Sugar = Literal Poison...

[captkronos]

I was re-reading "Eat Bacon, Don't Jog", and noticed something I had missed the first read-through.  He states that glucose is basically poison, and the pancreas releases insulin to attack it and break it down so we can burn it off as quickly as possible.  I'm sure this is an oversimplification, but it makes sense to me and I had never quite framed it like that mentally.  He also mentions that some believe humans are not only carnivores in our most primal state, but "lipovores", that we eat and crave predominantly fat, because it's the fuel we were meant to run on.  I was thinking so this explains diabetes, because we are consuming more poison than the body has the capacity to destroy (metabolize).  I think this is helpful to think of it in this way, for me at least. Also he talks about the mostly pointless act of eating fruits and veggies, as their nutrients are contained in cellulose, and humans lack the digestive enzyme cellulase to access them.  Now that was something new I'd not heard.


www.ucsf.edu/news/2009/06/104177/sugar-poison-says-ucsf-obesity-expert

[ilya]

It's silly. Not only is sugar not a poison, but it's vital. You need to have a good balance of it in your blood at all time, otherwise you would eventually die. If you don't eat sugar, your body will start eating itself to make some. If you eat too much, then it stores it for later us. Diabetes doesn't happen because of sugar, it happens because of an overload of insulin over many years. You see, for insulin to do anything, it has to attach itself to insulin receptors, which are all over your body, even in your brain. The problem with this system is that if you have a lot of insulin, then the sensitivity of those receptors go down, which means that, if you keep eating the same way, it's gonna have to send even more insulin, which creates a vicious circle. Healing yourself from diabetes is as simple as reversing this vicious circle by lowering your insulin. Lowering your insulin is as simple as doing intermittent fasting and eating foods with a low glycemic index. Now, admittedly, all the foods with a high glycemic index are made of carbs (and thus sugar), so you could say that eating too much sugar is bad, but that's not really true either. Natural, unprocessed sugary foods tend to be low in glycemic index too. The problem happens when you take any sort of plant-based food and heat it, because this breaks down the fibers, which means that the sugar contained in it immediately enter your bloodstream and need to be removed by insulin to avoid hyperglycemia. Don't be afraid of sugar, just be afraid of processed carbs.

[TexasRanger]

Jan 22, 2024 15:43:49 GMT captkronos said:

I was re-reading "Eat Bacon, Don't Jog", and noticed something I had missed the first read-through.  He states that glucose is basically poison, and the pancreas releases insulin to attack it and break it down so we can burn it off as quickly as possible.  I'm sure this is an oversimplification, but it makes sense to me and I had never quite framed it like that mentally.  He also mentions that some believe humans are not only carnivores in our most primal state, but "lipovores", that we eat and crave predominantly fat, because it's the fuel we were meant to run on.  I was thinking so this explains diabetes, because we are consuming more poison than the body has the capacity to destroy (metabolize).  I think this is helpful to think of it in this way, for me at least. Also he talks about the mostly pointless act of eating fruits and veggies, as their nutrients are contained in cellulose, and humans lack the digestive enzyme cellulase to access them.  Not that was something new I'd not heard.


www.ucsf.edu/news/2009/06/104177/sugar-poison-says-ucsf-obesity-expert

First, being posted in for purposes of friendly discussion.  No personal attack intended, all criticism focused on the the claims made by the author.  Read most of Grant's book when it came out several years ago, put it aside based on the misinformation and misunderstanding of the science.

1.  Dr. Walter Kempner, MD and the Rice Diet.  In the 1950s, Dr. Kempner and his team put very sick along with obese people on a diet of simple starches: white rice, orange juice, sugar for flavoring, etc.  Very little animal protein or fat.  In a very short period of time, Kempner's team documented the reversal of Type 2 Diabetes.  CVD.  Hypertension.  And obese people leaned out.  If sugar were poison, one would think they would get sicker, but they didn't.  The program was so successful (scientifically) that Duke University brought Kempner on board and offered the program for 30 (?) years before interest waned.  BTW, they did validate the reversal of CVD via ECGs and ST Segment before/afters which documented the ST Segments were normal after a few short weeks.
2.  Drs Dean Ornish and Caldwell Esselstyn.  High carb/veg/fruit diet.  Documented arrest and reversal of CVD in as little as three weeks.  With Ornish, he and his team have also published research where DNA telomeres were healed/re-generated with a high carb diet.  Keto?  No.  Junk food, smoking?  No.
3.  Cellulose. 

- The act of chewing breaks down the cell walls of plants.  "Mastication"  The cellulose cell walls of vegetables and fruits resist digestion because we lack the enzymes to break down cellulose.  However, the crushing force of the teeth breaks down these cell walls and releases the cell contents for digestion.
- Here's how I can prove this is correct.  Grab an onion.  Smell it...you don't really get the full effect.  Chop it up and the odors/gasses from the contents are released since you've broken the cellulose open.  Or, just bite in the onion...you'll release the antioxidants and sulfur-containing compounds.  (And the amazing benefits of antioxidants aren't found in animal foods.)
- We're omnivores, because we eat both meat and plants, have a combination of sharp front teeth and molars for grinding.

