Lethal Fructose - Teenagers Staggering Consumption

Back in 1977, average daily consumption of fructose was about 37 grams per person per day.

Recent surveys show that it's up to 54.7 grams, or about 10 percent of total caloric intake. And for teenagers- who consume a ton of sodas- fructose intake averages a whopping 72.8 grams, the equivalent of 18 spoonfuls of the stuff every single day.

Why should we care? It's deadly. Fructose is one of the worst sweeteners you can possibly consume.

Table sugar (sucrose) is made up of fructose and glucose. Studies that compare the effect of these two simple sugars (glucose and fructose) consistently show that it is the fructose part of table sugar that does the most damage, raising triglycerides and creating insulin resistance.

High-fructose corn syrup- while it's been demonized a lot recently- is only marginally worse than plain old sugar (high fructose corn syrup is about 55% fructose and 45% glucose while table sugar contains equal amounts of both).

Recently, researchers at the Department of Physiology at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland decided to investigate the effect of a high-fructose diet on the children of diabetic patients. Twenty-four healthy young men were enrolled in the study; 16 of them were children of diabetic parents, 8 were not.

In the first part of the study, all of the 24 young men were fed a "regular diet" and in the second part, they were switched to a diet that added 35% more calories from fructose.

The researchers expected that the children of diabetics might be more susceptible to disorders associated with insulin and fat metabolism, so there was reason to expect that the children of diabetic parents would be particularly vulnerable to the effects of a high fructose diet.

And indeed, the children of diabetic parents did start the study with higher levels of triglycerides and lower levels of insulin sensitivity. But the fructose caused havoc not only in the children of diabetics, but in the children of non-diabetics as well.

In other words, high fructose is bad for everyone.

The high-fructose diet decreased insulin sensitivity in both groups (by about 5%).

It also increased blood levels of triglycerides by a whopping 110 % in the children of diabetics. But the children of diabetics were not the only ones affected: the high-fructose diet increased triglycerides by a stunning 50% in the children of non-diabetic patients as well!

It gets worse. In both groups, deposits of fat in the liver increased by more than 75%.

To me, fructose is like fur. Fur looks great on its original owners- it belongs on the backs of animals where it looks just fine, thank you very much! On the backs of people at the opera…. Not so much..

It's the same thing with fructose!

Fructose belongs in fruit, where it is surrounded by fiber, phytochemicals, vitamins, minerals and other good stuff. Extracted from its natural source and concentrated as a sweetener, it's a metabolic disaster.

I have no problem with consuming fructose in fruit (unless you are a diabetic or very insulin resistant). I have a huge problem with extracting fructose from its normal sources, producing cheap fructose-based syrups made from corn, and then sticking it in every food and food product in the supermarket.

That's a recipe for disaster.

By the way, my personal favorite sweetener is Xylitol. It mixes great in hot beverages, stands up to heat, is sweeter than sugar, has a very very low glycemic impact, and actually has some health benefits, preventing bacterial adhesion to surfaces.

Save this week with 15% off Xylitol - read about it here

Reference:
J Clinical Nutrition 09; 89: 1760-1765

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Why Food Companies Fear Jonny Bowden - Dirty Nutrition Volume 2

Meathead Breakfast

Q: What's the perfect breakfast for the hardcore weight-training dude?

A: Call me old fashioned, but I still can't see how you can improve much on oatmeal mixed with eggs and protein powder.

That's what the old timers at Gold's in Venice used to eat and they weren't exactly 98-pound weaklings. They'd bring Tupperware bowls full of the stuff, which, by the way, travels really nicely when you make it up at home.

If you're into minimal cooking you can also try one of my favorite egg dishes: Warm up some butter or coconut oil in a frying pan, slice up an apple, and brown the slices in the mix. Add two or three scrambled eggs and a couple of fistfuls of spinach and continue to stir until the spinach softens and the eggs are cooked. Season with anti-inflammatory turmeric [a.k.a. curcumin] and some lemon pepper.

If you think the 18 grams or so of protein in three eggs isn't enough for you, add a protein drink. And if you need extra slow-burning carbs, have a small bowl of oatmeal on the side.

Big Tobacco's New Buddy: Big Processed Food

Q: I heard recently that food manufacturers chemically alter some foods to make them more addictive, sort of like the cigarette companies have done with tobacco. Any truth to that or is it just a conspiracy theory?

