Dr. Mercola Speaks—This Addictive Commonly Used Food Feeds Cancer Cells, Triggers Weight Gain, and Promotes Premature Aging



* In 1700, the average person consumed about 4 pounds of sugar per year.
* In 1800, the average person consumed about 18 pounds of sugar per year.
* In 1900, individual consumption had risen to 90 pounds of sugar per year.


No wonder there is an obesity epidemic in this country.





Sugars 101 — Basics of How to Avoid Confusion on this Important Topic



* Dextrose, fructose and glucose are all monosaccharides, known as simple sugars. The primary difference between them is how your body metabolizes them. Glucose and dextrose are essentially the same sugar. However, food manufacturers usually use the term “dextrose” in their ingredient list.
* High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose.
* Sucralose (Splenda) is NOT a sugar, despite its sugar-like name and deceptive marketing slogan, “made from sugar.” It’s a chlorinated artificial sweetener in line with aspartame and saccharin, with detrimental health effects to match.
* Agave syrup, falsely advertised as “natural,” is typically HIGHLY processed and is usually 80 percent fructose. The end product does not even remotely resemble the original agave plant.
* Honey is about 53 percent fructose[2], but is completely natural in its raw form and has many health benefits when used in moderation, including as many antioxidants as spinach.

All Sugars are Not Equal


But as a country, sucrose is no longer the sugar of choice. It’s now fructose.




There are two overall reasons fructose is so damaging:


The explosion of soda consumption is the major cause of this.


Food and beverage manufacturers began switching their sweeteners from sucrose to corn syrup in the 1970s when they discovered that HFCS was not only far cheaper to make, it’s about 20 percent sweeter than conventional table sugar that has sucrose.


The fructose and the glucose are not bound together in HFCS, as they are in table sugar, so your body doesn’t have to break it down. Therefore, the fructose is absorbed immediately, going straight to your liver.

Too Much Fructose Creates a Metabolic Disaster in Your Body


I highly recommend watching Lustig’s lecture in its entirety if you want to learn how fructose is ruining your health biochemically.

As I mentioned earlier, after eating fructose, most of the metabolic burden rests on your liver. This is NOT the case with glucose, of which your liver breaks down only 20 percent. Nearly every cell in your body utilizes glucose, so it’s normally “burned up” immediately after consumption.



Eating Fructose is Far Worse than Eating Fat







Is Uric Acid the New Cholesterol?





This has led researchers to ask, what does uric acid have to do with obesity and high blood pressure?




How Does Your Body Produce Uric Acid?



And cells that are depleted of energy become inflamed and more susceptible to damage from oxidative stress. Fat cells actually become “sickly,” bloating up with excessive amounts of fat.



Now that you know the truth you don’t have to be left out in the cold, as this is a simple and relatively inexpensive test that you can get at any doctor’s office. Odds are very good your doctor is clueless about the significance of elevated uric acid levels, so it will not likely be productive to engage in a discussion with him unless he is truly an open-minded truth seeker.


Sugar Sensitization Makes the Problem Even WORSE!


According to Dr. Johnson1, sugar activates its own pathways in your body—those metabolic pathways become “upregulated.” In other words, the more sugar you eat, the more effective your body is in absorbing it; and the more you absorb, the more damage you’ll do.

You become “sensitized” to sugar as time goes by, and more sensitive to its toxic effects as well.

The flip side is, when people are given even a brief sugar holiday, sugar sensitization rapidly decreases and those metabolic pathways become “downregulated.” Research tells us that even two weeks without consuming sugar will cause your body to be less reactive to it.


Are Fruits Good or Bad for You?



It is important to remember that fructose alone isn’t evil as fruits are certainly beneficial. But when you consume high levels of fructose it will absolutely devastate your biochemistry and physiology. Remember the AVERAGE fructose dose is 70 grams per day which exceeds the recommend limit by 300 percent.



Dr. Johnson has a handy chart, included below, which you can use to estimate how much fructose you’re getting in your diet. Remember, you are also likely getting additional fructose if you consume any packaged foods at all, since it is hidden in nearly all of them.
Fruit Serving Size Grams of Fructose
Limes 1 medium 0
Lemons 1 medium 0.6
Cranberries 1 cup 0.7
Passion fruit 1 medium 0.9
Prune 1 medium 1.2
Apricot 1 medium 1.3
Guava 2 medium 2.2
Date (Deglet Noor style) 1 medium 2.6
Cantaloupe 1/8 of med. melon 2.8
Raspberries 1 cup 3.0
Clementine 1 medium 3.4
Kiwifruit 1 medium 3.4
Blackberries 1 cup 3.5
Star fruit 1 medium 3.6
Cherries, sweet 10 3.8
Strawberries 1 cup 3.8
Cherries, sour 1 cup 4.0
Pineapple 1 slice
(3.5″ x .75″) 4.0
Grapefruit, pink or red 1/2 medium 4.3

