Sweetness for sickness or health

If you are like me, you love the taste of sweet foods, especially during those times that the sweet craving or emotion is high. The problem is that there are far too many sweet foods available that contain far too many unhealthy sweetening ingredients for our own good.

But sweet tasting food does not need to translate into body fat, hormone imbalances (i.e. insulin resistance), or chronic disease if you use healthy sweeteners. So in my next few articles, I’ll review sweeteners from the worst to the healthiest. I’ll also show you some sweet and sour facts about foods you probably love so you can learn their healthy alternatives.

Let me begin with criteria to use when evaluating any sweetener. How do I compare the effects of various sweeteners on health? Here are my criteria for you to consider:

• Glycemic index and glycemic load: The glycemic index is a measurement of the relative rate at which a food’s sugar content absorbs into your blood stream and raises your blood sugar. More pertinent however, is the glycemic load: how much your blood glucose level increases from a typical serving of the food. Low GI foods include green vegetables, most fresh fruits, beans and lentils, nuts, raw carrots, high fiber (100 percent) bran breakfast cereals, and milk. Medium GI foods include sweet corn, bananas, pineapple, oatmeal, oat bran or rye breads, and brown rice. High GI foods include white rice, white bread, cooked potatoes/French fries, raisins and dates, pizza, and (of course) all those high sugar dessert foods and beverages. Therefore, the lower the glycemic index of a food (slower sugar absorption) and the lower the glycemic load of a food (less total sugar), the lower your risk is for obesity, heart disease, metabolic syndrome and diabetes. As a general rule, fat and fiber content of food lowers its glycemic index. Also, processing and cooking foods will raise its glycemic index. I personally feel better when I eat a large salad for dinner before eating a dessert. I’ll sometimes eat an apple with a dessert to off-set its glycemic index and load.
• Micronutrient content (nutritional value): Honey may be high in glycemic load, but carries multiple beneficial health effects. The same goes for some other sweeteners I’ll be reviewing in these articles.
• Other adverse health effects: Sucrose (e.g. table sugar, powdered sugar, candy) has many documented adverse effects on human health beyond those listed above. These include fatigue, depressed mood, tooth decay, aches and pains, increased body yeast, and more that I’ll detail below. Likewise, artificial chemical sweeteners have their bad effects too which I’ll be addressing in a later article.
• Happiness factor: We can’t forget that sweet foods give us pleasure, a valid measure of health. If you’re like me, taking all sweets out of your life is not an option. So, I always look for ways to maximize pleasure from sweet foods and minimize any ill health effects they may have. Would you agree?

Sucrose (table sugar)

Sugars and sweeteners come in various names and forms. I want you to be able to recognize these and evaluate them based on the above criteria. I’ll begin with sucrose, the most common sugar in our food supply. In 1980 each American on average consumed 140 pounds of refined sugar (this does not count real food sugars) and by 2004 it had risen to 200 pounds of sugar per person, according to data by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Did you know that the scientific literature points to more than 100 adverse effects from (refined) sugar in addition to promoting heart disease (atherosclerosis), diabetes and pre-diabetes (a.k.a. metabolic syndrome, now estimated in 1 out of 4 American adults), and obesity? To name the important ones:

1. Sugar weakens your immune system: ^[1] It prolongs a cold or flu if consumed during the illness. It slows injury healing time and actually acidifies your already acidic tissues in acute illness or injury. ^[2] Also, sugar reduces your defense against bacterial infection (Dental Survey, 1976). ^[3]
2. Sugar impairs mineral reabsorption of calcium and magnesium in your kidneys ^[4]
3. Sugar accelerates skin aging and decreases skin elasticity: ^[5] This worsens the more excess sugar you consume over time by changing the structure of collagen proteins. ^[6] It can also make your tendons more brittle. ^[7]
4. Sugar worsens mental functioning and behavior: It can worsen anxiety, make concentration difficult, cause crankiness in children; ^[8] worsen attention deficit hyperactivity disorder children (ADHD); ^[9] and reduce learning capacity. ^[10]
5. Sugar contributes to lung, skin, and allergy problems: Sugar can cause asthma; ^{[11] [12]} emphysema; ^[13] contribute to eczema in children; ^[14] and cause food allergies. ^[15]
6. Sugar leads to/or increases most all cancers: It “feeds cancer” of various types. These include ovaries, ^[16] stomach, ^{[17] [18]} colon, ^[19] gall bladder, ^[20] lung, ^[21] prostate, ^[22] breast, ^[23] small intestine, ^[24] larynx, ^[25] rectum, ^[26] uterus, ^[27] kidney ^[28] and liver, ^[29] plus it causes free radical oxidative stress. ^[30]
7. Sugar weakens eyesight ^[31]
8. Sugar can do many more adverse things: It worsens your joint or muscle pains, promotes Candida albicans yeast infection, worsens multiple sclerosis, correlates with increased rates of Parkinsonism, triggers salt and water retention, contributes to varicose veins, and perpetuates small intestinal leaky gut syndrome, a major cause for chronic and autoimmune diseases. Sugar promotes leaky gut syndrome in part because it acid-producing and also because it competes against healthy bowel flora known to be vital for a healthy gut lining. I’d basically say that refined sugar more than any other food is responsible for autoimmune and chronic diseases.

Refined sugar basically wreaks havoc on your health subtly and slowly, but it does have an extremely high “happiness factor”? That’s why I want you to consider other healthier sweeteners are available that are comparably high in happiness factor! I’ll address these in my next article.

To feeling good from healthy foods and sweeteners,

Michael Cutler, M.D.

