Are you sugar smart? Linked to heart attacks, kidney disease, diabetes and other diseases, sugar is to the '90s what cholesterol was to the '80s - includes 9 ways to cope with sugar cravings

American Fitness, March-April, 1991 by Frances Sheridan Goulart

Sugar Smart?

Sugar is the leading food additive in the United States food supply--salt is second. Fifty years ago, 70% of the sugar we used we added at our own discretion. Today 65% of the 70 million tons is put in by food processors. Only 30% is added by the consumer.

What do we do with it all?

Coffee and tea drinking alone accounts for more than 750,000 tons of sugar consumed annually. All told, this amounts to a total of 4 million teaspoons of sugar a day or 2,000 tons of sugar a day that is stirred into tea and coffee cups.

Sugar is hidden in hundreds of foods. Did you know:

* sugar is used by meat packers to feed animals prior to slaughter to improve flavor and color of cured meat?

* sugar (in the form of dehydrated molasses, blended with corn syrup) is added to hamburgers in restaurants to reduce shrinkage?

* the breading on seafood contains sugar?

* canners glaze salmon with a sugar solution before vacuum packing?

* honey solutions are often injected into poultry before frying?

* sugar is used in processing lunch meats, boullion cubes and dry-roasted nuts?

* sugar is used in the processing of beer, wine and other alcoholic beverages?

* sugar goes into the syrup in canned fruits?

* it's in peanut butter and dry cereals (even nonpresweetened cereals such as corn flakes)?

* there is even sugar (dextrose) in salt?

* sugar is a preservative and a flavor enhancer in baked goods? It balances out flavors in canned tomatoes and other vegetables and gives products such as jams and jellies "body."

* sugar keeps foods from drying out and makes ice cream smoother by depressing the freezing point? Further, Glenn Craig, director of public information for Nabisco, Inc., admits although they aren't a dessert, even Nabisco Ritz Crackers contain 6% sweetening in the form of sucrose because "sugar is unmatched when it comes to making products tender and appetizing," according to the International Sugar Research Foundation (ISRF).

The bad news is sugar is as addictive as a drug. "A characteristic of sugar 'binges' is the taste for sweets for some reason leads to a craving for more of the same, just the way other drugs create cravings," says Dr. Frances Stern, a bariatric specialist. "Drugs upset the body's homeostasis (balance) mechanism so completely that, in a struggle to get back to normal, the addict can only take another dose of the same drug. Heroin, cigarettes, coffee, sugar--its the same kind of addiction...," as reported in FDA Consumer, February '88.

The more you have, the more you want, and the more manufacturers provide. According to ISRF, "Tests indicate consumers increasingly want products such as shortbread cookies sweetened until there is about 35% sugar in the finished cookie. Even normally sweetened products such as cottage cheese have better consumer acceptance when sugar is added."

Sugar-Related Illnesses

Sugar is so prevalent it seems it must serve some purpose. However, according to some noted authorities, "there is no physiological need for sucrose and reason to believe sugar, or sucrose, plays a part in several illnesses of civilization. Sugar increases the size of the liver by making the liver cells divide. It also increases the amount of liver fat, increases kidney size and produces pathological changes."

The most common side effect is probably the "sugar blues," which affects 20 million Americans in the form of either low or high blood sugar.

Twenty years ago an examination of 6,000 Yemenite Jews who had never seen or used sugar revealed almost no cases of diabetes, according to research by an Israeli physician, Dr. A.M. Cohen. Then they migrated to Israel. Today, every sixth Yemenite over age 30 is diabetic. The only change in their diet is the "ever increasing amount of sugar they eat, living in Israel."

Diabetes is a disease characterized by too high a level of blood sugar as a result of an inability to produce enough insulin, because of a damaged pancreas. Sugar can damage the pancreas, interfering with the production of insulin. Without this hormone, glucose cannot enter the cells and the balance between glucose and oxygen is upset.

Hypoglycemia is the opposite of diabetes--the pancreas reacts to glucose overload from the input of sugar by producing too much insulin. Over time, insulin overresponse can become constant, which leads to the ultimate exhaustion of the adrenal glands and pancreas. Hypoglycemia is often a precursor to diabetes.

Symptoms that commonly afflict people who eat doughnut-and-coffee-type breakfasts--low in protein and high in caffeine and sugary carbohydrates--include fatigue, nervousness, mental confusion and indecisiveness, says Harvey Ross, president of the International College of Applied Nutrition. This may be followed by the kind of hunger usually associated with a craving for something sweet or starchy. Stimulants/depressants such as caffeine and alcohol also cause this syndrome.

Ninety percent of all sugar-loving hypoglycemics suffer from burnout or depression severe enough to qualify as full-blown schizophrenia or mental illness and require hospitalization, says clinical ecologist Theron G. Randolph and reported in An Alternative Approach to Allergies, 1980.