The Americal Heart Association recently informed us that our massive intake of sugar-based drinks is indeed giving us heart disease, diabetes and drastically shortening our functional lifetimes. The admission seem badly delayed, and understates the depth of the problem.
A Less-than-timely Admission:
At the American Heart Association's 50th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention, researchers reported that sugar-based drinks actually do contribute to heart disease and diabetes. That confession is about 50 years late in coming.
“Using the Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) Policy Model, a well-established computer simulation model of the national population age 35 and older, researchers estimate that the increased consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages between 1990 and 2000 contributed to 130,000 new cases of diabetes, 14,000 new cases of coronary heart disease (CHD), and 50,000 additional life-years burdened by coronary heart disease over the past decade.” And for the following decade: “Over the last decade, at least 6,000 excess deaths from any cause and 21,000 life-years lost can be attributed to the increase in sugar-sweetened drinks.” These values are the increases over the previous decade, due simply to the increased consumption in the last 10 years. These quotes are from the press release for publication of the study’s results.
Bear in mind that drinks are only part of the sugar used in the USA for food products of all kind, so the total burden in terms of metabolic syndrome, obesity, diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease is most likely significantly higher. So what are the mechanisms for all this damage; why is it so detrimental to health and our functionality as we age, rather like a slow poison that tastes so good going down – and why are we so addicted to sweetness that we don’t just quit it all.
A primary mechanism of aging is GLYCATION – the random and opportunistic bonding of sugar molecules to proteins and fats. When those proteins or fats are structural components, for instance part of a cell wall within the endothelium of a capillary, or a collagen fiber in a tendon, the component is damaged in a permanent manner, and no longer able to perform its function. The name for these ‘clinkers’ is Advanced Glycation End products or AGEs. AGEs accumulate over a lifetime and are largely responsible for a general stiffening of our tissues.
The rate of glycation in our bodies is controlled primarily by blood sugar levels – the higher our blood sugar, the faster glycation occurs. Every time blood sugar spikes up, damage accelerates, but even at baseline levels there is a continual loss of function throughout the body. As our capillaries stiffen, our blood pressure goes up irreversibly; as our skin stiffens, we see lines, sags and wrinkles that never smooth out again. In our kidneys the glomeruli become deranged and filter the blood less effectively over time. Elevated blood sugar as in type 2 diabetes leads to greatly increased incidence of disease. The diseases associated with diabetes include heart attack, stroke, blindness, kidney failure, circulatory deficits, and more. Lower blood sugar levels reduce the progression toward all these ailments.
Optimal Blood Sugar Levels:
The medical community considers normal fasting glucose to be between 85 and 109 mg/dL. The anti-aging practice of caloric restriction leads to glucose levels of about 74 mg/dL. In normal health, the pancreas stops secreting insulin when glucose levels drop below 83 mg/dL. This implies that the pancreas is actively attempting to get glucose below that level. Life Extension Foundation has been promoting for many years that optimal fasting glucose should be considered to be 74-85 mg/dL. Anything above this should be cause for modification of lifestyle, diet and use of appropriate supplements.
One of the most productive ways to modify diet is to simply eliminate everything and anything with sugar, white flour and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) from your life. The key factors have been quantified for many foods and food products as the glycemic index and glycemic load. These numbers tell you how fast a food raises blood sugar, and essentially how far it raises it. And while these ratings can be helpful in diet planning and help you understand what foods to avoid, there are a couple of simple rules that can help slow or even reverse the direction of this destruction.
The first is this – the bulk of our diets need to be deeply colored, fibrous vegetables, not grains as we have been lead to believe. Grains are nearly always found in the form of manufactured products made from grains, and virtually all of them result in a rapid rise of blood glucose. The massive selection of “breakfast cereals” is the classic examples of stuff you should eliminate. If you eat a grain-based breakfast it should simply be a combination of whole grains, rolled or steel cut, with nuts or dried fruit for flavor; no sugar added. A little added butter and/or extra virgin coconut oil will slow the rise a blood sugar from this meal and make it far more nutritious. Cakes, cookies, pastries and most desserts are metabolic poisons. Of the breads that abound in our stores, the only ones to consume are whole grain, multigrain, with no refined flour, sugar, or refined oils. With regard to salads, the key concern is the ingredients of the dressings. Look at the labels on dressings: avoid those with sugar, refined oils and HFCS.
The second – the bulk of our protein needs should come from wild-caught fish, free-range poultry, grass-fed livestock legumes/beans, and the many available tree nuts. These sources have a better ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats, less saturated fats and no partially hydrogenated fats. Be aware of the ingredients used in any industry-prepared meals; most use plenty of the adulterants we wish to avoid.
At one point we became convinced that the rise in blood sugar could be countered by using fructose or fruit sugar as a substitute, because it is processed by the liver and does not raise blood glucose much. But recent research has shown that consumption of unbound fructose, as found in (HFCS), directly raises triglyceride production and fat storage. We now know that even modest regular intake of HFCS moves the body toward leptin resistance, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes faster than table sugar intake. Getting our sweet satisfaction this way leads us down an equally destructive pathway toward the same final end – type-2 diabetes and elevated glucose and insulin levels that disable us 20 years prematurely, and it does it faster.
The Bottom Line:
The bottom line of all this is that we will live more vibrant, disease-free, longer lives if we eliminate all forms of refined sugar, things that turn rapidly to sugar and HFCS-loaded food products and drinks. The plain truth is that you do not need sugar to thrive in this world. It is not a healthy, quick energy food – it is a slow poison.