4.  Fat.  Humans aren't designed to thrive on fat. 

- Ancestral humans, when they ate animals, only consumed lean species...even the organs were far leaner than domesticated animals.  I've said this several times before, but I've been hunting, through survival school.  You can't find a fat animal in the wild with the exception of areas like the Arctic, for example.  
- We know from researchers that hunter-gatherer societies were actually gatherer-hunterer.  Root vegetables, fruits, edible grasses (grains), etc., for energy and nutrition to fuel the hunt.  Otherwise, we'd starve.
- Even Dr. Loren Cordain from the U of Colorado has confirmed this in his books on the Paleo diet in the 90s.
- Our closest 1:1 genetic peers, apes, eat a diet almost exactly like one advocated for humans...plants, a little lean protein (bugs, small animals for them) and fat via these food sources.

5.  No carbs in the diet?  The body will break down muscle tissue via Gluconeogenesis to create sugar to feed the brain (its preferred source of fuel) and other organs.  Dr. Don Layman recently validated we must have at least 120 - 150g/carbs (healthy) per day for our red blood cells along with our brain.  Yes the body can run on ketones, but it isn't the preferred fuel.
6.  Insulin.  Sorry, that is 100% wrong.  Insulin doesn't break down anything -- it is generally thought of as a "transport" as well as an anabolic hormone, the opposite of the hormone glucagon.  We'd die without insulin (think Type 1 diabetics), we get sick very quickly with too much (think Type 2 diabetics who are insulin resistant).  Pretty simple: insulin is released by the pancreas, interacts with the insulin receptor on a cell wall and the glucose will enter the cell (in a healthy person).


 
As for the "jogging", he's wrong there as well.  Dr. Mark Mattson from Johns Hopkins' neurology group has shown runniing outside is critical for brain stimulation and growth -- you can't get the same thing in a gym, doing chimpanzee walks in your driveway.  This was validated by other researchers after it was published.  Another MD/researcher, Dr. John Ratey in Spark discusses his studies in this area and also validates the need for human movement outside, with running being optimal since it was part of our ancestral evolution.

Dr. Loren Cordain also talks about gatherer-hunter societies running 10k or more up multiple times per week on a hunt.  We're an upright animal optimized for running and walking...not bear crawls and bench presses...which is why we're also the greatest endurance animal on solid ground.  (You wouldn't know it based on the obese population in the US, Europe, Canada, etc.)

Kempner Rice diet before/after:

[TexasRanger]

Here's one of many, many images from the web -- think this is a PET Scan -- of the results of just a few weeks of eating grains/legumes/potatoes, vegetables and fruit and the reversal of CVD.  Esselstyn's pic.  And having heard him speak, I know for a fact he is anti-traditional medicine including invasive surgery (unless you're having a heart attack) along with statins.

[Dave Reslo]

I'm not saying sugar is good or bad but I am saying sugar substitutes give me violent diarrhoea.

[gruntbrain]

To screen for cancer, I get periodic PET scans where I'm injected with radioactive glucose . To prep for the scans I'm required to go very low carb for a day or 2 . In any case, I conclude the problem with dietary sugar is consuming too much so I go with moderate carbs that contain a decent amount of fiber . Getting an A1c blood test is another screening tool .

[Michael]

, Why do You use them then Dave

[TexasRanger]

Jan 22, 2024 21:16:13 GMT gruntbrain said:

To screen for cancer, I get periodic PET scans where I'm injected with radioactive glucose . To prep for the scans I'm required to go very low carb for a day or 2 . In any case, I conclude the problem with dietary sugar is consuming too much so I go with moderate carbs that contain a decent amount of fiber . Getting an A1c blood test is another screening tool .

Getting an A1C isn't really the best screening tool as it shows an average number:

The A1C test—also known as the hemoglobin A1C or HbA1c test—is a simple blood test that measures your average blood sugar levels over the past 3 months.

www.cdc.gov/diabetes/managing/managing-blood-sugar/a1c.html

A far better method is the OGTT -- Oral Glucose Tolerance Test.  You go into the lab, get your blood drawn and then drink a sugary product of some kind.  Then, you return every two hours and get your blood re-drawn.  If your numbers remain high, you're insulin resistant and the pancreas is fatty (like a fatty liver) and can't function normally and produce enough insulin.  

In another words, you're in trouble.  You could get an A1C test afterwards but if the OGTT shows the sugar in your blood isn't coming down, that means you've got too much fat stored where it doesn't belong (example muscle tissue) and your cells won't take up any more glucose.  The damage is well underway at that point.

The NIH gives these recommendations, but you really want to be lower than 120 mg/dl:

The results of the OGTT as a screening test for type 2 diabetes can be interpreted as follows:

The 2-hour plasma glucose level <140 mg/dL is considered normal.
The 2-hour plasma glucose level of 140-199 mg/dL indicates impaired glucose tolerance.
The 2-hour plasma glucose level ≥200 mg/dL indicates diabetes.

[Dave Reslo]

Jan 22, 2024 21:34:16 GMT Michael said:

, Why do You use them then Dave

Well, I'm very overweight, and they seem to make me lose weight quickly

[TexasRanger]

Jan 22, 2024 22:07:41 GMT Dave Reslo said:

Jan 22, 2024 21:34:16 GMT Michael said:

, Why do You use them then Dave

Well, I'm very overweight, and they seem to make me lose weight quickly

Sounds like water weight?  

You want to lose bodyfat, my friend!  

[Michael]

Jan 22, 2024 22:07:41 GMT Dave Reslo said:

Jan 22, 2024 21:34:16 GMT Michael said:

, Why do You use them then Dave

Well, I'm very overweight, and they seem to make me lose weight quickly

Oh My Stomach,