Fruit Serving Size Grams of Fructose
Boysenberries 1 cup 4.6
Tangerine/mandarin orange 1 medium 4.8
Nectarine 1 medium 5.4
Peach 1 medium 5.9
Orange (navel) 1 medium 6.1
Papaya 1/2 medium 6.3
Honeydew 1/8 of med. melon 6.7
Banana 1 medium 7.1
Blueberries 1 cup 7.4
Date (Medjool) 1 medium 7.7
Apple (composite) 1 medium 9.5
Persimmon 1 medium 10.6
Watermelon 1/16 med. melon 11.3
Pear 1 medium 11.8
Raisins 1/4 cup 12.3
Grapes, seedless (green or red) 1 cup 12.4
Mango 1/2 medium 16.2
Apricots, dried 1 cup 16.4
Figs, dried 1 cup 23.0

In addition to limiting your intake of fructose, you should eliminate all sweetened beverages and fruit juices (including all artificial sweeteners) and drink only pure water and raw milk.

You can buy pure glucose (dextrose) as a sweetener for about $1 a pound. It is only 70% as sweet as sucrose, so you’ll end up using a bit more of it for the same amount of sweetness, making it slightly more expensive than sucrose—but still well worth it for your health as it has ZERO grams of fructose.


Beer is also a good beverage to AVOID since it increases uric acid levels, just like fructose does, resulting in many of the same toxic effects.

All alcoholic beverages cause you to produce excess uric acid (and block your kidneys from excreting it), but beer seems to have a more pronounced effect on uric acid levels because it’s a rich source of guanosine, the type of purine that is most readily absorbed by the body.1

76 Additional Ways Sugar Can Ruin Your Health

In addition to throwing off your body’s homeostasis and wreaking havoc on your metabolic processes, excess sugar has a number of other significant consequences.

Nancy Appleton, PhD, author of the book Lick the Sugar Habit[5], contributed an extensive list of the many ways sugar can ruin your health from a vast number of medical journals and other scientific publications.

