Sugar: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

It is interesting that the majority of nutritional books start with the role sugar, or more specifically carbohydrates play in the body.

The Good:

Physiology 101:

At rest, the metabolism of the brain accounts for 15% the total metabolism of the body even though the brain weights roughly 2% the mass of the body. This means that brain metabolism is about 7.5 times higher than the average for the rest of the body. This energy glutton is satiated mainly by glucose, glucose is brain food and the brain depends on the blood supply for its constant stream of sugar. Unlike muscle cells, the brain has a very small buffer reserve of glucose, stored in the form of glycogen. Ceteris parabis (all things being equal) cut off the supply of glucose in the blood and the brain will survive for less than 2 minutes.

So the even and critical supply of glucose is supplied via the circulatory system in the blood. The blood sugar levels are directly influenced by what you eat and by how efficiently the body can shuttle the sugar too and from its internal stores. Excess sugar in the blood is transported to liver and muscle cells by a hormone known as insulin. When blood sugar gets too high, the pancreas secretes insulin and this facilitates the transport of glucose into the liver and muscle cells. If there is too much glucose and the liver and muscles stores are full, insulin then stores glucose in adipose (fat) tissue.

The liver is an Important buffer organ which initially stores up to two thirds of the glucose absorbed from the gut and then later, as glucose stores are used up and blood glucose starts to drop, it releases glucose steadily back into the blood.

The Bad:

Millions of years of natural selection have adapted our bodies to extract the most nutritional value from a variety of non-artificial food sources. The sugars in fruit are balanced with vitamins and fiber to slow the glucose absorption making for longer lasting energy foods with far greater nutritional value. In the modern world we have a huge variety of “artificial” or refined sugars that put massive strain on the body, have lasting and serious side effects and give very little back in the way of vitamins or nutrients.

Refined sugars have a very powerful shock effect on the body, especially in children where it can leave them see-sawing between highs and lows leaving them with a range of very potent psychological effects from hyperactivity to ratty, tired and unable to concentrate. This is especially noticeable in schools where children are able to buy junk foods like doughnuts, chocolates and fizzy drinks. In the United States, schools with outsourced lunch programs have noticed dramatic drops in delinquent behaviour and attention deficit problems when they switched from cheap junk foods to more nutritious and wholesome foods.

What makes refined sugars so bad?

Apart from having no nutritional value, refined sugars break down very quickly in the body leaving an excess of glucose floating around in the blood. This creates a panic situation in the body where the pancreas releases a large amount of insulin to compensate and try and store some of the glucose. Often there is overcompensation on the part of the body, glucose levels can actually drop below their baseline levels and this leaves the brain with too little glucose.

I have a five year old and have been to enough children’s parties to notice the effects of refined sugar on little kids. At first they are all tearing around like Duracell bunnies but then as the effects of the sugar wear off, they all drop like stones. By the end of the party, the initial joviality has deteriorated very often into irritability, tears, sleepiness and nausea. Parents very often downplay these symptoms seeing it more as their children having “played hard” than the damaging effects of sugar overload.

The Ugly:

The shock effect on the body from the foods we eat are having a very damaging effect on the health of our global society. Type 2 Diabetes is on the increase worldwide and many experts agree that the causal factors have much to do with poor lifestyle habits especially dietary.

How to Help The Health of Your Family:

Children are especially susceptible to the effects of refined sugars. The goal of any responsible parent is to slowly start decreasing the refined sugars in your child’s diet and replace them with nutritional sources of carbohydrates with slower releasing sugars.

Here are some practical tips around today’s topic on sugar that can have dramatic effects, both on a physical and mental level, on your child.

