What you need to know about sugar

Episode 19 - What you need to know about sugar
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This episode continues education on self-management of fibromyalgia and other chronic pain conditions. Food and nutrition are an essential part of your well-being. Proper nutrition is also essential if you have autoimmune diseases, like lupus or RA, or other chronic disorders. 

During the last episode, I mentioned the harmful effects of sugar on the nervous system and fibro symptoms. I get a lot of questions about sugar.
So this episode is dedicated to sugar. It is actually a module from my course on nutrition, Mindful Eating for Autoimmune conditions, chronic pain, and fibromyalgia (https://www.rheumcoach.com/mindfuleatingwaitlist). So instead of re-recording it for the podcast, I am sharing with you this entire module - audio as podcast and video with slides on YouTube. It is packed and covers information on sugar, its effects on the development of the disease of both adults and children, sugar addiction, and fatty liver disease. This episode will provide information for anyone, not just people with pain, so please share with your friends and loved ones.   If you have any questions or comments, please email me; you can find my email in the show notes.

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Transcript

Well hello my friends welcome back to mind your fiber Podcast. Today we will continue with the next episode discussing the importance of nutrition informasjon. During the last episode, I mentioned the harmful effects of sugar on the nervous system and fiber symptoms. I get a lot of questions about sugar. So this episode is dedicated to sugar. It is actually a module from a course on nutrition, mindful eating for autoimmune conditions, chronic pain and fibromyalgia. So instead of re recording it for the podcast I'm sharing with you the entire module. Idea is a podcast and video is slides on YouTube. It is packed and covers information on sugar. Its effect on the development of the disease of both adults and children, sugar addiction and fatty liver disease. This episode will provide information for anyone, not just people with pain, so please share it with your friends and loved ones. If you have any questions or comments, please email me, you can find my email in the show notes. Well, welcome back to another module. Today we're talking about sugar, and how to eliminate sugar from your diet. It is probably one of the most important modules of this entire training if you don't do anything else for your health, removing or eliminating sugar from your diet will yield the best result and will improve your symptoms. When I talk about sugar, I'm also talking about other sweeteners, including highly refined sweeteners or corn syrup, as well as molasses, brown sugar, any kind of syrups as well as honey. Any anything that's refined or concentrated in it raises your insulin rapidly is named sugar in this lecture. So the American Heart Association suggest an added sugar limit for a reason. sugar causes a lot of inflammation in worsens many conditions. So how much sugar is too much in a day. For women in children between ages two and 18 years of age, no more than 100 calories per day, or about six teaspoons or 24 grams of sugar per day, it's easy to count teaspoons four grams of sugar is one teaspoon. And children under age two should not have any sugar at all. Men can consume up to nine teaspoons per day. But in reality, both men and women consume about 24 teaspoons of sugar per day. There's absolutely no nutritional need or benefit that comes from eating added sugar. Only pleasure eating a lot of added sugar early in life is linked to obesity, high blood pressure and type two diabetes in adults. So if you have a child who consumes a lot of sugar at a young age, and some children consume a lot of sugar before age two, they're being put at risk of developing chronic conditions later in life. Also, we see a lot of children now being obese, some some of them extremely obese. And we'll also see an increase in diabetes rates in children including toddlers. So if you're noticing your child eating a lot of sugar, it may be in the form of cereal, or in form of sweet milk like chocolate milk or strawberry milk at school. Just be aware that sugar consumption in children is linked to health issues in adults. So when we talk about added sugar, we're talking about the sugar that's been physically added to that food. It is not a sugar in an apple and not a sugar in the banana. But really is sugar in any baked goods or any foods that have sugar like yogurt or drinks. For example one apple us with Apple will have a two cups of sugar to two servings of sugar versus a banana but then we'll have more sugar because it is starchy. But still not added sugar. It is not as bad for your health as something like a doughnut or pastry. As you can tell. Those desserts have a more added sugar, not natural sugar in them in the why is it important. overconsumption of sweet foods leads to too many current conditions, but also our bodies that does that process foods in the form of added sugar as well as it does foods with fiber like apple. No one ever told me Oh, I couldn't stop eating apples either bushel