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Dental Problems
Sugar also makes the blood very thick and sticky, inhibiting
much of the blood flow into the minute capillaries that
supply our gums and teeth with vital nutrients. Therefore,
we wind up with diseased gums and starving teeth. America
and England, the two largest sugar consumers, have horrendous
dental problems.
Consumption of processed foods (which are laced with sugar)
cost the American public more than $54 billion in dental
bills each year, so the dental industry reaps huge profits
from the programmed addiction of the public to sugar products.
...
In 1948, a $57,000 ten-year study was awarded to Harvard
University by the Sugar Research Foundation to find out
how sugar causes cavities in teeth and how to prevent
it. In 1958, Time magazine reported the findings, which
were reported in the Dental Association Journal. They
discovered there was no way to prevent the problem and
their funding immediately disappeared.
"The most significant human study was done in Sweden,
reported in 1954, and known as the Vipeholm Dental Caries
Study. More than 400 adult mental patients were placed
on controlled diets and observed for five years. The subjects
were divided into various groups. Some ate complex and
simple carbohydrates at mealtimes only, while other supplemented
mealtime food with between-meal-snacks, sweetened with
sucrose, chocolate, caramel, or toffee. Among the conclusions
drawn from the study, was that sucrose consumption could
increase caries activity. The risk increased if the sucrose
was consumed in a sticky form that adhered to the tooth's
surfaces. The greatest damage was inflicted by foods with
high concentrations of sucrose, in sticky form, eaten
between meals, even if contact with the tooth's surfaces
was brief. Caries, due to the intake of foods with high
sucrose levels, could be decreased when such offending
foods were eliminated from the diet. But individual differences
existed, and in some cases, caries continued to appear
despite avoidance of refined sugar or maximum restriction
of natural sugars and total dietary carbohydrates."
(2)
Diabetes
Diabetes is another commonly known disease which is caused
by the failure of the pancreas to produce adequate insulin
when the blood sugar rises. A concentrated amount of sugar
introduced into the system sends the body into shock from
the rapid rise in the blood sugar level, and over time
this can cause the pancreas to wear out and not be able
to produce the levels of insulin that it should.
Hypoglycemia occurs when
the pancreas overreacts to the large amount of sugar in
the blood and releases too much insulin leaving one with
the "tired" feeling as the blood sugar level
becomes lower than it should be.
Of all the foods consumed today, refined sugar is considered
to be one of the most harmful. ...In 1997 Americans devoured
7.3 billion pounds of candy. Americans spent an estimated
$23.1 billion dollars on candy and gum. The average American
consumed a record 27.3 pounds of candy and gum in the
same year-the equivalent of about six regular sized chocolate
bars a week-marking the fifth consecutive year of increased
demand.
"A recent article in the British Medical Journal,
entitled The Sweet Road to Gallstones,
reported that refined sugar may be one of the major dietary
risk factors in gallstone disease. Gallstones are composed
of fats and calcium. Sugar can upset all of the minerals,
and one of the minerals, calcium, can become toxic or
nonfunctioning, depositing itself anywhere in the body,
including the gallbladder.
"One out of ten Americans has gallstones. This risk
increases to one out of every five after age forty. Gallstones
may go unnoticed or may cause pain-wrenching pain. Other
symptoms might include bloating, belching, and intolerance
to foods."
WHAT ABOUT GUM CHEWING?
Besides the sugar in gum being damaging to the teeth there
is another harmful problem to consider and that is: "teeth
and jaws weren't designed for more than a few minutes
of solid chewing per day-far less than the two hours clocked
in daily by hardcore gum chewers. All this chewing results
in inordinate wear on the jawbone, gum tissue and lower
molars, and can change the alignment of the jaws"
says Michael Elsohn, D.D.S., in the Medical Tribune.
And lastly, sugar is a major contributor to the aging
process.
Non-nutritive sweeteners (e.g., saccharin,
aspartame, acesulfame-K. . . Splenda (sucralose) [and
neotame]) offer no energy, and, as they sweeten with little
volume, can also be referred to as high-intensity sweeteners.
neotame: Neotame,
another product of Monsanto’s Nutrasweet Company
and also the most recently approved sweetener, deserves
several red flags of caution. Also known as "superaspartame,"
it was first synthesized from a base of aspartame and
3,3-dimethylbutyraldehyde by French scientists Claude
Nofre and Jean-Marie Tinti. In an amazing display of sweetening
power, neotame hits the scales at 8000 times sweeter than
sucrose, and its chemical name is a mouthful--N-[N-(3,3-dimethylbutyl)-L-a-aspartyl]-L-phenylalanine
1-methyl ester.
aspartame: Problems
associated with aspartame consumption are neatly summarized
in Nourishing Traditions. "Aspartame. . . is a neurotoxic
substance that has been associated with numerous health
problems including dizziness, visual impairment, severe
muscle aches, numbing of extremities, pancreatitis, high
blood pressure, retinal hemorrhaging, seizures and depression.
