I seldom miss a holiday like Halloween or The Day of the Dead to share an apocalyptic message about healthspan and lifespan.
Thanks for scanning my spooky and deadly public service announcement (PSA).
I am “here” to tell ya this; there is an indisputable and proven way to achieve longer healthspans and lifespans. What is that simple, yet hard way in American lifestyles to live longer and better?
Eureka
Alertly monitor and mitigate the nasty effects of a particular macronutrient.
Which one? Fat? Nope. Protein? No Way. Carbohydrates (Sugar)? Absolutely!
This “macronutrient” chemical – Sugar – is both a sweet and scary carbohydrate for nearly all adults. Yes, polysaccharides are even scarier than this monosaccharide glucose. Yet our body’s tolerance for, and conversion of glucose is scary enough if a tuneup is needed. When you are ready to be mortified, examine a polysaccharide called high fructose corn syrup that Madison Avenue profiteers concocted from our “corn economy” to fatten up our fast food nation…
As I offered in several publications, too much of a good thing (glucose) is not wonderful. Here’s the science and problem:
a. At rest, our human bloodstream contains around 4-5 grams of glucose in circulation for 60,000 miles of piping. This teaspoon of sugar equates to normal blood glucose levels of 70-110 mg/dL (milligrams per deciliter). If/when that BigMac or super-sized soda or dessert is downed, our good friend insulin faces a tough challenge for hours. Over time, insulin may lose its ability to sense and respond to such sugary spikes.
- Granted, a few metabolic freaks of nature can handle 60 to 75-gram jolts of carbs at a time without having a metabolic mishap. For most of us – even if one’s insulin sensitivity is pretty good- sugary jolts from a loaded double brontoburger on a white flour bun, super-sized fries, and a soda with high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), and a dessert are bad. Phooey – sugar substitutes can create metabolic problems too… And, these processed gutbombs and sides have salty scares embedded too! I’ll scare ya about salt in processed foods later. Excess sugar is enough scare for today.
A century ago, trick-or-treaters received fruit or healthy snack bits at our doors. Yet Madison Avenue, and our sedentary/sweet tooth lifestyles have progressively contributed to a major problem for many Americans:
Eleven percent of our current US population has clinical type 2 diabetes, including more than 29 percent of adults over the age of 65 years.
Please call me if you want to know how many millions of at-risk people these percentages represent. I am fully aboard with Peter Attia’s clarion call for change in Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity.
For millions of us who are not metabolic superstars, excess sugar consumption and inactivity are often deadly. Do you want three or four “horsemen* of chronic disease” and death galloping up to your door?
These 4 horsemen cause three-quarters of American deaths for non-smokers over age 50. Over 75%!
- (1) Cardiovascular disease
- (2) Cancer
- (3) Neurodegenerative disease
- (4) Metabolic disease.
What often kills Americans is their diets.
Sadly and paradoxically, a “carb” fuel that our body needs to function properly can become [in excess] the “accomplice of bodily inflammation” saddled for each horseman shown above. We know that most cancers in American adults are caused by inflammation and “nurture” rather than genetic nature.
Here’s what sugary inflammation over time does for equestrian Inflammaging or “Garb-aging“:
“consumption of high-sugar beverages and processed foods has increased significantly over the past 30 years … dietary sugars and mixed processed foods may be a key factor leading to the occurrence and aggravation of inflammation.”
Chat GPT advises:
Poor “sugar metabolism can lead to these chronic diseases:
- Liver lipid accumulation when fructose is metabolized in an unregulated way.
- Fatty liver disease:
- Insulin resistance from consuming too much sugar too often and for too long.
- Low-grade chronic inflammation (think arterial plaque and atherosclerosis CVD)
- Metabolic syndrome: high blood sugar, high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol or triglyceride levels, and excess body fat around the waist.
Doesn’t this frightening reminder make you want to toss your Halloween candies into the trash? I hope so! Sure, a small portion of sweets for a one-time occurrence isn’t the problem. Our scary problem is too much sugar from processed foods and drinks ingested day after day…
More about Days of the Deadly Sugar
Let me share just a few of many professional messengers who join Attia and me in campaigns to live smarter and healthier by doing simple things and making simple lifestyle changes.
