Sweetest Poison of All -Refined Sugar

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e Sweetest Poison of All - Refined Sugar

JoAnn Guest

Apr 16, 2003 16:52 PDT

 

 

http://www.karlloren.com/Diabetes/p82.htm

 

A multitude of common physical and mental ailments are strongly

linked to the consuming of 'pure', refined sugar.

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Extracted from Nexus Magazine, Volume 7, Number 1

(December 1999 - January 2000).

PO Box 30, Mapleton Qld 4560 Australia.

edi-

From our web page at: www.nexusmagazine.com

by William Dufty © 1975

Extracted/edited from his book Sugar Blues

First published by Chilton Book Co. Padnor, PA, USA

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WHY SUGAR IS TOXIC TO THE BODY

In 1957, Dr William Coda Martin tried to answer the question:

When is a food a food and when is it a poison?

 

His working definition

of " poison " was:

 

" Medically: Any substance applied to the body,

ingested or developed within the body, which causes or may cause

disease.

 

Physically: Any substance which inhibits the activity of a catalyst

which is a minor substance, chemical or enzyme that activates a

reaction. "

 

The dictionary gives an even broader definition for " poison " : " to

exert a harmful influence on, or to pervert " .

 

Dr Martin classified refined sugar as a poison because it has been

depleted of its life forces, vitamins and minerals.

 

" What is left consists of pure, refined carbohydrates. The body

cannot utilize this refined starch and carbohydrate unless the

depleted proteins, vitamins

and minerals are present.

 

Nature supplies these in each plant in quantities sufficient to

metabolize the carbohydrate in that particular plant.

 

There is no excess for other added carbohydrates.

 

Incomplete carbohydrate metabolism results in the

formation of 'toxic metabolite' such as pyruvic acid and abnormal

sugars containing five carbon atoms.

 

Pyruvic acid accumulates in the brain and nervous system and the

abnormal sugars in the red blood

cells.These toxic metabolites interfere with the 'respiration' of

the cells.

 

They cannot get sufficient oxygen to survive and function normally.

In time, some of the cells die.

 

This interferes with the function of a part of the body and is the

beginning of degenerative disease. "

 

Refined sugar is lethal when ingested by humans because it provides

only that which nutritionists describe as " empty " or " naked "

calories.

It lacks the natural minerals which are present in the sugar beet or

cane.

 

In addition, sugar is worse than nothing because it " drains " and

leaches the body of precious vitamins and minerals

through the demand its digestion, detoxification and elimination

make upon one's entire system.

 

 

So essential is balance to our bodies that we have many ways to

provide against the sudden shock of a heavy intake of sugar.

 

Minerals such as sodium (from salt), potassium and magnesium (from

vegetables), and calcium (from the bones) are mobilized and used in

chemical transmutation; neutral acids are produced which attempt to

return the acid-alkaline balance factor of the blood to a more

normal state.

 

Sugar taken every day produces a continuously 'over-acid' condition,

and more and more minerals are required from deep in the body in the

attempt to rectify the imbalance.

 

Finally, in order to protect the blood, so much calcium is taken

from the bones and teeth that decay and general weakening begin.

 

Excess sugar eventually affects every organ in the body. Initially,

it is stored in the liver in the form of glucose (glycogen).

 

Since the liver's capacity is limited, a daily intake of refined

sugar (above the required amount of natural sugar) soon makes the

liver expand like a balloon.

 

When the liver is filled to its maximum capacity, the excess

glycogen is returned to the blood in the form of

fatty acids.

 

These are taken to every part of the body and stored in the most

inactive areas: the belly, the buttocks, the breasts and the thighs.

 

When these comparatively harmless places are completely filled,

fatty acids are then distributed among active organs,

 

such as the heart and kidneys,

 

These begin to slow down; finally their tissues degenerate and turn

to fat.

 

The whole body is affected by their reduced ability,

and abnormal blood pressure is created.

 

The parasympathetic nervous system is affected; and organs governed

by it, such as the small brain, become inactive or paralyzed.

