The killer we love to love

We all know that we’re eating too much sugar. Governments across the world are fighting a loosing battle to reign-in our appetite for the delicious snacks that are causing us to gain those extra pounds.

Apparently we should only have about 1 Teaspoons of sugar circulating in the body at any one time. Your average soft drink may contain in the region of 1 teaspoon per fluid oz. Drink one can of your favourite soft-drink and you’ve probably consumed about 40g of sugar. This is toxic for your body.

In order to remove the sugar from the blood stream and get it into the cells you body releases insulin. When you’re healthy and active the first place it goes is to muscle and liver cells as you have an increased capacity to store the sugar in glycogen. However, if you’re less active then you have a lower glycogen storage capacity and the sugar will go to fat cells. The result of this is weight gain and obesity.

Obviously, depending on your metabolism you may respond differently – you might not get fat. You may develop other diseases such as diabetes, experience lack of energy due to hypoglycemic issues, inflammation and even cancer.

We often hear of cancer patients told to “eat whatever you want” and just ensure they get “enough calories” to help their body survive the rigours of their treatment. There’s a problem here; cancer cells are known to be sugar-hungry; they are quick to take up the sugar available in the bloodstream.

Even a PET-scan, use to detect the size and location of cancerous tumours, gives the game away. It works by tracking the location of special radioactive glucose molecules. Molecules that are most rapidly absorbed by the cancer cells!

It is important to keep your body sensitive to insulin by reducing the amount of sugar you consume. This will simultaneously help in reducing weight gain, reducing the inflammatory process in the body and your risk of cancer.

Your diet does significantly affect your overall health and cancer risk. As much as we hate to admit it, the sugar we love is slowly killing us.