Sugar
The Sweet Thief of Life
by Tim O'Shea
"The taste of sweetness, whereof a little more than a little
is by much too much." - Henry IV, Part I
There's no doubt that Americans are addicted
to sugar. We consume an average of 150 lbs. per person
per year. (Appleton, p.10) For many of us, that means we eat our
own weight in sugar every year! So it might be helpful to find
out what that means - what sugar really is, what food value it
has, and what problems it causes.
The sugar industry is big: $100 billion per year. As with
any other billion dollar business, there's bound to be a ton of
information that will support such an empire anywhere you look -
the media, bookstores, advertising, etc. Boats like this don't
like to be rocked.
On the other side is a group claiming that white sugar is
poison, a harmful drug, barely differing from cocaine, etc. Some
claims are true; others are unreferenced opinion, often
bordering on hysteria. For our purposes, we'll focus on what we
really can verify about sugar, and hopefully avoid the errors of
disinformation on both sides of the fence.
WHAT IS SUGAR?
That's easy - it's that white stuff in the sugar bowl. Refined
white cane sugar is only one type, however. There's also brown
sugar, raw sugar, fruit sugar, corn sugar, milk sugar, beet
sugar, alcohol, monosaccharides, disaccharides and
polysaccharides. All these are also sugar.
Start with white sugar. It is made by refining sugar cane, a
process involving many chemicals. Or from beets, whose
refinement also involves synthetic chemicals, and charcoal. The
big problem is that the finished product contains none of the
nutrients, vitamins, or minerals of the original plant. White
sugar is a simple carbohydrate, which means a fractionated,
artificial, devitalized by-product of the original plant. The
original plant was a complex carbohydrate, which means it
contained all the properties of a whole food: vitamins,
minerals, enzymes.
Refined sugar from beets and cane is sucrose. Up to the
mid 1970s, sucrose was the primary sugar consumed by Americans.
That changed when manufacturers discovered a cheaper source of
refined sugar: corn. A process was evolved that could change the
natural fructose in corn to glucose, and then by adding
synthetic chemicals, change the glucose back into an artificial,
synthetic type of fructose called high fructose. (Freeston)
High fructose became big real fast. In 1984, Coke and Pepsi
changed from cane sugar to HFCS. True connoisseurs could tell
the difference, but there weren't many of us.
Today high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is the preferred
sweetener in most soft drinks and processed foods. Read the
labels. As of 1997, worldwide production of HFCS exceeded 8
billion kilograms. (Freeston)
Remember, natural fructose is contained in most raw fruits and
vegetables. It is a natural food. Moderate amounts of natural
fructose can be easily digested by the body with no stress or
depleting of mineral stores. Natural fructose does not cause
rollercoaster blood sugar, unless the person overdoes it.
Natural fructose is not addicting.
High fructose corn syrup, by contrast, cannot be well digested,
actually inhibits digestion, is addicting, and causes a great
number of biochemical errors, as we shall see. HFCS is
artificial; a non-food.
In this chapter sugar means refined, synthetic sugar from beets,
cane, and HFCS. The harmful physical effects are essentially the
same from all three. More later.
WHAT ARE CARBOHYDRATES?
Everyone knows that food comes in three forms: fat, protein, and
carbohydrate. Most foods have all three, in varying proportions.
Carbohydrates are made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.
The main carbos are sugar, starches, and cellulose. (Dorland,
p121)
Sugars are sweet carbohydrates, either single or double
molecules: monosaccharides or disaccharides.
Starches are the main form of carbohydrate storage in
plants. Starches are polysaccharides, which means strings of
more than two carbohydrate molecules. Starches break down to
sugars - that's why if you keep a cracker in your mouth for a
minute, it begins to taste sweet.
Cellulose is made of long, fibrous strings of
carbohydrate, mainly for structural support of a plant. It is
cellulose that provides us with fiber in the diet.
Fruits contain mainly sugars, while vegetables contain mainly
starches. And both contain cellulose.
COMPLEX VS. SIMPLE
An apple contains natural sugar: fructose. A potato
contains natural starch. But these are whole foods containing
much more than just isolated carbohydrates. Apples and potatoes
grown in good soil also contain vitamins, minerals, and enzymes.
Such foods are complex carbohydrates, meaning that they are
complete foods.
The problem comes in with processed sugar and processed starch.
White table sugar has no nutrients. White bread is a processed,
artificial starch. These are not foods - they do not nourish. We
call them simple carbohydrates. Even when they are broken down
to individual glucose molecules by digestion, it is completely
different from the glucose end-product of a digested apple, for
example. That's because apples don't simply break down into
isolated glucose molecules. Other nutrients and co-factors are
present, which are necessary for the body to make use of the
glucose: enzymes, minerals, vitamins.
White sugar and white bread require enzymes, vitamins, minerals,
and insulin from the body in order to act. And the action is one
of irritation, removal, and defense instead of nutrition.
All enzymes and nutrients have been purposely removed from white
sugar and white flour by processing. The result is a synthetic
manmade carbohydrate, occurring nowhere in nature. The body
regards such as a foreign substance as a drug.
Another way to look at it is this: when complex carbohydrates
are broken down, the result is a usable glucose molecule. When
simple (refined) carbohydrates are allowed to ferment in the
digestive tract because they can't be broken down, the results
are alcohol, acetic acid, water, and carbon dioxide. (Dufty p
183)
Not so usable, except for the water.
In addition to these by-products, simple carbohydrates do
increase blood glucose by an unregulated, unnatural amount. And
this is the real problem with refined sugar: the quantity of
pure glucose suddenly taken in. Most books, most doctors, and
most nutritionists fail to make this simple distinction between
simple and complex carbohydrates. They talk about apples and
Coca-Cola both as carbohydrates, because they say that both
ultimately break down to glucose, and that's the form the body
needs. It's the standard medical approach. Same mentality that
thinks vitamin C is ascorbic acid (see Chapter 11). The same
mentality that thinks that milk is a good source of protein, or
of calcium. Loads of information, very little understanding.
These are the type of nutritionists who confuse organic
gardening with organic chemistry, and talk about when you buy
organic produce in the supermarket, that's the kind that is
carbon-based. Or the type of "nutrition" mentality that has
bypass patients eating mashed potatoes and gravy and canned
sugar drinks the day after surgery so they'll "get their
strength back."
Most nutritionists are trained to think that diabetes is genetic
and therefore may have to be controlled with drugs.
Like any other area that concerns health, most of what is
published about diet and nutrition is unfounded speculation.
Worse if they have credentials. Don't get me started.
With sugar, ingestion is far different from digestion: just
because you ate it doesn't mean you can use it. This is why
counting calories and food combining and blood typing and the
Zone and other passing fads are so irrelevant: it doesn't matter
what you eat; it matters what you digest.
If you re-read the last three sections, you probably now know
more about sugar than 90% of health professionals. This will
become obvious when we get to diabetes.