A: I wish I could say it's a conspiracy theory just so I could get in a couple of tinfoil hat jokes, but unfortunately it's not.

Former FDA commissioner David Kessler, MD, goes into deep detail about exactly how this works in his new book, The End of Overeating (highly recommended, by the way) and it ain't pretty.

Kessler quotes research by Adam Drewnowski that shows it's the combination of sugar with fat that makes people go nuts. Give someone a packet of sugar and tell him to go to town and you won't get much enthusiasm. Ditto for a stick of butter. But combine the ingredients and watch out.

Drewnowski conducted a study where he added various amounts of sugar to five different dairy products from skim milk to heavy cream. People gave low marks to sweetened no-fat products like sweetened skim milk and low marks to unsweetened high-fat products like a heavy cream/vegetable oil blend. But any high-fat product that had sugar added, or any high-sugar product that had fat added, scored higher than the winner on American Idol.

This combo (sugar, fat, and/or salt) creates what Kessler calls "hyperpalatibility." Rats given a chance to eat such combinations will literally gorge themselves. Obviously, so do humans.

Sugar, fat, and salt is what makes food "compelling" according to dozens of food executives that Kessler interviewed. Take potato skins, for example. Typically, the potato is hollowed out and the skin is fried which provides a substantial surface area for "fat pick-up." Then some combination of bacon bits, sour cream, and cheese is added. The result is fat on fat on fat on fat, much of it loaded with salt.

Is this stuff addictive? You bet it is.

Sara Ward of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studied the willingness of animals to work for a food reward even when they're not hungry. She used Ensure, a particularly loathsome drink doctors give to older patients who aren't eating enough calories. The breaking point at which the animals would no longer work for the "reward" was just slightly lower than the breaking point for cocaine.

So it's not so much that manufacturers chemically alter the food as it is that they use lethal (to us, not to them) combos of ingredients to make them irresistible and to make us overeat them.

Then they cleverly pair those foods with an actual emotional or visual experience, which later become stored as pleasant associations to the food - i.e. a "Happy Meal" or a TV commercial with Megan Fox. Pretty soon, you've got a customer for life.

CLA: Anti-Cancer, Maybe Anti-Belly Fat

Q: What do you think of CLA as a supplement? Any way to get it in foods?

A: The most impressive thing I've ever seen about CLA - conjugated linolenic acid - were the before and after pictures of rats in a CLA experiment. One group got their regular rat food and the other got the same diet plus CLA. Then they sacrificed the rats and photographed their abdominal regions. It was pretty dramatic - the CLA rats had hardly any abdominal fat compared to the rats that hadn't been fed CLA.

Wish that it worked that clearly in humans. It's definitely possible to find studies in good peer-reviewed journals that show that CLA reduces abdominal fat in some populations. (1) And one study even showed that it reduced the amount of abdominal fat gained over the holidays.(2)

But other studies show no such thing. And to add to the confusion, there are two isomers (arrangements of molecules) in CLA - the t10 c12 and the t9 c 11, and they're said to have somewhat different effects.

The research just isn't conclusive. For example, at least two studies show that CLA plus chromium lowered both body weight and visceral fat mass in high-fat diet fed mice (3, 4), but another study showed it didn't do squat for overweight women.(5)

But CLA seems to have some nice anti-cancer effects, and those are better documented than the weight loss effects in humans. So it certainly can't hurt to try it, but I wouldn't be too optimistic about its effect on weight alone.

If you try it, the dose would be 3 grams per day. It's found in the meat and by-products (like butter) from cattle, but only from healthy grass-fed beef. Besides having a lot more omega-3's, grass-fed organic beef also has CLA, which is virtually missing from the meat of grain-fed, high omega-6 factory-farmed animals.

Sugar Alcohols: The Good and the Gaseous

Q: I try to eat low-sugar foods but it seems that many of these are jam-packed with sugar alcohols like sorbitol, maltitol, etc. Is that stuff bad for you?

A: They're not exactly bad for you, but if you eat a lot of them you won't be a welcome guest at parties due to increased flatulance. But some are clearly better than others.

My favorite sugar alcohol is xylitol, which you can use in hot beverages and which has a very low glycemic impact. It also has some anti-bacterial effect (preventing bacteria from adhesing to tissues) which is why it's in all the "healthy" chewing gums.

Another sugar alcohol to watch for is erythritol. It has a glycemic impact of exactly zero, and so far no one has reported anything remotely bad about it. You're starting to see it in health food stores and it's sold under the Truvia name in little packets. Way better than something like Equal.