1. Never skip breakfast. It is not an old wives tale that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. After a period of fasting during sleep, the body needs to replenish vital glucose stocks. Breakfast is the meal that will stand as the nutritional foundation for the rest of the day. Build a poor foundation and don’t be surprised if the walls come down.
2. Eat a nutritional breakfast. Throw out the white bread and the sweetened cereals and don’t buy into the marketing hype about corn flakes or sugar coated pops (with added vitamins) being a good start to the day. This is rubbish as we will see a little later in an example case study. We will look a little later at glycaemic load of foods and what foods to avoid. For now feed your child some fresh fruit followed by any combination of the following: rolled oats porridge, fish, lightly poached or scrambled eggs (not fried!) and brown or wholewheat bread or toast.
3. Slowly replace refined sugars with better sugars. Fructose is an ideal sugar replacement and is available in most pharmacies and health shops. Fructose is a more complex molecule than glucose and although it will eventually be broken down into glucose, it will do so slowly creating a better more sustained release. Fructose, in my humble opinion, is also a far nicer sweetener than sugar. Also try and stay away from other high release sugars such as honey and syrup.
4. Lunch time and Fruit. Limit access to rubbish foods. If your child is at school and does not have the money to buy chocolates and fizzy drinks but rather has a nutritional and delicious packed lunch then that is far better. Rather than giving a jam sandwich offer a whole-wheat one with peanut butter (preferably unsweetened). Give your child fresh fruit and/or vegetables at every meal. A tip here is buying your fruit on the weekend, chop it up, add a little orange juice to preserve it and put it in the fridge. This will act as a very good and convenient source of fruit for your children and takes the preparation time hassle out of supplying the fruit.
5. Avoid artificial or sweetened drinks. Children very often prefer plain water by choice however if they are hankering for juice then provide pure 100% fruit juice half diluted with water (should be as little preservative as possible – if the expiry date says good until 2010 then it’s a no no).
6. Watch for signs of glucose imbalance. Children, especially active children do not have the reserves that adults do and as such they are often prone to nutritional dips throughout the day. If your child starts to play up and get irritable an hour or two before meals then top them up with some fruit or a slice of delicious seed bread and natural butter. Very often the bodies’ desire for glucose will leave the child asking for juice or sweets and that is a warning sign.
7. Top them up after sports. This ties in nicely with point 6, when picking your child up from sports, take a banana or sandwich along – this will help top up the reserves of glucose used up from the muscle and liver reserves and prevent a glucose imbalance related problem.

In Conclusion

Let’s take a look at a little case study. Eric is in primary school and his parents have been warned about possible concentration problems and hyperactive behaviour. The head mistress recommends that Eric’s parents consult their family physician about a possible course of Ritalin.

Examining Eric’s diet we see a disturbing pattern emerge. Eric’s parents, often in a rush to get to work on the whole provide their child with a bowl of corn-flakes (very fast releasing). To this Eric adds two or three heaped spoons of sugar and another for good measure in his tea. Eric drinks normal tea which has the stimulant caffeine as well as tannins which can block the absorption of nutrients in the gut.

This is Eric’s foundation.

The body breaks the food down very quickly and the blood stream becomes flooded with sugar. The pancreas panics and starts secreting insulin at a massive rate. The body fills up as much of is internal reserves (liver and muscle) as possible and then starts converting the excess to fat.

Halfway through the morning Eric’s blood glucose is too low. He gets a headache, gets ratty and cannot concentrate in his lessons. His behaviour now is a disruptive influence in the class room and he is not alone amongst his peers. In classrooms that swell in size every year this is a huge problem. Teachers, often in desperation, call for drugs like Ritalin to restore a little order.

Break (recess) is near and Eric’s body craves glucose. He is desperate to get his hands on that Coke and Mars bar. Eric’s parents provide him with recess money as they are in too much of a rush in the morning to make him lunch.

At recess Eric buys the hot-dog (on a white roll), the Coke or Fanta and the chocolate. Once again his system is flooded with glucose (which temporarily satiates the bodies craving). The body once again reacts in shock to control the massively elevated blood sugar levels and the cycle is repeated again.

Without flogging this example, you can now see just how detrimental refined sugars can be. As a parent it is your responsibility to take control of what your children eat. If you lead hectic work lives, prepare food the night before or on weekends. There is no excuse to send your children out on a rickety nutritional foundation.

For next time

Next time we will look at the concept of Glycaemic Load and what foods are good and what foods are bad. We will also touch briefly on how to combine your foods to better nutritional effect.

Thanks

Stuart

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