It is suspected of causing birth defects and chemical
disruptions in the brain.
NutraSweet: side
effects include headaches blindness seizures and strangley
enough causes people to crave carbs..so yes diet drinks
(sweetened with nutrasweet) can make people fatter..
Equal:
Splenda;
also known as sucralose, is artificial sweetener which
is a chlorinated sucrose derivative. Splenda is basically
sucrose (table sugar) which chlorine atoms have replaced
some of the H and OH groups. The result is something like
a cross between table sugar and PCB! The moecule has the
same shape as table sugar - which is why it is sweet -
it fits into all the same receptors that sugar does both
on the tong and elsewhere. The problem is that it can't
be broken down!
Many people have reported that it
was affecting their bodies like sugar, giving them an
insulin surge followed by hypoglycaemia! Apparently the
pancreas thinks there is sugar in the system, the splenda
molecule is sensed as sugar, and I'll bet it stimulates
the sugar receptors in the blood liver and pancreas 200x
as strongly as sugar just as it does on the tong! The
problem is there is no sugar and the all the insulin ends
up dropping the blood sugar even lower. Add to that the
stuff just floats around until it's flushed from your
system, it can't be metabolised.
acesulfame-k (Sunette, Sweet-n-Safe,
Sweet One).
Because refined dietary sugars lack
vitamins and minerals, they must draw upon the body tissue
micronutrient stores in order to be metabolized into the
system. When these storehouses are depleted, metabolization
of fatty acid and cholesterol are impeded, contributing
to higher blood serum triglycerides, cholesterol, promoting
obesity due to
higher fatty acid storage around organs and in subcutaneous
tissue folds.
NOTE:
If you are a diabetic, it is important to work closely
with your healthcare practitioner when you change your
diet. Diabetics can safely use STEVIA (listed below) and
usually small amounts of LICORICE ROOT and FRUCTOOLIGOSACCHRIDES
(FOS).
Some diabetics who are allowed to use small amounts of
sugar can use small amounts of Sucanat or Florida Crystals.
Please consult your healthcare practitioner.
Gradually reduce or eliminate:
White Sugar
Brown Sugar -- Brown sugar is usually white sugar mixed
with molasses or sprayed with caramel coloring.
Raw Sugar -- Raw sugar is often white sugar with coloring.
Fructose -- Beware the "natural" products with
fructose.
It's not much better than white sugar (IMO).
D-tagatose -- Far safer than neotame/aspartame, sucralose,
etc., but best used as a transitional sweetener to healthier
ones.
Corn Syrup
Dextrose
Artificial Sweeteners (Nutrasweet (aspartame, "contains
phenylalanine" on the label), Equal, Spoonful, Neotame,
Sunette (Acesulfame-k), Splenda (Sucralose), Sweetener
2000 / NutraSweet 2000))
-- Avoid these like the plague. Please don't become a
guinea pig for another poorly-tested toxic sweetener only
to find out years from now that it contributed to the
destruction of your health.
Important Note: MSG
(Monosodium Glutamate) has some of the same toxicity mechanisms
as the toxic sweetener aspartame. In order to cut out
MSG, you need to
remove foods with the following ingredients: - Monosodium
glutamate - hydrolyzed proteins (any type of hydrolyzed
protein)
- autolyzed yeast
- yeast extract
- caseinate (in many cases)
- "Natural Flavors"
MSG that occurs naturally in tomatos, cheese, etc. is
absorbed and metabolized differently (safely) due to other
factors in the food. See the following web page
http://www.holisticmed.com/msg/
for more information.
1) it blocks thyroid hormone secretion
and when the thyroid hormone is deficient;
a) estrogen increases.
b) the ‘protective hormones’ progesterone
and pregnenolone decreases,
c) cholesterol increases
d) impairment of the conversion of thyroid hormone T4
to T3 hypothyroidism occurs.
( to create the enzymes needed to convert fats into energy,
T4 must be converted to T3)
2) polyunsaturated / veg oils are of
long chain fatty acids which are manufactured in cheap
abundance by oil industries, they have been traditionally
used for livestock feed because they promote the animals
to gain weight, causing the same impact for humans.