MINI HISTORY
Sugar Blues by William Dufty was a classic book of the mid
1970s. In a compelling, informal fashion, the book provides a
broad historical and political sketch of sugar economics from
the 15th century to the present. Dufty thoroughly references his
basic data with respect to the trade empires that emerged around
sugar: molasses, rum, and slaves. The taxes on sugar alone
brought great wealth to the rulers of England, France, Spain,
and Holland, as well as to the slave traders, shipping
merchants, and plantation owners. (p. 33) Many modern fortunes
whose names we would recognize today were amassed at this time.
Dufty draws interesting parallels between opium and sugar, as
both were things we don't really need, both became sources of
huge revenues and taxes, both have some dark history involving
immense human suffering, and both can cause physical
degeneration and death after a long period of dependence.
REFINING CAME LATER
During the first centuries of the sugar industry, cane sugar was
made into molasses and rum, for shipping across the oceans.
Sugar itself was raw; light brown in color, and still retained
some of the original nutrients. Natural sugar doesn't cause
diabetes; if you eat too much natural honey, you just get sick.
The refining of sugar cane evolved gradually, and spread all
over the world in a short time. Refining began with old stone
mills, powered by rivers or windvanes, where whole wheat was
ground into flour. As time went by, machinery got better and
better at removing the outer husks from the wheat and leaving
behind only the white inner simple carbohydrate, devoid of
minerals and vitamins. Same with beets and cane. Processing
methods, which stripped away all vitamins, mineral, and enzymes,
got so good at making a consistent product of white crystals,
that the price of sugar went down and down, all over the world.
Sugar consumption, however, went up and up. What used to be a
delicacy only for the rich, evolved to becoming a staple for
everyone. Most sources estimate that today sugar makes up about
20% of the calories of the average American diet! Just
imagine - that means that on the average, 20% of what Americans
eat has no nutrient content. Worse yet, it's physically
destructive, as we will see.
Dufty offers layer upon layer of proof that modern mankind is
degenerating, devolving as a race, becoming sicker and weaker
decade by decade. Certainly nothing in the 20 years since Sugar
Blues came out can dispute that idea: look around you. Seems
like half our school kids are either on Ritalin, inhalators, or
some kind of allergy medicine most of the time. Look at the rise
of degenerative disease, cited in Chapter One.
In a more scholarly work, Dr. Weston Price had come to the same
conclusions in his landmark journal Nutrition and Physical
Degeneration. In the 1930s, Dr. Price travelled around the world
examining the teeth and skulls of every primitive race he could
find - American Indians, Swiss Alps villagers, Eskimos,
aborigines, Scottish primitives, Fiji islanders, and more.
Price's conclusions are not subject to debate - instance after
instance, when a people would become exposed to western foods -
white sugar and white flour - within a very few years, they
would be experiencing rates of tooth decay, tuberculosis and
arthritis equal to the "civilized" nations. Price found that as
long as a group of people could remain isoloated and eat their
'primitive' simple foods, the rates of tooth decay and
degenerative disease were practically zero.
Price's work has never been challenged.
HOW MUCH SUGAR DO WE REALLY NEED?
White sugar, none, according to Dufty. But modern needs are
something created by commerce, by advertising, by politics. How
many people do you know who drink at least one 12 oz soft drink
per day? If the sugar from each bottle could be crystallized
out, it would amount to 10 teaspoons. (Appleton, p 16) Put 10
teaspoons of sugar in the bottom of an empty coke bottle and
look at it. Is that a lot? In a normal bloodstream, which is
about 5 liters, approximately 2 teaspoons of glucose should be
circulating at any one time. That means that one coke raises the
blood sugar to 5x its normal level, for at least four hours.
Now stop here a minute. This is one soft drink. Do you know
anyone who drinks more than one soft drink per day? How about
per hour? Do the math.
To that, add the sugar in desserts, ice cream, jams, jello,
artificial fruit drinks, and candy. This is not even mentioning
hidden sugar found in ketchup, processed meats, baby food,
condiments, cereals, and most other processed foods whose label
you may chance to read.
And by the way, did you know that alcohol is a sugar? So
add wine, beer, liquor. And even tobacco! Getting the picture
here? Think you know anyone with only 2 teaspoons of glucose in
the blood?
SUGAR ABSORPTION
The simplest sugar of all is glucose. Both natural and
processed sugars ultimately break down into glucose, which is a
single molecule. Glucose is readily absorbed through the
digestive tract. It goes immediately into the bloodstream.
Glucose is necessary for cell function, especially brain cell
function.
The level of glucose in the blood is a very big deal. Too much
and we become diabetic; too little and we pass out.
The body has figured out many ways to try and keep the glucose
level within a certain range: 90 - 140 milligrams per deciliter.
(Guyton, p 863)
The pancreas and the adrenal glands work together to fine-tune
blood sugar levels at all times. As the blood flows by, the
pancreas senses the high glucose content and puts out insulin.
Insulin gets rid of the glucose in two ways
- into the cells
- storage in the liver, in the form of glycogen
The adrenals do the opposite; when blood sugar is too
low, they send a hormone called ACTH to the liver to get some of
the stored glucose out of storage. The body is then ready for
action: fight or flight.
A great system, evolved after countless millenia, perfectly
capable of balancing blood sugar, with a diet of natural foods.
Then manmade sugar came on the scene - a compound that nature
could never have invented. This new chemical, offering so much
refined glucose to the bloodstream without the benefit of the
usual accompanying fiber, minerals, vitamins and enzymes - was
an assault on a human biochemistry that had evolved over the
centuries. All these precious stores of nutrients which the body
had other plans for, must now be mobilized and used up in order
to deal with 150 pounds per year of a devitalized non-food.
Hence the phrase 'malnutrition of the affluent.'
LAST CALL FOR ALCOHOL
Alcohol is a sugar. It is a refined sugar, and more - it is a
fermented sugar. Fermented means half-digested. In the
CANCER chapter, we saw how cancer thrives in an environment
with little or no oxygen. That's why cancer loves refined sugar
- not being well digested, sugar ferments in the body. With
alcohol, it's already fermented when we drink it. Fermentation
uses up oxygen - that's what the bubbles are in the distillation
of wine, beer, or whiskey - it's oxygen leaving.
We know the sources of alcoholic beverages:
beverage -------- source
wine----- grapes
beer----- barley
whiskey ----corn or rye
gin------- rye and juniper berries
rum------ sugar cane
vodka----- wheat
These alcoholic beverages are the fermented sugars of the
individual fruit or grain. Alcohol is a super-refined substance.
It enters the body with no vitamins, minerals, or enzymes to aid
in its breakdown. At least sugar products must pass through the
digestive system before entering the bloodstream. But alcohol is
absorbed into the bloodstream immediately, right through the
stomach. Alcohol makes an immediate assault on all the body's
stores of enzymes, insulin, vitamins, and minerals, which seek
to break it down and maintain the blood's delicate pH. That's
how alcohol ages the body so fast - that's why many alcoholics
look so old. Chronic dehydration. (See Water chapter)
All the information in this chapter about white sugar can be
applied to alcohol as well. The bad effects on the body systems
are much worse from alcohol, however, because refining has taken
that extra step - fermentation - to create something
nature never would have dreamed up.
