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In a crash, I am a mess...

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Sugar (sucrose) is a disaccharide, fructose plus glucose. Fructose is a known issue with increasing lactate production, though I only have only seen this as a scientific claim and not definitive evidence (I have had no reason to investigate this). We already have too much lactate during and after activity. In any case its empty energy .. no other nutritive value. At least honey has magnesium and other nutrients, though its otherwise basically broken down sugar. My pet hate though is refined starch. This is a sugar by another name (many glucose molecules end to end), with no nutrition again, but because its called starch its easy to ignore the issue. Some packet soups are loaded with the stuff.

Sugar consumption is linked to heart disease in large epidemiological studies. Its considered in more recent studies to be far more dangerous than saturated fat - in fact some of the epidemiology suggests saturated fat is actually mildly protective of the heart and vascular system. No such claim can be made about sugar.

Having said all that, while I do watch my sugar in diet I don't completely avoid it either. We have a natural craving for sweet things, and many foods that are sweet (including processed foods like chocolate) have some good nutritional properties. Its just empty sugar that is a big issue. If one can tolerate chocolate its loaded with good stuff ... in moderation of course.

Now if I cannot eat, I am too crashed to cook and just swallowing is a chore, then even fizzy soft drinks have value. They have their place. Even a little sugar (not a lot) is better for us than a complete fast.

Then there is this. We have so very little in our lives that is pleasurable. A little sugar treat now and again makes life more bearable.

PS One more thing - some sugars are essential. These are the pentose sugars, including ribose. Without them we will die. So not all sugars are without nutritional value.
 
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Mij

Messages
2,353
There are healthy sugars, coconut nectar, yacon syrup, maple syrup I add this to raw cacao powder (good source of magnesium), add a little bit of coconut oil to harden it up in the fridge and I've got my chocolate craving feel good covered. It's delicious,
 

Misfit Toy

Senior Member
Messages
4,178
Location
USA
@Mij -I love coconut butter. I am not sure what is going on but my stomach always gets upset from it. Maybe it's a yeast die off thing because I know it's good for killing bacteria, but it can really upset my stomach which stinks, because I love it!
 

Mij

Messages
2,353
@Misfit Toy do you eat the coconut butter plain or on any empty stomach, or do you mix it with something? I love coconut butter too but I can't eat it plain, I mix it with almond butter or make home made raw chocolate squares.

I don't know if the coconut butter kills bacteria but I have read that coconut oil has some anti-microbial properties I don't know if that's true though because I eat a gallon bucket of it every 5 months just for myself and I don't feel any different.
 

brenda

Senior Member
Messages
2,266
Location
UK
I know what it is like to have sugar cravings and to get on the wagon and then fall off a few months down the line. I also know how hard it is to already have many restrictions being myself gluten, dairy, soy, alcohol, fermented foods, nightshade free and low carbohydrate. Making my own treats has however, has been the key. There are loads of recipes for raw vegan treats. Using coconut nectar which I love now since quitting maple syrup has been my saviour. Cocao butter has been a revelation though not as healthy as coconut butter or oil though has no caffeine. I have made truffles with coconut oil and they turned out good. I use the buckwheat crackers/cakes as it means I will eat less chocolate.
Two days now without chocolate or coconut nectar and I am sleeping better.

I can easily gorge myself on sugar and it was impossible for me to eat one or two squares of the shop bought chocolate. When I was eating that I could not keep any in the house. Kicking the sugar addiction helped a lot and now I am feeling so much better as my fasting blood sugars have gone down and candida will be losing its grip.

Anyone with a chronic illness imo cannot afford to put nutrient stealers like sugar into their bodies. Or indeed anyone who is heading for old age. It is abusing our bodies, that I know now, but I see that the problem for me was that I had a lot of bad stuff in my life that I needed emotional healing from before I could gain control of what I was eating so maybe emotional support is important with cravings. It took me a long time as I had none.
 

Jonathan Edwards

"Gibberish"
Messages
5,256
I apologise @Jonathan Edwards l did not mean to insult you and quite forgot that we have a retired rheumo here, but you must admit that your training was not about how to get the the body to heal itself through lifestyle changes. Correct?

When I went into rheumatology getting the body to heal itself through lifestyle changes like diet had been popular for over a century and we were just getting round to realising it was a complete waste of time because conventional doctors had been trying it out for decades and the patients were still in wheelchairs! Come off it Brenda. Helping people to heal themselves through lifestyle has always been part and parcel of medical training. It is just that for autoimmune disease it has no effect on the pathology whatever, it just makes life more bearable - in your words - just treats the symptoms.

