Slightly OT: Sugar - I wonder how it affects SDB...

[DreamDiver]

I thought it would be better to start a new thread, because it is in essence a new topic from the one I'm quoting below.

... I personally reversed severe anxiety, Chronic fatigue and ibs and my life has opened up.

There are a number of current medical memes that all seem to imply they are successful in reducing or eliminating SDB, CFS, IBS, FM, Anxiety and more. Buteyko breathing method is one in a long line of varied protocols that aims at eliminating the same general constellation of muddy and misunderstood symptoms. The truth - I think - is far more simple than health-oriented seminars, pills and protocols.

I bet most of us would do much better if we just stopped eating sugar, high-fructose corn syrup and wheat. Just eliminate them from our diet except as occasional and sparing treats on one or two holidays a year.

Yes, you can learn about buteyko for $500 or you can buy a used copy of William Dufty's Sugar Blues for under $5. I suspect the results will be better with the $5 Dufty paperback - if you actually take his advice. Even if the Buteyko method does work, that $500 will not make you automatically and continually practice the method on schedule every day for the rest of your life like clockwork.

Heck, I borrowed a copy of Sugar Blues from the local library. I didn't even spend five dollars. Even if you're not interested in changing your diet, it's a great read on the history of sugar from the middle ages until the 1970's (when it was printed.) The video in the link below examines the problem today and finds it is even worse than it was 40 years ago.

I can spend the rest of my life doing things that aren't good for my body and continue to attempt to compensate for the negatively-nutritious diet and sloth by doing buteyko, taking prescribed pills, or some other expensive fad 'cure', or I can take control of my life by reducing my environmental footprint, reducing the amount of stuff I have, reducing the amount of junk I eat, getting a modicum of exercise and attempting to find contentment in the moment with family and friends. The latter seems less expensive even it is not necessarily an easier path to follow. Some might say healthy food costs more than pre-packaged and processed foods... 'And who has the time to cook?' Maybe if we ate the slightly more expensive healthy foods, we might end up spending considerably less on pills, medicines and protocols that only band-aid our problems because we keep eating what we know (or some cases, don't know) is bad for us. Doctors tip-toe around our diet because none of them have more than a semester or two about it in medical school. They studied physical intervention methods like surgery and pills - not diet.

According to Dr. Robert Lustig of UCFS, the bitter truth about sugar is that if the government made it a priority to really educate citizens and our children about what sugar and overly-refined/processed foods are doing to our bodies, and stopped allowing agri-businesses to lobby for and prop up an economy where fresh carrots are more expensive than chicken mcnuggets, we might actually reduce or eliminate chronic maladies like Obesity, CFS, IBS, FM and Anxiety - maybe even reduce the number of SDB patients.

I don't have a $500 seminar or a base of certified practitioners that will help you arrive at this conclusion, but if you want to send me $500 for 'waisting' your time, PM me and I'll send you my paypal address.

[Kiralynx]

I bet most of us would do much better if we just stopped eating sugar, high-fructose corn syrup and wheat. Just eliminate them from our diet except as occasional and sparing treats on one or two holidays a year.

I gave up sugar, HFCS, all grains, all potatoes, all gums, natural and artificial flavorings almost ten years ago. I suspect that if I hadn't, I wouldn't be alive today.

See my thread on the creative uses of coconut flour!

[marcosv]

Personally I'm not a fan of elimination of food groups or put the blame on specific ingredients rather than where I think the blame really lies: lack of moderation and lack of physical activity.

Before processed sugar and high-fructose corn syrups are at high enough levels to really impact a person, that person already has eaten way too many calories.

In my case, I found putting an emotional line in the sand where I vow not to eat a certain trigger food to be counter productive: eventually really life blows up and I end up crossing that line and eat something I'm not supposed to and get emotionally hung up on my failings. The emotional rollercoaster usually results in diet failure.

I've lost 85 lbs over the last six months and have around 30 lbs to go --- which will take a bit longer to lose since I'm fully back into regular food and moving stronger into physical activity to raise my resting metabolic rate higher. So far: no stress over what I eat and can't eat.

I'm more in favor of smaller portion sizes and emphasizing less processed foods overall. Re-educate taste buds to appreciate other foods than the typical overly salty, fatty, and sugary manipulations that restaurants and the food industry is aiming at us.

Also, I'm very much into tracking caloric intake and physical activity. With computers and smartphones, it takes less than 10 minutes/day to track everything I eat.

At any rate, I'm really glad I took the steps I did to change my life style. My blood work has vastly improved. Diabetes and high blood pressure are well under control. CPAP pressure hasn't dropped that much like I hoped, but, I'm getting better sleep and wake up less due to better digestion.

