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Sugar and Processed Foods Are Making You Fat
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11/9/2015 Sugar and Processed Foods Are Making You Fat
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/11/09/addedsugarsprocessedfoods.aspx?e_cid=20151109Z2_DNL_art_1&utm_source=dnl&utm_medi... 1/7
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November 09, 2015 | 19,482 views| Disponible en Español
Foods Kept in PlainSight May Reveal the Source of YourWeight Management Problem
By Dr. Mercola
According to recent research, the types of readytoeat foods you leave in plain sight on your kitchencounters can be used to predict your weight.
According to Professor Brian Wansink, whospecializes in how house design affects eatinghabits, this is one of the ways in which you maytrick yourself into gaining weight.
If a food is left out, you're far more apt to eat it thanif it's tucked away in a cupboard, so what you leaveout can make a significant difference in your overalldiet and, ultimately, your weight and health. Asreported by the Epoch Times:
"The study looked at photographs ofmore than 200 kitchens in Syracuse, NewYork, to test how the food environmentrelates to the body mass index (BMI) of theadults at home.
The women in the study who kept fresh fruitout in the open tended to be a normalweight compared with their peers.
But when snacks like cereals and sodaswere readily accessible, those people wereheavier than their neighbors — by anaverage of more than 20 pounds.
'It's your basic SeeFood Diet — you eatwhat you see,' says Brian Wansink,professor and director of the Cornell Foodand Brand Lab and lead author of the paperin the journal Health Education andBehavior."
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Story ataglanceThe types of readytoeat foods you leave inplain sight on your kitchen counters can beused to predict your weight. Those with cerealand soda on their counters are on average 20to 26 pounds heavier than others
Cutting added sugars can improve a child’shealth in as little as 10 days, reducingtriglycerides by 33 points, and lowering bloodsugar by 53 percent
Reducing added sugar consumption improvesheart health. Just one to two servings of sugarybeverages per day may raise your risk of heartdisease by 35 percent, diabetes by 25 percent,and stroke by 15 percent
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Soda and Breakfast Cereal Top Listof ObesityRelated Foods
Those who kept soda out in the open and within easy reach weighed an average of 24 to 26 pounds morethan those who didn't.
And while processed breakfast cereals are widely advertised as being healthy for your heart and weight,people who kept cereal on their counters weighed an average of 20 pounds more than those who didn't havecereal in their counter.
This study is hardly an example of rigorous science showing that cereal makes you fat, but it's still aninteresting observation that falls right in line with the nutritional facts. Most cereals are chockfull of sugar, andexcess sugar is the number one culprit of obesity and chronic disease.
Cutting Sugar Can Improve Child's Health in Less Than Two Weeks
As reported by The New York Times, recent research shows that cutting added sugars can improve a child'shealth in as little as 10 days. The study was led by Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist who has longargued that added sugar is toxic when consumed in toohigh amounts.
"Obese children who cut back on their sugar intake see improvements in their blood pressure,cholesterol readings, and other markers of health after just 10 days, a rigorous new study found...
In the new study, which was financed by the National Institutes of Health... [t]hey removed foods withadded sugar from a group of children's diets and replaced them with other types of carbohydrates sothat the subjects' weight and overall calorie intake remained roughly the same.
After 10 days, the children showed dramatic improvements, despite losing little or no weight. Thefindings add to the argument that all calories are not created equal, and they suggest that those fromsugar are especially likely to contribute to Type 2 diabetes and other metabolic diseases..."
The study reduced the amount of added sugars from an average of 27 percent of daily calories down to about10 percent, which is in line with the most recent recommendations by the federal government's DietaryGuidelines Advisory Committee, issued in February.
Study Pins the Blame on Refined Sugars and Processed Fructose
It's worth noting that while the children in Dr. Lustig's study ate the same percentage of carbohydrates as theynormally did, all added sugars, such as sugar cane and corn syrup, were replaced with starches instead.
From a health standpoint, the children were not placed on an ideal diet — they were fed hot dogs and bakedpotato chips, for example, but this was done specifically to demonstrate that not even sugars are metabolicallyidentical.
Refined sugar and processed fructose such as highfructose corn syrup is FAR more harmful than glucose andother sugars found in whole foods. As Dr. Lustig told Time magazine:
“I’m not suggesting in any way, shape or form that we gave them healthy food. We gave them crappyfood... and processed food — and they still got better.
