When it comes to sugar, the mainstream wants us to focus only on the problem of excess calories. They say sugar is fine, as long as you burn off the calories. But when you look at the science, the problem with sugar is not just excess or empty calories. Sugar is a metabolic toxin.
In fact, earlier this week, I reminded you that humans have only recently been exposed to sucrose (table sugar), at least in terms of biological history. After its discovery on an isolated island in the South Pacific, its worldwide dissemination occurred over the past few hundred years. For this reason, the human body doesn’t know how to deal with sugar metabolically. (I will tell you more in the May 2017 Insiders’ Cures newsletter. If you’re not yet a newsletter subscriber, now is the perfect time to get started.)
I also reminded you that substituting artificial sweeteners for sucrose is no solution either. Artificial sugars actually cause all the same health problems as sucrose. Plus, they have additional health problems of their own.
In addition, new research shows that drinking sugary water — like soft drinks and so-called sports beverages — “turns off” your body’s natural thirst regulation mechanism, tricking you into drinking more and more without ever getting proper hydration.
All the science I see shows that people should follow a balanced diet of meats and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruits, little starch, and NO added sugar. This kind of a balanced diet is consistent with human biological history and human metabolism.
Good health is not just a matter of “energy balance,” or matching calories ingested with calories burned.
In fact, research now directly links consuming high amounts of refined sugar — which really has no place at all in a healthy diet — with chronic diseases. Plus, we now know that excess body weight, which the mainstream argued was the cause chronic disease, is actually another side effect of consuming excess sugar.
This understanding is fundamental to health promotion and disease prevention. And the modern mantra of “eat less, move more” is meaningless since a lot of chronic disease is really the result of eating sugars in beverages and foods. In this sense, sugar is not just an excess nutrient, it is a metabolic poison!
Truth about dangers of sugar buried for decades
The sugar and soft drink industry kept this understanding buried for decades. In addition, the big food and beverage industry invested many millions of dollars into research and education to ensure that you, your doctors, dieticians, and teachers all “drink the Kool-Aid” that obscures the real cause of chronic disease and the true path to health.
The whole idea of “energy balance” is a deflection. And the premise that you can eat sugar as long as you burn it off with more exercise is completely wrong, as the science shows. In fact, since sugar is a poison, no amount of exercise can counter-act it. That’s like thinking you can take arsenic or cyanide, as long as you “work it off.”
Sugar is a metabolic toxin, not just excess calories. In fact, plenty of people develop chronic diseases without ever carrying excess body weight. In fact, many “normal” weight people, who have no problems with “energy balance,” still have lots of problems with chronic diseases. One study found that nearly 25 percent of normal weight adults had abnormal metabolic readings. By comparison, 52 percent of obese adults had healthy metabolic signs. As I have pointed out before, a little extra weight can help in some ways.
The big food and beverage industry promotes the idea of “energy balance” because they don’t want to talk about Type II diabetes or liver disease, which are both associated with consuming sugars. (Ironically, consuming soft drinks made with zero-calorie, artificial sweeteners increases the risk of obesity and Type II diabetes, as I reported again this week.)
Flawed nutritional theory harms Americans
Teaching about “energy balance,” while ignoring the metabolic toxicity of sugar in junk foods and beverages sets Americans up for metabolic disorders, chronic diseases, and premature deaths.
Even when it comes to carbs, the source of calories is key. Not just the calories themselves. For example, 100 calories of simple carbs as sugar added to the diet has a profoundly different effect than 100 calories of complex carbs as found in fresh vegetables.
Not all sources of energy provide nourishment. And some are toxic.
Unfortunately, the list of “reputable” organizations that promote the “energy balance” myth is long. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, “Burn it to Earn It” Campaign (Gatorade), International Food Information Council Foundation, U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) “We Can” Campaign, “My Mixify” Campaign (American Beverage Association), American College of Sports Medicine, U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics are funded (or were funded) in whole or in part by the sugar industry and/or individual big beverage companies.
In addition, other organizations who signed onto the NIH’s “We Can” campaign include the American College of Sports Medicine, the CDC, the National Hispanic Medical Association, and the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, as well as American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, and Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
It doesn’t surprise me that the sugar industry could fool the NIH, since that bureaucratic organization never hired any real nutritional scientists in the first place.
Taxpayers should tell the NIH to can their pathetic “We Can” campaign, which sounds suspiciously like another empty slogan (“Yes, We Can”) citizens resoundingly rejected recently. Nothing like a government health bureaucrat “sucking up to the boss,” especially when it comes to soda.
All this trickery is another reason why I reject the hapless advice of diet and nutrition “experts” whose only credential is membership in one of these corrupt organizations.