OnFitness Magazine - November/December 2021 - 19

19 WWW.ONFITNESSMAG.COM | VOL 22 NO 3 | 2021
SUGAR
Have you ever been
plagued by hard-todiagnose
health
problems? You know
something is wrong, but
your doctor can't seem to
figure out what's causing
it. You can't lose weight,
no matter how hard you
try; you feel depressed;
you have trouble
sleeping; you feel
sluggish; you often lack
mental focus; you've lost
your libido.
Well, it's not all in
your head; it could
simply be the effects of
too many sweets. Today,
the majority of foods and
beverages are adulterated
with some type of
sweetener. The reasoning
is simple: sweet flavors
increase sales.
When consumed,
sweets elicit a chemical
cascade of events that
trigger feel-good
receptors within our
brains. If this happens
repeatedly, an emotional
bond between happiness
and sweets is formed. You
become addicted, which
guarantees a buying
habit.
In a study comparing
the addictive properties of
sweeteners, sucrose (table
sugar) and saccharin
proved more addictive than cocaine. By
leveraging this biochemical addiction,
health food manufacturers are raking it in.
Your health is being sacrificed.
-
Sucrose (a disaccharide of glucose and
fructose) is one of the most popular
adulterants. Not as natural as people
think, it's typically extracted from sugar
cane and then purified by crystallization
for use.
Years ago, people didn't eat much - as
little as ten to fifteen pounds of sucrose
per year - and their health was much
better for it. Today, the average yearly perperson
consumption of sucrose is a
whopping hundred and sixty pounds!
The irony is that our bodies don't need
any sugar whatsoever. What they do need
is glucose for energy, which you can obtain
safely from fruits and vegetables.
When consumed, sugar guarantees
entrance into a life of overweight or
obesity, courtesy of its ability to spike our
fat-storing hormone insulin and
triglycerides.
Neuroscience and the
American Heart
Association's journal
Circulation, fake sugar
molecules disarm our
body's defense against
obesity - calorie
counting.
Studies showed that
" mouth feel " plays a
crucial role in the body's
ability to sense the
number of calories that
are being consumed, and
that these artificial
sweeteners disrupt the
natural calorie calculator.
This puts users at much
higher risk for obesity
and insulin resistance
due to the subsequent
binge eating that occurs
from consuming artificial
sweeteners.
U.S. regulatory
agencies insist that
artificial sweeteners are
safe - just as they
insisted that
" hypoglycemic drugs "
for type 2 diabetics were
safe years ago. Yet
diabetic users increase
their risk of heart attack
by a ghastly thirty to
forty percent courtesy of
these " safe " and
" effective " medications.
Could history be
repeated with drugs
moonlighting as artificial
sweeteners?
-
It also disrupts satiety (causing users
to overeat) and gives rise to ageaccelerating
molecules known as AGE
(advanced glycation end) products. These
aging molecules are responsible for
causing unsightly wrinkling and agerelated
blindness.
Over time, excess sugar consumption
prevents our body from producing various
anti-aging hormones such as IGF, HGH,
and testosterone. If consumption
continues, it leads to a host of dreaded
diseases and conditions such as insulin
resistance, heart disease, diabetes, and
even cancer. Sugar addiction can eliminate
eleven to twenty years from a person's life
span.
The realization that sugar kills have
given rise to a dizzying array of artificial
sweeteners. Designed to curb the sucrose
threat while allowing us to still get our
" sweet fix, " saccharin, aspartame, and
sucralose are among the most popular.
Studies on artificial sweeteners show
that they lead to weight gain and even prediabetes.
According to Behavioral
Discovered to be three hundred times
sweeter than sugar, saccharin was the first
chemical used as a sweetener. As early as
1911, a board of federal scientists warned
against its use in food by insisting it was
an adulterant. The biggest fear was cancer.
Early studies showed bladder cancer
among mice that consumed saccharin; this
was later proven not to translate into
humans due to stark bladder differences.
However, skin and lung cancer in mice
have begun to surface. Studies have not
been able to confirm definitively if these
threats translate into human risk.
The U.S. government's National
Toxicology Program lists saccharin as an
" anticipated carcinogen. " Given its wildcard
cancer status, saccharin is hardly a
safe alternative to sugar. Yet, it remains a
common food and supplement additive.
Discovered to be six hundred times
sweeter than sugar, the drug sucralose
originated as an insecticide. The molecule
contains a historically deadly
organochlorine.
When used, this yields such poisons as
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