of apples I could just could not stop eating. But I can tell you I have eaten pastries and cookies and cake and it's easy to overeat those sugary desserts it is easy to eat more than one donut. It is very easy to eat more than one cupcake. Not so much with bananas or apples. So those highly processed foods that we consume in often consumed on daily veces are highly inflammatory they are and also have many calories. How much sugar are in the drinks. I can tell you many people do not count drinks as food. But in reality, many drinks have a lot of sugar and a lot of calories from sugar. So for example, sweet iced tea will have more than eight to 10 teaspoons per servings slushie can have up to 25 teaspoons per cup. Lemonade even though it is lemon is approved, it has mostly sugar to 16 teaspoons per bottle soda has as many if not more. So if you're drinking lemonade thinking that you're eating a healthier or drinking healthier alternative, just know that you drinking as much sugar as Coca Cola for example. Some drinks in juices will have as much sugar as several Snicker bars some juices are very concentrated, it takes a lot of fruit to make a cup of juice, take several several apples to make a cup of apple juice. Apple juice has no fiber has a lot of sugar, and you will likely not eat you know six to eight apples in a row. But you can easily consume as many apples in a cup of juice. Also, cereal many of our patients struggle with being overweight or having inflammation in yet they eat a lot of cereal cereal is loaded with sugar and even the healthier alternatives. Organic cereals or brand friend type, or even instant oatmeal has a lot of sugar. And the average box of cereal contains almost 20 grams of sugar for every 100 grams of cereal. And I can tell you, most people, including most children, do not, do not consume one serving of syrup at a time Americans consume about 10 pounds of or 160 bowls of cereal per person each year. That's a lot of cereal. Also, cereal is usually isn't the milk. Milk has also a lot of sugar in it in the form of lactose. And some people are also intolerant to milk and they don't know it. Milk can be very pro inflammatory as some other type of dairy. So when you're consuming cereal every morning and you think that you're doing yourself a favor, think again, read the label. Look how much sugar you you ate in the morning. And also notice how soon you will be hungry again.
You know many teachers complain when children come to school, they are already hungry because they ate cereal for breakfast, a bowl of cereal with some milk and that's it. They don't have protein, they'll have fat, and within half an hour to an hour later. They are already hungry. They're having a sugar crash after eating a lot of sugar for breakfast. So why is sugar so bad for you? Sugar is implicated in many, many conditions. A lot of them are industrial countries, conditions such as obesity or being overweight. Type two diabetes, heart disease. It's also implicated in some types of cancers, gum disease and tooth decay. A window that gums and an oral health is extremely important in some conditions, like some autoimmune conditions, as well as it can be a cause of inflammation. We know that people who consume a lot of sugars don't live as long. But also know that we see an early puberty in girls, girls who are overweight or or have diabetes, or consume more junk may have early puberty. Also I see more pain in patients with osteoarthritis, inflammatory arthritis and fibromyalgia in my clinic. Some conditions is very hard to control until they eliminate or reduce sugar. I can tell you I had a patient who was on two or three medications for rheumatoid arthritis and he could not control his rheumatoid arthritis. He had a lot of swelling and pain. He was a very heavy soda drinker, he drank a lot of Mountain Dew, he cut out all sort of for a week, his swelling improved. As soon as he started working sore again, his swelling came back up even if he drank just one bottle of Mountain Dew per day. So again, sugar and some other things that are in those sugary drinks or sugary foods can be very inflammatory in another condition that I see a lot in my clinic is fatty liver disease. Fatty Liver Disease is extremely common. It is now the most common form of chronic liver disease in the US in affecting 25% of population. Fatty Liver Disease is when too much fat is stored in liver cells. Our liver should be nice in pink under microscope it should have a normal architecture. But when we consume too many sugars too many carbohydrates, the metabolism of those carbohydrates produces a lot of loose writes or fat globules of fat droplets in those droplets overwhelm your body and overwhelm the transport system that transports droplets to fat stores in they get stuck in the liver. So over time, the liberal looks like it's congested with fat droplets. So this is why it's called fatty liver disease is actually a misnomer. It's not because you consume too much fat. It is because of consumption of too many carbohydrates. The causes of fatty liver disease is being obese and overweight. We also see it with insulin resistance when your cells don't take up sugar in response to the hormone insulin losses he has with PCOS, and especially in other