> Health and Disease > Diabetes and Hypoglycemia

Hungry, Jenny ate four teaspoons of peanut butter straight from the jar. Within minutes she became hyperactive. Sound familiar? In these four teaspoons of grocery store-bought peanut butter, Jenny just ate one whole teaspoon of sugar.

A sugar-induced epidemic may have already begun: More than two million Canadians now have diabetes, a leading cause of death by disease in this country. By 2010, that number is estimated to rise to three million (Canadian Diabetes Association). Risk factors for type II diabetes–obesity and impaired glucose tolerance–suggest a link to excess sugar consumption.

What is Sugar?

Sugar is a carbohydrate, which is one of the three macronutrients we need to live (the other two are protein and fat). Not limited to just white table sugar, there are actually six types: fructose, galactose, glucose, lactose, maltose and sucrose.

If the only sugar we consumed were in nutrient-dense whole foods, such as fruit and vegetables, we’d all be fine. However, eating too many refined or concentrated sugars such as brown sugar, corn syrup, processed honey and white table sugar, all of which lack any nutrients, can cause health problems.

Why Else is Sugar Bad for Me?

Eating too much sugar can compromise your immune system. According to Kenneth Bock, MD, an expert in nutritional and environmental health in New York, two cans of soda pop (which together typically contain 18 to 22 teaspoons of sugar) reduce the efficiency of white blood cells (an integral part of your immune system) by 92 percent–an effect that lasts up to five hours.

Your body quickly absorbs refined sugar into your bloodstream, which causes your pancreas to rapidly release the hormone insulin to normalize blood sugar levels. In turn, this can cause blood sugar to suddenly drop. To compensate, your adrenal glands release high levels of another hormone, cortisol, which puts your body in high-stress mode. This constant stress from high sugar intake leads to early menopause, adult-onset diabetes (type II), hypoglycemia and chronic fatigue.

And consider this: your body draws from its nutrient reserves to metabolize sugar. Depleted nutrient reserves leave your body unable to metabolize fatty acids and cholesterol, which could put you at risk for a range of diseases from cardiovascular disease to adult-onset diabetes.

Worse, children are the biggest consumers of sugary foods, and they are eating them at a time when their brains and bodies are growing rapidly and they need a nutrient-dense diet for proper physical and mental development.

Should I Still be Concerned About my Sugar Consumption?

Most naturally sweet whole foods don’t really contain much sugar. A cup of strawberries, for example, contains about one-sixth the sugar of a can of cola.

But unless you eat a diet made entirely of whole, unprocessed foods, you’re probably eating too much sugar. Sugar in its many forms is added to virtually every packaged food product–and not just the sweet stuff. If you eat one serving of fruit-flavoured yogurt, even some natural varieties, you’ve probably used up your day’s sugar allowance.

Don’t be fooled by the ingredients list. By law, a food manufacturer has to list the ingredients in a product by weight. The first ingredient listed is the predominant ingredient. For example, three different sugars in the middle of the list appears as if the product contains not much sugar. But grouped together, sugar would be the first ingredient.

Is there a Safe Amount of Sugar?

Carolyn Dean, MD, ND, is a health consultant in New York City and author of Complementary Natural Prescriptions (Keats, 2001) and Natural Prescriptions for Common Ailments (Keats, 2001). Her new book, The Miracle of Magnesium (Ballentine), is due out in January 2003. Visit her website at carolyndean.com.

Source: alive #242, December 2002