Death By Sugar

Everyone should be afraid of it. It’s the seventh leading cause of death listed on U.S. death certificates. It’s total deaths are projected to rise by more than 50% in the next 10 years. It’s diabetes.

One of the major contributors to diabetes is sugar; not natural sugars such as fruit and honey, but white, granulated, 99.9% pure sucrose sugar. This type of sugar started as an ingredient of the rich, seeing big increases in consumption during the mid and late 1700s. However, sugar became an ingredient of all classes most likely due to lower classes imitating the upper class.

Unfortunately, sugar is addictive and consuming more sugar means consuming more calories. More calories means more weight and more weight means more resistance to insulin. Prolonged resistance to insulin leads directly to diabetes.

People need to be aware! The American Heart Association recommends no more than 100 calories per day (about 6 teaspoons) of sugar for women. For men, it’s 150 calories per day (about 9 teaspoons). If we want to reverse the diabetes epidemic we should cut out processed sugars from our diet and teach our children about the dangers of sugar.