conditions that have high sugar, including pre diabetes in type two diabetes. So the high levels of fat especially to glycerides in the blood droplets get stored inside the liver. When you eat, your body converts any calorie that it does not need to use right away into triglycerides, especially access sugar and excess calories from easily digestible refined foods, that liquids rights are stored in your fat cells. So if your transport system is overwhelmed, if you over consume those foods, the access to this was stored in the liver. In this short architecture. If you are overweight in you're not active, you may have had good strides on your blood work, especially if you eat a lot of carbohydrates or sugary foods or drink alcohol. So what are the functions of the liver, the liver is extremely important organ in us survive without liver. If your liver is severely damaged, you may need a transplant liver does many many things. Number one is filtration of the blood in detoxification, it removes all the harmful stuff cells from your body, it helps you that just it breaks down food for absorption. It also in major organ of your metabolism, it changes food into energy, it also a major organ that produces protein, those are the building blocks of your cells, as well as signaling molecules that are needed for functioning and healing. So so if your liver is impaired, it may not detoxify your body well so you may have more toxins in your bloodstream. You may also not that just well. So you may not break down food as as well for absorption. You also may not have enough protein building blocks for healing and repair, such as wound healing, and also we see impaired liver function and low levels of vitamins and minerals. Because liver is also participates in the storage and utilization of vitamins. Some of the symptoms of liver disease are just fatigue until the liver disease is advanced. So you might have no symptoms but feeling just tired and worn out until fight or liver disease worsens, you'll asthma with normal, so it is very deceiving condition. You might have an abnormal ultrasound with a fatty liver on the other side or hepatic steatosis. And that's the only clue that you have fatty liver disease. You went to a doctor, they got an abdominal ultrasound, and on ultrasound, you had fatty liver. A lot of times people don't pay attention to that people are not discussing it. But it is a major condition that impairs your healing and also puts you at risk of complications if you're sick or unwell. Many medications are being utilized or metabolized by liver. So if your liver is impaired, it may alter the medication levels. It may also cause side effects from medications that were you would typically use in autoimmune conditions of methotrexate or flutamide, or other medications that are very helpful and very good for your condition. But having a liver disease, you know puts you at risk of developing the side effects. So major condition, we see it often often unrecognized, or, or not paid attention to, but you really need to pay attention to your liver, you only have one of them. So let's talk more about sugar. High years ago, the average sugar consumption per year was four pounds, which is 1.8 kilograms, less than one small baby being born. Now in the US the average sugar consumed per year is 150 pounds or 68 kilograms. A size of a grown adult. So when from not even the baby to a grown adult. Sugar is one of the most common additives to mainly foods and is hidden in sauces breads, foods that used to be consumed on sweet. Even some cheeses have sugar added some additional condiments, for example, ketchup or barbecue sauce. The food industry does this on purpose because sugar is addictive. Now, emotional and psychological dependence on sugary foods and drinks, also known as sugar addiction is real, and may be hard to treat sugar addiction is not imaginary. We see it very often. But it may go unrecognized because sugar addiction is not as harmful. As alcohol addiction or drug addiction is not as perceived as such in our society, it's still very harmful to your health. Eating sugar releases opiates, which is the our natural pain relievers as well as dopamine in our body. Dopamine is a reward, neurotransmitter or brain chemical. This is a link between added sugar in addictive behavior. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, which is a key part of the reward circuit associated with an addictive behavior. Approximately 75% of Americans is excess amount of sugar, many of whom could be classified as having a sugar addiction. Some studies suggested that sugar addiction is real and sugar can be as addictive as cocaine. Hard to believe. sugar consumption can create a short term high in the spark of energy in the body. enough that you might have a low and that will produce a craving for sugar high. Like other compulsions and behavior addictions. Sugar Addiction is a special risk for people with chronic pain, anxiety, depression, stress in history of trauma, people who suffer from constant tiredness or fatigue. Also eat more carb rich sugary foods for an energy boost people make begin to crave sugar to balance irritability, emotional lows in other feelings, I'm sure we all felt sugar hangry at times and needed some sugar.