My time in rheumatology was the time when we realised that we could actually understand the disease and alter it - in some cases cure it permanently, in others stop the damage long term. In my last few years as a rheumatologist I only had two out of about 200 patients in my clinic in a wheelchair and that was from damage done long ago. To go back to 'healing with lifestyle' would be to go back to the nineteenth century.
 

brenda

Senior Member
Messages
2,266
Location
UK
@Jonathan Edwards wrote:

"It is just that for autoimmune disease it has no effect on the pathology whatever".


Here is a Functional medicine doctor who disagrees with you:


Isabel’s lab tests at her first visit with me were frightening. Her muscle enzymes and liver function tests showed severe damage. She had many autoimmune antibodies (anti-nuclear antibodies, rheumatoid factor, anti-SSA, anti-DNA, anti-RNP, lupus anticoagulant), a sign that the levels at which the body was attacking itself were extremely elevated. Other markers of inflammation were extremely high as well. Her white blood count and red blood cell count were low. Her vitamin D was also low. She had elevated levels of antibodies to gluten, which is a common cause of autoimmune disease and triggers significant intestinal inflammation. And her mercury level was extremely high in her urine after a provocation test (the only way to assess total body burden of metals). Normal is less than three. Hers was 33.

At the first visit, I simply put Isabel on an anti-inflammatory elimination diet to remove possible triggers of inflammation from food allergens. She stopped eating sugar, dairy and gluten (from wheat). I gave her a multivitamin; vitamins D, B12, and folate; fish oil; and evening primrose oil all of which are anti-inflammatory. I also gave her nystatin (a non-absorbed anti-fungal) to treat suspected yeast because of her multiple courses of antibiotics. I gave her NAC to support her liver, and told her to get off the acid blocker, the calcium channel blocker, which she used for her Raynaud’s, and the intravenous steroids she had been taking.

After two months her rash was totally gone. She had no joint pain and her hair was growing back. Her autoimmune markers had dramatically improved. Her muscle enzymes, liver function, and level of inflammation were all normal.

http://drhyman.com/blog/2010/10/09/is-there-a-cure-for-autoimmune-disease/#close

The thing is Jonanthan, is that 'changes to diet' and eating a 'healthy diet', can mean a miriad of things to people. But as Dr Hyman demonstrates, it is necessary to remove sugar dairy and gluten before there will be noticeable effects on lab results.
 
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Jonathan Edwards

"Gibberish"
Messages
5,256
@Jonathan Edwards wrote:

"It is just that for autoimmune disease it has no effect on the pathology whatever".

Here is a Functional medicine doctor who disagrees with you:

http://drhyman.com/blog/2010/10/09/is-there-a-cure-for-autoimmune-disease/#close

The thing is Jonanthan, is that 'changes to diet' and eating a 'healthy diet', can mean a miriad of things to people. But as Dr Hyman demonstrates, it is necessary to remove sugar dairy and gluten before there will be noticeable effects on lab results.

Dear Brenda,
If you believe that you will probably believe anything, I fear. He seems to forget that autoimmune diseases very frequently show relapses and remissions so he has no evidence that his treatment did anything - if the case ever existed. This is a tough world in which there are plenty of people who will take your money in exchange for promising the impossible. The experience of rheumatologists is that if you take the approach suggested in your quote people with lupus very often die unnecessarily. Almost everyone with lupus used to die of it before modern treatment was available. The quote is really too scary for me to want to say more. Everyone is allowed to give their opinions but I think it is important to realise just how much sites like PR can be manipulated in ways that can do people an awful lot of harm.
 

brenda

Senior Member
Messages
2,266
Location
UK
i was a chemo RN beofre getting ill. The suggestions to add cream and sugar in the oncologic population is recommended for those who have much trouble maintaining weight and have cachexia. Moreover my mother died of breast cancer when i was 20 years old. She cut sugars and ate a variety of 'healing diets' which did not help one bit. Her cancer kept growing. Not only that, but cancer cells in general are known for using nutrients for replication to the detriments of the host. Cut sugars from your diet, and the cancer will use muscle tissus in order to get the nutrients. Cutting sugar in order to prevent cancer from growing is a myth. Your body and brain needs glucose in order to survive.

Eat whatever you like. Try to eat healthy. Simple.

REPLY:

An increasing number of medical scientists and many alternative practitioners know that the most logical, effective, safe, necessary and inexpensive way to treat cancer is to cut off the supply of food to tumors and cancer cells, starving them with a lack of glucose. The therapeutic strategy for selective starvation of tumors by dietary modification (ketogenic diet) is one of the principle forms of therapy that is necessary for cancer patients to win their war on cancer.

