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.

Cut Calories, Improve Memory!

There've been a ton of studies on "calorie restriction" as an anti-aging strategy. Cutting calories- even by 25%- 33%- has been shown to extend life of every life form tested so far, from fruit flies and yeast to monkeys. Now a new study (published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) shows that in addition to extending life, calorie cutting may also improve your memory.

Researchers took 50 men and women ages 50-72 who ranged from normal weight to overweight. One group was told to cut calories by 30 percent, mainly by eating smaller portions. A second group was told to leave their calories the same but change the proportion coming from fat, and a third group was told to make no dietary changes.

After three months, the subjects took tests involving memorizing words.

The calorie-cutting group averaged a respectable 20% improvement in memory performance. (The second and the third group showed no change whatsoever.)

Lead researcher Agnes Floel of the University of Munster in Germany said that the memory improvement might be linked to a decrease in insulin and inflammation in the reduced- calorie group.

Changes in insulin levels have also been postulated as one of the reasons calorie restriction may extend life. One 1992 study investigated people who were both mentally and physically fit and were at least 100 years old. The three factors they all had in common were: high HDL cholesterol, low triglycerides and… wait for it… low levels of fasting insulin!

Dr. Floel also said that lower insulin levels might "increase the sensitivity of receptors" in the brain and improve insulin signaling, allowing memories to be maintained longer. The reduced calorie diet also seemed to improve inflammation, a known robber of brain function and a contributing factor to every major disease.

In my DVD program The 7 Pillars of Longevity I talk about hara hachi bu, a saying in Okinawa inspired by Confucious. Okinawas believe hara hachi bu is one of the secrets to a long healthy life.

Want to know what it means?

"Eat until you are 80% full".

Wise advice, not only if you want to live long, but also if you want to keep your brain sharp and your memory intact!

Triglycerides: What you Need to Know

As I get older, I find myself becoming scarily more like my parents, who were known to roll their eyes each time I would finally "discover" something that they had been telling me for years-- as if to silently say, "so you finally figured it out!"

Of course, in my version, it's me rolling my eyes every time the medical profession "discovers" something nutritionists have been saying for years. In this case, they're finally getting wise to the fact that triglycerides are an important risk factor for heart disease. Possibly- gasp- even more than cholesterol.

And the best news is, you can lower triglycerides without any expensive drugs.

Triglycerides are in the news a lot these days because recent 30-year analysis of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (HANES) data by the National Lipid Association shows that the percentage of adults with high triglycerides has doubled. The study also showed an alarming increase among people over 60.

Why should we care? "Studies have shown that unhealthy levels of triglycerides and HDL can lead to heart attack and stroke", said Jerome Cohen, MD, professor emeritus of internal medicine and cardiology at the St. Louis University School of Medicine.

Increased risk of heart disease and stroke seems like a good reason to pay attention. (In my not-so-humble opinion, I'd worry way more about high triglycerides than I would high cholesterol.)

So if you've got high triglycerides, what can you do about it? Simple. Eat a low-carb diet.

Triglycerides are the most common l form of fat found in your both food and in your body. They're in your bloodstream, your diet and your tissues and organs. Most of what you don't like about the way you look in jeans is adipose tissue (fat cells) filled with, yup, triglycerides. When your doctor gives you a blood test, the test invariably measures triglycerides in the blood. (The National Cholesterol Education Program guidelines for normal triglycerides are under 150, though most cutting edge docs and nutritionists would prefer to see a more optimal level like under 100.)

High triglycerides are a strong independent risk factor for heart disease, and they also correlate with obesity, and with low levels of HDL (the so-called "good cholesterol"). High triglycerides are also one of the five signs of Metabolic Syndrome, (also called pre-diabetes), a major risk factor for heart disease.

A low-carb diet will bring triglycerides down 100 per cent of the time (and that's regardless of whether or not you lose much weight on the diet). You read that right. Not 90 percent, not 95%, but 100 percent of the time. There are very, very few strategies in nutrition that have 100 percent success rate, but when it comes to lowering triglycerides, low-carb diets do in fact have that enviable track record.

Conversely, when you replace fat in your diet with carbohydrates- especially the kind that do not come from vegetables and fruits- your triglycerides go up!(3,4,5) So a low-fat diet is not necessarily the answer to high triglycerides.

In fact, one particular form of fat- omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil and flaxseed- have been shown to help lower triglycerides, particularly in combination with vitamin C!
Obviously, you're going to get better overall results if you couple that low-carb diet with exercise and a few other healthy habits, but low-carb is a great beginning.

One reason low-carb works so well to lower triglycerides is that the liver manufactures triglycerides out of fat and excess sugar. The more sugar in your diet the more the liver converts that sugar into the little packages we call triglycerides. Give the body less sugar- (and less processed carbs that convert quickly to sugar in the body)- and guess what? Triglycerides return to a nice, healthy, (low) level.

The best prescription for high triglycerides is a very moderate calorie diet of whole foods with plenty of healthy protein and fat, no sugar, a ton of vegetables, some fruit and nuts and very limited starchy carbs (or not- you can leave out the starchy carbs if you like).

For reducing triglycerides, that diet will work as well as any drug, and has no side effects to boot-- (unless you call weight loss a side-effect).

And that's a very good reason to get the extraneous carbs- white bread, desserts, sugar, soda- out of your diet for good.