Now all addictions are a complicated will have by chemical and physical physiological components as well as relational and attachment component in addiction. If you're addicted to sugar, you're most likely sugar sensitive, someone who has biochemical sensitivity to sugar in your body and brain. Sugar acts like a toxic drug eating it makes you crave more and once you start eating you may find it's hard to stop sensitivity to sugar may arise from low or volatile blood sugar. Unhealthy got for example, hormonal imbalances like Outlook, insulin imbalance of diabetes, or brain that is low in neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin as we see in depression and other mental health conditions. Addictions also have an emotional components these are deep unmet emotional needs use for understanding, validation, empathy, love, compassion and care. Addictions are also relational, how connected we feel to each other to ourselves to Spirit God, in absence of loving connections will seek out substitutes in form of addictions, not just food addiction or sugar addiction but also alcohol, drug addiction, etc. Sugar Addiction can be learned. Sometimes it is inherited. In sometimes it is triggered by early trauma. Most often sugar addiction is not your fault. Something happened to you by you have this sugar addiction. If your parents tend to over eat sugar, you may inherit this trait. Some studies showed rats having a genetic predisposition to overeating an addiction. Also, early trauma appears to influence the way our bodies handle sugar, and more specifically, how insulin rises when we consume sugar and in any of its form, whether it's from alcohol, starchy foods, or sweet substance like sugar. So normally this the hormone leptin, as we talked before, is secreted in response to a burst of insulin. And this tells your brain that you're full, you had enough food. But when insulin levels are chronically elevated, for example, people over consume food, they eat too much sugar or they're under chronic stress or they have insulin resistance. Some people's receptors will begin to block the leptin. It is secreted but never causes the full feeling resulting in food cravings and constant feeling of hunger. Often I hear from patients I feel hungry all the time. I don't know why I just ate but I need to have enough The meal that's often because of the insulin resistance in also because of it leptin dysregulation, trauma causes hormonal and neurological changes that interact with genetic, social and behavior stuff, the stuff that was always assumed be the whole cause of the weight problems. Oh, it's due to genetics is your mom was obese. That's why you're obese or social or you don't you know, you're surrounded by people who overeat or eat wrong foods or behavior, you comfort us or stress eat, but many times people are my patients will have the trauma that induced the hormonal changes that also in the environment with a poor social support or genetics or behavior. Issues, just combine and make it an overwhelming condition to treat often, often, very often, sugar addiction may start as early as childhood, it may be the only way a parent knows how to show her love to a child or reward a child for good behavior. Parents also baby feeding children's sugar, because she wants to eat sugar. So she doesn't feel guilty buying sugar just for herself. And I see this with some people who have young children and their children eating a lot of sugar, a lot of candy, a lot of soft drinks, because the the parent doesn't have the boundaries to tell the child No, but also the parent may feel guilty that are setting a wrong example so it's much easier to the whole family eat sugar than just a parent. Parents may or may not be aware of how much sugar a child consumes, is because it's not just sweets. Also added to cereal yogurt condiments like pickles, bread, ketchup etc. Also child may be a picky eater and it is in she or he is rewarded with sweets after finishing the meal. child may be cranky, needy, emotional, and she may be calm down after she eating sweets. Again, this reward or in feeling pleasure from sweets starts early children can self regulate with comfort foods just like adults do. And also the calmer child can give a parent a break so the parent kreizel If the child is needy, or emotional, you know giving something sweet will will give parents a break child's nervous system is dysregulated due to trauma, emotionally unavailable parent, a parent who lacks boundaries, parenting skills, nutrition education, understanding of how to provide emotional support to a child without utilizing food. This child may grow up regulating yourself with food and sugar. If the parents stopped regulates with sugar, she may regulate her child with sugar. Our society also rewards and creates positive experiences using sugar birthday parties with cake after school snack postgame sugary treats, gummy bears, cupcakes donuts, the child finds the way to feel the emotional gap and practices reward system using sugar. So people who experience emotionally stressful situations like chronic pain, or chronic illness, relationship or work stress often turn to sweets to comfort themselves during the difficult time. Those who turn to sugar to deal with emotional issues are more likely to become addicted. Not everybody who eats sugar is a sugar addict. But many people who over consume sugar may find themselves being addicted to sugar, or the indications of sugar addiction for emotional relief or weight gain in difficulty focusing on daily responsibilities. Sugar Addiction and binge eating are often go hand in hand. Binge Eating is eating too much in too fast, followed by feeling guilty, ashamed and disgusted by those actions.
