1 big reason why we are getting fatter and sicker?
This past weekend, it has been my absolute pleasure to listen to David Gillespie speak at The Wellness Summit - Melbourne 2013.
I have to admit that when his book Sweet Poison - why sugar makes us fat was first released in 2008, I managed to completely ignore it. The fact that I was at least 8 kilo’s (18 pounds) overweight was conveniently blamed on post baby weight, not the small/tiny/inconsequential number of good home made biscuits, cookies, cakes and macaroons that I might manage to have most days. I was feeding my daughter after all!
David told us that in the 1830′s before sugar became readily available through processing methods, the average consumption per head per day was one and one third teaspoons. It’s now 35 - 40 teaspoons per day. Wow! If you’re not doing your bit with 35 - 40 teaspoons then someone else is making up for you in the stats!
He spoke about fructose and how it was fructose that is the real demon in this story. A common sugar molecule (sucrose) is made up of two types of sugars. Fructose is one half and the other half is glucose. Glucose is our main source of energy and is required by every cell in our body. Our brain in particular uses 25% of our entire glucose supply so it is vital for us to function. Fructose on the other hand is NOT required by our body, in fact, our body has no idea what to do with fructose. It is fructose that is making us fatter and sicker than we have ever been in human history.
He explained that insulin, the hormone that regulates the amount of glucose in the blood, is actually an appetite suppressant. When all is working well, it signals us to stop eating once there is enough glucose in our blood stream. However…..fructose interferes with that signal and there is no insulin response to pure fructose so….when the body is fed fructose, we don’t know when we are full. We could eat fructose all day (and some of us do!) and never feel full.
He talked about another hormone involved in appetite control. Leptin is a hormone that tells us to stop eating. It’s our long term appetite control and allows us to go between meals without eating. It is produced by every fat cell in the body. But fructose interferes with our appetite control system and doesn’t allow that leptin signal to get through. So we put on fat.
He told us that fructose is highly addictive; as addictive as nicotine. Uh oh! He said it was not at all easy for him to give up sugar and loose over 40 kilos.
He also told us that food manufacturers know what a wonderful sales agent sugar is. That anything with sugar added is sure to sell better than something with no sugar. That breakfast cereal manufacturers will increase the amount of sugar in their brand of cereal to make sure it sells as well as similar products with more sugar and that most breakfast cereals have in the range of 25 - 35% sugar.
We learned that fructose can cause fatty liver disease - a disease that didn’t exist 40 years ago. Fructose is turned directly into fat by the liver and that fat wraps around the liver. We don’t even know we have this disease because the fat is on the inside wrapped around our internal organs. Fatty liver disease can lead to Cirrhosis which can then lead to Liver Cancer.
Frighteningly, we learned that 1 in 10 kids under the age of 15 has Fatty Liver Disease…… and, that there has been a 7 fold increase in type 2 diabetes since 1981 - all caused by fructose, a molecule which our bodies have not evolved to process.
We learned that Fructose causes a waste product called uric acid to build up leading to painful gout and kidney disease and that kidney disease has become the leading cause of hospitalisation in Australia.
Sugar is also likely to be responsible for aging, Alzheimer Disease and depression. It also depresses our immune system making it far easier than it should be for us to catch infectious diseases and be affected by daily stressors. It’s why GP’s will tell you that the day after Easter is the busiest day of the year for kids with colds.
Lastly, he mentioned that sugar is a really bad thing to be consuming when you have cancer. We know that it depresses the immune system which is most undesirable when fighting cancer, but it is also cancers’ favourite food. Cancer is very well adapted to using fructose to replicate itself thus allowing it to grow. It will feed off glucose too but it can’t use glucose to reproduce more cancer cells, it needs the fructose component of sucrose to do that.
I would highly recommend David’s book if you want to know more about sugar and the effects it can have on your health.
Photo Credits
- Macaroons - <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/30003321@N00/691491266
- Jubes - <ahref=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/tukatuka/6555566603/”>hmerinomx</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/”>cc</a>
- Patrolling Hoth - leg0fenris via Compfight
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