The Food Pyramid, Bowden-Style

Q: If you were to redesign the old government food pyramid, what would it look like?

A: It would probably be more like a circle with about 70% of calories divided equally among protein, fat, and fibrous vegetables and fruits; another 10% for nuts, another 10% for beans, and an optional 10% for grains.

New Health Food: Sugar?

Q: Now that most people know that HFCS is bad news, many food makers are bragging about using raw cane sugar or even organic sugar. Is that a better way to go?

A: The new marketing of sugar as a "health food" is the biggest crock of nonsense I've seen in a while, and I've seen some real doozies.

Let's get something straight. Both table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup have the same two ingredients: glucose and fructose. The more damaging of the molecules is clearly fructose, but check the proportions: High-fructose corn syrup is 55% fructose and 45% glucose. Plain old crappy garden-variety sugar, now being sold as the "healthy" alternative to HFCS, is 50/50.

The problem with HFCS wasn't so much the extra 5% fructose, but the fact that it's so cheap that manufacturers now use it in everything, including foods that were never even sweetened before. This deeply increases the fructose load on the body, not so much because of the little bit of extra fructose, but because we're consuming so much of the stuff.

It's hard to see how substituting the same amount of a 50/50 mix ("natural" sugar, give me a break!) helps address the problem, which is that we're eating too much sugar, whatever form it comes in!

And by the way, just to blow your mind, the new darling of the health food set, agave nectar, is more than 90% fructose. Some bargain.

Incidentally, in case this wasn't clear from previous articles, fructose in its natural setting - like in an actual apple - isn't the problem. It's when you extract it and use it as a sweetening agent, either as 55% of HFCS, 50% of sugar or 90% of agave nectar. Then it's a huge problem.

This interview was originally published at Tmuscle.com. Read the uncensored interview with Jonny Bowden »

References

1. International Journal of Obesity



2. The role of conjugated linoleic acid in reducing body fat and preventing holiday weight gain



3. Conjugated linoleic acid and chromium lower body weight and visceral fat mass in high-fat-diet-fed mice



4. The combination of dietary conjugated linoleic acid and treadmill exercise lowers gain in body fat mass and enhances lean body mass in high fat-fed male Balb/C mice



5. Chromium picolinate and conjugated linoleic acid do not synergistically influence diet- and exercise-induced changes in body composition and health indexes in overweight women

Candida: The Quiet Invader

Picture if you will, a garden with two things growing in it: Flowers and Weeds.

If the weeds are kept under control, they really don't do much damage and the flowers will bloom everywhere. If, however, the garden becomes overgrown with weeds, it's a whole different story.

Your gut is exactly like that garden, but instead of being populated with flowers and weeds it's populated with what's poetically called "gut flora", the many organisms which reside in the intestinal tract. In your gut, the part of the flowers are played by beneficial bacteria called probiotics, while the part of the weeds is played by a nasty little microbe known as Candida albicans.

Candida albicans is actually a fungus, but in "normal" circumstances it lives in peace with the rest of the gut flora and isn't much cause for concern. Unfortunately, this peaceful coexistence is often disrupted by a number of factors, resulting in an overgrowth of candida which can cause havoc everywhere in the body, affecting our immune system, hormone balance and even our thought processes(1). Most common symptoms include:

• bloating

• constipation or diarrhea

• fatigue

• brain fog

• mood swings

• sugar cravings
  

• yeast infections
  

Anything that can affect the natural ecology of the gut can cause an overgrowth of candida, but the usual suspects are...

• antibiotics

• birth control pills

• sugar (the favorite food for these little buggers)
  

Antibiotics, for example, can easily alter the delicate balance between "good" and "bad" bacteria in your gut (and, for women, in the vagina) by killing off many of the good bacteria that help keep the yeast fungus (Candida) under control. Without the good bacteria to keep Candida in check, the little buggers multiply like rabbits, ultimately damaging the intestinal lining and destroying cells.

Remember, candida (a yeast fungus) are living organisms, and they produce their own set of toxins. "Greater numbers of candida produce greater amounts of toxins, which further irritate and break down the intestinal lining", explains Liz Lipski, PhD, CNN. "This damage allows macromolecules of partially digested food to pass through (the gut wall)". The immune system takes one look at those partially digested molecules, realizes they don't belong, treats them as invaders and sends out a bunch of antibodies. "The net result is increased sensitivity to foods and other food substances, and to the environment", explains Lipsky.