Researchers at Huntsman Cancer Institute in Utah were one of the first to discover that sugar "feeds" tumors. The research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said, "It's been known since 1923 that tumor cells use a lot more glucose than normal cells. Our research helps show how this process takes place, and how it might be stopped to control tumor growth," says Don Ayer, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Oncological Sciences at the University of Utah.

Dr. Thomas Graeber, a professor of molecular and medical pharmacology, has investigated how the metabolism of glucose affects the biochemical signals present in cancer cells. In research published June 26, 2012 in the journal Molecular Systems Biology, Graeber and his colleagues demonstrate that glucose starvation—that is, depriving cancer cells of glucose—activates a metabolic and signaling amplification loop that leads to cancer cell death as a result of the toxic accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS).[1]

http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/cancer-sugar-strategy-selective-starvation-cancer

The answer is simple - you eat more protein (vegetable). Maybe you should read more recent research and get up to date.

It is sad though that many people diagnosed with cancer (maybe all) have been eating the typical western diet and changing to a healthy one, healthy enough that is to start reversing the cancer by strengthening the immune system, have to cope with the stress of the change of diet which will impede their efforts though many do manage it and their testimonies can be found everywhere though denied by the medical/pharma juggernaut for obvious reasons (profit - cancer is big cash cow).

It is unfortunate but a fact of life and is when ones chickens come to roost. Best to get on a cancer prevention diet now.
 

maryb

iherb code TAK122
Messages
3,602
Location
UK
Okay @Misfit Toy so I did a little experiment on your behalf:) only kidding........

My neice dropped some home made Christmas cake off for us 2 days ago, I'd told her not to bake one this year as hubby is also off sugar after a lifetime of sport and sugar:) She's previously made a huge one for him for the past 20yrs. Sat night I had a piece and another one last night, I haven't tasted this type of cake for about 5/6 yrs maybe longer.

So last night I had what I class as a bad rheumatic pain in one of my fingers, making it difficult to bend it properly, this finger is a little turned in (from 20yrs ago) following an accident with a horse, I used to get a lot of pain, but not so for a long, long time, and more importantly the bend of the finger hasn't got any worse, so for me a direct link with sugar, most definitely. I'm sure most won't get reactions like me but if its arthritis then sugar has been linked to increase in symptoms.
 

brenda

Senior Member
Messages
2,266
Location
UK
Everyone is allowed to give their opinions but I think it is important to realise just how much sites like PR can be manipulated in ways that can do people an awful lot of harm.

You never said a truer word. Anyone can do their own research to find the real cases who are curing their autoimmune diseases and taking no money or asking you to buy their books. It's all free online on forums of people with autoimmunity and cancer just like those here, but those which are not being manipulated to think that it is not possible which the medical/pharma juggernaut want us to believe.
 
Messages
10,157
REPLY:



http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/cancer-sugar-strategy-selective-starvation-cancer

The answer is simple - you eat more protein (vegetable). Maybe you should read more recent research and get up to date.

It is sad though that many people diagnosed with cancer (maybe all) have been eating the typical western diet and changing to a healthy one, healthy enough that is to start reversing the cancer by strengthening the immune system, have to cope with the stress of the change of diet which will impede their efforts though many do manage it and their testimonies can be found everywhere though denied by the medical/pharma juggernaut for obvious reasons (profit - cancer is big cash cow).

It is unfortunate but a fact of life and is when ones chickens come to roost. Best to get on a cancer prevention diet now.

Profit made by the alternative therapy crew is also a huge cash cow. Do you think these people who make millions via the alternative route are doing it out of kindness and love -- nope, it's profit too. Profit isn't the reason the medical/pharma juggernaut is denying these things -- it's down to it's scientifically unproven BS being pushed by those making millions by using scare tactics and bad science. There is some really excellent research based stuff out there just as there is for medicine but the sugar is demonic cancer causing idea is not an example of excellent research.

A good diet is always a good thing but it is not a cure for anything except obesity or some nutritional imbalances. I have known some extremely healthy eaters having extremely healthy lifestyles drop dead from cancer. How do you explain that -- no chance to reverse their cancer because they were already doing what they should have been doing re: nutrition. They are all dead.

Would you like to substantiate your comment that all people with cancer are eating a "traditional western diet". Where do you get your information from? Cancer exists in every country on this planet and it is not just down to diet. Or is the whole world now eating a "traditional western diet".

