SUGAR CONSUMPTION
cancer-loves-sugar This is a You Tube video about Dr. Lustig and his findings about sugar and several studies on the impacts of sugar.
Video from Dr. Frank Lipman's website- about the addictive properties of sugar and how cancer loves sugar:
Dr. Lustig is a great advocate for healthier eating and consuming less sugar. Why? Sugar is often hidden in foods and HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) is just as bad as sugar. Since the 70's sugar consumption has gone down but HFCS consumption has increased.
We are hard wired to want fructose because cave men used to get fructose from small amounts of fruit, which contain fiber and slows metabolization of the fructose.
These sweetners are in everything! HFCS has been shown to prove that sugar is linked to heart disease and stroke. University of California Davis researchers have done nutrition studies on the impact of HFCS on blood. Participants who ate HFCS (25% of their Calories) showed an increase in LDL cholesterol and other risk factors for cardiovascular disease. The liver gets overloaded with fructose and converts the sugar to LDL cholesterol.
Drinking sweetened drinks could be just as bad for the heart as is a fatty meal. American diets reduced fats but metabolic syndrome, diabetes, cancer, heart disease have sky rocketed. When fat is removed from food, it is replaced with sugar.
Other researchers at Harvard have proven that sugar is a catalyst for the growth of one third of common cancers. Tumors have insulin receptors on them, which trigger the consumption of glucose and then glucose helps the tumor grow. Scientists are working on creating medicines that block these receptors on tumors.
For now, the best thing to do is to reduce sugar. Easy, right? Hold on.....maybe not. Sugar triggers dopamine in the brain and MRI's show areas in the brain have inceased blood supply and the reward or pleasure center in the brain is triggered in the same way that is when alcohol and drugs are consumed. By scanning hundreds of volunteers, it has shown that the more sugar is eaten, the more it takes to trigger these reward centers. More and more is consumed in order to get the same reward in the same way that people who are addicted to drugs need more and more to get the same impact.
The sugar industry says that eliminating sugar is not the solution. They say eliminating Calories from other foods is the answer. Dr. Lustig says that no more than 100 Calories of sugar a day is too much. This is a public health crisis and sugar belongs in the same category as tobacco. People need to limit their intake.