Remember that bit of PR a few years ago about how drinking a
little glass of wine prevents heart attacks? The only benefit
was the natural pycnogenol antioxidant in the grapes - you could
get the same effect from drinking grape juice. Another Orwellian
marketing masterpiece, from the same people who brought you
folksy gems like
- we shouldn't eat fats
- an aspirin a day prevents heart attack
- milk builds strong bones and teeth
ENERGY KICK? TRY ENERGY DRAIN
No matter what athletes you see on TV commercials chugging
famous soft drinks, none of them is that stupid. What are they
drinking on the bench? Water. The illusion of energy from
refined sugar is something that sugar advertisers have
capitalized on for decades. That initial burst of nervous energy
is immediately followed by a body in crisis wasting energy
trying to bring things back to normal. These efforts make the
body tired, sleepy, and run down.
Not just sugar advertisers, but many of the medical "experts"
who were hired guns for the sugar empire wrote thousands of
"research" papers proving that sugar was beneficial and gave
people energy. Dufty cites examples of this deception over three
centuries. It's still going on today; examples can be found
practically every month in the popular magazines. You gotta
figure that billion dollar industries can afford to buy a few
scientists along the way.
The initial blast of energy is the adrenal shock reacting to a
non-food in the system. Fight or flight. Refined sugar
stimulates a whole range of physiological responses, all of
which are unnecessary, all of which waste the energy of the
cells and systems, and all of which are followed by condition of
exhaustion soon after the brief rush subsides. Then you're down
and the monkey needs another bump.
WHAT DOES REFINED SUGAR REALLY DO TO THE BODY?
An excellent chart on pp 68-72 of Appleton's book gives a quick
overview. Some excerpts:
Refined sugar:
- suppresses the immune system
- causes hyperactivity in children
- kidney damage
- mineral deficiencies, especially chromium, copper, calcium
and magnesium
- makes the blood acidic
- tooth decay
- advances aging
- digestive disorders
- arthritis
- asthma
- Candida albicans
- decreased blood flow to the heart
- causes osteoporosis
- causes food allergies
- causes eczema
- atherosclerosis
- free radical formation
- loss of enzyme function
- increases liver and kidney size
- brittle tendons
- migraines
- blood clots
- depression
Appleton references each one of these problems with a
different study. These symptoms are just various manifestations
of one main mechanism: sugar cannot be digested. Sugar
inactivates digestive enzymes. It remains in the tract,
fermenting. Some of the toxic mass gradually seeps into the
bloodstream where it acidifies the blood. The body tries
desperate measures to maintain the normal pH of the blood. The
above symptom list shows the end-results of those efforts, the
signs of their failure, or else the degeneration of a tissue
that has become the final resting place for fermenting debris in
an overloaded system.
ACID BLOOD
As we saw in the Water chapter, pH is a big consideration when
soft drinks are taken in. If you pour a glass of Coke into,b> 10
gallons of water, the pH will drop from 7.8 to 4.6 immediately.
(Whang, p 22) Our survival range is pH 7.3 - 7.45 in the blood.
So obviously the body has to go through all kinds of complicated
steps to keep our 5 liters of blood from getting too acidic.
This process wastes vitamins, minerals, and enzymes which should
have been used for normal metabolism. See how sugar can age the
body? Worn adrenals, used-up pancreas.
Another problem with an over-acid digestive tract is that the
good bacteria, the intestinal flora, are destroyed. Their
job was the final stages of digestion. Without them, rotting and
stagnation of food is promoted, instead of digestion.
Half-digested carbohydrates are described as fermented, just
like with making wine or liquor. The half-digested carbohydrates
leak into the bloodstream intact and cause problems in the
joints, muscles, organs - any place they lodge. Examples of
diseases that come about in this manner:
- osteoarthritis
- hepatitis
- cirrhosis
- kidney disease
- chronic fatigue
- colitis/irritable bowel syndrome
- Candida albicans
- reflux/heartburn
- chronic allergies
(See
COLON chapter)
Candida albicans is a common yeast infection that goes all
through the body. Many researchers estimate that as many as 80%
of American women may have Candida. (Anderson) The #1 way
Candida occurs is floral imbalance—normal flora keep Candida and
other potentially bad organisms in check. Not only does
half-digested sugar kill off the good bacteria. In addition,
Candida thrive on it. So it's a double whammy, the way sugar
promotes Candida albicans.
ENZYME DISRUPTION
Many of the problems listed on the previous page are the result
of incomplete digestion and breakdown. Refined sugar has the
ability to change the shape of our normal digestive enzymes.
(Appleton, p 65) As we saw in the Enzymes chapter, there's a
lock and key thing going on here. Enzymes are proteins that have
specific shapes in order to break down other specific molecules.
When refined sugar changes the shapes of the digestive enzymes
that are present for the express purpose of digesting that
refined sugar - see what happens? The sugar doesn't get
digested. It just sits there and rots. Fermentation.
This is why drinking a coke or a beer just before dinner will
kill your appetite. And interfere with your ability to later
digest the fats and proteins in the meal. Sugar destroys the
digestive enzymes.
MINERAL IMBALANCE
Besides enzyme destruction and acidifying the blood, sugar
depletes the body of minerals. Most of the damage to the body
resulting from sugar can be traced to one of these three events.
As we saw in the Minerals chapter, many life functions of
cells and tissues are dependent on the presence of minerals. The
action of many vitamins are dependent on the presence of
minerals.
First off, we have seen the importance of chromium for
insulin to operate. A double threat is happening with chromium:
- chromium is depleted as the body attempts to metabolize
and remove white sugar
- as the stores are used up, there won't be enough chromium
left to allow the available insulin to work.
For this reason, many people who are being diagnosed diabetic
may be just chromium deficient. Even if insulin is present, it
cannot operate on sugars without chromium as a co-factor.
(Appleton, p 61) Very often chelated chromium supplements
together with eliminating refined sugar from the diet can
normalize a patient who was incorrectly labeled as diabetic.
Sugar also causes osteoporosis, by the following mechanism: In
order for calcium to be used by the cells, there must be a
proper amount of phosphorus also present in the blood. Without
the correct ratio of calcium to phosphorus, the calcium is in
the wrong form - a harmful form. A form that precipitates out of
solution and forms stones in the gallbladder, kidneys, and
liver. Sugar wastes our phosphorus stores. Soft drinks contain
phosphoric acid, which further disrupts the phosphorus balance.
(Appleton, p 83) Without the right form of calcium in the blood,
the body borrows calcium from the bones and teeth. Dr. Weston
Price proved this in the 1920s. (Price)
It is the imbalance of calcium caused by refined sugar which
causes tooth decay, even more than the acidic saliva attacking
the exterior enamel of the teeth.
Here's another difference between raw and refined sugar. Raw
sugar doesn't rot the teeth. According to Royal Lee
"Refined sugar has lost its minerals and will pick up
minerals right out of the tooth..,you can take a freshly
extracted tooth and soak it in raw sugar solution, and it will
have no effect.. You soak it in the refined sugar and you will
eat it full of holes." Conversations, p 46
THE GLYCEMIC INDEX
The suffix -emia at the end of a word means in the blood.