What to do, what to do?

Number one with a bullet is to stop feeding them. Since sugar is their number one source of fuel, the typical effective "anti-yeast" diet looks a lot like Atkins. At the very least, avoid sugar, grains, alcoholic beverages, and yeasted breads. Even fruits (dried or fresh) are eliminated during the "kill-off" phase. (You can eat all the grass-fed beef, free range poultry and eggs, vegetables, yogurt, nuts and seeds you want.)

While starving the yeast cells, you want to make sure to nurture the good bacteria that keep them in check. The best way to do this is with probiotics. Lactobacillus probiotics are particularly good at keeping Candida albicans under control(2), but a good broad-spectrum probiotic supplement- containing lactocacillus and bifidobacteria-- is always a good idea. Remember, probiotics are living organisms, and- like Candida- they need their own source of fuel. Probiotics love to dine on FOS or fructoogliosaccharides. These molecules are also called "prebiotics" and many good probiotic formulas also contain some of these as well.

Many other substances are helpful in killing off candida. At the top of the list is garlic ("my personal favorite", says Lipsky), capryllic and lauric acid (both found in coconut oil), oil of oregano, pau d'orco and grapefruit seed extract. A terrific weapon in the anti-candida arsenal is olive leaf extract. Olive leaf contains the active ingredient oleuropein which has strong anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties. Barlean's Olive Leaf Complex is a particularly recommended brand that comes in a liquid form that's easy to take and tasty to boot.

Many practitioners recommend a strict "anti-yeast" diet for at least three weeks, and then suggest reintroducing "banned" foods slowly as your gut gets healthier. When Candida are killed, it may produce an antibody response that can result in a temporary worsening of symptoms (the "die-off" effect or Herxheimer reaction). "(Because of this) it's important to begin therapeutics gently with small doses and gradually increase", says Lipsky. "If your symptoms are still aggravated, cut back (on the yeast killers) and then gradually increase".

And for women- for whom vaginal yeast infections are a particular concern- consider internal applications of healthy bacteria in addition to oral supplementation. Ann Knight, DC, a holistic chiropractor in Thousand Oaks, California has had much success with this protocol. "A broad spectrum probiotics mixed with yogurt and inserted into the vagina can be very effective", she says.

In some cases more serious weapons- like the antifungal med Nyastatin- may be called for, but remember, if you're still feeding the yeast with sugar (and foods that the body treats as sugar) you're kind of defeating the purpose. The cornerstone of the best diet for getting rid of yeast is eliminating sugar.

Which is also, come to think of it, one of the cornerstones of the best diet for overall health.

References

1. "Digestive Wellness", Elizabeth Lipsky, PhD, CNN
   
2. "The Probiotic Rescue" Allison Tannis, RD, MSc
   

Blueberries May Help Banish Belly Fat

You've probably heard me rant and rave about blueberries. I eat them about six out of seven days a week, I gave them a "star" in my book "The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth", and I've spoken at length about their high antioxidant content, their low sugar content, and their ability to boost memory.

Well, get ready for some hot news: Blueberries may also help banish belly fat.

A new study by researcher E. Mitchell Seymour, MS, of the University of Michigan shows that rats that ate a diet high in blueberries lost abdominal fat- the kind linked to increased waist size and increased risk for diabetes and heart disease. This happened even when the rats ate a high-fat diet. As an extra added bonus, the blueberry eating rats also had improved glucose control (meaning their blood sugar was more stable).

The researchers suggest that blueberries- with their high antioxidant content- may somehow alter the way the body stores and processes sugar, great news for those at risk for both heart disease and diabetes. "Our findings in regard to blueberries show the naturally occurring chemicals they contain, such as anthocyanins, show promise in mitigating these health conditions," said researcher Steven Bolling, MD, of the University of Michigan,

In the current study- presented at Experimental Biology 2009- rats were bred to become obese were fed either a low-fat diet or a high-carb diet, both of which were enriched with whole blueberry powder (about 2% of their total caloric intake).

After three months the rats fed the blueberries had improved glucose control and improved insulin sensitivity. Better glucose control and improved insulin sensitivity are both strongly related to lowering the risk for diabetes.

I find blueberries one of the easiest foods to incorporate into your diet. In season or not, you can always get them frozen, and I like to eat them right out of the freezer (mixed with frozen cherries). I put some FACE 2% yogurt on them, sprinkle with some slivered almonds, flaked unsweetened coconut and some probiotic powder and have them as a nightly "dessert". It's the ultimate "anti-aging" treat!