Imagine how much even better they would have gotten if we didn't substitute and took the sugar out.Then they would have gotten even better yet. That's the point."
On average, the children (aged eight to 18) saw the following improvements in their lab work and diseasemarkers after this short intervention:
LDL cholesterol fell by 10 points
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Diastolic blood pressure fell five points
Triglycerides were reduced by 33 points
Fasting blood sugar dropped by 53 percent
Insulin levels also significantly improved
Sugar Is Natural, but It Can Still Be Toxic
In an article for the Huffington Post, Dr. Lustig writes about the toxic impact of added sugars, noting that:
"The naysayers will say, 'But sugar is natural. Sugar has been with us for thousands of years. Sugar isfood, and how can food be toxic?'... Sugar by itself furnishes energy, and that's about it... Fructose, thesweet molecule in sugar, contains calories that you can burn for energy, but it's not nutrition, becausethere's no biochemical reaction that requires it.
In excess, it can fry your liver, just like alcohol. And this makes sense, because where do you getalcohol from? Fermentation of sugar. Too much sugar causes diabetes, heart disease, fatty liverdisease, and tooth decay. When consumed in excess, it's a toxin. And it's addictive – just like alcohol..."
According to Dr. Lustig, this similarity is precisely why kids are now developing alcoholrelated diseases suchas Type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease, even though they're not drinking alcohol.
Less Sugar, More Veggies Can Make Big Difference in Health DecadesLater
If you have young children, I strongly advise you to take this information to heart, as one's childhood diet canhave longterm health ramifications. For example, according to a recent study published in the journalCirculation, the amount of fruits and vegetables you eat can affect your heart health 20 years later.
People between the ages of 18 and 30 who ate seven to nine servings of fruit and vegetables per day were 25percent less likely to have significant coronary calcium in their arteries 20 years later, compared to those whoonly ate only two to four servings of fruits and vegetables per day. Another recent scientific review confirmedthat cutting down on refined sugar and processed fructose improves heart health.
Drinking just one to two servings of sugary beverages per day was found to raise a person's risk of:
Heart disease by 35 percent
Type 2 diabetes by 25 percent
Stroke by 15 percent
Frank Hu with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health told Forbes:
"Since we rarely consume fructose in isolation, the major source of fructose in the diet comes fromfructosecontaining sugars, sucrose, and highfructose corn syrup, in sugarsweetened beverages. Ourfindings underscore the urgent need for public health strategies that reduce the consumption of thesedrinks...
Part of the problem is how fructose behaves in the body... While glucose is escorted by insulin into cellsto be used as fuel, fructose doesn't need the escort. It's processed in the liver, where it can be convertedinto triglycerides, otherwise known as blood fats. These can lead to insulin resistance, which is aleading cause of not only diabetes, but of heart disease."
The infographic below, published by Prevention, shows how sugar drives inflammation and affects virtuallyevery aspect of your health, from your skin to your joints, your heart, and even your genitals.
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Recommended Daily Sugar Limits
The American Heart Association and the World Health Organization (WHO) recommend limiting your dailyadded sugar intake to nine teaspoons (38 grams) for men and six teaspoons (25 grams) for women. Theaverage American, however, consumes around 20 teaspoons of added sugar a day, and this is quite clearlyfar too much for your body to handle. A metareview published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings found thatonce you reach 18 percent of your daily calories from added sugar, there's a twofold increase in metabolicharm that promotes prediabetes and diabetes.
I strongly recommend limiting your daily fructose intake to 25 grams or less from all sources, including naturalsources such as fruit — regardless of whether you're male or female. That equates to just over six teaspoons oftotal sugar a day. If you're insulin resistant, which applies to about 80 percent of Americans, you'd be wise tolimit your total fructose to 15 grams per day until your insulin resistance is resolved.
Task Force Issues New CommonSense Guidelines to Prevent Diabetes
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force now urges all overweight Americans over the age of 40 to get theirblood sugar tested at least once every three years, even if they don't have symptoms of diabetes. This is avery inexpensive test and I recommend checking your fasting blood sugar and fasting insulin on an annualbasis, regardless of your age or weight, and to take proactive steps to address elevated blood sugar levels asinsulin resistance is the first step toward diabetes and chronic disease.
