Category: All About Sugar

10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - Sugar Has Been Linked to Cancer Development and Survival

12/30/2014

In the world of nutrition, it's hard to talk about sugar without talking about insulin. That's because insulin is sugar's little chaperone to the cells, and when too much of it is consumed and our insulin can no longer handle it properly or at all, the body revolts.

One connection that has been well documented in the literature is the link between insulin resistance and cancer. A 2013 study found that sugars in the intestine triggered the formation of a hormone called GIP, controlled by a protein called β-catenin that is completely dependent on sugar levels.

That in turn increases the amount of insulin released by the pancreas. Researchers found that β-catenin may in fact affect the cells' susceptibility to cancer formation. Further studies have found negative associations between high sugar and starch intake and survival rates in both breast cancer patients and colon cancer patients.

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10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - Sugar Is Truly One of the Silent Killers

12/29/2014

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Make way salt and hypertension - you've got “competition.” Sugar, as it turns out, is just as much of a silent killer. A 2008 study found that excess fructose consumption was linked to an increase in a condition called leptin resistance. Leptin is a hormone that tells you when you've had enough food.

The problem is, we often ignore the signal our brain sends to us. For a growing number of people though the situation is even worse - leptin no longer produces the signal to alert us the body has enough food to function. This in turn can lead to over consumption of food and consequently, obesity.

So why is sugar - more precisely fructose - now one of the silent killers? Because over-consumption sets off no symptoms or warning bells. If you've gained weight in the past year and can't quite figure out why, you should definitely look at how much fructose you're feeding your body. Start with soft drinks and sweets, along with a good number of other grocery items, like jams, condiments and so on.

ALWAYS check the ingredient list - you'll find most of them contain corn syrup or, even worse, high fructose corn syrup!

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10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - Sugar, Especially High Fructose Corn Syrup, Promotes Belly Fat

12/27/2014

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Adolescent obesity rates have tripled in the past 30 years and childhood obesity rates have doubled. Many of us are aware of this; nevertheless beyond the studies and all the initiatives to curb childhood obesity, all you need to do is to visit an amusement park, school or mall to truly see what is happening. One factor that seems to be prevalent in obese children is fat accumulation in the trunk area of the body. Why? One explanation may be the increase in fructose-laden beverages. A 2010 study in children found that excess fructose intake (but not glucose intake) actually caused visceral fat cells to mature -- setting the stage for a big belly and even bigger future risk for heart disease and diabetes.

And the blame overwhelmingly lies with... Uncle Sam

Before you start blaming the food industry, consider this: they had to switch from sugar to cheaper corn syrup in beverages (and other products) because domestic sugar costs about 3 times as much as imported sugar - which is not allowed into the country, to protect sugar cane and beet growers.

Isn't this just another wonderful example of the "Road to hell is paved with good intentions?"

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10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - How Sugar Can Damage Your Heart

12/26/2014

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While it's been widely noted that excess sugar can increase the overall risk for heart disease, a 2013 study in the Journal of the American Heart Association displayed strong evidence that sugar can actually affect the pumping mechanism of your heart and could increase the risk for heart failure. The findings specifically pinpointed a molecule from sugar (as well as from starch) called glucose metabolite glucose 6-phosphate (G6P) that was responsible for the changes in the muscle protein of the heart. These changes could eventually lead to heart failure. Approximately half of the people that are diagnosed with heart failure die within five years.

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10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - But How?

12/25/2014

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By now most of us are aware that carbohydrates from processed foods — sugar in particular — in the diet are anathema to healthy living.

Yet, only few of us do consume highly refined sugars in less than the recommended amount of 15 grams. In fact, worldwide we pile on 500 extra calories a day from sugar. That's just about what’s needed to gain a pound a week, especially with a sedentary lifestyle.

For some reason, most of us seem to think that the risk of excess sugar consumption is less than that of having too much saturated and trans fat, sodium or calories. Perhaps it's sugar's lack of sodium or fat that make it the "lesser of several evils," or perhaps people are simply of the frame of mind that what they don't know won't hurt them. Why spend hundreds of millions of dollars to redo the Nutritional Facts panels on labels and online every decade or so if that's the case, I ask?

What if you really knew what carbohydrates from processed foods — sugar in particular — did to your body? Would you put it at the top of your "foods to avoid" list? I sincerely hope the following posts, that will cover each of them separately, will motivate you to do so!

#1: Sugar can damage your heart

#2: Sugar, especially high fructose corn syrup, promotes belly fat

#3: Sugar is truly one of the silent killers

#4: Sugar has been linked to cancer development and survival

#5: Your sugar "addiction" may or may not be genetic

#6: Sugar and alcohol have similar toxic liver effects

#7: Sugar is implicated in weakening your brain power

#8: Sugar is hidden in many everyday foods we’d not suspect

#9: An overload of sugar (specifically in beverages) will shorten your life

#10: Sugar is definitely making us fat.

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Sugar CAUSES Cancer - Research Reveals How

9/10/2014

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This is the latest nail in the coffin of sugar. But is it the last? I strongly doubt it. Unfortunately, it will take at least a generation to make this knowledge as common, accepted, and actionable as what the anti-smoking campaigns achieved since the 1980s.

So we have a long way to go. Today we are adding our voice to that of Sayer Ji, Founder of Green Med Info. The article below was written by him.

Courtesy of natureworksbest.com

“The average American consumes their body weight annually in this cancer-causing substance, and yet hospitals freely feed it to their cancer patients, oblivious to the harm it does.

Hospitals feed cancer patients sugar and high carbohydrate diets for a reason: they are abysmally ignorant of the role of nutrition in health and disease -- hence their burgeoning growth and packed rooms.

Even though the science itself shows – at least since the mid-20's with Otto Warburg's cancer hypothesis -- that tumors prefer to utilize sugar fermentation to produce energy rather than the much more efficient oxygen-based phosphorylation* – hospitals have actually invited corporations like McDonald's to move into their facilities to 'enhance' their patient's gustatory experience, presumably to provide comfort and take the edge off of the painful surgery, radiation and chemo treatments erroneously proffered to them as the only reasonable 'standard of care.'

But the times are changing, with new research requiring these medical institutions to reform their dietary strategies, at least if they wish to claim that their interventions are in fact 'evidence-based' ...

New Study Reveals Sugar Doesn't Just Feed But Causes Cancer

A groundbreaking new study, uncovered by one of our volunteer researchers at Greenmedinfo – Jonathan Middleton – is the first of its kind to identify sugar, not only as fuel source for an already existing cancer, but as a primary driver in oncogenesis – i.e. the initiation of cancerous characteristics (phenotype) within previously healthy cells.

Published in the Journal of Cliinical Investigation and titled, Increased sugar uptake promotes oncogenesis via EPAC/RAP1 and O-GlcNAc pathways, researchers addressed a common perception (or misperception) in the cancer research community regarding sugar's relationship to cancer: namely, "increased glycolysis [sugar based metabolis] is frequently viewed as a consequence of oncogenic events that drive malignant cell growth and survival."

Contrary to this conventional view, the new study "provide[s] evidence that increased glycolytic activation itself can be an oncogenic event..." That is to say, the activation of sugar-based metabolism in a cell – driven by both the presence of increased quantities of glucose and the increase glucose receptors on the cell membrane surface (i.e. "overexpression of a glucose transporter") – drives cancer initiation.

Moreover, the study found that "Conversely, forced reduction of glucose uptake by breast cancer cells led to phenotypic reversion." In other words, interfering with sugar availability and uptake to the cell causes the cancer cell to REVERSE towards its pre-cancer structure-function (phenotype).

What Are The Implications of This Research to the Diet?
What this new research indicates is that sugar – of which Americans consume an astounding 160 lbs annually (imagine: 31 five-pound bags for each of us!) – is one of the primary causes of metabolic cell changes in the body consistent with the initiation and promotion of cancer. And, the research indicates that removing it from the diet, and depriving the cells of it, could REVERSE cancer.