Why You Can't Lose Weight

WEB MD recently published a piece with the eye-catching title "Why You Can't Lose Weight". And indeed, a number of the reasons they listed were pretty interesting. In case you missed it, here's the executive summary:

1. Low resting metabolic rate combined with high metabolic efficiency. What this basically means is you "burn" fuel (calories) at a lower rate while resting, and are efficient at using calories while exercising (meaning it "costs" you fewer calories to run on a treadmill than your neighbor). According to Victoria Catenacci, MD, a University of Colorado researcher, this can account for up to 22 pounds of weight gain!
   


2. You are female. Because women have less muscle then men, they burn less calories (remember you burn calories in your muscle cells, not in your fat cells)


3. You experience hunger, satisfaction and stress differently than others. We're just beginning to scratch the surface of understanding this one, but It's pretty obvious that some people struggle with appetite and stress a lot more than others.


4. You don't like to exercise. This could be considered a big eye-rolling "duh", but some people seem to be genetically adapted to more activity than others. Mice that are bred for wheel running take to it like a surfer dude to the Malibu coastline. Others prefer the mouse equivalent of sunbathing.


5. Your mother ate a high-fat diet while pregnant. Emerging- and disturbing- research has been showing that what both your mother- and even your grandmother- ate may have an effect on you and your body weight.


6. What you ate as a toddler affects how easily you gain as an adult. This is one reason why people like me are so adamant about teaching parents how important it is to shape tastes and habits early on while you still have some control over things!

All this is fine and dandy, but I fear that a lot of people reading the WebMD piece might be forgiven for throwing up their hands and saying, "See, there's not much I can do about it! Let's go to McDonald's!"

The fact is that there's a ton of reasons why it's harder for some people than others. I say- who cares? The cards you're dealt are the cards you're dealt, but that's just the beginning of the game. It's how you play those cards that determines the result. Just ask any player on the World Poker Tour.

If you're one of the thousands- perhaps hundreds of thousands- of people for whom weight loss is difficult, I'd like to offer you a list of things you can actually do something about.

1. Eat less calories. Cutting portions by 1/4 - 1/3 is a great place to begin.


2. Don't believe the calorie counters on exercise machines. If they told you the truth about how many calories you're really burning, no one would buy them. You burn about 300 calories in a half hour of moderate to hard exercise no matter what the treadmill says.


3. Reduce carbs and sugar. You may be one of those people who "experience hunger and appetite" more acutely than most, but don't make matters worse by eating foods that produce their own cravings for more! It's pretty hard to overeat spinach and steak. Pasta and bread... not so much.


4. Exercise harder and smarter. Walking 30 minutes a day is an amazing strategy for extending life, but it won't cause you to lose weight. Begin interval training and up the ante.


5. Build muscle with weights. And women, listen up. You won't look like the cover of a muscle magazine just because you're pumping some iron. But you will build some calorie burning tissue that will help raise your metabolism, not to mention make you look better in a bathing suit!

And finally, if nothing "works", try focusing on health rather than just the scale. Studies show that you can be "fat and fit" and fit people who are overweight can live just as long and successfully as thin people who aren't fit. Just ask Steven Blair, PhD, Research Director at the Cooper Institute of Aerobics. Blair runs over 15 miles every week and is in the best shape of his life. But by his own admission, he happens to be fat.

He's also healthy as a horse.

Sugar as a Health Food?

Sugar's about to show up on food labels, all dressed up as a new "natural ingredient" and a better alternative to the demon d'jour, high-fructose corn syrup.

Never let it be said that there are no "second acts" in the marketing of junk food.

OK, in case you haven't been paying attention, high-fructose corn syrup has gotten quite a whipping in the press. The Corn Refiners Association tried fighting back, most notably with a series of commercial showing a clueless mother unable to explain why the stuff was so "bad", but even the best PR campaign wasn't able to put out the fire. And the coup d'grace was sounded recently by Michelle Obama who declared any product with high-fructose corn syrup to be off-limits at the White House.

So now sugar- plain old white, table sugar, the poor little guy that got displaced by HFCS- is ready for its reinvention, this time as the "natural" healthy alternative to HFCS.

Oh, brother.