[DreamDiver]

Here's a British researcher who seems to think no-carb is the way to reduce if not eliminate Type-2 diabetes.
http://www.latimes.com/health/boostersh ... 0769.story

I think this is tied to some forms of SDB, even though there is no scientific evidence yet for or against that consideration. Just putting it out there...

[SRSDDS]

Personally I'm not a fan of elimination of food groups or put the blame on specific ingredients rather than where I think the blame really lies: lack of moderation and lack of physical activity.

Before processed sugar and high-fructose corn syrups are at high enough levels to really impact a person, that person already has eaten way too many calories.

In my case, I found putting an emotional line in the sand where I vow not to eat a certain trigger food to be counter productive: eventually really life blows up and I end up crossing that line and eat something I'm not supposed to and get emotionally hung up on my failings. The emotional rollercoaster usually results in diet failure.

I've lost 85 lbs over the last six months and have around 30 lbs to go --- which will take a bit longer to lose since I'm fully back into regular food and moving stronger into physical activity to raise my resting metabolic rate higher. So far: no stress over what I eat and can't eat.

I'm more in favor of smaller portion sizes and emphasizing less processed foods overall. Re-educate taste buds to appreciate other foods than the typical overly salty, fatty, and sugary manipulations that restaurants and the food industry is aiming at us.

Also, I'm very much into tracking caloric intake and physical activity. With computers and smartphones, it takes less than 10 minutes/day to track everything I eat.

At any rate, I'm really glad I took the steps I did to change my life style. My blood work has vastly improved. Diabetes and high blood pressure are well under control. CPAP pressure hasn't dropped that much like I hoped, but, I'm getting better sleep and wake up less due to better digestion.

AMEN!!!!!!
Any coincidence that, in the era of Supersize and 2000 calorie fast food burgers on special for 2 for 1, that people are suffering more from weight and diet related syndromes? A well balanced, calorie controlled, enjoyable diet is about as healthy as you will ever get. Yes there are people with true allergies or specific enzyme deficiencies who must eliminate some specific food, but to think that eliminating a specific food like sugar is going to make you healthy and happy is just fooling yourself. I am a 40 year Type 1 diabetic who enjoys my (more than) occasional sweet treat. I am also not overweight, generally healthy, and have no metabolic ill effects of eating sugar. And it sure helps me psychologically to be able to enjoy what I eat.
Bottom line, eat a properly calorie controlled, wide variety diet that is enjoyable to you and chances are overwhelmingly in your favor to not have any diet related maladies.

Stephen

[Lizistired]

Fried Kool-Aid. Guess it's the 2011 fest food.
No kidding. Just heard it on the Today show.
I don't know is that tops frying Twinkies or not.

I'll just have my sugar distilled, thank you.

[BlackSpinner]

For many years I ate a modified vegetarian macro biotic diet. I still got OSA, allergies, migraines. However despite the family history of type 2 diabetes I am still free of that curse. I am somewhat over weight but those 30 lbs came on due to OSA.
Like I said in the other thread, sugar in recipes quadrupled since the early 60's - in a muffin recipe it went from 2 tablespoons (4 for really sweet) to 3/4 cup or more in modern recipes.

[xenablue]

Firstly, you can't eliminate/cure/reverse T2 diabetes (at this time, anyway) - it's genetic. Whether you choose to eat low/no-carb before T2 develops, if you are in line to be T2, you may hold it off for a while - years even, or you may die of something else before, but if you have T2, you can only hope to control it and have non-diabetic glucose numbers.

If you think you've reversed/cured/eliminated T2, try sitting down to a meal of, say Chinese food with rice, then some cake all washed down with a regular soda or big glass of mil. Then test your glucose every half hour for a couple of hours.

Even eating a NO-carb diet for diabetics isn't good, despite carbs being the one main group that raises glucose (NOT eating will do similar). All diets should comprise a variety of food groups, the amounts of each depending on the individual person.

To quote one of my mentors "All things in moderation - except laughter"

Cheers,
xena

[BlackSpinner]

Firstly, you can't eliminate/cure/reverse T2 diabetes (at this time, anyway) - it's genetic. Whether you choose to eat low/no-carb before T2 develops, if you are in line to be T2, you may hold it off for a while - years even, or you may die of something else before, but if you have T2, you can only hope to control it and have non-diabetic glucose numbers.
Cheers,
xena

I know this. But as far as I am concerned I am well passed the birthdays that the rest of the family managed and my blood sugar is still in the good range. I don't carewhether it is called "managing" or what ever - it does not affect my life at this moment and the reason is probably that unlike my mother, uncles and grandmother I always was aware of what I was eating and my weight until OSA was in the average range.