 

(Normal brain function is rarely thought of as being as biologic as

digestion.)

 

The circulatory and lymphatic systems are invaded, and the quality

of the red corpuscles starts to change.

 

An overabundance of white cells occurs, and the creation of tissue

becomes slower. Our body's tolerance and immunizing

power becomes more limited, so we cannot respond properly to extreme

attacks, whether they be cold, heat, mosquitoes or

microbes.

 

Excessive sugar has a strong " mal-effect " on the " functioning " of

the brain.

 

The key to orderly brain function is glutamic acid, a vital compound

found in many vegetables. The B vitamins play a major role

in dividing glutamic acid into antagonistic-complementary compounds

which produce a " proceed " or " control " response in the brain.

 

B vitamins are also manufactured by symbiotic bacteria which live in

our intestines. When refined sugar is taken daily, these bacteria

wither and die, and our stock of B vitamins gets very low.

Too much sugar makes one sleepy; our ability to calculate and

remember

is lost.

 

 

 

SUGAR: HARMFUL TO HUMANS AND ANIMALS

Shipwrecked sailors who ate and drank nothing but sugar and rum for

nine

days surely went through some of this trauma; the tales they had

to tell created a big public relations problem for the sugar pushers.

 

This incident occurred when a vessel carrying a cargo of sugar was

shipwrecked in 1793. The five surviving sailors were finally rescued

after being marooned for nine days. They were in a wasted condition

due

to starvation, having consumed nothing but sugar and rum.

 

The eminent French physiologist F. Magendie was inspired by that

incident to conduct a series of experiments with animals, the

results

of which he published in 1816. In the experiments, he fed dogs a

diet of

sugar and water. All the dogs wasted and died.

 

The shipwrecked sailors and the French physiologist's experimental

dogs

proved the same point.

As a steady diet, sugar is worse than

nothing. Plain water can keep you alive for quite some time.

Sugar and water can kill you. Humans [and animals] are " unable to

subsist on a diet of sugar " .4

 

The dead dogs in Professor Magendie's laboratory alerted the sugar

industry to the hazards of free scientific inquiry. From that day to

this, the sugar industry has invested millions of dollars in

behind-the-scenes, subsidized science. The best scientific names

that

money

could buy have been hired, in the hope that they could one day come

up

with something at least pseudoscientific in the way of glad

tidings about sugar.

 

It has been proved, however, that (1) sugar is a major factor in

dental

decay; (2) sugar in a person's diet does cause overweight; (3)

removal of sugar from diets has cured symptoms of crippling,

worldwide

diseases such as diabetes, cancer and heart illnesses.

 

Sir Frederick Banting, the co-discoverer of insulin, noticed in 1929

in

Panama that, among sugar plantation owners who ate large amounts

of their refined stuff, diabetes was common.

 

Among those who had the raw cane, he saw no diabetes.

 

However, the story of the public relations attempts on the part of

the

sugar manufacturers began in Britain in 1808 when the Committee

of West India reported to the House of Commons that a prize of

twenty-five guineas had been offered to anyone who could come up

with

the most " satisfactory " experiments to prove that unrefined sugar

was

good for feeding and fattening oxen, cows, hogs and sheep.5

 

Food for animals is often seasonal, always expensive. Sugar, by

then,

was dirt

cheap. People weren't eating it fast enough.

 

Naturally, the attempt to feed livestock with sugar in England in

1808

was a disaster.

 

When the Committee on West India made its fourth report to the House

of

Commons, one Member of Parliament, John Curwin, reported that he had

tried to feed sugar to calves without success. He suggested that

perhaps

someone should try again by sneaking sugar into skimmed milk. Had

anything

come of that, you can be sure the West Indian sugar merchants would

have

spread the news around the world. After this singular lack of

success in pushing sugar in cow pastures, the West Indian sugar

merchants gave up.