Glycemia means glucose in the blood.
All foods containing carbohydrates affect the blood sugar
differently. In 1981, David Jenkins came up with a way to
compare foods with respect to their effect on blood sugar.
(Miller) He called it the Glycemic Index. The GI is based
on glucose, which has a value of 100. An apple for example has a
GI of 38 and is therefore said to be low on the Glycemic Index.
White bread which is rated at 70 is said to be high on the GI.
White sugar (sucrose) is refined and readily absorbed. Though it
is high on the glycemic index (65), white sugar interferes with
normal digestion of other foods in the stomach and intestine.
White sugar causes sharp drop-offs in blood sugar level after it
is removed from the blood, because it has destroyed digestive
enzymes necessary for breaking down the other food that is still
in the tract, waiting to be absorbed.
Natural fruit sugar, or fructose is generally low on the
glycemic index (23). (Miller, p.29) Fructose is quickly and
easily used by the cells and thus removed from the blood.
Here we see one of the common errors of Junk Science and the
Everybody's-A-Nutritionist phenomenon. Some "experts" will say
that it's bad to drink natural fruit juice because of all the
sugar. Such a notion is completely without foundation, and shows
no understanding of whole foods, the importance of enzymes, or
the Glycemic Index. Fruits contain within them the enzymes such
as maltase and invertase necessary to break down their fructose
into usable glucose. The glucose is then either used as fuel or
stored. People don't get diabetes because they drink too much
orange juice. They get diabetes from drinking a six-pack of cola
every day, or that box of donuts, or a quart of ice cream.
In addition,fruits are loaded with whole food vitamins,
minerals, cellulose and natural antioxidants. These are
fundamental nutrients.
Alternative-Lite holistic practitioners making recommendations
for cancer patients who have refused standard treatment
sometimes tell the patients to avoid fruits and fruit juices
because "cancer loves sugar." Such unfounded advice is not only
incorrect; it deprives the patient of an important source of
nutrient forms which is are essential for fighting cancer and
boosting the immune system: antioxidants. (See Cancer chapter.)
Most credible holistic nutritionists, like MacDougall, Robbins,
Dufty, Schultze, Gerson, et al., realize that normal amounts of
both fruit and vegetable juices are extremely useful for anyone
trying to overcome any immune-challenging disease.
DIABETES
The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates never even mentions
diabetes. (Dufty, p.78) Before sugar came on the scene, diabetes
did not even exist.
The English physician Thomas Willis first identified and named
diabetes in 1674, after England's annual sugar consumption had
gone from zero to 16 million lbs. in the previous 200 years. But
Willis was unable to say anything bad about sugar since he was
King Charles' personal physician, and Charles was making a ton
of gold off the sugar trade. (Dufty, p. 75)
Very good statistics were kept in Denmark, comparing refined
sugar intake with diabetes deaths:
year......lbs. consumed per person.....deaths from diabetes/
100,000
1880...............29.......................... 8
1934...............113......................... 18.9
Years of loading up on indigestible sugar wears out the
pancreas. You'll remember that insulin, produced by the
pancreas, is supposed to allow sugar to be taken into the cells
and used. When the body is young, the pancreas works well.
Excess sugar in the teen years gets the pancreas used to
continually dumping lots of insulin into the bloodstream to get
ready for the day's sugar load. Since insulin only lasts about
15 minutes, the pancreas may have to work all day long. Here's
where the rollercoaster first begins: all that free insulin will
serve to abnormally lower the blood sugar on those occasions
when the person forgot to eat his usual 10x normal sugar intake.
All that insulin, and all it's got to work on is a normal level
of blood glucose. Enter hypoglycemia - low blood sugar. The body
gets accustomed to excesses of both sugar and insulin. For
awhile. Funny how pigging out on sugar causes low blood sugar,
but that's how it happens.
A few years later, when insulin no longer can keep up with the
incoming daily sugar fix, the pancreas finally gives up. Unused
sugar builds up higher and higher in the blood. The kidneys try
their best to excrete it, causing the classic 'sweet urine'
sign. That's what diabetes is: constantly high blood glucose.
The idiotic solution is to take a drug to get rid of all that
extra glucose, instead of simply to stop eating 10 or 20x as
much sugar as the body can handle.
Thus we see the stupidity of recommending candy for diabetics to
"keep their blood sugar up." Candy just keeps the rollercoaster
going for another ride.
Glucose is the prime fuel source needed by the cells. The person
becomes ill because all this glucose is in the blood, but not in
an environment that it can be used by the cells. So the body
starves. Gradually, other problems occur:
- extreme thirst
- frequent urination
- ravenous hunger
- dizziness
- disorientation
- memory loss
- coldness in hands and feet
- bruising
- weight loss
- kidney disease
- fatigue
- the shakes
- sores and cuts that don't heal
- headaches
- skin eruptions
Sound like a blind date?
What is the medical approach to diabetes? Same as the medical
approach to anything: sell as many drugs as possible. In this
case it's synthetic insulin to the rescue, or at least drugs
like glucophage and glypizide.
FAKE INSULIN
The discovery of insulin was supposed to be the big savior. The
1923 Nobel Prize went to Sir Frederick Grant Banting and John
Macleod for the discovery of insulin. At first, insulin was
difficult to make, and expensive. Only rich diabetics could
afford to have glandular extracts from animals injected into
their blood to compensate for their own spent pancreases.
But with the arrival of synthetic insulin, which a diabetic
would have to inject daily for the rest of his life, all the
alarms at the drug companies went clang. Fake insulin could be
patented, mass produced and sold from now till the end of time!
This was a very big deal, especially with the unstoppable rise
in white sugar consumption, which would insure an endless stream
of new diabetics.
Dufty tells of a much more important discovery that occurred the
year after insulin was discovered, which was kept quiet. In 1924
a top researcher named Dr. Seale Harris discovered the
connection between too much insulin in the blood and
hypoglycemia. He found out the obvious: all that daily white
sugar called up too much insulin. Too much insulin in the blood
got rid of too much glucose in the blood, making the patient
weak and dizzy when the blood sugar got too low. But what
sentenced Dr. Harris to the Hall of Obscurity for all time is
that his solution was not some manmade pill that would make
billions for the drug companies. No, Harris's solution to
hypoglycemia was obvious: stop overloading on white sugar, and
thus normalize natural insulin production.
No Nobel Prize for Harris. The medical approach is always the
same: if an imbalance cannot be corrected by a new drug, any
natural remedy, like sensible eating, is called "unscientific."
Do doctors want to screen people by repeated Glucose Tolerance
tests, just to make sure they're really diabetics before they're
sentenced to a life of fake insulin? Are you kidding? Some
people are put on insulin after a single lab test with a
borderline high reading of blood glucose. Or at least given the
prescription for the two G drugs listed above.
WHAT'S WRONG WITH THESE DRUGS?
First off, fake insulin.
