I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone that sugar is considered by most to be the unhealthiest food known to man. It has been demonized over the years as being the single cause of every disease known to mankind from obesity to heart disease and even cancer.

Why is this?

To make a long story short, we blame sugar because we have to blame something. Placing the blame on something else is our way of absolving ourselves of responsibility in the matter.

Sure, you’ve been told again and again that sugar is bad for your health by everyone. It circulates throughout the news media, internet, newspapers, etc. Every doctor will claim that it is bad for you.

Why?

We’ve come to accept this as the truth without ever questioning the validity of this “assumption”.

Before you start rolling your eyes in disbelief, please remember… that we once believed the false assumption that the earth was flat and we ridiculed and even killed scientists who attempted to prove otherwise.

I understand that the idea of sugar being bad has been ingrained into people’s heads for many years or even their lifetime and it can be very difficult to let go of such false beliefs. Many people cannot wrap their heads around the idea that sugar can actually be used therapeutically to heal the body.

Below, I have answered many of the common questions surrounding sugar, based not on assumptions, but with scientific evidence which is provided for your own review.

The studies provided within this document were chosen for their ease of understanding. There are many more studies that demonstrate the many benefits of sugar that are far more scientific and difficult to read and/or understand for the lay person which have not been included.

Why Do We Need Sugar In Our Diet?

There’s no denying that your cells need sugar to produce energy.

In fact, your brain runs on sugar and a lot of it.

Sugar is part of the equation for generating ATP (Energy) that everyone learns in basic science class as a child but apparently forgets later in life.

If you want to brush up on your science of cellular respiration, here’s a good place to start: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_respiration)

When sugar is available through your diet, your cells are happy because they have a constant supply of sugar to use to produce as much energy as it needs.

When sugar is NOT available through your diet, your body must still find a way to get sugar your cells in order for them to continue to produce energy.

When this occurs your body begins to eat itself by excreting stress hormones (cortisol and adrenaline) which cause your body to break down its own living tissue to convert to sugar. Your body does this in order to continue to supply your brain and muscles with the sugar it needs, otherwise your brain would stop working and you would lose consciousness and die.

But this is merely a survival mechanism in order to keep you alive. Your body does not want to eat itself by breaking down its own tissue to survive. This entire process is extremely inflammatory and unhealthy.

Sugar in our diet is a necessity to support life, produce energy, and prevent damage to our cells.

Our Ancestors Never Ate This Much Sugar?

Let’s talk about why we need so much sugar in our diet because a lot of people make the argument that we never ate this much sugar a century or more ago.

A healthy body stores a lot of sugar in its liver, muscles, and brain. There’s no arguing that your brain requires an enormous amount of sugar to function.

When you become hypothyroid your body does not store sugar efficiently anymore. So, to the degree that your body can’t store sugar to provide it to your brain, muscles, cells, etc when needed is the degree to which we need to supplement sugar in our diet.

The idea of a traditional diet is great but it must be catered to the demands of today’s very high stress lifestyle. When you are under stress, your body uses sugar and nutrients up very fast. So today’s typical high stress lifestyle also requires more sugar and nutrients to compensate for the effects of stress.

Here are a few studies that shows that table sugar (sucrose) improves energy balance and our stress response system:

Doesn’t Sugar Cause Obesity?

Let’s get straight to the point… Sugar does NOT cause obesity…

Let’s look at some of the facts instead of accepting the same false assumptions that are being regurgitating across the internet, news, and various other social media sources.

According to the USDA Economic Research Service…

(http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/FoodConsumption/FoodGuideSpreadsheets.htm – See the “Calorie” Spreadsheet, “Percentage” Table)

Comparing calorie consumption between 2009 and 1970, we see the following results:

1. Calories from Flour and Cereal products increased 4% since 1970.
2. Calories from Added Sugar decreased 2% since 1970.
3. Calories from Meat, Eggs, and Nuts decreased 3% since 1970.
4. Calories from Dairy decreased 2% since 1970.
5. Calories from added Polyunsaturated Fats (corrected to remove Saturated Fats) increased 7%
6. Calories from added Saturated Fats (corrected to remove PUFAs) decreased 2%

Now, let’s take a look at a charge from Center for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Solutions, which shows the trend of obesity since 1960 to 2004.