 

With undaunted zeal for increasing the market demand for the most

important agricultural product of the West Indies, the Committee of

West

India was reduced to a tactic that has served the sugar pushers

for almost 200 years: irrelevant and transparently silly

testimonials

from faraway, inaccessible people with some kind of " scientific "

credentials. One early commentator called them " hired consciences " .

 

The House of Commons committee was so hard-up for local cheerleaders

on

the sugar question, it was reduced to quoting a doctor from faraway

Philadelphia, a leader of the recent American colonial

rebellion: " The

great Dr Rush of Philadelphia is reported to have said that 'sugar

contains more nutrients in the same bulk than any other known

substance'. " If a weasel-worded statement like that was quoted, one

can

be sure no

animal doctor could be found in Britain who would recommend sugar

for

the care and feeding of cows, pigs or sheep.

 

While preparing his epochal volume, A History of Nutrition,

published n

1957, Professor E. V. McCollum (Johns Hopkins University), sometimes

called America's foremost nutritionist and certainly a

pioneer in the field, reviewed approximately 200,000 published

scientific papers, recording experiments with food, their

properties,

their utilisation and their effects on animals and men.

 

The material covered the period from the mid-18th century to 1940.

From

this great repository of scientific inquiry, McCollum selected those

experiments which he regarded as significant " to relate the story of

progress in discovering human error in this segment of science [of

nutrition] " . Professor McCollum failed to record a single controlled

scientific experiment with sugar between 1816 and 1940.

 

Unhappily, we must remind ourselves that scientists today, and

always,

accomplish little without a sponsor. The protocols of modern

science have compounded the costs of scientific inquiry.

 

We have no right to be surprised when we read the introduction to

McCollum's A History of Nutrition and find that " The author and

publishers are indebted to The Nutrition Foundation, Inc., for a

grant

provided to meet a portion of the cost of publication of this book " .

 

What, you might ask, is The Nutrition Foundation, Inc.? The author

and

the publishers don't tell you. It happens to be a front organisation

for

the leading sugar-pushing conglomerates in the food business,

including

the American Sugar Refining Company, Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, Curtis

Candy

Co., General Foods, General Mills, Nestlé Co., Pet Milk Co. and

Sunshine

Biscuits-about 45 such companies in all.

 

Perhaps the most significant thing about McCollum's 1957 history was

what he left out: a monumental earlier work described by an eminent

Harvard professor as " one of those epochal pieces of research which

makes every other investigator desirous of kicking himself because

he

never thought of doing the same thing " .

 

In the 1930s, a research dentist from Cleveland, Ohio, Dr Weston A.

Price, travelled all over the world-from the lands of the Eskimos to

the

South Sea Islands, from Africa to New Zealand. His Nutrition and

Physical Degeneration:

A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects,6 which

is

illustrated with hundreds of photographs, was first published in

1939.

 

Dr Price took the whole world as his laboratory. His devastating

conclusion, recorded in horrifying detail in area after area, was

simple.

 

People who live under so-called backward primitive conditions had

excellent teeth and wonderful general health. They ate natural,

unrefined food from their own locale.

 

As soon as refined, sugared foods were imported as a result of

contact

with " civilisation " , physical degeneration began in a way that was

definitely observable within a single generation.

 

Any credibility the sugar pushers have is based on our ignorance of

works like that of Dr Price. Sugar manufacturers keep trying, hoping

and

contributing generous research grants to colleges and universities;

but

the research laboratories never come up with anything solid the

manufacturers can use. Invariably, the research results are bad news.

 

" Let us go to the ignorant savage, consider his way of eating and be

wise, " Harvard professor Ernest Hooten said in Apes, Men, and

Morons.7

" Let us cease pretending that toothbrushes and toothpaste are any

more

important than shoe brushes and shoe polish. It is store food that

has

given us store teeth. "

 

When the researchers bite the hands that feed them, and the news

gets

out, it's embarrassing all around.