[DreamDiver]

AMEN!!!!!!
...
Bottom line, eat a properly calorie controlled, wide variety diet that is enjoyable to you and chances are overwhelmingly in your favor to not have any diet related maladies.

Stephen

I know what I'm saying will come across as unpopular, but I really think it needs to be brought up as a consideration on this forum for those who are willing to consider physical evidence and reasoned logic as opposed to comfort foods and status quo. This is your 'sugar intervention'.

I can understand where you and marcosv are coming from with regards to limiting triggers and the 'gorging' effect, but several points of the book and video in the original post point out a couple things that are not necessarily obvious. The genetic factor may actually be limited to the fact that 49 percent of the population is actually genetically-predisposed to hypoglycemia. Type 2 diabetes may in actuality be a chronic complication of over-eating sugar in the population with the genetic predisposition for hypoglycemia. The video (linked again throughout below) shows what the Japanese have known for centuries: reduce fructose intake to zero (not glucose intake) and the metabolism of sugar will right itself. (See Dufty too.) Ergo, Type-2 Diabetes may actually be reversible.

• Sucrose is made up of half glucose and half fructose.
• While glucose is metabolized easily by every body cell, only the liver can metabolize fructose*.
• Because only the liver can metabolize it, fructose is a toxin. Unlike glucose which is stored as glycogen or immediately burned as energy, 30% of fructose brought into the body is converted into fat immediately*. 30% of the fructose you eat is converted to fat. High sugar diets actually make us put on fat whether we like it or not. Carbohydrates from brown rice and carbohydrates from fructose are metabolized differently.
• Fructose is sweeter than glucose and highly addictive. This is evident in the growing body mass index found in our children as more processed foods (cereal, snacks, drinks, bread, etc.) include high fructose corn syrup.
• Fructose causes obesity, high blood pressure, gout and hypertension** - fact - rampant in society today, with the blame being pointed everywhere but sugar. We really aren't looking at sugar as a cause of ill health, primarily because the people who make sugar have very well-paid lobbyists.
• It's hard to figure out whether what you're eating has added sugar sometimes even after you've read the ingredients label. Why? Because sugar is an unregulated toxin. It's on the USDA GRAS list (Generally Recognized As Safe). But there is no scientific basis for or against the 'GRAS' listing. It's merely a historic consideration.
• When you compare chronic ethanol exposure (alcoholism) with sugar addiction, the symptoms are very similar because sugar and grain alcohol are mostly metabolized the same way.
• For all the above reasons, the diet concept of 'calories in'-equals-'calories out' does not apply to the modern American diet of processed foods including large quantities of Sugar and HFCS.
• We have not been educated to believe that sugar (sucrose or fructose) can cause addiction, but it does. In this consideration, too, it is not unlike alcohol - some people simply have no control over whether they imbibe it. For some people, sugar addiction, like alcoholism, must be an all or nothing proposition. You can be an alcoholic without being a sugar addict and vice versa.
• Ethanol is an acute toxin. That's why it's regulated.
• Sugar is a chronic toxin, but can be just as addictive. Currently there are no regulations on processed sugary foods.
• What about fruit? That's full of fructose, right? Well it's also full of fiber. Whole fruits also generally contain a number of elements that tell the brain when we've had enough. Straight sugar does not. Fiber (in the whole fruit) generally mitigates the effects of fructose. Fruit juices without the fiber are - sadly - just as toxic as soft drinks.

Most of us on this forum are overweight. Many of us have high blood pressure, hypertension and many other problems that stem partially from SDB, but it would be interesting to see just how much better our SDB would get if we simply stopped eating anything with fructose in it -- including any foods processed with HFCS, cane sugar or beet sugar. For those of us who have stopped eating sugar, whole carbohydrate sources like brown rice that we once thought of as not very sweet take on a sweetness we could not taste before.

Care to try an experiment? How long can you go without sugar, hfcs or other sweetened processed foods? If you're not an alcoholic, you can easily go without a drink for a month right? I can go months without a single drink. I only do it on social occasions like a toast at Thanksgiving. I'm just not interested. I can take it or leave it -- mostly leave it.

But I have trouble going a few days without sugar. Can you go without sugar? Can you? Just try... If you can't, you may want to truly consider whether you have a problem. I really think it's time we all woke up to our secret addiction to sugar.

I'm not saying a little is bad - just like moderation with alcohol. I'm just saying if you cannot control yourself, it's an all-or-nothing thing for you - just like an alcoholic can't have just one drink. And from work by Dufty and others, I suspect that number is about just-under-half of our population. Sugar is the greatest untold secret addiction of history. And we're all involved.

* There are instances where the metabolism of fructose into fat is bypassed. If you just ran a marathon and have no glycogen left in your liver, fructose can be directly metabolized into something useful. Most of us never deplete our glycogen because we're not 'mega' athletes, so the addition of HFCS in sports drinks is for all practical purposes a negative nutrition value - the opposite of useful. It actually hinders us.

