February is Heart Month

New studies have shown that sugar can impact heart health, regardless of other health concerns like obesity or diabetes. When sugar is ingested, your body reacts by releasing insulin. This spike in insulin when occurring continuously, starts to take a toll on the lining of your blood vessels and arterial walls, leaving them inflamed. Daily consumption of sugar which can hover at a high level all day will cause your heart health to plummet.
According to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine, people who consumed more than 21% of their daily calories from added sugar were at double the risk of death from heart disease than those who consumed less than 10% of calories from added sugars. That means something as simple as an extra shake from the drive-thru—containing 50 grams of sugar, on average— is enough to double your daily intake. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, approximately 37% of the added sugar in Americans’ diets comes from sugar-sweetened beverages like sodas and juices. (You would think drinking a glass of orange juice would be healthy but it is not at 24 grams of sugar in an 8 ounce bottle.)
It’s important to note that the findings were consistent across age groups, sex, physical-activity levels, weights and other dietary habits. This is significant because it is unlike other health threats whose probability can be based on things like genetics and gender.

Sugar pseudonyms are more common than you might think, so when reading a label watch for: barley malt, beet sugar, brown sugar, cane or date sugar, cane-juice crystals, pure sugar cane juice, evaporated cane juice, dried cane juice, caramel, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), dextran, diastaste, fruit juice or concentrate, golden sugar or syrup, raw sugar, refiner’s syrup, sorghum, turbinado sugar, yellow sugar, invert sugar, malt syrup, rice syrup, maltodextrin, and all ingredients ending in “-ose” such as sucrose, dextrose, glucose, maltose, lactose, ethyl maltose, fructose, and levulose.  Oh, and that also means agave. Agave, which is naturally sweeter than sugar, has also recently been linked to cardiovascular disease, as well as diabetes and miscarriage during pregnancy.

There is also a problem with the fructose found in honey and maple syrup. These sweeteners should be used with caution especially those people following a Paleo diet. They are not a free pass. Watch the youtube video by Dr. Robert Lustig "Sugar The Bitter Truth"

One thing most people don’t realize about sugar is that it begs the old “the chicken or the egg” question: Which came first, the craving or the consumption? Too much sugar in your system can cause Candida to grow out of control, and this normally harmless yeast can easily become an invasive resident. Candida needs sugar to reproduce, so the more sugar (and carbohydrates) you eat, the more you will crave. While everybody knows your waistline suffers, the new study illuminates the fact that your heart will too.

Sugar has snuck in the backdoor and is robbing our health blind. With our attention averted elsewhere, sugar has ravaged our physical well-being in the form of obesity, diabetes, poor dental health, digestive challenges, and now the threat to heart health has officially been added to the list—and in serious fashion. The safest way to dodge added sugar is to enjoy whole foods with as little processing as possible.

Healthy life,
Suzanne