SOS (stop only sugar) diet.

• Author: Surrell, James A.
• Position: HEALTH BEAT

THE AMOUNT OF SUGAR consumed every day in the U.S. has an extremely negative impact on our health. Sugar is the primary dietary cause of high cholesterol; the overweight and obesity epidemic; pre-diabetes (86,000,000 people); and type 2 diabetes (28,000,000 individuals). Moreover, pre- and type 2 each doubles the risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease, while cutting life expectancy by three and seven years, respectively. Heavy sugar consumption also leads to an increased risk of depression, hypertension (high blood pressure), and heart disease.

Average per person sugar intake in the U.S. is 150 pounds per year, which breaks down to about three pounds a week, or 42 teaspoons a day. This usually is in the form of sucrose (table sugar) or high fructose com syrup. No wonder about two-thirds of those 20 or older and one-third of those 19 or younger are considered overweight or obese.

Much of our food and drink contains large amounts of refined sugar. Every drop of any form of sugar we eat or drink either will be used for current energy needs or stored in our body--in our internal sugar warehouse--for future energy needs (in other words, fat). The human body has about 100 trillion cells, and every one of them needs a source of energy, or fuel, to keep working. That fuel is glucose, the most basic form of biochemical sugar.

When we ingest excess sugar, our body figures we must be going to swim across the ocean or run a marathon, so it converts the sugar to glucose in the digestive tract and distributes it to the cells for use as energy. Once our immediate energy needs are satisfied, the body then has to do something with all that refined sugar we just ate or drank. Because sugar is an energy source, our body never will eliminate any of the sugar we eat or drink. Instead, it is stored. The good news is that, when you lower your sugar intake, the body bums fat stored in the sugar warehouse.

For years, we have been told to follow a low-cholesterol diet. The thinking was that, if we ate cholesterol, it would raise our blood cholesterol. Medical science has proven this to be false. Nearly all of the cholesterol--which is essential for life--in our body and bloodstream is manufactured in the liver. In fact, we cannot live without cholesterol because the human body needs it to make our cell walls and Vitamin D, as well as manufacture our internal steroids, hormones, and bile.

Here is how the sugar we consume raises our cholesterol: when...