1. Sugar can suppress your immune system and impair your defenses against infectious disease.[6] [7]
2. Sugar upsets the mineral relationships in your body: causes chromium and copper deficiencies and interferes with absorption of calcium and magnesium.[8] [9] [10] [11]
3. Sugar can cause a rapid rise of adrenaline, hyperactivity, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and crankiness in children.[12] [13]
4. Sugar can produce a significant rise in total cholesterol, triglycerides and bad cholesterol and a decrease in good cholesterol.[14] [15] [16] [17]
5. Sugar causes a loss of tissue elasticity and function.[18]
6. 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.[19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25]
7. Sugar can increase fasting levels of glucose and can cause reactive hypoglycemia.[26] [27]
8. Sugar can weaken eyesight.[28] 1
9. 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.[29] [30] [31] [32] [33]
10. Sugar can cause premature aging.[34] In fact, the single most important factor that accelerates aging is insulin, which is triggered by sugar. 1
11. Sugar can lead to alcoholism.[35]
12. Sugar can cause your saliva to become acidic, tooth decay, and periodontal disease.[36] [37] [38]
13. Sugar contributes to obesity. [39] 1
14. Sugar can cause autoimmune diseases such as: arthritis, asthma, and multiple sclerosis.[40] [41] [42]
15. Sugar greatly assists the uncontrolled growth of Candida Albicans (yeast infections) [43]
16. Sugar can cause gallstones.[44]
17. Sugar can cause appendicitis.[45]
18. Sugar can cause hemorrhoids.[46]
19. Sugar can cause varicose veins.[47]
20. Sugar can elevate glucose and insulin responses in oral contraceptive users.[48]
21. Sugar can contribute to osteoporosis.[49]
22. Sugar can cause a decrease in your insulin sensitivity thereby causing an abnormally high insulin levels and eventually diabetes.[50] [51] [52]
23. Sugar can lower your Vitamin E levels.[53]
24. Sugar can increase your systolic blood pressure.[54]
25. Sugar can cause drowsiness and decreased activity in children.[55]
26. High sugar intake increases advanced glycation end products (AGEs),which are sugar molecules that attach to and damage proteins in your body. AGEs speed up the aging of cells, which may contribute to a variety of chronic and fatal diseases. [56] 1
27. Sugar can interfere with your absorption of protein.[57]
28. Sugar causes food allergies.[58]
29. Sugar can cause toxemia during pregnancy.[59]
30. Sugar can contribute to eczema in children.[60]
31. Sugar can cause atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease.[61] [62]
32. Sugar can impair the structure of your DNA.[63]
33. Sugar can change the structure of protein and cause a permanent alteration of the way the proteins act in your body.[64] [65]
34. Sugar can make your skin age by changing the structure of collagen.[66]
35. Sugar can cause cataracts and nearsightedness.[67] [68]
36. Sugar can cause emphysema.[69]
37. High sugar intake can impair the physiological homeostasis of many systems in your body.[70]
38. Sugar lowers the ability of enzymes to function.[71]
39. Sugar intake is higher in people with Parkinson’s disease.[72]
40. Sugar can increase the size of your liver by making your liver cells divide, and it can increase the amount of fat in your liver, leading to fatty liver disease.[73] [74]
41. Sugar can increase kidney size and produce pathological changes in the kidney such as the formation of kidney stones.[75] [76] Fructose is helping to drive up rates of kidney disease. 1
42. Sugar can damage your pancreas.[77]
43. Sugar can increase your body’s fluid retention.[78]
44. Sugar is enemy #1 of your bowel movement.[79]
45. Sugar can compromise the lining of your capillaries.[80]
46. Sugar can make your tendons more brittle.[81]
47. Sugar can cause headaches, including migraines.[82]
48. Sugar can reduce the learning capacity, adversely affect your children’s grades and cause learning disorders.[83] [84]
49. Sugar can cause an increase in delta, alpha, and theta brain waves, which can alter your ability to think clearly.[85]
50. Sugar can cause depression.[86]
51. Sugar can increase your risk of gout.[87]
52. Sugar can increase your risk of Alzheimer’s disease.[88] MRI studies show that adults 60 and older who have high uric acid are four to five times more likely to have vascular dementia, the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer’s.1
53. Sugar can cause hormonal imbalances such as: increasing estrogen in men, exacerbating PMS, and decreasing growth hormone.[89] [90] [91] [92]
54. Sugar can lead to dizziness.[93]
55. Diets high in sugar will increase free radicals and oxidative stress.[94]
56. A high sucrose diet of subjects with peripheral vascular disease significantly increases platelet adhesion.[95]
57. High sugar consumption by pregnant adolescents can lead to a substantial decrease in gestation duration and is associated with a twofold-increased risk for delivering a small-for-gestational-age (SGA) infant.[96] [97]
58. Sugar is an addictive substance.[98]
59. Sugar can be intoxicating, similar to alcohol.[99]
60. Sugar given to premature babies can affect the amount of carbon dioxide they produce.[100]
61. Decrease in sugar intake can increase emotional stability.[101]
62. Your body changes sugar into 2 to 5 times more fat in the bloodstream than it does starch.[102]
63. The rapid absorption of sugar promotes excessive food intake in obese subjects.[103]
64. Sugar can worsen the symptoms of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).[104]
65. Sugar adversely affects urinary electrolyte composition.[105]
66. Sugar can impair the function of your adrenal glands.[106]
67. Sugar has the potential of inducing abnormal metabolic processes in normal, healthy individuals, thereby promoting chronic degenerative diseases.[107]
68. Intravenous feedings (IVs) of sugar water can cut off oxygen to your brain.[108]
69. Sugar increases your risk of polio.[109]
70. High sugar intake can cause epileptic seizures.[110]
71. Sugar causes high blood pressure in obese people.[111]
72. In intensive care units, limiting sugar saves lives.[112]
73. Sugar may induce cell death.[113]
74. In juvenile rehabilitation centers, when children were put on low sugar diets, there was a 44 percent drop in antisocial behavior.[114]
75. Sugar dehydrates newborns.[115]
76. Sugar can cause gum disease.[116]

It should now be crystal clear just how damaging sugar is. You simply cannot achieve your highest degree of health and vitality if you are consuming a significant amount of it.

Fortunately, your body has an amazing ability to heal itself when given the basic nutrition it needs, and your liver has an incredible ability to regenerate. If you start making changes today, your health WILL begin to improve, returning you to the state of vitality that nature intended.

3 Replies to “Dr. Mercola Speaks—This Addictive Commonly Used Food Feeds Cancer Cells, Triggers Weight Gain, and Promotes Premature Aging”

  1. This is a perfect example of Nutrition misinformation. Where is the research to back it up? No wonder people are so easily duped by this garbage. Are you a licensed nutritionist in Pennsylvania? I would guess not, that’s why the Internet is so appealing. If you are, you should be investigated for the proliferation of misinformation; your opinion is not fact.

  2. Great post with some interesting recommendations! Can’t say I completely agree with all that you have said here, but there are a good amount of key suggestions you have highlighted that can be quite usable on natural health and related topics. Definitely keep providing more recommendations on this topic and related subjects, as there are quite a few folks who are working to understand the costs and benefits.

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