Synthetic insulins are of three main types:
- rapid acting
- intermediate acting
- long acting
Some fake insulin comes from yeast. Scientist have found how
to get a compound that is structurally identical to human
insulin from baker's yeast. (Physicians Desk Reference, p 1917)
Or from E. coli bacteria (p. 1463) Or from pigs: pork pancreas!
(p 1477). There can be many different combination prescriptions
depending on the doctor's opinion (guess), mixing the three
types of insulin at certain times during the day. For each type
- rapid, intermediate, and long acting - there is a multitude of
different brands to choose from. Like Baskin-Robbins.
The main problem is that even though they pretend it's the same
exact thing as the insulin the body produces, it really isn't.
It's the usual science/numbers game, pretending that the body is
just a car, and if we figure out the parts, we can replace
anything. Or like if you dumped all the ingredients for a cake
into a mixing bowl and just stirred it all up, what kind of a
cake could you expect?
The catch here is timing. The body knows precisely when
to put out exactly the type and amount of insulin from the
pancreas that is needed. The whole blood sugar regulation
process is an extremely sophisticated affair, involving the
adrenals, the liver, and the thyroid in addition to the
pancreas. We only know part of the story. There's a lot more to
the swirling mystery of blood sugar than just figuring out the
structure of insulin. Proof of that is diabetes has risen to the
#7 cause of death in the U.S. today. (Centers for Disease
Control)
Secondly, glucophage. This is a pill given to patients
who are first diagnosed with diabetes. Glucophage artificially
controls blood glucose by interfering with the body's normal
rates of glucose absorption. Although the manufacturer warns
that diet restriction should be the primary means of controlling
diabetes, (PDR,, p. 797) in practice glucophage often may be
prescribed after a single high blood sugar reading, without the
certainty that the patient actually is diabetic. And rarely are
diet choices evaluated.
Glucophage has several major side effects, which are seldom
mentioned:
- kidney damage
- lactic acidosis (fatal 50% of the time)
- nausea
- vomiting
- abdominal bloating
- anorexia
p 798 PDR
Glipizide is the other popular diabetic pill. This drug
requires a functioning pancreas. Glipizide artificially kick-
starts the pancreas to produce more insulin. (PDR, p.2182) The
actual way the glipizide lowers blood glucose is unknown.
Perhaps that's why it has major side effects, listed by the
manufacturer:
- increased risk of cardiac mortality
- kidney disease
- liver disease
- hypoglycemia(!)
- loss of control of blood glucose
- constipation
- skin rashes
- anemia
- dizziness
- headache
Outside of that it should be fine.
All you guys out there on these G drugs --your doctor ever tell
you any of this?
Whether you're talking about manmade insulin or diabetes drugs
in pill form, one fact has not changed since 1923:
these drugs have never cured one person of diabetes.
Think about it. Did you ever in your life know of a diabetic who
shot insulin or took these drugs for many years, who eventually
recovered and was fine, with a normal life? Of course not. Did
you ever hear of a diabetic who was told to stop eating white
sugar? Of course not - instead they tell the diabetic to eat
more sugar when he feels weak! That's the game: the point of
diabetes drugs is never health or recovery or curing the
disease. It's always aimed at one target: sell more drugs.
What's the goal of medical therapy? As always, cover up the
symptoms. Since most doctors have no background in nutrition,
they generally tell the patient that diabetes is a disease which
he will now have for life, that it was genetic, and the only way
to control it is with drugs. The doctor won't even ask about the
patient's recent diet - such information is irrelevant in making
the drug sale. Many actually go so far as to say that what the
patient eats will have no effect on the disease, now that the
pancreas is worn out. This is why dietary advice is absent after
a diagnosis of diabetes is given.
The absurdity and error of such recommendations are appreciated
by the thousands of patients, initially diagnosed as diabetic,
who have cured themselves completely, simply by cleaning up
their diet.
Dr. Stephen Gyland proved in the 1950s, like dozens of other
healers after him, that the only way diabetes can be actually
cured is to change the diet radically. (Gyland letter) There are
many holistic programs which demonstrate consistent success in
reversing adult onset diabetes, the most common type. Take a
wild guess what the first step is, in the healing process.
That's right; no more refined sugar. Including alcohol.
This sounds very simple, but in reality it's incredibly
difficult. Look what the patient has to overcome:
- He doesn't want to give up sugar. He's addicted to it,
loves the taste, and needs the short-lived euphoria.
- The doctors don't say the patient has to give up sugar. In
fact, the doctor will tell the patient to eat candy when he
feels light headed, to "bring his blood sugar up."
- Sugar is everywhere: in most foods, in a thousand forms,
and it lines the checkout aisles that people have to wait in
to buy groceries.
- There's going to be an unpleasant withdrawal period.
This is where medicine is so well-positioned. Medicine is
saying, Don't worry about a thing. We'll take care of
everything. Give us the responsibility for your health, and go
on eating whatever you want. Your sugar-binges for the past 20
years didn't bring on your diabetes; it's genetic.
For a weakening, softening society with declining health,
diabetes medication is the perfect solution. It delays the
decision, takes the pressure off, and avoids unpleasant
pro-action. Great! I can keep on drinking coke, like everyone
else! All I have to do is take these pills and the doctor says
I'll be fine. Lots of people are doing it.
That's for sure. Lots of Americans are on diabetic medication.
And the fact that medication has never cured anyone of diabetes
has made us a country where diabetes is now, did I mention, the
7th leading cause of death!
SUGAR AND THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
On the way to becoming a full-blown diabetic, lots of other
problems arise from overdose of refined sugar. The most obvious
is the destruction of the immune system.
If you're old enough, ever notice how children today seem to be
sick all the time, compared with 20 years ago? Today they've
always got colds, they're always running to the doctor for
antibiotics, cough medicine, or spray inhalators. And what else
are they always running for? What is their primary reward for
'being good'? Sugar.
The whole absurdity of the chase-your-tail drugs and big money
sugar game was brought sharply into focus recently by two
headlines which appeared two days apart in the San Jose Mercury
News, one of California's largest and most insipid newspapers.
On 2 Sept 99, the headline read:
"S.J. Unified poised to sign Pepsi-only deal."
The story proceeded to detail an agreement between Pepsi and the
San Jose city schools to exclude all other soft drinks from the
schools' cafeterias and soda machines for the next 10 years in
exchange for kickbacks of nearly $10 million! It was so
weird - the story wasn't even trying hide the sweetheart
arrangement in any way, or suggest that it was anything other
than business as usual for a private company to kick back a
percentage of the profits in trade for a juicy public contract.
Wonder what Coke offered? But the health issues were not even
mentioned - tooth decay, allergies, hyperactivity, Ritalin,
violence - not a word. Just business.
And then two days later, 4 Sept 99, the main headline in the
same paper reads:
"Asthma at epidemic levels"
This two-page article, with its 'Gee, I dunno' stance, reported
that asthma among American school children is higher than it has
been for 20 years, and increasing out of control. In its
standard disingenuous way, the Mercury pretends to be baffled
that researchers and drugs have not even made a dent in the
number of children who walk around schools with inhalators, take
multiple medications, or who die every year from asthma.
