SUGAR 10 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW! With thanks to for their wonderful picture. See their website for more info.

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1 SUGAR 10 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW! With thanks to for their wonderful picture. See their website for more info.

2 Sugar 10 reasons it s not your best friend! Sugar - We love it and we are eating more and more of it, in sweets, in biscuits, in coca cola and fizzy drinks; it s now ubiquitous in our diets and is so much a part of most people s lifestyle that we never think about any negative effects it might be having. Before going into the detail of how sugar affects us, it s important to understand exactly what sugar is. Refined sugar sucrose which is what we sprinkle over our cereals, add to coffee, tea, hot drinks, puddings, biscuits, cakes, ready-made meals and anything that can be called a convenience food is made up of one molecule of glucose and one molecule of fructose, (in other words, 50% of each). Sugar also refers to high fructose corn syrup (HFCS] which has been used as a replacement for sugar and has been promoted as a healthy alternative (It is 55% fructose and 45% glucose). It s an ingredient in fizzy drinks, cereal bars etc. Unfortunately, it s now recognised as being no better than sugar and has exactly the same physiological effects as sugar. It used to be thought that all forms of sugar were treated in exactly the same way by the body and that it didn t matter in what form you ate it. We now know that fructose and glucose are metabolisd in completely different ways the fructose component of sugar [from cane or beet] and high fructose corn syrup [55% fructose] is metabolised by the liver whereas glucose is metabolised by every cell in the body. This demonstrates that the fructose concentration of what you eat will determine how the sugar is broken down by your body. This has implications for your health and your skin.

3 It s now important to understand that when we talk about sugar we also have to talk about insulin and here s where the top 10 reasons start as to why sugar does us no favours, contrary to what the advertising tells us. 1. Sugar raises insulin levels You secrete insulin in response to the foods you eat, especially when that food is sugary and sweet. Your body does this to control your blood sugar levels. When you eat a Kit Kat, a Mars bar, Ice cream or anything sweet (and totally delicious of course!), your pancreas releases insulin which forces blood glucose levels to fall as the glucose is moved into the cells. If you eat a lot of sugary foods, then your pancreas has to work extremely hard pumping out insulin to keep your blood sugar levels under control. Over time this constant production of insulin produces what s known as insulin resistance, which at its simplest is the result of the cells becoming less able to respond to insulin, so your blood glucose levels go up and your pancreas pumps out more and more insulin to try and bring them down. In the short term this can lead to weight gain especially around the waist. If the situation continues for long enough, you get pancreatic exhaustion and the pancreas can no longer produce insulin. You ve now got diabetes. Eating sugary foods can give you a sugar rush that can make you feel nervous, anxious and on edge and has the effect of stimulating the brain to crave more sugar so it s highly addictive.

4 2. Insulin resistance and sugar is implicated in cancer Many researchers in the field of cancer consider that insulin resistance and the increase in insulin can promote tumour growth. Cancer cells take up glucose at a much higher rate than healthy cells. This is a unique property of cancer cells and the principle is used in PET scans (positron emission technology) whereby radioactive glucose is injected into patients before the scan and is then seen to be taken up by the glucosehungry tumour cells. The world health organisation has stated that the risk of getting cancer is increased with obesity and diabetes. 3. Insulin stimulates your adrenal system. It gets more complicated - each time your blood glucose levels fall [in response to insulin] your adrenal system responds with cortisol. Cortisol makes the insulin resistance even worse because it prevents the insulin from working properly which means your blood sugar levels remain high which forces the pancreas to release even more insulin to deal with it. In other words, it s a vicious circle. When your blood sugar levels fall and cortisol is released, this can lead ultimately to adrenal exhaustion. How many people do you know who eat lots of chocolate and biscuits who say they need it to give them energy but who wake up tired and are permanently exhausted?

5 The long term consequence of adrenal exhaustion is that you can end up with low levels of cortisol which lowers your metabolic rate, makes you feel extremely tired and gives you cravings for more sugar. 4. Sugar uses all your minerals and B vitamins for its metabolism Essential B vitamins and minerals [calcium, phosphorus, chromium, magnesium cobalt, zinc and manganese] are depleted to metabolise sugar so there are less available nutrients to feed your skin. Every time you eat sugar you deplete your body of magnesium, zinc and chromium because they are both needed to make insulin and every time you eat sugar, your body has to produce insulin. Insulin is the one and only hormone we have that reduces blood sugar/blood glucose levels. Insulin stores magnesium and you need magnesium to make insulin. If you become insulin resistant you no longer store magnesium but lose it through urination. Magnesium is calming and helps to relax muscles and you need it for all energy producing reactions that take place in the cell. Think of all the people you know who are wired to the national grid from all the sugar they eat, they could well be lacking in essential minerals.