Authors of The World’s Healthiest People: Your Key to Dropping pounds, healing disease, and feeling fantastic, share:
“in our world of super-sizing and all-you-can-eat buffets … nearly 70 percent of Americans are overweight or obese, leading to a host of health problems.”
Easier Said than Done
Sugar, that simple chemical molecule of a little carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, is hidden in many man-made food products – salad dressings, breads, spaghetti sauces, and ketchup. Bowers and Bowers encourage consumers to look for [and avoid] clever aliases of sugar – like many ingredients ending in “ose” or syrup. Sadly, many foodstuffs labeled as healthy – like Greek Yogurt can have alarming levels of sugar in them. You just read that artificial sweeteners can also stimulate weight gain. I have long been on and will stay on the Unsweetened bandwagon. Why not sprinkle anti-inflammatory cinnamon in your beverage or on top of your foods instead of a sugary product?
Can a person wean herself or himself from processed and added sugar? I argue in most cases – YES!
Folks like me leverage a short-term booster from jelly beans or honey before an endurance event. With a good grasp of our human energy systems and a wee bit of natural sugar, one can perform a bit longer and better without going into an anerobic performance zone. Or, without starting an insidious sugary inflammatory cycle every few hours.
Shake It!
Countering the athletic boost from a pre-event sugar sip is the lifestyle fact that good ol’ Sugar depresses our immune systems. Yup. Sugar makes you more prone to inflammation and infection. A credible study done by Loma Linda University showed that just six tablespoons of sugar (~24 grams) causes immune system depression for several hours. Ergo, if someone downs sugar knowingly or unknowingly throughout a normal day, the body never gets back up to normal capacity to counter viruses and bacteria. Resilience is a very, very good trait to maintain daily, so compromising it should be a no-no.
What does another best-selling author, John Robbins, assert about sugar?
Thirty percent of the calories in the modern western diet stem from sugar. And, “the harm done by the movement away from natural whole foods is literally incalculable.” Oy veh. What goes up, like a sugar spike, will come down, and last for several hours. One can feel irritable or lethargic, and will often feel hungry. This sweet and scary roller coaster likely affects our reward system and dopamine levels. This altered reward system usually enhances one’s desire for sweetness to keep riding on the roller coaster, for ill effect 🙁
It is critical to remember that “liquid” sugar is as bad or worse, as our systems don’t feel as full. Overconsumption of a saccharide happens too often.
La Boca
Sugar, when consumed or imbibed too often, can keep saliva from doing its healthy job, and will decrease your and my beneficial bacteria. These are not good things for one’s pearly whites, or getting a meal off to a good metabolic start. Too much fructose in the gut, either imbibed or naturally converted, can cause bloating or abdominal pain, or even lead to irritable bowel syndrome (IBS.)
The Gut
Consumption of food or drink with added sugar puts a strain on pancreatic function and insulin sensitivity. Insulin resistance (insensitivity) may ultimately prohibit the throttle on one’s blood sugar. Then, one or more of the Horsemen are galloping with you toward a challenged healthspan – metabolic syndrome, Diabetes, heart disease, and possibly cancers of many types…
NAFLD
Right, it is wrong to consume or imbibe excess processed sugars because the liver converts dietary sugar, particularly fructose (beware HFCS) into insidious visceral white fat. Perhaps 40 percent of our world’s people have some stage of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Too many of those folks begin the downslide of cardiovascular disease due to the increased inflammation and insulin insensitivity/resistance that is associated with visceral white fat.
Hypertension
Too much of a needed “carb” micronutrient – sugar – is directly linked to higher blood pressure and likely to a rise of vascular triglycerides and “bad” cholesterols. This is a deadly duo – hypertension and hyper LDL cholesterol. And I mean deadly!
Blow the Joints
Gout and other metabolic conditions are also linked to excess sugar consumption and metabolic byproducts
Bottom Lines
Limit processed sugar to ~ ten percent of your normal calorie consumption per day. You read that right – 10 %.
I am a bit more strict, as I advocate that women should limit TOTAL carbohydrates to 50 grams per day. Men, due to our higher metabolisms and bigger bodies, can handle a total carbohydrate consumption to 100 grams of carbohydrates per day. As carbs also include healthy fiber, and as our bodies need “just right” levels of sugar to function – it is the added sugars that kill. Period.
What’s Killing You?