** It also raises triglycerides and free fatty acids and dislipidemia that can lead to hepatitis and T2 diabetes.

[xenablue]

Well, I guess I've been on your experiment for the past two weeks. Hubby wanted to shed a few pounds, so we went back to phase I of Atkins plan. This entails 30g carbs per day in the form of fresh vegetables. We've eaten absolutely no sugar, artificial sweeteners, processed food or any unnatural additives. This includes no diet drinks, no caffeine, only 'real' meat and 'good' fats, and only in reasonable portions to avoid hunger.

We both feel more energetic - but is that because we lost quite a few lbs, or due to the low carbs (carbs make you sluggish), or because we gave up all unnatural and/or processed foods?

My guess is the lower carbs - we already eat only natural foods (nothing processed) and low carb (around 75-120/day) and very little artificial sweeteners. But then... sugar is carbs.

Cheers,
xena

[DreamDiver]

My guess is the lower carbs - we already eat only natural foods (nothing processed) and low carb (around 75-120/day) and very little artificial sweeteners. But then... sugar is carbs.

Hi Xena - I bet it's going well! I know it's very hard for me to stop. I did for about two years when I was 22 and then just started eating it again. I find it harder to do now, but am thinking seriously about quitting entirely.

Essentially, not all carbs are equal. Glucose is metabolized by the body in every cell. We actually need it to function. Alcohol is metabolized mostly by the liver and in some portion by the brain - hence the acute and chronic side-effects. It's a known poison we seem to have been dealing with for eons. It's regulated because we recognize its addictive qualities. Processed cane sugar has only been around since the middle ages. Processed fructose has only been around for the last century. Even though it's technically a carbohydrate, our bodies cannot easily metabolize it. Our livers do the job of filtering fructose out of the body and making it into things our body can sort-of deal with: fat, uric acid, etc. The problem is, just about every processed food contains fructose now. We have 'desert' with every meal - not just for occasional holidays. That's a 'tradition' that's only been around since the 1950's - the advent of commercial television.

Soft drinks are as hard for the body to metabolize as grain alcohol, but because there are no acute side effects, the only thing we notice is a general decline in health as the body's defense against poisons finally gives out, eventually causing immune-system failure as other body systems try to make up for the liver's failure to combat the ensuing deluge of toxic carbs. We don't know where to point the finger or whom to blame and chalk it up to 'general body failure' as we age. But we are what we eat...

The soft-drink and fast food industries are slowly killing us.

[VVV]

What about an unflavored Greek yogurt with 22 grams protein and 9 grams carbs? There is no added sugar or artificial sweetener.

I want to try this after heavy workouts. The trainer looked at my workout and told me to eat 20 to 25 grams of protein within 30 minutes of my workouts. Carbs and fat were not mentioned.

The yogurt would be a convenient way to get the protein the trainer recommended. I don't trust the protein bars and shakes - that business seems snake oilish.

[DreamDiver]

What about an unflavored Greek yogurt with 22 grams protein and 9 grams carbs? There is no added sugar or artificial sweetener.

I want to try this after heavy workouts. The trainer looked at my workout and told me to eat 20 to 25 grams of protein within 30 minutes of my workouts. Carbs and fat were not mentioned.

The yogurt would be a convenient way to get the protein the trainer recommended. I don't trust the protein bars and shakes - that business seems snake oilish.

Yogurt usually has sugars like lactose that are also carbohydrates. That's probably where the nine grams of carbs are coming from. But remember, not all carbs are bad. Lactose is a disaccharide, like sucrose, but can be broken down into the simple sugars glucose and galactose. The human body makes lactose as a constituent in milk -- same as other mammals. Because it's involved in normal body metabolism, I doubt lactose is in the class of fructose. It's not a poison.

[Lizistired]

The lactose in milk is the sugar. Just stay away from low fat. Get the full fat and you'll be satisfied, get the energy and it will taste better without additives.

http://www.dlife.com/diabetes/informati ... _Foods.pdf

EAT... Greek yogurt or cottage cheese. A 4-ounce serving of 4% milkfat cottage cheese
has 6 grams of carbs (lower fat varieties will have more), 12 grams of protein, and 120
calories. Full-fat Greek yogurt contains about 4 grams of carbs per 4 ounces, 150 calories,
and 8 grams of protein.

NOT... Low fat fruit yogurt. Eight ounces of fat free, fruit flavored yogurt contains 43 grams
of carbs. Low fat and fat free yogurts are chock-full of hidden carbs and sugar; they need it to
replace the fat! Stick to plain, full-fat yogurts or go for low-carb fruit versions.