Binge eating can be an eating disorder. So if you're having those tendencies you have to speak to mental health professional or primary care. Also, this can damage self esteem cause feelings of helplessness and low self worth. This in turn leads to more sugar consumption and more severe sugar addiction. Again, sugar addiction and alcohol alcoholism. As I said before, not everybody who consumes sugar is a sugar addict. Just like not everybody who drinks is an alcoholic, but with alcoholism, who have clear symptoms of alcohol abuse will have intoxication will have loss of job or relationship problems. With sugar addiction. We often don't see those negative effects except for obesity, or excess consumption or binge binging for obesity or complications like diabetes. So sugar addiction is not as visible and more accepted in our society than alcoholism. But there's a surprising genetic link between children of parents who abuse alcohol and sugar addiction. A recent studies confirmed dopamine receptors in the brain light up when sugar is consumed, like the receptor site up in the brain of sound hub use alcohol. This can encourage people who struggle with sweets to develop alcoholism, alcohol dependent people may have a higher desire for sweets, and experience sugar cravings in sugar withdraws, just like they may have alcohol withdrawal, and alcohol craving. The genes and parents who abuse alcohol as well as their preference for sugar can be passed down to their children. As a result, the child may have a predisposition to both of these addictions sugar addiction and alcohol addiction. Bottom line, sugar addiction is real. Sugar Addiction needs to be recognized and evaluated. If you're trying to remove sugar from your diet. You need to be aware of the reasons why you may be addicted to sugar. If you struggle with sugar addiction, or just overconsumption of sugar, and recognize patterns of past trauma you need to work with the mental health provider is you detox from sugar as it may trigger, worsening depression, anxiety and labile mood. The research demonstrates that the effect of sugar addiction does draw and relapse a similar to those of drugs of abuse. So what does sugar cravings feel like? I think we all know those feelings. We all may crave sugar once something sweet after dinner, but people who eat a lot of sugar and stop eating sugar will have a very strong urge to eat something sweet and can't find it difficult to control themselves around food. This can also lead to binge eating in our consuming calories. Sometimes on a regular basis. Many sugar cravings stem from a blood sugar imbalance. When your body ingests sugar, your blood sugar, sugar spikes and you by releases insulin to lower it to a safer level. If the insulin brings your sugar level a bit too low, because you're used to eating a lot of sugar. as it often happens, your body starts craving foods that will raise the sugar level or or glucose level and increase your energy sugar withdrawal will eliminate sugar from our diet, we find ourselves experiencing withdrawal symptoms. Usually the symptoms are irritability, fogginess, moodiness and low energy. Good news is that those feelings are rather temporary, but the joy and cravings can be very intense. Many people choose to go back to eating sugary foods because they need to stop the cravings. Mayo Clinic recommends taking at least two week break from sugar to reset your body introduce a craving for sugar sugar. Withdrawal is real and improves with time. Usually after a week. It's not as intense. After two weeks to three weeks, you start craving less and less. Usually within four to six weeks. You you stop having desire for for sweets for sugar, so you may do it cold turkey or gradually. But you need to give yourself a deadline or how to kick a sugar addiction. Number one, be aware of how much sugar you consume. Make an honest list of what you eat and drink. If you don't know it's hard to change if you if you're not honest with yourself again, you will not be successful. Make a plan and stick with it as a first step stop soda in any sweetened drinks. First is maybe sweetened coffee or tea. It may be it can be chocolate, milk or cocoa. It can be coffee with creamers. creamers have a lot of sugar, so stop all drinks that have sweeteners. I also recommend stopping milk if you're an adult. Because milk has a lot of sugar in the form of lactose. If you have a child who is obese need to really monitor how much milk this child consumes. The recommended amount for children is no more than three hours per day and it's usually eight to six to eight ounces. And I know many children consume way more milk than that aim for less than five grams of added sugar per serving as you're trying to detox from sugar in the letter eliminate all added sugar. Read all labels. Sugar is described by many names stay away from any baked goods, desserts and candy. If you're trying to eat better, eliminating white flour and white sugar is a huge step step you can take if you look at any food and if it has sugar or has flour. It's easy to spot and it should be easy to say now. Also try to stay away from cereal, cereals healthier options, like a packaged oatmeal they still have a lot of added sugar. Also be aware that pizza and pasta sauces have added sugar. The half a cup of store worth marinara sauce contains anywhere from two to four grams of added sugar per half cup, which amounts to a teaspoon. So if you're eating if you're using a jar of pasta, you might have up to half a cup or more of sugar in a jar. So read labels sugar is disguised by many names can be called brown sugar, corn sweetener, corn syrup, fruit juice concentrate, high fructose corn syrup, honey, inverted sugar, malt, sugar, molasses in anything that's on OHS dextrose, fructose, glucose, lactose, maltose, and sucrose. All of those are sugars in in they're not good for you. Well, I hope you found this session, informative and motivational. I know sugar addiction and consumption of sweets is a problem for many of us, including me. So we need to really work on eliminating those foods from our diets. Because I know the less sugar you eat, the better you feel, and longer you live and better you live longer. Thank you for listening