Hidden Sugar, Crouching Cancer
It has been estimated by the USDA that the average American consumes 200 lbs of grain products annually. Why is this relevant to the question of sugar in the diet? Because refined carbohydrate products – e.g. crackers, bread, pasta, cereal – are actually 'hidden' forms of sugar. In fact, puffed rice causes your blood to become sweeter (and presumably feeds more cancer cells sugar) than white sugar, as it is higher on the glycemic index. Adding the two figures together – annual per capita consumption of sugar and grain-based products – we get a jaw dropping 360 lbs of sugar (both overt (table sugar/high fructose corn syrup) and covert (grain carbs) annually – all of which may contribute to promoting the ideal metabolic situation of cancer cells: aerobic glycolysis.

This is one reason why the ketogenic diet – that is, a fat- and protein-focused diet devoid of carbohydrate, both in simple (sugar) and complex (grain product) form – has been found so useful in the most aggressive of cancers: including brain cancer. Once you 'pull the rug out' from under the sugar/carb-craving cancer cells, they are forced to either undergo programmed cell death (apoptosis) or re-differentiate back into non-cancerous phenotypes.

If It's So Bad For Us, Why Do We Eat So Much?
One of the primary reasons why we eat sugar and carbohydrate rich diets is because they are addictive. Within minutes of consuming sugar/carbs our body goes through a neuroendocrine roller coaster. Your brain can not survive very long without glucose, the fundamental energy unit of the cell, and will 'freak out' if deprived of a steady stream of this 'nutrient' within only 2-3 minutes. The endocrine system, on the other hand, perceives the danger of high sugar – namely, glycation associated damage to protein and lipid structures within the cells of our body; think: blood caramelizing, getting sticky, and gumming up the finely tuned works – and will release hormones such as insulin, adrenaline and cortisol, in order to try to get the elevated sugar in the blood and tissues under control. Insulin forces the sugar into storage within the cell, both as glycogen and as fat, but often does its job too well, causing available glucose levels in the brain to be depleted – setting off a vicious cycle of 'emergency signals' telling the body to release more cortisol and adrenaline to increase the levels of glucose in the blood. This, of course, will result in additional insulin production and release, causing the same cycle to be repeated over and over again.

This seemingly endless vicious cycle is responsible for the insatiable cravings a high carb/sugar diet generates – not to mention the fructose-based hedonic effects generated in the brain that modulate both opioid and dopamine receptors in the nervous system (not unlike alcohol), and the pharmacologically active peptides in many gluten-containing grains, which also drive addictive behaviors and an almost psychotic fixation on getting carbs at each meal.

No wonder we have an epidemic of cancer in a world where the Westernized diet prevails. Certainly, we do not mean to indicate that a sugar/carb-rich diet is the only cause of cancer. There are many other factors that contribute to cancer initiation and promotion, such as:

Chemical exposure
Radiation exposure
Chronic stress that suppresses the immune system
Vaccines containing hidden retroviruses and cancer causing viruses
Natural infection with bacteria and viruses that are cancer causing
Lack of sleep
Insufficient nutrients (lack of methyl donors such as B12, folate, and B6 will prevent the body from 'turning off' (methylating) cancer-promoting genes

Even though cancer is a complex, multi-factorial phenomena, with variables we can not always control, one thing we can do is control what goes into our mouth. Sugar, for instance, does not belong there if we truly want to prevent and/or treat cancer. And don't forget, carbohydrates that don't taste sweet on the front end – bread, crackers, cereal – certainly convert to sugar in the body within minutes post-consumption.

In a nutshell, if you are concerned about cancer, have cancer, or would like to prevent recurrence, removing sugar and excess carbohydrates is a must. Not only is it common sense, but it is now validated by experimental research.

*Note: Cancer cells prefer to ferment sugar as a form of energy even when there is sufficient oxygen available to the cells to do so; hence Warburg's description of cancer metabolism as 'aerobic glycolysis' or the so-called 'Warburg effect’.”

Reference:
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/research-reveals-how-sugar-causes-cancer?page=1
Posted on: Saturday, August 30th 2014 at 10:00 am
Written By: Sayer Ji, Founder

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10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - Sugar Has Been Linked to Cancer Development and Survival

10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - Sugar Is Truly One of the Silent Killers

10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - Sugar, Especially High Fructose Corn Syrup, Promotes Belly Fat

10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - How Sugar Can Damage Your Heart

10 Ways Sugar Can Kill You - But How?

Sugar CAUSES Cancer - Research Reveals How

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