Previously, the task force recommended diabetes screening for people with high blood pressure, but not foroverweight people without symptoms of diabetes. However, more recent studies have found that lifestylechanges are "consistently beneficial" for preventing or delaying the disease. This is a perfect example of how itcan take conventional medicine decades to reach even the most commonsense conclusions, as I've beenteaching how to prevent diabetes through diet and exercise ever since I started this newsletter nearly 20 yearsago.
Now, finally, these strategies are becoming more widely recognized by the conventional medical community.According to task force member Dr. Michael Pignone:
"The Task Force found screening adults ages 40 to 70 who are overweight or obese can identifyindividuals with abnormal blood glucose levels before it progresses to diabetes and that offering orreferring them to intensive lifestyle interventions can help prevent or delay complications from thedisease."
How Sugar Industry Turned Unnecessary Luxury into a Food Staple
Sugar was not a part of the average man's daily diet until very recently, and the sugar industry spent a lot ofmoney to convince people it was an essential nutrient. In the 1940s, it was common knowledge among doctorsand dentists that sugar was completely unnecessary, and that it could be harmful. But by the 1970s, a dramaticchange in consciousness had occurred, thanks to the influence of the sugar industry, and today added sugarshide in 74 percent of processed foods under more than 60 different names.
Time magazine recently featured a series of sugar commercials from the 1960s, in which sugar is promotedas an essential nutrient for energy — and, believe it or not, for weight loss. For example, one ad says:
"After practicing baton twirling, Judy climbed the apple tree to rescue the cat, skated to the store forbobby pins. Now she's home from dancing class. She needs a sugarless, goless soft drink like akangaroo needs a baby buggy. What are little girls made of? Sugar. For energy."
Another ad aimed at working women suggests that drinking a soft drink or eating a candy bar just beforemealtime will reduce your appetite and keep your energy high. Sugar was also promoted as "the willpower youneed to undereat." A series of ads from 1972 carry the slogan, "Sugar. It isn't just good flavor, it's good food."
These campaigns were so successful that even though you don't see deceitful ads like this anymore, manypeople are still under the mistaken belief that you "need" sugar for energy. Nothing could be further from thetruth. If you eat correctly, your body can easily create all the sugar you need, your food cravings will quickly
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vanish, and your energy levels will remain stable for hours on end once your body becomes fat adapted, whichmeans relearning how to use healthy fat rather than sugar as its primary fuel.
Sugar Industry Uses Tobacco Industry's Play Book to Fool Consumers
The sugar industry operates in much the same way as the tobacco industry did back in its heydays. For over 30years, the tobacco industry knew that nicotine was addictive and caused lung cancer, and this information waspurposefully withheld from the public. Big Tobacco executives even lied during Congressional testimony,stating they had no knowledge of adverse health effects.
Today, the sugar industry is being equally evasive, either dismissing or downplaying the scientific evidenceshowing that excessive sugar consumption is a primary driver of obesity, metabolic dysfunction, and chronicdisease. Andy Briscoe, the head of the Sugar Association, has even made appeals to the scientific advisorycommittee making recommendations for the 2015 US dietary guidelines to go easy on sugar.
The committee recommended Americans consume no more than 10 percent of their daily calories in the formof added sugars, citing "strong and consistent evidence" that sugar is associated with obesity and other healthrisks. Briscoe went so far as to say "'there was no 'proof of cause and effect' linking 'added sugars' intake withserious disease,' nor any 'significant scientific agreement' to justify telling the American public sugar is 'acausal factor in a serious disease outcome.'" Briscoe has also gone on record with the following, quiteludicrous and wholly inaccurate, statements:
"Obesity is a serious concern in America, but sugar is not the culprit... Sugar has been used safely byour grandmothers and their grandmothers for centuries... Allnatural sugar is currently beingscapegoated for all kinds of health problems, despite the fact that Americans consume less of it now...Every major, comprehensive review of the total body of scientific literature continues to exoneratesugars intake as the causative factor in any lifestyle disease..."
