The Danger of Sugar
White sugar is a refined product which has been depleted of everything of value, only energy remains. For the body to digest and metabolise it, however, all the vitamins and minerals of the original natural plant source are needed. When you ingest refined sugar (or any other refined product), the body must take all these nutrients somewhere else. It takes it from other food, provided there is any surplus of nutrients there. It most likely is not, so it makes you develop chronic vitamin deficiency, especially of B-vitamins; and it takes minerals from your bone tissue, ultimately causing osteoporosis. By stealing minerals, it also contributes to a gradually increasing acidity, a major factor in the development of degenerative disease, most notably cancer. Moreover, should you have cancer, however small, the refined sugar will immediately be snatched by the tumorous cells. Being cells with a metabolism based on fermentation, for practical purposes being yeast cells, cancer cells use it for their own energy production. So you actually feed them!
In addition to that, refined sugar damages the mucous membranes of the stomach; and by feeding acid-producing bacteria, it contributes to the dissolution of tooth tissue, ultimately causing decay.
This is not all. Without delving in too much scientific details, one can say that sugar causes nutritional deficiencies which destabilises the biochemistry of the body in a large number of ways, which affect the central nervous system as well as most organs, and pave the way for degenerative disease and accelerated ageing.
Some Benefits from Excluding Added (white/refined) Sugar from Your Diet
1. You decrease the risk to get cardiovascular disease and your bad cholesterol and triglyceride levels fall.
2. Your production of insulin falls and the risk to get diabetes type 2 decreases drastically.
3. Sugar causes inflammation. People who ingest added sugar have 50-100% more inflammation in the body. Avoid inflammation by avoiding sugar.
4. Sugar depletes the body of alkalising minerals and leaves it acidic, causing osteoporosis and cancer. By skipping it, you reduce that risk.
5. Sugar feeds intestinal bacteria that produce estrogens, another risk factor for cancer, diabetes and much more. Skip it and reduce your risk to get those diseases.
6. More sugar, more caries. By eating less sugar, you will have better teeth.
7. Sugar affects your mood negatively. With less or no added sugar, your temper will become more stable and you will become less prone to depression.
8. Sugar disturbs your sleeping pattern. With less sugar, you will be sleeping better at night.
9. Sugar negatively affects communication between brain cells. By skipping it, you improve both memory and ability to learn.
Artificial Sweeteners
Artificial sweeteners are not better. They might reduce the calorie intake compared to ordinary sugar, and they might not feed acid-producing microbes, but being artificial they come with their own problems. Aspartame is probably the worst of them all, since its breakdown generates strongly carcinogenic compounds.
Another one is sucralose, quite popular right now. It has shown not to break down well in nature, so what happens with it in the body? Does it leave deposits that cannot be metabolised? We don't know yet, but its resistance to biological breakdown is a red flag. It has also been shown to reduce the weight of the thymus in rats. This is nothing else than imposed ageing. Upholding the size of the thymus is a key factor in retarding ageing. Another effect observed on rats, is that it negatively affects the intestinal microflora.
If you crave sweetness, the best is to use naturally sweet things, unrefined. Dried fruit, for instance. Pulverised to meal, dried figs, dates, not to mention pears can be used to sweeten other products; liquorice (but beware, it raises the blood pressure), or why not honey? Unheated honey is a natural antioxidant and must be counted amongst the superfoods. Another natural sweetener is the herb stevia, allegedly 30 times sweeter than sugar.
If you want to use refined sugar, the wisest course is to take large amounts of brewer's yeast as well. It contains most of the nutrients refined sugar is deprived of and provides them in perfect proportion.
Why People Like Sugar
Why have people come to love sugar too much?
Initially white sugar was expensive. During the Middle Ages it was more expensive than gold. Using sugar gave prestige. In the families of Royalty and high Nobility, they had sugar to everything. And it is possible to examine old skeletons and see that the teeth became bad when sugar came in use. They must have got terrible problems with teeth and toothache.
Sugar increases the level in the brain of the amino acid tryptophan, which, in turn, triggers the production of serotonin. That generates a feeling of well-being, and since it is also addictive, sugar possesses the typical characteristics of a drug. Once you have started, it is hard to stop. If you also set the blood sugar level in swing by pushing it up with sweets, you will crave more sugar as soon as the level decreases again. A vicious circle that is hard to break. But it is possible.
(This article is based on material previously published in Meriondho Leo.)
Copyright © 2020 Meleonymica/Mictorrani. All Rights Reserved.
More articles on health medicine can be found here.
You find all my writings on Read.Cash, sorted by topic, here.
Also, please join my community: The Mechanisms of Health (d52e).
Nice article. I used to think artificial sugars were safe to use