Easy Health Options

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[2] Sanchez, A, et al. “Role of Sugars in Human Neutrophilic Phagocytosis,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Nov 1973;261:1180-1184.

[3] Ringsdorf W, Cheraskin E, and Ramsay R. “Sucrose, Neutrophilic Phagocytosis, and Resistance to Disease,” Dental Survey. 1976;52(12):46-48.

[4] Lemann, J. Evidence that Glucose Ingestion Inhibits Net Renal Tubular Reabsorption of Calcium and Magnesium. Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 1976 ;70:236_245.

[5] Cerami, A., Vlassara, H., and Brownlee, M. “Glucose and Aging.” Scientific American. May 1987:90. Lee, A. T. and Cerami, A. The Role of Glycation in Aging. Annals of the New York Academy of Science; 663:63-67.

[6] Dyer, D G, et al. “Accumulation of Maillard Reaction Products in Skin Collagen in Diabetes and Aging” Journal of Clinical Investigation. 1993:93(6):421-422.

[7] Nash, J. “Health Contenders.” Essence. Jan 1992-23: 79-81.

[8] Goldman, J, et al. “Behavioral Effects of Sucrose on Preschool Children.” Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.1986;14(4):565-577.

[9] Jones, T W, et al. “Enhanced Adrenomedullary Response and Increased Susceptibility to Neuroglygopenia: Mechanisms Underlying the Adverse Effect of Sugar Ingestion in Children.” Journal of Pediatrics. Feb 1995;126:171-7.

[10] Molteni, R, et al. “A High-fat, Refined Sugar Diet Reduces Hippocampal Brain-derived Neurotrophic Factor, Neuronal Plasticity, and Learning.” NeuroScience. 2002;112(4):803-814.

[11] Cheng, J, et al. “Preliminary Clinical Study on the Correlation Between Allergic Rhinitis and Food Factors.” Lin Chuang Er Bi Yan Hou Ke Za Zhi Aug 2002;16(8):393-396.

[12] Krilanovich, Nicholas J. “Fructose Misuse, the Obesity Epidemic, the Special Problems of the Child, and a Call to Action” Am. J. Clinical Nutrition. Nov 2004;80:1446-1447.

[13] Monnier, VM. “Nonenzymatic Glycosylation, the Maillard Reaction and the Aging Process.” Journal of Gerontology. 1990:45(4):105-110.

[14] Cleave, T. The Saccharine Disease; New Canaan Ct: Keats Publishing, Inc., 1974.

[15] Appleton, N. New York: Lick the Sugar Habit. New York: Avery Penguin Putnam:1988.

[16] Takahashi, E., Tohoku University School of Medicine, Wholistic Health Digest. Oct 1982:41.

[17] Cornee, J, et al. “A Case-control Study of Gastric Cancer and Nutritional Factors in Marseille, France,” European Journal of Epidemiology. 1995;11:55-65.

[18] Chatenoud, Liliane, et al. “Refined-cereal Intake and Risk of Selected Cancers in Italy.” Am. J. Clinical Nutrition, Dec 1999;70:1107-1110.

[19] Bostick, RM, et al. “Sugar, Meat, and Fat Intake and Non-dietary Risk Factors for Colon Cancer Incidence in Iowa Women.” Cancer Causes & Control. 1994:5:38-53.

[20] Moerman, C, et al. “Dietary Sugar Intake in the Etiology of Gallbladder Tract Cancer.” Internat J of Epi. Ap. 1993;22(2):207-214.

[21] De Stefani, E.“Dietary Sugar and Lung Cancer: A Case Control Study in Uruguay.” Nutrition and Cancer. 1998;31(2):132-7.

[22] Deneo-Pellegrini H. et al. Foods, Nutrients, and Prostate Cancer: A Case-control study in Uruguay. Br J Cancer. 1999 May;80(3-4):591-7.

[23] Potischman, N, et al. “Increased Risk of Early-stage Breast Cancer Related to Consumption of Sweet Foods among Women Less than Age 45 in the United States.” Cancer Causes Control. 2002 Dec;13(10):937-46.

[24] Negri. E, et al. “Risk Factors for Adenocarcinoma of the Small Intestine.” International Journal of Cancer. 1999:82:I2:171-174.

[25] Bosetti, C, et al. “Food Groups and Laryngeal Cancer Risk: A Case-control Study from Italy and Switzerland.” International Journal of Cancer. 2002:100(3): 355-358.

[26] De Stefani E, Mendilaharsu M, and Deneo-Pellegrini H. Sucrose as a Risk Factor for Cancer of the Colon and Rectum: A Case-control Study in Uruguay. Int J Cancer. 1998 Jan 5;75(1):40-4.

[27] Levi F, Franceschi S, Negri E, La Vecchia C. “Dietary Factors and the Risk of Endometrial Cancer. Cancer. 1993 Jun 1;71(11):3575-3581.

[28] Mellemgaard A, et al. “Dietary Risk Factors for Renal Cell Carcinoma in Denmark.” Eur J Cancer. 1996 Apr;32A(4):673-82.

[29] Rogers AE, Nields HM, Newberne PM. “Nutritional and Dietary Influences on Liver Tumorigenesis in Mice and Rats. Arch Toxicol Suppl. 1987;10:231-43. Review.

[30] Ceriello, A. “Oxidative Stress and Glycemic Regulation.” Metabolism. Feb 2000;49(2 Suppl 1):27-29.

[31] Acta Ophthalmologica Scandinavica. Mar 2002;48;25. Taub, H. Ed. Sugar Weakens Eyesight, VM Newsletter;May 1986:06:00.