"..asthma remains a medical mystery."
The article quotes the CDC (Centers for Disease Control)
statistics showing how asthma in the U.S.
"grew more than 150% between 1980 and 1998 - from 6.7 million
to 17.3 million" cases."
The article states that in some U.S. cities, as many as a
quarter of the children suffer from asthma.
Clinton's answer? Increase medical spending from $110 million to
$178 million. Brilliant. Give researchers who after several
decades admit they still have no idea what causes asthma another
$70 million to continue their investigations. CDC's David
Mannino sounds so humble when he states that they're like "..a
bunch of blind men on the elephant."
Now stop here a second. This is just like cancer research. Do
you think if these researchers whose living depends on getting
government research grants actually found a cure for asthma they
would tell us? And then what? They'd be out of a job. As long as
they "keep looking" everybody's happy - the money keeps pouring
in.
In its plodding, predictable fashion, the Mercury goes on to
highlight those areas where asthma is worst, and talk about the
"epidemic" and quote various experts explaining how mystified
they are. And then the requisite heart-rending individual story
of the kid who "can 't even go to school any more because his
doctors can't find a cure "
Come on!
CURE FOR ASTHMA
You want your kid to lose his asthma? Stop two things for 60
days: dairy and sugar. That's all. Just try it. Both are major
allergens. As we have seen, sugar inhibits digestion by
destroying enzymes. Undigested sugar just stays there in the
tract and in the blood, and then goes throughout the body,
lodging anywhere it can, including the bronchioles of the lungs.
And what's the body's response to any lung allergen? Mucus.
Narrows the air passages, and the body goes into distress
because it thinks it's going to suffocate.
MILK
is just as bad. The definition of pasteurization is that
the milk is heated until what? All enzymes are destroyed.
Without enzymes, it can't be broken down, because now man has
created a food that doesn't exist in nature. Forget that we're
the only species to drink the milk of another animal. Forget
that we're the only species to drink milk after childhood. The
main thing is - we can't metabolize it. (See
ENZYMES)
CALCIUM?
Another joke. Remember all those enzymes that got destroyed by
pasteurization. One of them was called phosphatase - essential
for calcium absorption. We don't get calcium from milk. Children
don't need milk for strong bones and teeth. Milk doesn't prevent
osteoporosis. All these ideas were ingrained into our conscious
from where? The school dietary "education" programs since the
1950s. Paid for by whom? Right, the American Dairy Industry.
After you find all this out, the killing blow is when you learn
that milk causes osteoporosis, because metabolizing all
this artificial manmade food steals calcium from the bones and
teeth. Who's got the highest incidence of osteoporosis in the
world? Scandinavia, Germany, and the U.S., especially states
like Wisconsin—places with what? Highest dairy consumption. (Twogood,
Appleton, Howell, McDougall. Douglas)
'Lactose intolerance,' - you always hear that. There's no
such thing. They want to pretend some people have a genetic
defect whereby they can't digest milk sugar. Lactose is milk
sugar. But it's not the milk sugar we're allergic to - it's the
milk. We all have milk intolerance. No one can digest
pasteurized milk!
But we're not allowed to know all this. The above paragraphs
challenge three separate billion-dollar industries: the sugar
trust, the dairy trust, and the drug trust. None of them wants
people to discover that asthma and osteoporosis can be
eliminated simply by removing sugar and dairy from the diet. No,
no, that won't do. That's not "scientific." Diseases are cured
by one thing; drugs. Right? That's real medicine. If people
change their diets, they won't need all those drugs and calcium
supplements, and even worse, Clinton won't be giving out any
more $178 million presents to try and discover the "cure " for
asthma.
In his forgotten landmark work, Nutrition and Physical
Degeneration, Dr. Weston Price proves beyond the shadow of a
doubt the association between deteriorating health of a
country's people and their exposure to white sugar and white
flour.
So let's bring this twisted puzzle into focus. With sugar and
dairy, we're talking about immune compromise.
The main part of the immune system is the white blood cells.
Their job is to circulate and locate foreign stuff. Once they
locate something alien to the body, the white cells attack it,
destroy it and carry it off. A slight oversimplification, but
generally this is a big part of how the immune system works.
Refined sugar interferes in many ways. First of all, refined
sugar blocks digestion, allowing undigested food to get
into the bloodstream, thus slowing circulation way down. If the
white cells can't make their rounds, they can't do their job.
Appleton cites two university studies (p 52) which demonstrated
that sugar suppresses the immune system by decreasing
phagocytosis. Phagocytosis refers to the Pac-manlike activity of
white cells munching up foreign stuff. Sugar greatly reduces the
activity of the white cells' little 'flippers' (pseudopods),
which are for reaching out to locate foreign debris.
Secondly, the immune system gets sensitized to refined
sugar. That means it freaks out at first, trying to normalize
the blood. But after awhile, the immune system adapts to the
abnormal levels of sugar, and accepts the idea that it will
operate at a sub-normal level. The sugar no longer triggers such
a violent response, and as a result, neither do other foreign
agents. The immune system gets more and more lenient about what
level of contamination it will allow the blood to maintain.
Overall health declines. This is right out of Hans Selye, the
guy who discovered and studied stress.
A third way sugar depresses the immune system is by sticking
to protein. In the early part of the 20th century, Louis
Maillard proved that refined sugar has a particular capability
for sticking to protein foods, like meat, and forming a strange
new complex called glycenated protein. Food chemists call
Maillard's discovery the Maillard Reaction. We lack enzymes for
these weird proteins, and so they don't get broken down very
well in the digestive tract. The immune system is then exhausted
by trying to attack them year after year, since they are foreign
material.
That's why after a big burger and a large coke, you may feel
slightly nauseated. The sugar binds to the meat, making a
glycenated protein - a foreignburger.
Funny thing is, the Maillard Reactions have been studied not
primarily by nutritionists, but by food processors. Food
chemists have evolved very sophisticated methods of gluing sugar
to proteins, which is useful in the production of bread,
pastries, candy, processed meats and fish, beer, crackers, and
coffee. Carmelization. Taste and color are their prime concerns,
not nutrition. (Scandrett) These foods are chemically processed,
making it difficult if not impossible for them to be digested in
our bodies.
Lowered levels of immune response is called immunosuppression.
Its leads to frequent flu, colds, fatigue, and other diseases of
civilization. The more refined the diet became, the more
degenerative diseases prevailed - arthritis, allergies, colitis,
diabetes, etc. This is not a theory.
SUGAR AND OBESITY
Obesity is defined as being more than 35% over normal
weight. In 1993, 30% of Americans were obese. (Fats That Heal, p
405) At the present time, nearly half of Americans are in
this category! The percentage increases almost every year.
Excess sugar consumption is largely responsible for obesity.
Consuming 160 lbs per year of anything indigestible would
probably have a less than salubrious effect on the body. But in
the case of sugar, it's worse. Sugar becomes converted to fat.
