We'll be bringing you the absolute truth, the shocking facts on sugar (and artificial sweeteners) in a series of articles over the coming weeks. We hope you take the time to read it and make a positive change to your diet by eliminating this killer. It really could give you an extra ten, even twenty years of life.

Part 1: The serious facts

In America, men, women and children are addicted. They're consuming 115lbs of sugar per year, and yes, it's addictive. Just like cigarettes, just like some drugs. In fact, sugar is more damaging than all other narcotics combined. Take a minute to just think about that.

It's in bread, breakfast cereal (some contain as much as 50% sugar!), mayonnaise, peanut butter, ketchup, soups, spaghetti sauce, hams, and just about every microwave meal you can name, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Look closely at the labels next time you're in the supermarket. You'll find just about everything contains sugar. Believe it or not, even flue-cured tobacco can contain as much as 20% sugar by weight.


Don’t be fooled by the label ‘no added sugar’. Read the ingredients carefully. Sugar can also be known as:
Maltedextrin
Sucrose
Lactose
Glucose
Dextrose
Honey
Sorbitol
Fructose
Maltose

A clever way that companies try to fool us is by disguising that the food contains sugar. One way is by calling it something else!

By the time the natural sugar cane or sugar beets are refined down to molasses, then refined into brown sugar, then all the vitamins, minerals, proteins, enzymes and other beneficial nutrients are stripped, and all that is left is an unnatural concentrated white crystalline substance (C12H220), industrially produced, which the body is not able to handle. That can't be good for you right?!

A common mistake is that people think sugar is a food and ingest massive amounts of it. It’s a silent assassin. Its damaging effects start from the very day we're born when we're fed formula containing sugar, even before we're born if our mothers are eating excess sugar. Practically 95% of people are addicted to sugar to some degree. Most aren’t even aware. That's staggering.

When we talk about sugar, we are including bad nutrition as a whole, since anyone who indulges in excess sugar, generally has bad dietary habits. There are significant consequences that you will suffer if you consume excess sugars. It has the effect of a long-term chemical poison. Just what damage does sugar do to the human body? The list is endless. See how many you can put a tick next to out of the following list, sourced from a variety of medical journals and other scientific publications (references available on request):