 

In 1958, Time magazine reported that a Harvard biochemist and his

assistants had worked with myriads of mice for more than ten years,

bankrolled by the Sugar Research Foundation, Inc. to the tune of

$57,000, to find out how sugar causes dental cavities and how to

prevent

this. It took them ten years to discover that there was no way to

prevent sugar causing dental decay.

 

When the researchers reported their findings in the Dental

Association

Journal, their source of money dried up. The Sugar Research

Foundation

withdrew its support.

 

The more that the scientists disappointed them, the more the sugar

pushers had to rely on the ad men.

 

 

 

SUCROSE: " PURE " ENERGY AT A PRICE

When calories became the big thing in the 1920s, and everybody was

learning to count them, the sugar pushers turned up with a new pitch.

 

They boasted there were 2,500 calories in a pound of sugar. A little

over a quarter-pound of sugar would produce 20 per cent of the total

daily quota.

 

" If you could buy all your food energy as cheaply as you buy

calories in

sugar, " they told us, " your board bill for the year would be very

low.

If sugar were seven cents a pound, it would cost less than $35 for a

whole year. "

 

A very inexpensive way to kill yourself.

 

" Of course, we don't live on any such unbalanced diet, " they

admitted

later. " But that figure serves to point out how inexpensive sugar is

as

an energy-building food.

What was once a luxury only a privileged few could enjoy is now a

food

for the poorest of people. "

 

Later, the sugar pushers advertised that sugar was chemically pure,

topping Ivory soap in that department, being 99.9 per cent pure

against

Ivory's vaunted 99.44 per cent.

 

" No food of our everyday diet is purer, " we were assured.

 

What was meant by purity, besides the unarguable fact that all

vitamins,

minerals, salts, fibres and proteins had been removed in the

refining

process?

 

Well, the sugar pushers came up with a new slant on purity.

 

" You don't have to sort it like beans, wash it like rice. Every

grain is

like every other. No waste attends its use. No useless bones like in

meat, no grounds like coffee. "

 

" Pure " is a favourite adjective of the sugar pushers because it

means

one thing to the chemists and another thing to the ordinary mortals.

 

When honey is labelled pure, this means that it is in its natural

state

(stolen directly from the bees who made it), with no adulteration

with

sucrose to stretch it and no harmful chemical residues which may

have

been sprayed on the flowers.

 

It does not mean that the honey is free from minerals like iodine,

iron,

calcium, phosphorus or multiple vitamins. So effective is the

purification process which sugar cane and beets undergo in the

refineries that sugar ends up as chemically pure as the morphine or

the

heroin a chemist has on the laboratory shelves.

 

What nutritional virtue this abstract chemical purity represents,

the

sugar pushers never tell us.

 

Beginning with World War I, the sugar pushers coated their

propaganda

with a preparedness pitch. " Dietitians have known the high food

value of

sugar for a long time, " said an industry tract of the 1920s.

 

" But it took World War I to bring this home. The energy-building

power

of sugar reaches the muscles in minutes and it was of value to

soldiers

as a ration given them just before an attack was launched. "

 

The sugar pushers have been harping on the energy-building power of

sucrose for years because it contains nothing else. Caloric energy

and

habit-

forming taste: that's what sucrose has, and nothing else.

 

All other foods contain energy plus. All foods contain some

nutrients in

the way of proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins or minerals, or all of

these.

 

Sucrose contains caloric energy, period.

 

The " quick " energy claim the sugar pushers talk about, which drives

reluctant doughboys over the top and drives children up the wall, is

based on the fact that refined sucrose is not digested in the mouth

or

the stomach but passes directly to the lower intestines and thence

to

the bloodstream.

 

The extra speed with which sucrose enters the bloodstream does more

harm

than good.

 

Much of the public confusion about refined sugar is compounded by

language.

 

Sugars are classified by chemists as " carbohydrates " . This

manufactured

word means " a substance containing carbon with oxygen and hydrogen " .