Excess glucose is changed to fatty acids, then triglycerides,
then stored as adipose tissue. (Erasmus,p 34) This accounts for
Joe Sixpack's spare tire. Or fat little Johnny, who must have
his coke every couple of hours.
Worse news is that the types of fatty acids produced from
refined sugar are killer types – the kinds that clog arteries.
They are not essential fatty acids, which are necessary for
complete health, and actually interfere with normal operation of
the good, essential fatty acids. (Erasmus, p 35)
SUGAR, CORTISOL, AND MUSCLE BUILDING
The main reason pro athletes don't chug soft drinks is that they
know what sugar does to muscle. As we saw in the Creatine
chapter, muscle is either torn down or built up by the opposing
action of two hormones:
A third hormone is also involved: insulin. Before this
gets too complicated, keep these three facts in mind:
- cortisol wants to maintain high levels of blood glucose
for fight or flight situations
- cortisol's favorite target is muscle. Cortisol gets amino
acids from tearing down muscle. The amino acids are then
converted to glucose
- insulin regulates cortisol
So. We have seen that a worn-out pancreas no longer puts out
sufficient insulin. With no insulin, cortisol is not regulated.
Cortisol then has a free hand to tear down muscle. Sugar works
into this scenario in two separate ways:
- After many years, a high sugar diet destroys the
pancreas's ability to put out insulin
- processing refined sugar out of the body requires
chromium. Eventually, with a high sugar diet, we are
chromium-deficient. Chromium is necessary to activate insulin.
With no chromium, even the little insulin still present cannot
do its job. Result: cortisol runs wild and tears down muscle.
This is why diabetic tend to be flabby - muscle destruction.
Remember all this after a workout. If someone hands you a coke,
think of canceling out all the good you just did for your
muscles by the workout.
TOOTH DECAY
As noted above, sugar promotes a condition of acidity wherever
it goes - the mouth, the stomach, the blood. In the mouth the pH
gets lower with the presence of sugar. At around pH 5.5, the
saliva begins to dissolve tooth enamel. (Appleton, p98) After
eating sugar, the pH of saliva may go down to 4.5 and stay there
for 20 minutes or more. This is why the dentists always say that
even if you can't brush your teeth after eating sweets, at least
rinse the mouth with water as soon as possible. That would
prevent much of the dissolving of the tooth enamel.
Again, the definitive study of the effect of sugar on the teeth
was done in the 1930s by Dr. Weston Price. Price traveled
all over the globe - Scotland, Switaerland, Africa, the South
Pacific, the Arctic, Australia, America - photographing and
examining the teeth of every primitive civilization he could
find. The photographs alone contained in his master work
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration tell an inescapable
truth - sugar has been a detriment to the human race. In case
after case, savages in isolated wilderness had teeth like ivory,
from centuries of eating a traditional, natural diet. Then
civilization showed up. Teeth became rotten, bones became soft,
and the new weaknesses were then passed on to the offspring.
Then followed epidemic tuberculosis and arthritis. Dufty also
talks about how the missionaries always brought the sugar. And
the processed foods. Then come the slaves, and pretty soon
everybody's in the real estate business. Ask the Hawaiians. Or
the West Africans.
In 1955, Royal Lee noticed that impoverished people in India had
"one-thousandth the tooth decay" that existed in the U.S. at
that time. Many of those Indians were starving, and wouldn't
cook anything that didn't require cooking, yet Lee noticed that
"only one person in eighty had any cavities at all." (Food
Integrity, p2)
Demineralization of bones and teeth is also promoted by the
acidic environment created in the blood by refined sugar.
Calcium, magnesium, and chromium are squandered in the body's
attempts to rid itself of this non-food.
ASPARTAME
No discussion of sugar would be complete without mention of a
phenomenon unprecedented in history: the marketing of a toxic
chemical as an alternative to a devitalized food.
Aspartame (Nutrasweet, Equal, etc.) was discovered in 1965 by
the pharmaceutical firm G.D. Searle. The whole story of how
aspartame and diet soft drinks became a billion dollar industry
is a dark tale, beyond the scope of this chapter. We will just
look at a few highlights here, which should be enough to make
you switch back to pepsi or coke classic. Refined sugar is only
like a drug; aspartame is a drug.
Searle, the pharmaceutical compant, was doing research to invent
an "ulcer drug" when a chemist James Schlatter licked his hand
one day to detect a very sweet taste from contact with
aspartame. Noticing that he did not die immediately, he had an
idea for an artificial sweetener.
It took Searle and Monsanto 16 years to get aspartame approved
by the FDA. The political implications of this food additive
which could also be added to drugs to make them taste better -
powerful forces lined up at the trough.
From http://thewinds.org/ we
find
When the FDA approved [aspartame] for human consumption in
1974, it went against a body of evidence so enormous as to
stagger the credulity of virtually any thinking person. "What
most consumers don't know," says Mike Wallace of CBS's "60
Minutes," "is that aspartame's approval was one of the most
contested in FDA history. Consumers have reported more than
7,000 adverse reactions to the FDA, ranging from dizziness to
headaches to seizures." How could such a toxin get approved
for mass consumption? Consider this: aspartame was OK'd during
the Reagan Era. Ronnie's appointee as FDA Commissioner was
Arthur Hull Hays. A few months after approving aspartame, Hays
left the FDA. Take a wild guess what his next job was. A top
position as consultant for Monsanto's PR office! Ain't that
America/ for you and me
From the very beginning, researchers had problems with
aspartame's effects on the body, especially on the nervous
system. A more complete list of aspartame's side effects is
found in a Feb. 1994 report from the Department of Health and
Human Services:
- nausea
- numbness
- muscle spasms
- weight gain {!}
- rashes
- depression
- fatigue
- excitability
- rapid heartbeat
- insomnia
- vision problems
- hearing loss
- anxiety attacks
- slurred speech
- loss of taste
- ringing in the ears
- vertigo
- memory loss
- arthritis
Other researchers found that aspartame could cause
- brain tumors
- multiple sclerosis
- epilepsy
- chronic fatigue
- Parkinson's disease
- Alzheimer's
- mental retardation
- lymphoma
- birth defects
- fibromyalgia
- diabetes {!}
Blaylock
Read these two lists again. This is what people really get when
they think they're getting what? A "diet" drink that will let
them lose weight and still enjoy soft drinks? And it still
causes diabetes and weight gain? Looks like some more masterful
marketing, the type that sells vaccines and heart medication and
fake insulin and pain killers. And the beauty of it is that the
drug companies will get money both ways
- when people drink the diet soft drinks
- when people then get all these diseases, which require
more drugs.
Aspartame is a triple molecule composed of aspartic acid,
phenylalanine and methanol (wood alcohol).
Russell Blaylock, a professor of neurophysiology, is the real
expert on aspartic acid. In his book, Excitotoxins: The Taste
that Kills, Dr. Blaylock reminds us that MSG is 99% aspartic
acid. Aspartic acid is a major neurotoxin which can cause
virtually any neurological disorder you can think of. (See above
list) It does this by producing free radicals that kill nerve
cells. Blaylock has over 500 scientific references to back up
this notion of nerve damage from aspartic acid.