3) polyunsaturated veg oils oxidize
quickly, becoming rancid and free radicals damaging the
human body. Food manufacturers know this oxidization problem
well, therefore, highly refine their vegetable oils leading
to trans fatty acids, and hydrogenated oils.
4) poly oil blocks protein digestion
in the stomach, we can be malnourished even while eating
well.
5) people who take thyroid hormone replacement
drugs to treat symptoms won’t fix the underlying
problems. However creates more toxions and burdens for
the body such as impairing calcium absorption leading
to bone loss. That is why many people with hypothyroidism
also experience osteoporosis.
Please note also:
- for over 4 decades, the mass public has been conditioned
to believe that polyunsaturated oil is a healthy choice
and saturated fat is bad [ corporate interest & politics
]
the truth is just the opposite, the bottom line is really
the food processing.
- you will find many food products made
with polyunsaturated veg oil because it is cost effective.
Even worse, these products are cleverly marketed as healthier
foods, creating tragic consequences.
- commercial salad dressings, chips contain
polyunsaturated oil
[ especially soy oil which is even cheaper to produce
]
- Restaurant foods are particularly worrisome
because the oils used are heated to very high temperatures
and often used over and over for deep-frying, loaded with
trans fatty acids.
The Truth About Fats and Oils
Many dietary oils can negatively affect
thyroid health. We cook with them almost every day and
they are plentiful in commercially prepared foods. Expeller-pressed
or solvent-extracted oils only became a major part of
the American diet in the last century. It is possible
they are among the worst offenders when it comes to the
thyroid. They are known as vegetable oils or polyunsaturated
oils. The most common source of these oils used in commercially
prepared foods is the soybean.
Large-scale cultivation of soybeans in the
United States began after World War II and quickly increased
to 140 billion pounds per year. Most of the crops are
produced for animal feed and soy oil for hydrogenated
fats such as margarine and shortening. Today, it is nearly
impossible to eat at restaurants or buy packaged foods
that don’t have soy oil in the ingredients. Often
labels simply state "vegetable oil."
Ray Peat Ph.D., a physiologist who has worked
with progesterone and related hormones since 1968, says
that the sudden surge of polyunsaturated oils into the
food chain post World War II has caused many changes in
hormones. He writes:
Their [polyunsaturated oils] best understood
effect is their interference with the function of the
thyroid gland. Unsaturated oils block thyroid hormone
secretion, its movement in the circulatory system, and
the response of tissues to the hormone. When the thyroid
hormone is deficient, the body is generally exposed to
increased levels of estrogen. The thyroid hormone is essential
for making the ‘protective hormones’ progesterone
and pregnenolone, so these hormones are lowered when anything
interferes with the function of the thyroid. The thyroid
hormone is required for using and eliminating cholesterol,
so cholesterol is likely to be raised by anything that
blocks the thyroid function. 1
There is a growing body of research concerning
soy’s detrimental affect on the thyroid gland. Much
of this research centers on the phytoestrogens ("phyto"
means plant) that are found in soy. In the 1960s when
soy was introduced into infant formulas, it was shown
that soy was goitrogenic and caused goiters in babies.
When iodine was supplemented, the incidence of goiter
reduced dramatically.
However, a retrospective epidemiological
study by Fort, et al. showed that teenaged children with
a diagnosis of autoimmune thyroid disease were significantly
more likely to have received soy formula as infants (18
out of 59 children; 31 percent) when compared to healthy
siblings (nine out of 76, 12 percent) or control group
children (seven out of 54; 13 percent). 2
When healthy individuals without any previous
thyroid disease were fed 30 grams of pickled soybeans
per day for one month, Ishizuki, et al. reported goiter
and elevated individual thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH)
levels (although still within the normal range) in thirty-seven
healthy, iodine-sufficient adults.
One month after stopping soybean consumption,
individual TSH values decreased to the original levels
and goiters were reduced in size. 3
For more information about the effects
of soy in the modern diet, see the Weston A. Price foundation
Web site: http://www.westonaprice.org/soy/index.html
The Five Absolute Worst Foods You
Can Eat
By Dr. Joseph Mercola with
Rachael Droege
There are no “bad” foods, right?
Only food you should eat in moderation?
Well, not really. The following foods are so bad for your
body that I really can’t see any reason to eat them.
Not only do they have zero nutritional value, but they
also give your body a healthy dose of toxins, which should
make the idea of eating them really hard to swallow.
