How Does Sugar Affect the Human Body?

Sugar is one of the basic substances that can upset homeosta­sis. I don't even call it a food. It is a chemical our bodies can­not utilize or digest well. When I say sugar, I don't simply mean table sugar, but also raw sugar, brown sugar, turbinado sugar, glucose, maple syrup, honey, fructose, rice syrup, bar­ley malt, corn syrup, dextrose, and dextrine as well.

These simple sugars get into the bloodstream very quickly after being swallowed. They need very little diges­tion, and they do not have to go all the way through the nor­mal digestive path. Some simple sugar can be absorbed right under the tongue. It is the speed as well as the quantity that gets into the bloodstream and causes the upset. The more sugar consumed, the more upset the body chemistry can be­come.

Dr. Melvin Page was one of the first to prove that eating sugar changes the calcium/phosphorus ratio in the blood and, therefore, changes the whole body chemistry. A simple blood test before and after eating sugar showed that calcium and phosphorus change their relationship to each other, with the calcium usually going up and the phosphorus going down. Page continued to monitor the calcium /phosphorus ra­tio for as long as forty-eight hours after the ingestion of sugar. He found that some people would stay out of homeostasis for more than twenty-four hours after eating sugar.

Page was not the only one to find this relationship be­tween sugar and the loss of homeostasis. Other researchers have found that not only an excess of calcium, but also mag­nesium is secreted into the urine after glucose ingestion. When an excess is excreted in this way, the chemical makeup is changed and the body chemistry is upset. In Czechoslova­kia, researchers found that excessive amounts of sucrose dis­turbed the metabolism of all the minerals.

The Department of Nutritional Science at the University of Connecticut studied the blood samples of people before and after they ingested two grams of sucrose per kilogram of body weight. That would be equivalent to twenty-nine tea­spoons of sugar for a person weighing 150 pounds. Sugar consumption increased the level of insulin in the blood and reduced the level of phosphorus. Urinary excretion of zinc and sodium was also increased as a result of this sugar inges­tion. The researchers concluded that a high sugar intake in­hibits calcium from the kidneys and increases their urinary excretion. It certainly upsets the body chemistry.

You can be putting the right amount of calcium into your body, but when eaten with sugar, that calcium will not ab­sorb efficiently. Dr. J. B. Orr showed that rickets, a calcium deficiency generally found in children, could be induced by the use of sweetened condensed milk. He felt that this defi­ciency was caused by the "dilution" of the minerals in the original milk as a result of the sweetening.

Orr didn't understand that all minerals work in relation to each other, but he did understand that the calcium in this sweetened condensed milk could not be utilized by the body. He also found it fascinating that the dilution of the minerals in no way affected the caloric content of the milk, which stayed the same, sweetened or unsweetened.

Dr. Joseph Schneider goes on to say that, "The ills often laid at the doors of sucrose and other highly refined carbohy­drates are more properly explainable on the grounds that they act as a dilutant of the necessary mineral content of the food." The information is out there. It is no secret.

The main abuser of sugar within the food industry is the soft drink industry. Americans drink an average of 380 sug­ared soft drinks a year per person. Each of those soft drinks has approximately ten teaspoons of sugar. Therefore, in soft drinks alone we consume almost eleven teaspoons of sugar per day per person.

You might be surprised to know how many other food items have sugar in them. Start reading labels; you'll find sugar listed on the labels of bacon, pastrami, packaged pizza, salt, hot dogs, bologna, NutraSweet, non-dairy creamers, canned vegetables, and breads, to name just a few. Sugar is a cheap filler at thirty-five cents a pound, but that's not the only reason it is so widely used. Manufacturers know that the sweetness is addicting and keeps us coming back for more. They want us to get hooked on their products and buy more.

There's no doubt about it: sugar tastes good! If I had my choice today, I'd rather sit down to a pound of chocolate than my vegetables, but I don't because I know what it does to my body.