A chemical that kills nerve cells may mimic several neurological
diseases. One is Multiple Sclerosis. With true MS, the
insulation around nerves - the myelin - is being slowly
destroyed, for some unknown reason. This shorts out the affected
parts of the nervous system. The result is a wide range of
possible symptoms - numbness, pain, confusion, headache,
blindness, organ breakdown, etc. But aspartame may cause the
identical presentation, and be misdiagnosed as MS. This would
render any treatment for the MS useless, obviously. The point
is, if someone has been diagnosed with MS, or with any other
incurable nerve disorder, and they're drinking diet soft drinks
on a daily basis, the physicians may be barking up the wrong
tree. And the patient will continue to poison himself, maybe to
death. (http://www.cybernaute.com/earthconcert2000/Aspartame.htm)
Aspartic acid is very dangerous to infants, whose nervous
systems are still forming and have not developed a defense
system as yet. Very similar to what we saw with DPT shots (Sanctity
of Human Blood) It may not be wise to give your infant diet
anything.
Phenylalanine is an amino acid necessary for brain function. In
excess, phenylalanine lowers serotonin levels, causing
depression. (Elsas)
Methanol is wood alcohol. In the 1920s when liquor was
illegal, people would sometimes resort to wood alcohol, even
though the dangers of blindness from doing so were well known.
Methanol is a by-product of aspartame after aspartame breaks
down in the small intestine, from the action of our enzyme
chymotrypsin.
An additional problem with methanol is that it is then changed
into formaldehyde in the body. As we saw in Sanctity of
Human Blood, formaldehyde is a well-known neurotoxin and
carcinogen, documented in every toxicology and pathology text
ever written.
Researchers found out that digestion is not even necessary to
break aspartame down into these three toxins. If the diet soda
sits around in a room where temperature goes above 86° F,
formaldehyde is produced. (Moser, p 42) Other researchers have
correlated the neurotoxic components of Gulf War Syndrome with
the boatloads of diet soda that sat around in the desert sun for
weeks, at temperatures above 100° F. But such a thing happens
every day in America in warmer climates. Soda delivery trucks
aren't refrigerated.
Toxicity levels? The EPA has giving methanol as consumption
limit of 7.8 mg per day. Problem is, a one liter bottle of diet
soda contains 56 mg of potential methanol! (Monte)
How could something this toxic be approved by the FDA? That's
simple. The demand. By 1986, Americans were drinking 20 billion
cans of diet soda per year, all of it with aspartame. (Metzenbaum)
In 1987, Monsanto sold 8,500 TONS of aspartame, according to
USDA figures. After that year, they refused to release
production figures. But it's unlikely that production has gone
down since then, considering all the foods that now feature
aspartame. A partial list:
- diet soft drinks
- breakfast cereals
- puddings
- malt beverages
- pie fillings
- candy
- tea
- fruit juice concentrates
- baked goods
- frostings
- breath mints
- chewing gum
- coffee
- wine coolers
- yogurt
Gold, p 9, 10
Then Monsanto found the real motherlode - chewable vitamins.
Here is a partial list of the drugs and vitamins which now are
flavored by the proven neurotoxin aspartame:
- Mylanta Natural Fiber Supplement, Sugar Free.
- Centrum,Jr vitamins
- Childrens TYLENOL acetaminophen Fruit Flavored Chewable
Tablets
- Childrens TYLENOL acetaminophen Grape Flavored Chewable
Tablets
- Childrens TYLENOL acetaminophen Cold Multi-Symptom
Chewable Tablets
- Junior Strength TYLENOL acetaminophen Fruit Flavored
Chewable Tablets
- PEDIACARE Cold-Allergy Tablets for Ages 6 to 12
- PEDIACARE Cough-Cold Tablets for Ages 6 to 12
- PEDICARE Childrens Cold Relief Tablets
- TYLENOL Cold and Flu Hot Medication
- TYLENOL Cold and Flu No Drowsiness Formula Hot Medication
- Childrens Chewable CO-TYLENOLv
- ALKA-SELTZER PLUS Night-time Cold Medicine
- ALKA-SELTZER PLUS Cold and Cough Medicine
- ALKA-SELTZER PLUS Sinus Allergy Medicine
- BUGS BUNNY Vitamin Products (ALL)
- FLINTSTONES Plus Calcium Multivitamin Supplement
- FLINTSTONES Complete Multivitamin Supplement
- FLINTSTONES Childrens Chewable Multivitamin
- DIMETAPP Cold and Allergy Chewable Tablets
- TEMPRA 3 Chewable Tablets, 80mg acetaminophen tablet
- TEMPRA 3 Double Strength Chewable Tablets, 160mg
acetominophen
- Zantac Efferdose
- SKAGGS ALPHA BETA Childrens Pain Reliever
- SHOP'N SAVE Childrens Non-Aspirin Pain Reliever
- KINNEY"S Childrens Chewable Non-Aspirin Pain Reliever
- PAY'N SAVE Childrens Chewable Non-Aspirin Pain Reliever
- PEOPLES Childrens Chewable Non-Aspirin Pain Reliever
- PIGGLY WIGGLY Childrens Chewable Non-Aspirin P.R.
- RITE AID Childrens Aceteminophen Non-Aspirin Pain Reliever
- Childrens Anacin-3 Chewable Tablets
- SUGAR FREE METAMUCIL
- ECKERD Sugar Free Natural Fiber Laxative
- LONGS Sugar Free Natural Vegetable Powder Laxative
- PAYLESS Sugar Free Natural Vegetable Powder Laxative
- RALEY'S Sugar Free Natural Vegetable Powder
- RITE AID Sugar Free Regular Flavor Nat.Veg.Bulk Powder
- SQUIBBCARE Sugar Free Natural Fiber Laxative
REFERENCES
Shakespeare, W --- Henry IV, Part I act 3, sc 2, l.70 1597
Guyton AC MD--- Textbook of Medical Physiology, 9th Edition
1996 Saunders
Appleton, N--- Lick the Sugar Habit 1996 Avery
Dufty, W--- Sugar Blues 1975 Warner
Freeston N--- Production of high fructose corn syrup
Chemistry & Industry Highlights 3 Mar 1997
Nene College, Northhampton
Selye, H---- The Stress of Life McGraw-Hill 1978
Anderson, R--- Cleanse and Purify 1998
Miller, J et al.--- The Glucose Revolution 1998 Marlowe & Co.
Scandrett, C --- Maillard Reactions 101: Theory 1997 http://brewery.org/
http://nobelprizes.com/nobel/medicine/medicine.html
Podell, R MD--- The G-Index Diet Warner 1993
Price, W--- Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
1997
MacDougall J MD--- MacDougall's Medicine: A Challenging Second
Opinion
Lee, R --- Food Integrity -- from Conversations in Nutrition
1955 Standard Process
Monte, W--- Aspartame: Methanol and the Public Health
Journal of Applied Nutr 36(1) p 42 1984
Gold, M --- The Bitter Truth About Artificial Sweeteners
Nexus Magazine vol.2(28)Oct 95
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