As you can see, there has been a constant upward trend in obesity, and even more so since about 1976.

How is it that both sugar and saturated fat both are taking the blame for this constant and consistent rise in obesity year after year when they have actually been decreasing in our diets over this very same span of time?

As you can see, it would make much more sense to blame the obesity epidemic on the foods that have actually increased in our diet, Flour and Cereal Products (starchy grains) and polyunsaturated fats, not real “sugar”.

I discuss the issue of starchy grains and polyunsaturated fats in the program and why I do not recommend either.

I also discuss a very important fact that sugar actually increases your metabolism and improves thyroid function thus, promoting weight loss.

Let’s look at a very interesting study to prove this point…

This study shows that consuming sugar or even Coca-Cola allows you to increase your calorie intake by 50% without excess weight gain.

Please note: I am not recommending that you include Coca-Cola in your diet.

This study also shows how sugar improves resistance to cold (improved thyroid function) as well as the benefits of caffeine.

As you can see, sugar does not cause obesity. In fact, it actually causes the opposite and helps to drastically improve your metabolism, improve your thyroid function, and support a natural and healthy weight.

Doesn’t Sugar Cause Diabetes?

The issue of diabetes is largely misunderstood. Many people are led to believe that diabetes is caused by eating too much sugar because diabetics tend to have high blood sugar.

However, this is a common misconception…

The real issue at hand is not the sugar. The real problem is your body and its inability to get sugar to its cells.

Avoiding sugar is not the solution. The solution is to improve your body’s ability to utilize the sugar it has.

Back before insulin was developed in a laboratory, doctors use to treat diabetes by giving patients fructose because fructose improves insulin sensitivity and improves your cells ability to utilize glucose.

Keep in mind that even table sugar (sucrose) consists of 1 fructose and 1 glucose molecule and has been shown to be beneficial to diabetics.

Here’s some research showing the benefits of Fructose and Sugar with Diabetes:

There are a number of contributing factors to the issue of diabetes which is not common knowledge and that your doctor is not telling you.

One that is quite important is the effect that polyunsaturated fats have on blocking your cells from being able to utilize glucose. This is arguable a big missing piece of the diabetes puzzle because these fats are being incorrectly promoted for a number of health benefits.

Even fish oil (polyunsaturated fat) which is being recommended by every doctor has been shown to contribute to diabetes:

The following study shows saturated fat helps protect against diabetes while unsaturated fats contribute to diabetes.

There are plenty more studies, however, I believe this helps shed enough light on this topic.

While I do still highly recommend this program for anyone with diabetes or insulin resistivity, it is important to monitor your blood sugar throughout the process.

It does take time to reverse this process and improve your cells ability to utilize sugar properly again. It’s not something that corrects overnight.

Isn’t Fructose Bad For You?

There has been quite a lot of commotion in recent years with many “so called” experts claiming that fructose (fruit sugar) is toxic and the underlying cause of modern day obesity.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

This is unfortunate because it has scared a lot of people away from eating more healthy fruits in their diet which means that they are getting less of the healthy sugar that they need. But it also goes deeper than that because people are also missing out on the potassium, magnesium, and other vital nutrients that are essential to our health which fruit also provide.

Many of these experts are claiming that fructose consumption has drastically increased in the past 30 to 40 years which accounts for our epidemic of obesity and diabetes.

I encourage you to read the “Doesn’t Sugar Cause Obesity?” section above and see the direct link to the data provided by the USDA Economic Research Service which clearly shows that fruit and sugar consumption has decreased in our diet over the past 30 to 40 years.

Please do not confuse “fructose” with “high-fructose corn syrup” which is not a natural sweetener and I do not recommend.

Below I have provided a number of studies that show many of the benefits of fructose in our diet, many of which compare it to the effects of glucose.

Here’s more research showing some of the benefits of sugar: