Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
From: [m--i--a] at [decwd.ece.uiuc.edu] (Melissa Koch)
Subject: sugar
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1993 13:43:29 GMT


Yesterday I promised I'd post some of the material I had on sugar, so
here it is.  I have a little more from another book that I'll post
separately. 

The following is taken from the book "Never Be Tired 
Again" by Dr. David C. Gardner and Dr. Grace Joely Beatty.  The
Drs. are a husband and wife team and are board certified medical
psycotherapists.  The section on sugar is about 6 pages, so I
don't think I can quote it all, but I'll try to give the main points.


"	Its not nice to fool mother nature

When you eat carbohydrates in the form of whole grains, vegetables,
and fruits, the pancreas releases insulin gradually into the blood-
stream to deal with the glucose that is a product of carbohydrate
metabolism.  When you eat white sugar, your pancreas "freaks out."
Why?

Because white sugar does not need to be processed in the same way as
other carbohydrates and makes massive amounts of glucose available
to the body immediately.  Your pancreas senses this huge influx of
sugar and panics.  Its as if the pancreas were thinking, "Oh, no! 
I must not have been paying attention.  He must have eaten a huge meal
when I wasn't looking.  I'd better send along reinforcements so I can
get this glucose processed immediately and normalize his blood sugar
level!"  Insulin surges into the bloodstream to round up the glucose,
stores what it can in the liver as glycogen, and converts the rest 
into fat.  The higher the insulin level, the more sugar is converted 
into fat.  And the more fat you have...well, you know all about that
from chapter 8.

Too much sugar makes you tired.  Because your pancreas does such a
good job, your blood sugar level falls rapidly.  This puts you on a
roller coaster ride:  very high blood sugar just after eating the 
sugar, then very low blood sugar after the insulin does its work.
Low blood sugar is associated with tiredness, irritability, fuzzy
thinking, and headaches.

Too much sugar upsets your immune system.  The symptoms of low blood
sugar may make you crave another quick fix.  So you have coffee and a
doughnut or a candy bar.  The roller coaster starts again, and the
extremes of your blood sugar level play havoc with your immune system.

	Too much sugar and diabetes

Diabetes occurs when the pancreas fails to produce enough insulin
to deal with the glucose in the blood.  But though we know HOW diabetes
happens, we don't know WHY it happens.  We do know, however, that there
is a clear connection between sugar consumption and diabetes.  For example,
the United States has the second highest per capita consumption of
sugar in the work; it also has the second highest incidence of diabetes.
Scotland has the highest per capita consumption of sugar in the owrk, and--
you guessed it--also has the highest incidence of diabetes.

(some text deleted here about a specific individual)

	Too much sugar and heart disease

Nobel prize-winner Linus Pauling clamins that sugar is even more
responsible for heart disease than fat is.  The evidence that fat
is the chief culprit is too overhwelming for us to give up our 20
percent fat rule.  But we agree that sugar can be deadly.  The high
insulin levels it triggers stimulate the liver to make triglycerides,
fatty substances that circulate in the bloodstream and have been 
implicated in heart disease.  For reasons medical science does not yet
know, high triglyceride levels are especially dangerous for women
(cholesterol seems to hold the beggest danger for men).  Excessive
insulin also has been linked with decreases in HDL (high-density
lipoprotein), the "good" cholesterol that carries fats out of the
cells and to the liver for excretion.

	Too much sugar and tooth decay

(I'm skipping this section)

	Too much sugar and obesity

Sugar has the same number of calories per gram as other carbohydrates--
4, to be exact.  But sugar is such a concentrated sweet that you can eat
a lot more of it before you feel full.  Sugar is stored as fat much
more easily than complex carbohydrates, such as vegetables, beans,
and pasta.

(example about bananas vs. fudge deleted)

As you eat more sugar, you have less room for more nutritious food.
This means that your body must get all of its vitamins from increasingly
smaller sources.  Chances are that your body doesn't get all the
vitamins and minerals it needs.  So, contrary to what the advertisers
tell you, sugar is NOT a good energy source.

	Too much sugar and PMS

(text deleted here)

	All sugars were not created equal

If you have a sweet tooth, don't panic.  Although natural food
sweeteners need to be used with discretion, some are better for you
than others.  The best food sweetener is one that is made primarily
of maltose, a sugar that releases glucose into your bloodstream
slowly and steadily.  This means that you will not experience the
quick jolt and quicker energy drain that refined white sugar gives.
Maltose is about one-third as sweet as sugar.
(some text deleted)
The next most desirable type of sugar is fructose, or fruit sugar.
The beginning stages of its metabolism require no insulin, therefore
fructose does not cause rapid rise in blood sugar or insulin.  It
is gentler on your blood sugar level than sucrose."

End quote.  All typos are my own.  It goes on the say that honey,
maple syrup, molasses, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, and
brown sugar are not much better than white sugar (on your blood
sugar level).

Melissa