Food Swaps That Can Help Improve Your Health
As shown in Dr. Lustig's study, even minor changes in your diet can make a big difference in your health. Thekey is to get rid of the added sugars. And, while I certainly do not promote eating processed foods like bakedchips, even "crappy food," as Dr. Lustig put it, can be tolerated to a greater degree as long as you've eliminatedthe added sugars. Paste Magazine recently listed a number of food swaps that could help improve yourhealth. For example, you can:
Replace power and cereal bars with trail mix (nuts, seeds, and dried fruit. Just avoid the dried fruit ifyou're insulin resistant or diabetic, as they tend to be very high in fructose)
Replace chips with kale chips, pea crisps, seaweed chips, or roasted chickpeas
Replace white rice with Heirloom Forbidden Rice — a very dark, purplish rice high in antioxidants
Satisfy your candy craving with dark chocolate (minimum 60 percent cacao). You can also make yourown homemade chocolate treat (see video below)
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A Healthy Chocolate Snack
The Importance of Microbes
Ultimately, your health (and even your weight) is largely dependent on the healthy bacteria in your gut, andsugar is just one of many ingredients in processed food that decimate your intestinal health. Your gutmicrobiome can also have a significant influence on a child's brain development, as well as your mental healthat any age. As noted by Scientific American:
"[R]esearchers are starting to uncover a vast, varied system in which gut microbes influence the brainthrough hormones, immune molecules and the specialized metabolites that they produce... Recentstudies also demonstrate that gut microbes directly alter neurotransmitter levels, which may enablethem to communicate with neurons."
Scientists have also started paying careful attention to the microbial composition of soil, noting that this is reallywhere it all starts. Without healthy soils, we in turn will have a hard time staying healthy. As noted by NationalGeographic:
"Healthy soil's impact is wideranging but three big effects are: its ability to improve human health, itsability to halt soil erosion, and its potential to slow the effects of climate change."
The importance of microbes for human and environmental health has now become fairly wellrecognized,although there are still many unanswered questions. In fact, the emergence of microbiome research may beone of the most important new fields of science, capable of addressing both human health and environmentaldestruction at the same time.
Now, members of the Unified Microbiome Initiative Consortium (UMIC), which includes researchers from 50different scientific organizations, are calling on the US government to launch a Unified Microbiome Initiative— a crossagency and crossinstitutional program to support and coordinate microbiome research. As reportedby Tech Times:
"The UMIC believes such a program would lead to breakthrough discoveries in different fields,including medicine, renewable energy, ecosystem management, and commodities production."
Optimizing Your Gut Flora May Be One of Your Most Important DiseasePrevention Strategies
All of this information should really drive home the point that your diet can make or break your health, and
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processed foods as a rule will do the latter. If you seek to optimize your health and weight, eating REAL FOODis key. Not only will this automatically eliminate most or all added sugars from your diet, it'll also cut out a widevariety of food additives and chemicals that have never been tested for safety.
Eating real, whole, unadulterated foods is a foundational strategy to normalize your microbiome, and promoteoptimal health. In addition to that, you'd be wise to consider adding fermented foods and/or a probioticsupplement to your diet, and to avoid items that are harmful to your microbiome.
Fermented foods are the best route to optimal digestive health, as long as you eat the traditionallymade, unpasteurized versions. Healthy choices include lassi (an Indian yoghurt drink, traditionallyenjoyed before dinner), fermented grassfed organic milk such as kefir, various pickled fermentations ofcabbage, turnips, eggplant, cucumbers, onions, squash, and carrots, and natto (fermented soy). Someof the beneficial bacteria found in fermented foods are also excellent chelators of heavy metals andpesticides, which will also have a beneficial health effect by reducing your toxic load. As an addedbonus, they can also a great source of vitamin K2 if you ferment your own using a starter culture withK2producing bacteria.
Probiotic supplement. Although I'm not a major proponent of taking many supplements (as I believethe majority of your nutrients need to come from food), probiotics is an exception if you don't eatfermented foods on a regular basis. It's also highly recommended during and after taking a course ofantibiotics.
Items to avoid include:
Antibiotics, unless absolutelynecessary (and when you do,make sure to reseed your gutwith fermented foods and/or a
probiotic supplement)
Conventionallyraised meatsand other animal products, asthese animals are routinely fed
lowdose antibiotics, plusglyphosatecontaminated
genetically engineered grains,which have also been
implicated in the destruction ofgut flora
Processed foods (as theexcessive sugars, along withotherwise "dead" nutrients,feed pathogenic bacteria)
Chlorinated and/or fluoridatedwater
Antibacterial soap Agricultural chemicals,glyphosate (Roundup) in
particular
[+] Sources and References