Who doesn't love a little sweet talk? I used to have the worst sweet tooth...started the day off in pharmacy school with a Pop Tart and a Pepsi, in fact! You definitely won't get any judgement from me, I get it!! However, in the last three years, I have learned way more about our bodies and how they function than I ever thought possible! I was especially intrigued by sugar and what it does to the immune system. I hope you enjoy the "enlightenment" as much as I did...
The sad fact is by the time a child in America turns 8 years old, they have consumed more sugar than a human did in their entire life just a century ago! WOWZER!!! That is a lot of sugar! Jamie Oliver has an awesome TED Talk and illustrated this point with a wheel barrow full of sugar that he schlups across the stage which illustates the amount of sugar consumed by a child in kindergarten through 3rd grade just drinking a milk a day at school!
We are going to dive into sugar and specifically how sugar relates to cancer. I think this is great info for everyone! With the cancer rate of one in two men and one in three women getting cancer in their lifetime, I am sure you know someone who has cancer? Even if you don't, this is great info for EVERYONE including parents and children because sugar greatly impacts the immune system, prevention of disease, and our overall health!
Let's talk label reading for a minute so you know how to calculate how many teaspoons of sugar are in a particular food! Every food label is required to list the grams of sugar. To convert grams of sugar to teaspoons of sugar, you simply divide the grams of sugar by four. The Pepsi I drank everyday, for example has 41 grams of sugar! Divide 41 grams by 4, and you get 10.25 teaspoons of sugar! YUCK!! I would never eat 10.25 teaspoons of sugar out of the sugar bowl but didn't think twice about drinking it. Not to mention that pop has phosphoric acid and other substances that leach calcium from the bones. Check out the labels in your pantry and be shocked at the sugar that is hiding EVERYWHERE!!
You may be thinking, "That is great, but why should I care?" Great question!! Here are three HUGE reasons to care!
#1. Immune Function!
Even just a few teaspoons of sugar can deplete the immune system by 50% for up to 4-6 hours! Think about it...when do we (or our kids) get sick? Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Easter are sure to bring out what I like to call the "Random Acts Of Barfness". Technical term, I know! ; ) Our kids are usually sugared up at those times, sleep deprived, and expected to behave better than usual and their immune systems can't hang!
Our immune systems are taking a hit this time of year anyway thanks to cold weather keeping us inside, produce being out of season (especially in Nebraska), cold and flu season in full force, etc. If you or someone you know is receiving chemo, immunosupressive therapy, or radiation, helping the immune system is of upmost importance! Our immune system has cool little guys called natural killer cells. These bad boys roam around our body like pac men and eat any cancer or irregularly growing cells. We know that since sugar depletes the immune system it also depletes the natural killer cells or at minimum makes them less functional! We want the pac-men to work!!
#2. Cancer feeds on Sugar!
Cancer cells LOVE sugar! This concept is not new and was proven in 1924 by famous German, Otto Warburg. He even won a nobel prize for his findings in 1931! Cancer cells uptake sugar at a rate of 10-12 times the rate of healthy cells. Cancer cells produce energy by fermentation, which does not require oxygen and does require glucose. Our body naturally produces glucose, but we can help ourselves by not consuming processed sugar. I always am a big fan of common sense. Think about this: if sugar doesn't feed cancer, why is a patient going in for a PET Scan (most commonly used scan to diagnose cancer) restricted from eating carbohydrates for 24 hours and then injected with radioactive glucose? That's right...the starving cancer cells gobble up the radioactive glucose and glows on the screen! We can help ourselves so much simply by restricting our sugar intake!
#3. Cancer thrives in an acidic environment
What is one way the body gets acidic? You guessed it...processed sugar! Sugar has a pH of 6.4, which is 10x more acidic than our blood! Limiting sugar and increasing our produce consumption allows our body to be less acidic and therefore makes it harder for cancer to grow! Cancer cannot grow in an alkaline environment so the less acidic we are, the better off we will be! We are so fortunate that we were introduced to a whole-food nutritional concentrate in 2014 that not only has curbed our sweet cravings and allowed us to kick our Pepsi habit to the curb, but also has made our bodies way more alkaline!
Disclaimer: Please do not assume that because I am ranting about sugar that the solution is to substitute with sugar-free substances. Aspartame and other sugar substitutes degrade to formaldehyde in the body. Last time I checked, pickling anything with a heartbeat doesn't do anything good for mankind! Sugar substitutes have been linked to all sorts of nasty things like autoimmune disorders!
The bottom line is that whole food is best! God put in the Garden of Eden produce for us to eat and that is what our body knows what to do with! Our body has natural defenses against cancer and disease so there is no reason to deplete our immune system unnecessarily. Once we know better, we do better! You are already sweet enough!
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