You are about to venture on a journey about sugar, its effects on your body, and what you can do to change your habits. Some of the information you’ll pick up along this journey will shock you, other information will enlighten you, but above all, you will finish the journey knowing exactly what you can do to avoid committing suicide by sugar.
Before you begin your journey, you should know that today, when people say “sugar” or “sucrose,” they are usually referring to the sweetener made by beet, cane, and corn. The sugar and corn sweetener industries, however, do not do this. To the industries, “sugar” comes from beet or cane, not corn. “Sweetener” or “corn sweetener,” to the industries, means it comes from corn. In this book, I use the word “sugar” to mean the substance that comes from beet, cane, and corn, except in the section titled “Fructose Roulette” (see page 60), where I speak specifically about sugar (beet or cane) and corn sweetener.
Your journey begins with my story. As a sugar addict, I came close to committing sugar suicide. I would quit but then would go back to sugar, and you probably will also. Don’t blame yourself. Just say, “Tomorrow will be a better day,” and it will. Many of you will identify with my story. Over the years, I have heard variations of my story from many people.
The core of my early work started from the proposition that many people who eat too much sugar are sick too much of the time. I certainly was. After many years of abusing my body with sugar (unknowingly), I finally came to the conclusion that sugar must do something bad to the immune system. I researched a concept called homeostasis (the balance of all the systems in the body), and bingo, the whole story came together. I found out that sugar upsets this delicate balance in the body. I also learned what sugar does to the immune system.
The next stop along your journey will take you into new territory. First, you will learn all the ways sugar is ruining your health. Next, I will tell you exactly what I discovered about sugar’s effect on homeostasis and the immune system. Then, you will find out about the glycemic index, glycemic load, and the importance of not taking an oral glucose tolerance test. You will also learn about Ensure and Pediasure, and you’ll find out some information about soft drinks that you may not want to know. Additionally, you will discover how much natural sugar is in many products and how much sugar is added. There are also a few misconceptions about chocolate that are documented.
Next, I explain that sugar and its cousins (like honey, maple syrup, corn syrup, fructose, glucose, and others) can lead to a host of diseases. You will learn how sugar feeds cancer, dementia, and epilepsy, to name a few. Hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) is explained in depth.
Now that you have found out what sugar does to the body, you will find out how to remove this sugar and keep it out of your body. There is a whole section on helping you get and stay healthy with food plans, suggestions for snacks, and recipes to soothe the sweet tooth. And there is more—much more.
Research into sugar has exploded in recent years, and it’s not just crank nutritionists, dentists, and chemists doing the work—a few MDs are getting into the act as well. This represents a titanic shift in medical opinion, at least for the average doctor on the street. Even though the American Medical Association (AMA) has not directly come out against sugar, some of the associations for the many specialties contained within the AMA have made statements about sugar. Clearly, it is a case of waiting for the dinosaurs to die off.
So read on, dear reader, to start your journey and find out information that you did not know existed about sugar. If by the end of this book you haven’t decided to lick your sugar habit, illness and a long, slow death may result—truly Suicide by Sugar.