Let's recap for a moment. Sugar is one part glucose one part fructose (50/50).. High fructose corn syrup is very close to the same formula, marginally higher in fructose- 55% fructose, 45% glucose- but probably not enough to make that much difference (or at least that's what the proponents of HFCS claim).

But the point is moot and the argument about which is "better" diverts our attention from the real problem.

Which is this: The more damaging half of this dastardly duo of glucose and fructose- regardless of whether it occurs in table sugar or HFCS- is clearly fructose. Numerous studies have shown it raises insulin resistance, raises triglycerides in the bloodstream and contributes to fatty liver disease. Pure refined fructose is bad news, whether it comes from HFCS or from sugar.

The big problem with HFCS is the fact that it's so cheap and widely available that it's now in products that were never sweetened before. And that fact that it's so cheap means that manufacturers can use a ton of it, sweetening everything in sight. The result is that we now consume more fructose than we ever did when manufacturers used plain old sugar.

Going back to "natural" (give me a break) white sugar accomplishes exactly nothing. Refined fructose is metabolic poison, and whether we get it from the old fashioned sugar or the cheap and abundant HFCS matters not a whit. We're eating too much of the stuff.

And less there be any confusion let me add that I'm quite aware that fructose is found naturally in fruits. But fructose in fruits- surrounded by fiber, vitamins, phytochemicals and other good stuff- is a very different "animal" than refined fructose, as different as an animal's fur is from a fur coat in the store window.

You don't need to avoid fructose when it occurs (in small amounts) in whole foods.

When it occurs in refined sweeteners- be they "natural" sugar or high-fructose corn syrup- run the other way.

8 Ways to Eat Healthy During the Holidays

The following is an article written by Karly Randolph Pitman that I am sure you will enjoy...

Holidays and sugar are intertwined in our culture. How do you enjoy the love, intimacy, and celebration of the holidays without the sweet stuff?

We use sugar to express love, both to others and ourselves. It's a glue that connects us with our families, particularly when the sugar involves celebration: birthdays, holidays, graduations, and anniversaries. Abstaining from sugar can feel like a lack of love, can make you feel deprived, and can make you feel like an outsider.

We all want to belong. This need to feel loved can persuade us to go along with the crowd, to do things that hurt ourselves. On a simple, practical level, this can mean eating foods that make us feel (and look) like crap. But sugar is not love. Here are 8 ways to have the intimate, joyful holidays that you desire without the guilt, frustration, and extra pounds that come from eating junk.

For further reading, you may want to read this article on how to avoid holiday weight gain and stress: two seemingly dissimilar things that share the same cause.

