Morning everyone!
Welcome to another edition of the Doctor’s Note, where we talk about what’s on our minds when it comes to your health.
This week we’re going to talk about something sweet. We’re talking about sugar.
Everybody loves sugar around the holidays. In fact, it’s often why we gain weight in December. Which is why when January 1st comes around, we make promises to ourselves that we’re going to eat better and start working out.
The thing about sugar is that it’s kind of like the devil. I went to a conference in Nashville a couple of years ago, and a famous oncologist gets up on stage and says that there are two things that cause cancer: Stress and sugar.
Of course, there are other things that cause cancer like smoking, drinking too much alcohol, and other toxic things. But it still says a lot about sugar.
Sugar causes obesity, and contributes to all kinds of inflammatory reactions in the body.
Why do we love it? It tastes great, and it’s extremely addictive.
For years we’ve been trying to figure out artificial sweeteners. Things that taste like sugar, but not actually sugar.
Here are just a few:
Aspartame – This can cause neurological problems.
Saccharin
Sucralose – This was invented to kill bugs.
Stevia – I used Stevia for years.
Monk Fruit– This is one of the better ones. It’s not bad. It tends to raise my blood sugar.
Sugar alcohols – Xylitol, Erythritol etc. These may even help with tooth decay.
These artificial sweeteners are toxic to your body. They’re probably even worse for you than sugar. I’d rather eat cane sugar.
Some of these are better than others, but they’re still ARTIFICIAL. They’re not natural. The sugar alcohols, for example, tend to cause GI distress. I myself can’t tolerate them.
Artificial Sweeteners and Insulin Resistance
I mentioned above that Monk Fruit raises my blood sugar. Check your blood sugar often. See what sweeteners and drinks tend to raise yours. Checking your blood sugar is a good thing to do.
Insulin resistance is what we’re all fighting, including me! I’m definitely insulin resistant. Sugars, sweets, and carbs affect me greatly. Especially high glycemic carbs. It affects my mood and my productivity.
Glucose, insulin metabolism, how you feel, and what you weigh is a huge part of the weight loss formula. It’s not the whole thing, but it’s definitely Chapter 1.
Everyone knows sugar is bad. What happens with the artificial sweeteners is that they trick your body, and not in a good way.
When you put artificial sweetener in your mouth, your body thinks that it’s 100 times sweeter than sugar. In response your body starts putting out insulin because it thinks there’s a lot of sugar coming in. When in fact, there’s no sugar coming in.
So you get elevated insulin levels. Remember, insulin is a fat storing hormone. High insulin levels is why people get fat.
Sugar substitutes trick your body into producing too much insulin. This makes you hungry all the time and stores fat.
A Healthy Sugar?
I’m so excited about this new thing that just became available in the United States. From here on out it’s the only type of sugar I’m going to use.
It’s called Allulose. How many of you have heard of this?
It’s natural. It comes from fruit, and it’s an isomer. It’s the mirror image of fructose, but doesn’t have the bad effects of fructose. Fructose of course is the sugar in fruit, which is worse than sucrose because of liver metabolism.
The reason it wasn’t approved before by the FDA is because the product manufacturer had to put “with added sugars”. Now, they don’t need to do that because it doesn’t affect sugar levels. In fact, it lowers them.
It drags the sugar out of your blood and eliminates it in your urine. Very similar to a diabetic medicine.
This is going to really help diabetics by the way.
Now you can easily get it, and it’s not expensive. I’ve gotten it at Target and Wal-Mart.
It’s natural. It tastes great. It’s granular, and will brown when you cook with it. It’s 70% as sweet as sugar, so it’s plenty sweet. It doesn’t stick to your teeth like sugar does.
And it doesn’t have to be listed as an added sugar.
It’s really mostly absorbed in the small intestine without being converted to energy. This is the key to it not turning into fat.
It’s excreted by the kidneys without being metabolized.
It has 95% less calories than sucrose. It reduces blood sugar by 10%.
It’s incredible. It can help reduce abdominal fat which we’re all trying to get rid of.
There’s very few side effects. It tastes like sugar. There’s no aftertaste like you get with stevia and some of the others.
I’d encourage all of you to get some of this. Bake some cookies with it this Christmas season if you have a sweet tooth during the holidays.
Let me know what you think!
