructose corn syrup.

After consuming fructose, most of the metabolic burden rests on the liver, however this is not the case with glucose because the liver breaks down only 20% of it, the majority being quickly burned up as cell energy fuel immediately after consumption. So what becomes of this fructose once we consume it?

It activates processes that accumulate excess body fat deposits and causes loss of the appetite-control hormone ‘leptin’. Excess fructose also slows production of pancreatic insulin. These issues, together, result in eating more and developing insulin resistance.

Fructose excess rapidly leads to weight gain and abdominal obesity with the inevitable elevated blood sugar and high blood pressure – classic metabolic syndrome.

Are fruits good or bad for us then? Bearing in mind that fruits contain fructose, an ameliorating factor is that whole fruits also contain buffering vitamins and other antioxidants that reduce the hazardous effects of fructose. Fruit juices, on the other hand, can be nearly as detrimental as soft-drinks if too much is consumed daily. A glass of juice is loaded with fructose and many of the antioxidants are lost. It is important to realize that fructose isn't evil, because fruits are beneficial, but when you consume high levels of fructose it will absolutely devastate your biochemistry and physiology. Remember the average fructose dose is approximately 70g per day which exceeds the recommended limit by 300%. Most processed, tinned and packet foods contain large amounts of fructose, sometimes hidden, sometimes not.

Be choosey and meager with fruit consumption. Two or three ripe items per day is good. If you’re a raw food advocate with a good varied diet, and exercise, you will probably be the exception who cleverly avoids excess sugars and stays healthier.