Perhaps @brenda you should do some homework about how the body breaks down sugars for energy. There are naturally occurring sugars in fruits and vegetables, there are sugars and syrups added to our foods during preparation. The body can not tell the difference between naturally occurring sugars and added sugars because the composition is identical. Table sugar (sucrose) and high fructose corn syrup have a similar composition of 50 percent glucose and 50 percent fructose. Natural agave syrup pushed by many natural therapists has 87 percent fructose. The body breaks down any form of sugar to glucose which is the most important thing for the brain to function properly. Sugars are much easier for the body to breakdown than fats.

The problem isn't with sugar itself, it's more of an issue of a person's diet -- too much fat, too much carb, far too many calories from high-fat/high sugar food etc and their level of activity, and their genetics and their environment.

I think it is important to note which foods we do not tolerate well and avoid them. I think most people healthy or not tend to do that anyways. I also think it is important that when we feel like crap that doing something that makes us feel better is a good thing too. So what's wrong with a bit of chocolate, a bowl of ice-cream, or whatever strikes your fancy once in a while. It is called comfort food. There are much worse things we can do to ourselves.

Anyways, @Misfit Toy I am sorry I took your thread further off-topic. I am sorry you are in such a crash. I can only send some hugs your way. I know you have been through a lot and struggle so hard. Hopefully, you will get some relief soon.:):):hug::hug::):)

I think @brenda if you want to keep discussing sugar etc, maybe you should start a new thread because telling people they are going to die from cancer because of their diet is not exactly conducive to this topic. :)
 

lansbergen

Senior Member
Messages
2,512
I also think it is important that when we feel like crap that doing something that makes us feel better is a good thing too. So what's wrong with a bit of chocolate, a bowl of ice-cream, or whatever strikes your fancy once in a while. It is called comfort food. There are much worse things we can do to ourselves.

I agree.
 

Mij

Messages
2,353
I don't want to hi- jack MT thread, but I want to say this, I became ill AFTER I changed to healthy wholesome diet. So healthy eating did not even prevent me from becoming ill 23yrs ago.
 
Messages
2,565
Location
US
I don't think eating sugar will give most of us a significant short-term effect. But I feel cane sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and some other sweeteners have long-term serious effects. I have read articles about cane sugar impacting health nearly as much as wheat. Giving up HFCS may have more significant short-term effect.

I do the same as Brenda - gave up white sugar and brown sugar and some others (in addition to gluten, corn, cow's milk, soy, etc). Instead use birch-based xylitol or coconut nectar to make easy homemade treats.

I certainly can understand if someone cannot spare a little more time or money, or simply doesn't want to go that far.

I believe everyone should seriously try elimination of all the major problematic foods sometime but that it can take years and some people cannot if they have no carer(s). I have been unable to test one major allergen but over 4 years, I've tested most others.
 

Mij

Messages
2,353
@SickOfSickness I agree with you. But, what Brenda is linking us to believe is that eating healthier will cure illness, let alone prevent it.

Eliminating certain food can lessen or rid symptoms for sure.
 

Misfit Toy

Senior Member
Messages
4,178
Location
USA
Well, yesterday I had a salad, a cupcake, homemade chicken soup and then straight out of the bag....nestle toll house morsels. Can't be good for me! I took magnesium and also some diflucan. This morning I did 2 larger than life bowel movements and it's probably from the diflucan killing the yeast from all of the sugar I had.

I gotta change this. I just threw all of the chocolate out. I seriously am addicted to sweets. It's my addiction and I know...it can't be helping me. If anything, it messes with insulin and hormones and causes rapid adrenal swings.

So, cutting down on it, I will.
 
Messages
3,263
@brenda, also at the risk of derailing misfit's thread, I am so tired of being blamed for my illness - whether its because I didn't eat right, exercised too much/little, didn't get in touch with my inner pain, anger, etc., etc. Whether you have ME or cancer, to be told any of these things is the cause of your illness is just another way of shifting the blame back on to us. And setting us up with false hope that changing said lifestyle will lead to recovery. We here know it doesn't!

Why do we feel the need to find a lifestyle cause for every damn illness under the sun? What's wrong with just accepting that stuff happens for reasons that are very likely well out of our control? I think perhaps that upsets some people, who like the idea we can control our heath completely by behaving in the "right" way. At best, this idea leads to false hope, at worst, it is using the very real pain of people with illness as polemic for a particular view of how best to live. (not saying you think any of this yourself, brenda; this is more an expression of my general frustration)

Sure, follow research on diet, etc to maximise wellbeing. But let's not expect too much of diet as a "cure" for all our ills.

For those who share my exasperation, enjoy this brief clip ("Storm" an animated poem by Tim Minchin). @Jonathan Edwards, I think you might enjoy this too if you haven't already seen it!