:
Doughnuts are fried, full of sugar and white flour and
most all varieties
contain trans fat. Store-bought doughnuts are made up
of about 35 percent to 40
percent trans fat. An average doughnut will give you about
200 to 300 calories,
mostly from sugar, and few other nutrients. It’s
too bad that Americans view
doughnuts as a breakfast food as, nutritionally speaking,
eating a doughnut is
one of the worst ways to start off your day. It will negatively
affect your blood
sugar and won’t stay with you so you’ll be
hungry again soon. You are better
off eating no breakfast at all, or better yet grabbing
a quick glass of Living
Fuel.
: One can
of soda has about 10 teaspoons of sugar, 150 calories,
30 to 55 mg of
caffeine, and is loaded with artificial food colors and
sulphites. I can't
think of any good reason to ever have it. The diet varieties
are also
problematic as they are filled with harmful artificial
sweeteners like aspartame.
Studies have linked soda to osteoporosis, obesity, tooth
decay and heart disease,
yet the average American drinks an estimated 56 gallons
of soft drinks each
year. Plus, drinking all that sugar will likely suppress
your appetite for healthy
foods, which pave the way for nutrient deficiencies.
Soft drink consumption among children has almost doubled
in the United States over the last decade, which is not
surprising considering that most school hallways are lined
with
soda-filled vending machines. Schools often make marketing
deals with leading
soft drink companies such as Coca-Cola from which they
receive commissions--based
on a percentage of sales at each school--and sometimes
a lump-sum payment, in
exchange for their students’ health. School vending
machines can increase the
consumption of sweetened beverages by up to 50 or more
cans of soda per
student per year. If you routinely drink soda--regular
or diet--eliminating it from
your diet is one of the simplest and most profound health
improvements you
can make.
(and Nearly All Commercially Fried Foods): Potatoes are
bad enough when consumed in their raw state, as their
simple sugars are rapidly
converted to glucose that raises insulin levels and can
devastate your health.
But when they are cooked in trans fat at high temperatures,
all sorts of
interesting and very unpleasant things occur.
Anything that is fried, even vegetables, has the issue
of trans fat and the potent cancer-causing substance acrylamide.
Foods that are fried in vegetable oils like canola, soybean,
safflower, corn, and other seed and nut oils are particularly
problematic. These
polyunsaturated fats easily become rancid when exposed
to oxygen and produce large
amounts of damaging free radicals in the body. They are
also very susceptible to
heat-induced damage from cooking. What is not commonly
known is that these
oils can actually cause aging, clotting, inflammation,
cancer and weight gain.
You can read the article “Secrets of the Edible
Oil Industry” for more
information. It is theoretically possible to create a
more “healthy” French fry if
you cook it in a healthy fat like virgin coconut oil.
Due to its high saturated
fat content, coconut oil is extremely stable and is not
damaged by the high
temperatures of cooking. This is why coconut oil should
be the only oil you use
to cook with. I am fond of telling patients that one French
fry is worse for
your health than one cigarette, so you may want to consider
this before you
order your next ‘Biggie’ order.
: Most
commercial chips, and this includes corn chips, potato
chips, tortilla
chips, you name it, are high in trans fat. Fortunately,
some companies have
caught on to the recent media blitz about the dangers
of trans fat and have
started to produce chips without trans fat. However, the
high temperatures used to
cook them will potentially cause the formation of carcinogenic
substances like
acrylamide, and this risk remains even if the trans fat
is removed.
This
category represents the culmination of non-healthy aspects
of food. Fried shrimp, clams, oysters, lobsters, and so
on have all the issues
of trans fat and acrylamide mentioned above, plus an added
risk of mercury.
Seafood is loaded with toxic mercury and shellfish like
shrimp and lobsters can
be contaminated with parasites and resistant viruses that
may not even be
killed with high heat. These creatures, considered scavenger
animals, consume
foods that may be harmful for you. Eating these foods
gives you a quadruple dose
of toxins--trans fat, acrylamide, mercury and possibly
parasites or
viruses--with every bite. If you have a taste for seafood,
there’s an easy solution. It’ s best to avoid
your local fish fry and try the only fish I now eat--the
delicious wild red Alaskan salmon that was proven through
independent lab testing to be free of harmful levels of
mercury and other contaminant.
Remedies
Food remedy: eating natural wholesome digestible foods
that will nourish and detox your body.
1)
- Natural saturated
fat like natural coconut oil is made up of medium chain
fatty acids [MCT] a very stable fat, that is known to
increase metabolism, balance hormone and promote weight
loss.
- contains high levels
of vitamin E and phenols. Phenols contain flavonoids -
biologically active compounds that are remarkably high
in antioxidants. The study concluded that virgin olive
oil may inhibit the oxidation of LDL
cholesterol, and might even do a little cancer fighting
as well.
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