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Sugar is pure carbohydrate, a nutrient that supplies energy to the body. The chemical name for table sugar is
sucrose. Sucrose occurs naturally in every fruit and vegetable in the plant kingdom. It is the major product of
photosynthesis, the process by which plants transform the sun's energy into food. This article uses the term "sugar"
loosely to refer to all forms of caloric sweeteners.
Highlights of the Nutrition of Added Sugar:
- To improve your nutrition always check the food labels on what you eat. If any form of sugar is listed as one
of the first few ingredients, it is a main component of the food by weight. And, that food item should be avoided.
- Consuming unsweetened products will improve your nutrition .
- Start by NOT consuming any food product that contains high fructose corn syrup.
- There is a very real big difference between added sugars and naturally occurring sugars. For better nutrition,
remember that natural whole foods are a contributor of nutrients. While, Dead Foods are users of nutrients.
- The primary reasons Excess Sugar in your diet is bad for your natural health is that it
- Depresses
- your Immune System;
- your HDL Levels;
- and Increases
- your Triglyceride Levels;
- the Oxidative Damage Degenerative Process[10]; and
- the Glycation Degenerative Process.
Historically, sugar was the predominant caloric sweetener. Other historically used sweeteners included honey
and molasses. Over the past 50 years, however, many new forms of sweeteners have been developed. These include:
corn syrup, fructose, glucose, high fructose corn syrup and maltose. These new sweeteners have replaced sugar as
the primary sweetener in processed foods and beverages.
By reading food labels you may be surprised at how much sugar is in foods you never considered very sweet. Food
processors often add high-fructose corn syrup to many products such as lemonade, apple sauce, and even whole grain
bread.
In many cases, the presence of added sugar is not really necessary or natural to the product. The sugar has
been added merely to cater to the Western sweet tooth. Hence, the term added sugar refers to sugars that
can be easily removed from your diet. All you have to do is consume products without any added sugar, such as unsweetened
apple sauce for example.
Anybody interested in good health should reduce their consumption of added sugar. A modest goal would be to
reduce your sugar consumption to only 15% of total calories consumed[1]. "Current recommendations from
the American Institute for Cancer Research and other leading health authorities advise that sugar provide no more
than 10 percent of our daily calories. For sedentary or older women, that's about 10 teaspoons of sugar (40 grams)
a day, while for most men, active women and older children it is close to 14 teaspoons of sugar (56 grams). This
may sound like a lot, but you can get most of that from just one can of regular soda[2]."
In general, excess consumption of sugar can produce undesirable changes in metabolic risk factors associated
with heart disease, such as blood triglycerides, total cholesterol and its lipoprotein distribution, and insulin[4]. A diet high in saturated fat can magnify the adverse metabolic effects of the sugars[3],[4]. Excess sugar
can depress HDL levels The effects of dietary sugars on triglycerides[5],[6],[9]. is more pronounced than on cholesterol
levels. And, men tend to have more pronounced changes in triglycerides than women[7]. A small segment of the population
characterized by high levels of triglycerides and insulin may be at a substantially higher risk than is the general
population from the excess consumption of sugars[4].
"Ordinary in takes of sucrose or fructose do not have any special elevating effect on plasma triglycerides
in most normal and diabetic people, provided energy balance is not changed. ... In humans, increased (fasting)
triglycerides are observed with very high in takes, > 35% of energy from sucrose or > 20% of energy from
fructose"[3]. Thus, to improve your nutrition you don't have to remove all sugar from your diet. Just
cut back on added sugar to a reasonable level. Starting by NOT consuming any food product that contains high fructose
corn syrup, will improve your nutrition.
You should always check the food labels on the foods that you eat. If any form of sugar is listed as one of
the first few ingredients, it is a main component of the food by weight. And, to improve your nutrition that food
item should be avoided. Remember, sugars are listed on food labels under many different terms such as brown sugar,
corn syrup, dextrose, fructose, glucose, high-fructose corn syrup, honey, lactose, maltose, sorbitol, and sucrose.
One can ask whether the body can tell the difference between added sugars and naturally occurring sugars? The
correct answer is NO, but ... And, that is a very big but!
When you eat a naturally sweet whole food, you are getting a complete package that contains a lot of antioxidants,
fiber, and other nutrients (ex., phytochemicals, Phenolic acids and flavonoids). Dark Raw Honey is the classic
example of a whole food that can be substituted for sugar in your diet. Antioxidants that have been identified
in honey include phenolic compounds, ascorbic acid and the enzymes glucose oxidase, catalase and peroxidase [11],[12].