8 Ways to Eat Healthy During the Holidays:

1. Question your thinking. You are not your mind, your thoughts. Detach from what it says: you do not have to obey, listen, or feel trapped by its ramblings. When my mind's critical, telling me I'm pathetic because I can't eat sugar, or offers sly suggestions: You're feeling so good, it won't hurt to have one bite of pie, I label it as such. Not helpful, I tell myself, sometimes even out loud. This mantra silences that voice and enables me to see those crazy thoughts for what they are: crazy. Observe; pause, then react. Give yourself time and space to question your thinking.
2. Give what you want to receive. Love has a rebound effect. As you give love, you feel beloved yourself. We can be so focused on our own wants and needs, that we miss out on the very thing that we desire from others. Instead of focusing on what you do or don\'t get from your family, friends, spouse, or children this holiday season, give the love you seek. A few years ago, when money was tight, I gave handwritten letters to friends and family for Christmas. I shared how grateful I was to have them in my life; I shared what I loved about them. I felt more love and holiday spirit that year than every other Christmas combined. Funny, I didn\'t crave or eat any sugar that Christmas, either.
3. Be proactive. If you're trying to abstain from your Aunt Flo's famous pumpkin pie, figure out your plan before you're sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner. Will you bring a healthy snack that you can eat instead, such as a baked apple with cinnamon? Will you talk to Aunt Flo beforehand so that she understands your not eating her pie is not a personal attack? Other ideas: seek out an ally. Ask your spouse, mom, or sibling for support. Say to them, "I'm trying to stay away from sugar this holiday. Can you help me if I'm feeling tempted?" Other ways to help yourself: rehearse what you'll say to well-meaning relatives who try and persuade you to have "Just one bite." Bring a dish that you can eat, so even if there aren't many healthy options at the table, you won't be too hungry. Or eat a light meal beforehand so you don't show up starving: a slippery road to temptation.
4. Find the essence of what you want. What's driving your need for ice cream, cake, and candy? How does eating sugar with loved ones make you feel? The answers to these questions hold the key to easing your desire for sugar. After all, if we don't want it in the first place, it's much easier to say, "No." I felt lonely during much of my childhood. But when I was with my large, loving extended family, I felt as if belonged. It's no wonder that I craved the sweets that I had during these times together: they were my favorite childhood memories, times when I felt secure and loved. It's taken me a long time to figure out how to create those feelings of belonging without indulging in the sugar: the essence of what I want, the need underneath the crazy sugar binging. Here are creative ways that I create belonging without sugar: I go to mass on Christmas Eve with my favorite aunt. I do arts and crafts with my children and nieces and nephews instead of cookie baking. I go Christmas shopping with my mom and sister-in-law. I host a potluck with friends, with carols, games and plenty of non-sugary healthy foods. These examples create a lush, celebratory holiday feel, and intimate connection: what I wanted in the cookies in the first place.
5. Seek accountability. Be kind to yourself: find support. We spend so much time toughing it out on our own, trying to do it all ourselves. But we aren't meant to live this way. Find a partner, a friend, your walking buddy, or even a counselor who can provide support. Share your intention with loved ones so that they can help keep you on track. Otherwise, it's too easy to bargain with yourself, to falter because "one piece of pie won't hurt." I have a coach that I speak with every week. She keeps me accountable to my goals and breaks through my stinking thinking when I'm trying to justify eating crappy food. My children know about my sugar abstinence, and will remind me if I try and tiptoe into the granola. For online support, try the forums at radiantrecovery.com, 3fatchicksonadiet.com or check out this list of resources.
6. Be prepared. I guarantee that if you don't keep your home stocked with healthy eating options, you will eat sugar. Plan ahead so that you don't eat junk just because you're famished and you don't have anything healthy to eat. Here's how I do it: I cook a bunch of food on Sundays, and then eat them throughout the week. I make a huge tossed salad with a variety of raw veggies. I bake a bunch of sweet potatoes and winter squash in the oven. I cook up a pot of black beans that I can add to salads all week long. I grill some fish, bison and chicken to have for easy protein options. I keep my fruit bowl stashed with bananas and apples to eat with almonds for a quick snack. My freezer always has bags of frozen veggies that I can use to make a quick stir fry in a pinch. I roast whatever veggies are in season (right now I'm doing a mix of eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, onions and potatoes) in a big batch, and then add them to my meals. While it may sound like a lot of work, these steps take very little time. My planning is the difference between eating processed junk or healthy, whole foods when life is hectic.
7. Take food with you. If you spend a lot of time in your car or away from home, take food with you. This is another example of how preparation can keep you on track. If I'm going to be gone for an hour or so, I always take a piece of fruit, some almonds and a bottle of water. For longer trips, I pack an insulated lunch box with fruit, nuts, cooked veggies, some protein, and several bottles of water. These steps can keep you from grabbing a Coke and fries at the food court, because when you're hungry, you'll have healthy food to eat.
8. Rest. "Fatigue makes cowards of us all." Physiologically, a lack of sleep can make us crave sugar, because we're looking for a way to boost our energy. This is why solid sleep is so important. But fatigue also erodes our willpower. Structure goes out the window: we skip meals because we don't feel like cooking; we avoid the gym because we're too tired to work out. We grab junk on the go instead of sitting down to real food. Pencil in rest. Schedule downtime, transitions, and margin for yourself: a space between activities. Give yourself a cushion --- is it realistic to accomplish 10 errands today or 3? --- so that you're not pushing yourself too hard. This gives you room for the entropy that accompanies daily life (missing keys, a broken printer; a sick child) without grabbing a candy bar for stress relief.

About the author: Karly Randolph Pitman struggled with depression, sugar addiction, low self-esteem, a negative body image, and mom overwhelment for several years. But this mother of four learned to mother herself, transforming her health, family life, relationship with food, and her relationship with her body. Learn more about this evangelist for self-care at FirstOurselves.com

Treating Cravings and Addictions with Food and Supplements

You may never have been addicted to drugs, but you might know something about the addiction to food. Or sugar. Or alcohol. Or gambling. Turns out that all these addictions- and the associated cravings- have more in common with one another than you might think. And interestingly enough, the key to managing them might be in your diet.

This week's issue of The Economist, a London based newspaper, reports on interesting ongoing research using dietary approaches to addictions.

