Total Health Breakthroughs: Free Natural Health Newsletter and Alternative Health Articles

Sugar’s about to show up on food labels, all dressed up as a new “natural ingredient” and a better alternative to the demon du jour, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

Never let it be said that there are no “second acts” in the marketing of junk food.

OK, in case you haven’t been paying attention, HFCS has gotten quite a whipping in the press. The Corn Refiners Association tried fighting back, most notably with a series of commercials showing a clueless mother unable to explain why the stuff was so “bad,” but even the best PR campaign wasn’t able to put out the fire. And the death blow was delivered recently by Michelle Obama who declared any product with high-fructose corn syrup to be off-limits at the White House.

So now sugar — plain old white table sugar, the poor little guy that got displaced by HFCS, is being reinvented… this time as the “natural” healthy alternative to HFCS.

Oh, brother.

Let’s recap for a moment. Sugar is one part glucose and one part fructose (50/50). HFCS is very close to the same formula, marginally higher in fructose — 55% fructose, 45% glucose — but probably not enough to make that much difference (or at least that’s what the proponents of HFCS claim).

A New York Times article this week confirmed my worst fears – stress is sending Americans to candy stores in droves.¹

While at first glance this little headline, “When Economy Sours, Tootsie Rolls Soothe Souls” seems amusing, from my perspective it unwittingly brings up two important issues in healthcare today:

1. The simplistic assertion that to manage our weight, all we have to do is control calories in and calories out.

There are many factors that influence our ability to lose weight and keep it off, and this headline is an example of an important one – stress. Stress from economic crisis is doing what we see over and over again in patients at LMI — reducing serotonin and inducing carbohydrate cravings.

So what’s the harm in eating a little candy if you’re stressed? Nothing if you can stop at “a little,” but if you make that stop at the candy bowl too much of a habit, you can quickly undo weight loss and start to increase health risks.

Stress management is such an important factor for long term weight control, I have made it one of the key components of my approach to weight loss.

As more and more consumers become aware of the many negative health effects of over-consuming sugar in their diet, the search continues for a good replacement to sweeten foods. While the FDA has insisted that artificial sweeteners like aspartame (brand name Equal) and sucralose (brand name Splenda) are safe, they can cause side effects in many people. Headaches and muscle pain are two of the more common reported side effects, for example.¹

Keeping your blood sugar under control is beneficial for far more than just waistlines and diabetes prevention, it is also important to help preserve your memory as you age. Yep, that’s right — spiked blood sugar levels actually cause your brain to age prematurely, resulting in more “senior moments” than you’d care to have.

There have been other studies indicating this in the past, but a new study led by Scott A. Small, M.D., associate professor of neurology from the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain was remarkable because it showed that the activity of an important part of the memory center of the brain (called the dentate gyrus) decreases with elevated blood glucose levels.

Dr. Small’s research looked at people with type 2 diabetes and found that they had this damage to their dentate gyrus. He then looked at factors such as a high body mass index, insulin resistance, high cholesterol, and elevated blood sugar that are seen in type 2 diabetes, and replicated them in animals to determine which ones were correlated with the brain damage. He found that rapid blood sugar increases ONLY, damaged the memory center.¹

Part 1: The Results Are In…And They’re Not Good…

If you happened to have been away from your TV for the past month you might not have noticed that High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) appears to have a new press agent.

After years of media reports and scholarly articles¹ linking the increased consumption of HFCS with the growing obesity and diabetes epidemics, the makers of this stuff have had enough! They’re just not going to take it any more! For goodness sake, it’s made from corn! It’s wholesome! It’s no worse for you than sugar! What’s the big deal?

Well, as they say, let’s go to the videotape.

Sucrose, plain old table sugar, is a disaccharide, meaning it’s made up of two (di) simple sugars (saccharides) — fructose and glucose — linked together with a chemical bond. Fructose and glucose happen to be the very same simple sugars that make up HFCS. Table sugar is about 50% glucose and 50% fructose, while in most high-fructose corn syrups, the proportion is similar but not identical — 55% fructose and 45% sucrose.

In medical circles, the idea that sugar increases the risk of diabetes is considered to be an old wives tale. However, recent studies bring not just sugar, but all high glycemic index (GI) and high glycemic load (GL) foods into question. Two studies from last year showed that women with the highest intakes of high carb-containing foods (high GI and high GL) had the greatest risk of becoming diabetic.

One studied looked at all high GI and GL foods and found the highest intakes of these foods were associated with the greatest risks of becoming diabetic.

Here’s a news bulletin for you: The most damaging ingredient in the American diet is not fat.

It’s sugar.

Every day patients come into my practice and ask me why they can’t lose weight. You would not believe the multitude of excuses I have heard from people who just can’t seem to lose the extra pounds. Their reasons include everything — being born with a slow metabolism, being fat because of the way they [...]

Food labels that scream “fat free” have been a goldmine for the food industry since 1993. They have also hoodwinked millions of unsuspecting victims. Overweight people seek out these labels in the hope of waking up skinny. It never happens. But that doesn’t stop them from getting ensnared over and over again. I can hear their rationale: “I’m fat, so I should eat fat-free foods.” Wrong.