Hence, whole foods are a contributor of nutrients to your diet. Whereas when you eat added sugar, you are getting
none of these important ingredients. Since, added sugar contributes nothing but calories it is known as a "dead
food" or as a user of nutrients. And, the more added sugar consumed the more nutrients are used up. So, from
the Natural Health Perspective there is a
very real big difference between added sugars and naturally occurring sugars.
In conclusion: the Natural Health Perspective
natural cures encourages everyone to improve their nutrition by reducing added sugar in their diet to the lowest
levels possible. Everyone can start by choosing to consume unsweetened products, whenever possible.
But, from the Natural Health Perspective
cutting out saturated fat from your diet will have a bigger impact on your nutrition, than sugar. So reducing your
levels of dietary sugars should be viewed as an advanced health strategy. But, once you have reduced saturated
fat to only about 10% of your total caloric intake, you can start to work on removing all forms of added sugar
from your diet. Once, all forms of added sugar have been removed from your diet you can then proceed to monitor
your intake of natural sugars found in fruit and fruit juices. Starchy foods, however, with a natural content of
dietary fiber need not be removed from your diet[8].
A small group of sensitive individuals are more susceptible to the adverse effects of dietary sugars than the
general population. Persons with known coronary-artery disease, high triglycerides blood levels, diabetics, extremely
obese individuals, and those with Syndrome-X are likely to be sensitive to sugars in the diet. These individuals
have to take removing sugar from their diet more seriously than the general population does, by lowering their
dietary sugars before working on their saturated fat intake.
Check out the following links on Added Sugar, from other organizations on the WEB:
References
- Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, US Senate, Dietary Goals for the United States (Washington,
DC: US Government Printing Office, 1977).
- American Institute for Cancer Research, Sugar
Where You Don't Expect It, Week of January 5 1998.
- Truswell AS. Food carbohydrates and plasma lipids--an update. Am J Clin Nutr, 1994 Mar, 59:3 Suppl, 710S-718S.
- Reiser S. Effect of dietary sugars on metabolic risk factors associated with heart disease. Nutr Health, 1985,
3:4, 203-16.
- Yudkin J; Eisa O; Kang SS. Dietary sucrose affects plasma HDL cholesterol concentration in young men. Ann Nutr
Metab, 1986, 30:4, 261-6.
- Albrink MJ; Ullrich IH. Interaction of dietary sucrose and fiber on serum lipids in healthy young men fed high
carbohydrate diets. Am J Clin Nutr, 1986 Mar, 43:3, 419-28.
- Reiser S; Bickard MC; Hallfrisch J. Blood lipids and their distribution in lipoproteins in hyperinsulinemic
subjects fed three different levels of sucrose. J Nutr, 1981 Jun, 111:6, 1045-57
- Marckmann P; Raben A; Astrup A. Ad libitum intake of low-fat diets rich in either starchy foods or sucrose:
effects on blood lipids, factor VII coagulant activity, and fibrinogen. Metabolism, 2000 Jun, 49:6, 731-5.
- Archer SL; Liu K; Dyer AR. Relationship between changes in dietary sucrose and high density lipoprotein cholesterol:
the CARDIA study. Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults. Ann Epidemiol, 1998 Oct.
- "We conclude that glucose intake stimulates ROS [reactive oxygen species] generation ...; increases
oxidative load and causes a fall in alpha-tocopherol concentration."
Mohanty P, Hamouda W, Garg R. Glucose challenge stimulates reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation by leucocytes.
J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2000 Aug;85(8):2970-3. PMID: 10946914
- "Honey has great potential to be used as a natural source of antioxidants to reduce the negative effects
of PPO [Polyphenol oxidase] browning in fruit and vegetable processing."
Chen L, Mehta A, Berenbaum M. Honeys from different floral sources as inhibitors of enzymatic browning in fruit
and vegetable homogenates. J Agric Food Chem. 2000 Oct;48(10):4997-5000. PMID: 11052768
- "A sugar solution resembling honey in its high sugar content was made. The antimicrobial activities
of both honey and this solution... were examined. The results achieved by both were compared. The difference between
them indicated the presence of antimicrobial substance(s) in honey. ... Two important classes of these inhibines
are the flavonoids and the phenolic acids."
Wahdan HA. Causes of the antimicrobial activity of honey. Infection. 1998 Jan-Feb;26(1):26-31. PMID: 9505176
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