Catastrophic Sugar Effects

I feel like a lone wolf on a hill howling at the moon. For years -- over a decade now -- I have preached how sugar destroys one's health. I'm still howling at the moon about it, and as I sat the other night watching first my daughter, then my spouse, guzzling down a pop I thought - Lord, the word is really hard to get through people's heads. But then, even yours truly can't seem to keep it in his own head as I succumb to the temptations of chocolate chips on a far-too-often basis. Sugar is truly a nemesis of cataclysmic dimensions that is very tough to tame except for the strongest willed. I hope this brief blog will inspire you to take on, at LEAST a few days, of battling this destructive Goliath that blatantly opposes your good health and well-being.

Sugar consumption has gone from 2 kilograms per person per year in the late 19th century, where it was truly considered a rare and luxurious treat; to over 250 kilograms per person per year in the late 20th century. For the metrically impaired: that's a jump from 4 pounds to over 250 pounds. Think of 250 pounds of sugar piled on your dining table, and that is your PERSONAL share of the sugar intake this year.

While once I had a list of like 50 health impacts caused from sugar, I want to throw out just one for your consideration. The American Cancer Society is now saying that 1 in 3 people will be diagnosed with cancer. Look around the room you're sitting in right now and count how many that is! Do YOU feel lucky? Here is a still little believed fact about cancer: sugar feeds cancer cells. Need some proof of that? Consider this: one of the best and most accurate cancer scans that can be done on anyone is called a PET scan. It's a bad test in that it involves taking a massive radiation hit, but there is no disputing the results that come from it. How does it work? They give a radioactive glucose isotope to take and then scan your body for where the glucose concentrates. Every place where glucose concentrates is the location of cancerous masses; because cancer preferentially uses glucose. Glucose is derived directly from the breakdown of sugar in your body.

Cancerous tumors can take five to twenty years to develop. Isn't it likely that with 250 pounds of sugar a year (over a half pound a day) that any cancer cells that do appear are likely to thrive in that glucose-rich environment? Combine it with the other fact that sugar is like putting your immune system on a bottle of scotch - making it virtually worthless for anything for up to 6 hours after the ingestion of sugar -- and cancer has about the easiest job in the world to get started and take over. Hence, we see 1 in 3 people doomed to a very catastrophic life change with a new cancer diagnosis.

Do yourself a favor. Try to carry the information from this one blog in your head for a year. Use it to resist the 10,000 temptations we're thrown everyday. Ask yourself, "Is this candy worth feeding my cancer?" Cut cancer's chances to dominate your health, because trust me -- I've watched the effects of chemotherapy. It's NO fun!