1. Sugar can suppress your immune system and impair your defences against infectious disease.
2. Can make it difficult to lose weight because of constantly high insulin levels, which causes the body to store excess carbs as fat.
3. Sugar upsets the mineral relationships in your body: causes chromium and copper deficiencies and interferes with absorption of calcium and magnesium.
4. Sugar can cause can cause a rapid rise of adrenaline, hyperactivity, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and crankiness in children.
5. Sugar can produce a significant rise in total cholesterol, triglycerides and bad cholesterol and a decrease in good cholesterol.
6. Sugar causes a loss of tissue elasticity and function.
7. Sugar feeds cancer cells and has been connected with the development of cancer of the breast, ovaries, prostate, rectum, pancreas, biliary tract, lung, gallbladder and stomach.
8. Sugar can increase fasting levels of glucose and can cause reactive hypoglycemia.
9. Sugar is by far the leading cause of dental deterioration - cavities in teeth, bleeding gums, failure of bone structure, and loss of teeth.
10. Sugar is the main cause of diabetes, hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia.
11. It is either a significant or contributory cause of heart disease, arteriosclerosis, mental illness, depression, senility, hypertension, cancer.
12. It has an extremely harmful effect in unbalancing the endocrine system and injuring its component glands such as the adrenal glands, pancreas and liver, causing the blood sugar level to fluctuate widely. It has a number of other extremely damaging effects on the human body.
13. Sugar can weaken eyesight.
14. Sugar can cause many problems with the gastrointestinal tract including: an acidic digestive tract, indigestion, malabsorption in patients with functional bowel disease, increased risk of Crohn's disease, and ulcerative colitis.
15. Sugar can cause premature aging.
16. Sugar can lead to alcoholism.
17. Sugar can cause your saliva to become acidic, tooth decay, and periodontal disease.
18. Sugar contributes to obesity.
19. Sugar can cause autoimmune diseases such as: arthritis, asthma, multiple sclerosis.
20. Sugar greatly assists the uncontrolled growth of Candida Albicans (yeast infections).
21. Sugar can cause gallstones.
22. Sugar can cause appendicitis.
23. Sugar can cause hemorrhoids.
24. Sugar can cause varicose veins.
25. Sugar can elevate glucose and insulin responses in oral contraceptive users.
26. Sugar can contribute to osteoporosis.
27. Sugar can cause a decrease in your insulin sensitivity thereby causing an abnormally high insulin levels and eventually diabetes.
28. Sugar can lower your Vitamin E levels.
29. Sugar can increase your systolic blood pressure.
30. Sugar can cause drowsiness and decreased activity in children.
31. High sugar intake increases advanced glycation end products (AGEs) (Sugar molecules attaching to and thereby damaging proteins in the body).
32. Sugar can interfere with your absorption of protein.
33. Sugar causes food allergies.
34. Sugar can cause toxemia during pregnancy.
35. Sugar can contribute to eczema in children.
36. Sugar can cause atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease.
37. Sugar can impair the structure of your DNA.
38. Sugar can change the structure of protein and cause a permanent alteration of the way the proteins act in your body.
39. Sugar can make your skin age by changing the structure of collagen.
40. Sugar can cause cataracts and nearsightedness.
41. Sugar can cause emphysema.
42. High sugar intake can impair the physiological homeostasis of many systems in your body.
43. Sugar lowers the ability of enzymes to function.
44. Sugar intake is higher in people with Parkinson's disease.
45. Sugar can increase the size of your liver by making your liver cells divide and it can increase the amount of liver fat.
46. Sugar can increase kidney size and produce pathological changes in the kidney such as the formation of kidney stones.
47. Sugar can damage your pancreas.
48. Sugar can increase your body's fluid retention.
49. Sugar is enemy #1 of your bowel movement.
50. Sugar can compromise the lining of your capillaries.
51. Sugar can make your tendons more brittle.
52. Sugar can cause headaches, including migraines.
53. Sugar can reduce the learning capacity, adversely affect school children's grades and cause learning disorders.
54. Sugar can cause an increase in delta, alpha, and theta brain waves which can alter your mind's ability to think clearly.
55. Sugar can cause depression.
56. Sugar can increase your risk of gout.
57. Sugar can increase your risk of Alzheimer's disease.
58. Sugar can cause hormonal imbalances such as: increasing estrogen in men, exacerbating PMS, and decreasing growth hormone.
59. Sugar can lead to dizziness.
60. Diets high in sugar will increase free radicals and oxidative stress.
61. High sucrose diets of subjects with peripheral vascular disease significantly increases platelet adhesion.
62. High sugar consumption of pregnant adolescents can lead to substantial decrease in gestation duration and is associated with a twofold increased risk for delivering a small-for-gestational-age (SGA) infant.
63. Sugar is an addictive substance.
64. Sugar can be intoxicating, similar to alcohol.
65. Sugar given to premature babies can affect the amount of carbon dioxide they produce.
66. Decrease in sugar intake can increase emotional stability.
67. Your body changes sugar into 2 to 5 times more fat in the bloodstream than it does starch.
68. The rapid absorption of sugar promotes excessive food intake in obese subjects.
69. Sugar can worsen the symptoms of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
70. Sugar adversely affects urinary electrolyte composition.
71. Sugar can slow down the ability of your adrenal glands to function.
72. Sugar has the potential of inducing abnormal metabolic processes in a normal healthy individual and to promote chronic degenerative diseases.
73. I.V.s (intravenous feedings) of sugar water can cut off oxygen to your brain.
74. Sugar increases your risk of polio.
75. High sugar intake can cause epileptic seizures.
76. Sugar causes high blood pressure in obese people.
77. In intensive care units: Limiting sugar saves lives.
78. Sugar may induce cell death.
79. In juvenile rehabilitation camps, when children were put on a low sugar diet, there was a 44 percent drop in antisocial behavior.
80. Sugar dehydrates newborns.
81. Sugar can cause gum disease.
82. Increases overgrowth of candida yeast organism
83. Increases chronic fatigue
84. Can trigger binge eating in those with bulimia
85. Increases PMS symptoms
86. Increases hyperactivity in about 50% of children
87. Increases tooth decay
88. Increases anxiety and irritability
89. Can increase or intensify symptoms of anxiety and panic in susceptible women

How many did you tick? Gob smacked? You should be.
Be sure to visit us again soon to read part 2 where I'll go through ways to help withdraw excess sugars from your diet and give you vital important information on Aspartame – the most controversial food additive in history.

Intrepid