Almost Everyone Eats it, But it’s a “Breeding Ground” for Disease

By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

Evidence is mounting that sugar is the primary factor causing not just obesity, but also many chronic and lethal diseases.

Dr. Robert Lustig, one of the leading experts on childhood obesity, and arguably the number one enemy of the sugar lobby, has published a well written article in the prestigious scientific journal Nature arguing that sugar is a poison.

He believes that the negative health effects of sugar consumption can no longer be ignored, any more than the health effects of tobacco and alcohol could.

According to Dr. Lustig, via the website Diet Doctor:

“The problem with sugar isn’t just weight gain … A growing body of scientific evidence is showing that fructose can trigger processes that lead to liver toxicity and a host of other chronic diseases.

A little is not a problem, but a lot kills — slowly.”

For the first time in history, “lifestyle” diseases — diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers — are killing more people than communicable diseases. And treating these entirely preventable illnesses costs more than one-seventh of the U.S. GDP. It stands to reason then that simply preventing these diseases could save the US health care system around one trillion dollars a year.

One of the primary, and likely most effective ways of preventing these diseases would be to curb the outrageous over-consumption of sugar.

Dr. Lustig rightfully argues that sugar used to be available to our ancestors only as fruit or honey—and then only for a few months of the year—compared to today, when sugar (primarily in the form of high fructose corn syrup) is added to virtually all processed foods and drinks; even items you normally would not think of as being high in sugar. Tragically, many infant formulas even contain more than 50 percent sugar! “Nature made sugar hard to get; man made it easy,” Dr. Lustig says.

Fructose is NOT the Same as Glucose

Glucose is the form of energy you were designed to run on. Every cell in your body, every bacterium — and in fact, every living thing on the Earth — uses glucose for energy.

Fructose is not the same molecule. Glucose is a 6-member ring, but fructose is a 5-member ring. Sucrose (table sugar) is 50 percent glucose and 50 percent fructose, and HFCS is 42-55 percent fructose.

If you received your fructose only from vegetables and fruits (where it originates) as most people did a century ago, you’d consume about 15 grams per day. Today the average is 73 grams per day which is nearly 500 percent higher a dose and our bodies simply can’t tolerate that type of biochemical abuse. Furthermore, in vegetables and fruits, the fructose is mixed in with fiber, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and beneficial phytonutrients, all of which help moderate the negative metabolic effects. So it’s not that fructose itself is “poisonous”—it’s the biologically inappropriate doses you’re exposed to that make it hazardous to your health and well-being.

How High Fructose Corn Syrup has Decimated Human Health

We now know, without a doubt, that it’s the excessive sugar content in the modern diet that is taking such a devastating toll on people’s health. According to GreenMedInfo.com, scientific studies have linked fructose to about 78 different diseases and health problems. Select the hyperlinks provided to review how fructose may:

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) was invented in Japan in 1966 and introduced to the American market in 1975. Food and beverage manufacturers quickly began switching their sweeteners from sucrose (table sugar) to corn syrup when they discovered that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) could save them a lot of money. Sucrose costs about three times as much as HFCS. HFCS is also about 20 percent sweeter than table sugar, so you need less to achieve the same amount of sweetness.

In the mid 1970s, dietary fats were blamed for heart disease, giving rise to the “low-fat craze,” which resulted in an explosion of processed nonfat and low fat convenience foods—most of which tasted like sawdust unless sugar was added. Fructose was then added to make all these fat-free products more palatable. Yet as the low-fat craze spread, rates of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity skyrocketed…

Clearly, there was a major flaw in the plan, and it’s not difficult to see that trading fat for sugar is not a wise move.

The problem is that excessive fructose consumption leads to insulin resistance, and insulin resistance appears to be the root of many if not most of the diseases listed above. Insulin resistance has even been found to be an underlying factor of cancer.

How Fructose Increases Insulin Secretion and Worsens Your Insulin Sensitivity

Interestingly, recent research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that fructose can activate taste cells found on your pancreas, a reaction that can increase your body’s secretion of insulin. And, while this is of particular concern for people prone to diabetes, if statistics are any indication, this could include virtually everyone.

At present, one in four Americans already have either pre-diabetes or some form of diabetes, and type 2 diabetes is directly linked to your diet, so anyone on a high-fructose diet can be at risk.

In this study, the researchers were able to demonstrate that fructose activates the same proteins in your pancreatic cells that your tongue uses to taste sweets. And when these cells are exposed to both glucose and fructose, they secrete more insulin than they do when exposed to glucose alone. According to Science News:

“Most sugars join the