Here's how they explain the problem:

"People are programmed for addiction. Their brains are designed so that actions vital for propagating their genes- such as eating and having sex- are highly rewarding. Those reward pathways can, however be subverted by external chemicals (in other words, drugs) and by certain sorts of behavior such as gambling."

We also know from animal experiments that reward pathways in the brain can be hijacked by sugar. Rats who became addicted to sugar actually showed all the signs of cocaine withdrawal when sugar was removed from their diet.

The key to the whole thing- no big surprise- is in your brain chemistry, that complicated computer system where messages can frequently get corrupted and things can easily go astray. Addictive substances literally "hijack" the pleasure centers of the brain so that it's harder to obtain regular plain old garden-variety pleasure from regular activities. Instead, you need bigger and bigger doses of the substances or behaviors that give you the biggest jolt- sugar, cocaine, drugs, alcohol, gambling and the rest of the usual suspects.

One supplement that's getting a lot of research attention for addictions and that has remained under the radar for now is NAC- N-Acetyl-Cysteine. A study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry found that giving NAC to cocaine addicts reduced their desire to use the drug so much that the researchers recommended NAC as a potential treatment. An entirely different study found that NAC reduced the desire to gamble in 80% of gambling addicts (as compared to 28% of those given a placebo). And animal studies have shown that NAC reduces relapse with cocaine and heroin.

OK, so probably not many of you are cocaine or heroin addicts. But cravings are cravings, and if NAC works with some addictions (or cravings) it should work with others. I've recommended NAC for years as part of a liver health program since it boosts the body's level of the important antioxidant glutathione (which is not well absorbed in supplement form).

Now it looks like it may have another use!

Other nutritional factors that can support a healthy brain function are tyrosine (a precursor of the neurotransmitter dopamine), 5-HTP (a precursor of serotonin) and GABA (a relaxing neurotransmitter). My friend Dr. Daniel Amen put these together in an elegantly designed formula called NeuroLink, which also contains a nice dose of vitamin B6, needed to convert 5-HTP into the feel good neurotransmitter serotonin.

the dangers of high fructose corn syrup

From 1977 to 2001, the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages containing fructose has increased 135%. Think that doesn't matter? Think again.

Fructose used to enjoy something of a good reputation as sugars go, largely because- unlike other sugars- it doesn't raise blood sugar very quickly. This property made it a long-standing favorite of diabetics and those who treated them. But like so much other "conventional" wisdom, this turned out to be anything but wise.

Fructose- and it's "steroid" version known as high-fructose corn syrup- have become "ubiqui-foods". They're everywhere, we consume them in insanely high amounts, and the health costs are just beginning to be recognized. New research points to some of the possible consequences.

In one study, overweight and obese adults were instructed to eat their usual diet along with sugar sweetened beverages. One group was asked to consume 25% of the day's calorie requirement as a specially made beverage sweetened with glucose. The other group was given an identical beverage sweetened with fructose. Both groups were allowed to eat as little or as much of their usual diet as they wanted, but were required to drink the sugar beverages.

Not surprisingly, all subjects gained weight. But the fructose-consuming subjects gained intra-abdominal fat, whereas the glucose subjects did not.

Why does this matter? Because intra-abdominal fat- the kind that makes you more of an apple than a pear- is the most dangerous kind of fat to carry around. It puts you at greater risk for diabetes, heart disease and a constellation of symptoms called Metabolic Syndrome, an almost certain path to either heart disease or diabetes. The fructose-consuming subjects also had increases in fasting insulin and in fasting glucose, both of which are associated with a greater risk of metabolic syndrome and diabetes.

Triglycerides have long been recognized as an independent risk factor for heart disease. In many of the previous human studies on fructose, researchers have measured fasting triglycerides, and fructose didn't always have much effect on fasting levels. But in this study, researchers measured triglycerides after eating- what's called a post-prandial measurement. In the fructose group, post prandial triglycerides more than doubled.

While the research is preliminary and needs to be borne out by future studies, high fructose consumption could well be setting consumers up for atherosclerosis. The overweight men and women assigned to drink the fructose-sweetened beverages developed a more athrogenic lipid profiles in just two weeks.

Consider that In 2006 five different publications came out showing that adolescents, college students and adults under 50 were consuming as much as 15-20 percent of calories just from sugar sweetened beverages- and that doesn't include the sugar calories from cakes and desserts. Most of this sugar comes from high-fructose corn syrup.

Do the math.