6 5. Sugar and vitamin C compete for space Sugar has a very similar molecular structure to Vitamin C and displaces it from its proper binding sites which means that Vitamin C is not available for collagen production or your immune system. Sugar and vitamin C compete for a place in white blood cells.. If there is more glucose than vitamin C, glucose enters the cell and not vitamin C. This means that the white blood cells of the immune system can be severely compromised. Unlike nearly all other mammals, humans don t make vitamin C, we must take it in through our diet. Eating even 100gm glucose, fructose, sucrose, honey or fruit juice, all significantly reduce the ability of Neutrophils to engulf and destroy bacteria. Since neutrophils constitute 60-70% of your total circulating white blood cells, this can have a big impact on your health and immune system. 6. Sugar AGES you! Sugar, the white stuff you put in your coffee and in particular high fructose corn syrup in many convenience foods, is sticky and it literally sticks to proteins in the body to form what are called advanced glycated end products with a very appropriate acronym, AGEs. This process is called glycation, Glycation can be described as the binding of a protein molecule to a glucose molecule resulting in the formation of damaged protein structures, it is not reversible and it damages the structure of proteins, such as collagen so that your immune system, in the form of macrophages, then has to remove the damaged protein and the body then has to produce more collagen. But because sugar competes with vitamin C which you need for Collagen production, you can t make more!

7 To summarise: Sugar causes glycation which produces damaged proteins such as collagen; sugar depletes you of vitamin C so you can t produce more collagen and it depletes your immune system so you can t produce the macrophages to remove the damaged protein, which then builds up with an accumulation of AGEs to cause inflammation. Inflammation Sugar Glycation AGEs Damaged proteins [Collagen] Sugar Vitamin C Immune system Sugar Vitamin C Inability to make more Collagen

8 7. Sugar and the resulting insulin stimulates cells to divide and proliferate so therefore it increases the rate of ageing of a cell. This includes skin cells and the more a cell divides, the faster it ages. + Sugar makes your system too acidic; during the refining process, substances such as sulfur dioxide, milk of lime, carbon dioxide, charcoal, and calcium carbonate are used to purify the sugar but which are acidic and toxic for your body. This has a knock on effect to your skin. 8. Sugar wreaks havoc on your libido! Sugar and the glycaemic load of your diet [how fast your blood sugar and insulin levels rise] interferes with how enzymes function and how hormones are made. Insulin controls something called sex hormone binding globulin which binds to our sex hormones making them unavailable to use. So this means that oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone are all affected by the amount of sugar we eat and the insulin response it provokes. Hormone imbalances are easily seen in the skin; having acne or even just spots and pimples around puberty is quite common and as women get older and have less

9 oestrogen, this is reflected in both skin tone and loss of libido. So it makes sense to try and keep as much oestrogen in circulation as possible! 9. Sugar/Insulin raises cholesterol levels Now we know that we have to consider sugar and insulin as a marriage, it s time to say that insulin can be responsible for high cholesterol levels. About 25%-30% of our cholesterol we make ourselves and about 10% is made in the liver. High insulin levels can result in high triglycerides (LDL), high blood pressure and low HDL (the good cholesterol). It s now known that a high intake of fructose and high fructose corn syrup is converted by the liver into fat and fats are implicated in heart disease. Remember that your body metabolises fructose in a different way from glucose. Fructose is converted into free fatty acids (FFAs) and VLDL (the bad form of cholesterol) and triglycerides, which get stored as fat. These fatty acids accumulate as fat droplets in your liver and skeletal muscle tissues, causing insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. 10. Sugar causes inflammation High insulin, high cholesterol, high levels of Advanced Glycated End products (AGEs)all produce inflammation. Inflammation is now known to play a large part in the degenerative and ageing process. It means that tissues are damaged and therefore can cause the production of free radicals.

10 A marker for inflammation C Reactive Protein - is now part of routine blood testing by doctors because it s recognised as being a risk factor for heart disease, strokes and it s a predictor of Type 11 diabetes. It should now be very clear just how damaging sugar is! In fact, the single most important factor that accelerates ageing is insulin, which is triggered by sugar. You simply cannot expect to have any chance at all of reversing or even slowing down the ageing process if you eat sugar. Fortunately, the body has an amazing ability to heal itself when given the right ingredients to work with. Cutting out sugar and reducing your insulin response can give huge health benefits as well as help with having gorgeous skin!

11 REFERENCES Dominic SC, Choudhury D, Welbourne TC, Levi M. Advanced glycation end products: a nephrologist's perspective. Am J Kidney Disease 2000;35(3): Haynes A. J. The Insulin Factor, 2004 Kozlovsky, A., et al. Effects of Diets High in Simple Sugars on Urinary Chromium Losses. Metabolism. June 1986;35:515_518 Cerami, A., Vlassara, H., and Brownlee, M. "Glucose and Aging." Scientific American. May 1987:90. Lee, A. T. and Cerami, A. The Role of Glycation in Aging. Annals of the New York Academy of Science; 663:63-67 Robert Lustig MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology seminar Gutteridge J.M.C, Halliwell B Antioxidant in nutrition, health and disease Oxford University Press