 

If chemists want to use these hermetic terms in their laboratories

when

they talk to one another, fine. The use of the word " carbohydrate "

outside the laboratory-especially in food labelling and advertising

lingo-to describe both natural, complete cereal grains (which have

been

a principal food of mankind for thousands of years) and man-refined

sugar (which is a manufactured drug and principal poison of mankind

for

only a few hundred years) is demonstrably wicked.

 

This kind of confusion makes possible the flimflam practised by

sugar

pushers to confound anxious mothers into thinking kiddies need sugar

to

survive

 

The use of the word " carbohydrate " to describe sugar is deliberately

misleading. Since the improved labelling of nutritional properties

was required on packages and cans, refined carbohydrates like sugar

are

lumped together with those carbohydrates which may or may not be

refined.

 

The several types of carbohydrates are added together for an overall

carbohydrate total. Thus, the effect of the label is to hide the

sugar

content from the unwary buyer.

 

Chemists add to the confusion by using the word " sugar " to describe

an

entire group of substances that are similar but not identical.

 

Glucose is a sugar found usually with other sugars, in fruits and

vegetables. It is a key material in the metabolism of all plants and

animals. Many of our principal foods are converted into glucose in

our

bodies. Glucose is always present in our bloodstream, and it is

often

called " blood sugar " .

 

Dextrose, also called " corn sugar " , is derived synthetically from

starch.

Fructose is fruit sugar.

Maltose is malt sugar.

Lactose is milk sugar.

Sucrose is refined sugar made from sugar cane and sugar beet.

Glucose has always been an essential element in the human

bloodstream.

 

Sucrose addiction is something new in the history of the human

animal.

To use the word " sugar " to describe two substances which are far

from

being identical, which have different chemical

structures and which affect the body in profoundly different ways

compounds confusion.

 

It makes possible more flimflam from the sugar pushers who tell us

how

important sugar is as an essential component of the human body, how

it

is oxidised to produce energy, how it is metabolised to produce

warmth,

and so on. They're talking about glucose, of course, which is

manufactured in our bodies. However, one is led to believe that the

manufacturers are talking about the sucrose which is made in their

refineries.

 

When the word " sugar " can mean the glucose in your blood as well as

the

sucrose in your Coca-Cola, it's great for the sugar pushers but it's

rough on everybody else.

 

People have been bamboozled into thinking of their bodies the way

they

think of their cheque accounts. If they suspect they have low blood

sugar, they are programmed to snack on vending machine candies and

sodas

in order to raise their blood sugar level. Actually, this is the

worst

thing to do. The level of glucose in their blood is apt to be low

because they are addicted to sucrose.

 

People who kick sucrose addiction and stay off sucrose find that

 

the glucose level of their blood returns to normal and stays there.

 

Since the late 1960s, millions of Americans have returned to natural

food. A new type of store, the natural food store, has encouraged

many

to become dropouts from the supermarket.

 

Natural food can be instrumental in restoring health. Many people,

therefore, have come to equate the word " natural " with " healthy " . So

the

sugar pushers have begun to pervert the word " natural " in order to

mislead the public.

 

" Made from natural ingredients " , the television sugar-pushers tell

us

about product after product. The word " from " is not accented on

television. It should be. Even refined sugar is made from natural

ingredients.

There is nothing new about that. The natural ingredients are cane

and

beets.

 

But that four-letter word " from " hardly suggests that 90 per cent of

the

cane and beet have been removed. Heroin, too, could be advertised as

being made from natural ingredients.

 

The opium poppy is as natural as the sugar beet. It's what man does

with it that tells the story.

 

If you want to avoid sugar in the supermarket, there is only one

sure

way. Don't buy anything unless it says on the label prominently, in

plain English: " No sugar added " .

 

Use of the word " carbohydrate " as a " scientific " word for sugar has

become a standard defence strategy with sugar pushers and many of

their

medical apologists.

 

It's their security blanket.

 

 

 

CORRECT FOOD COMBINING

 

Whether it's sugared cereal or pastry and black coffee for

breakfast,

whether it's hamburgers and Coca-Cola for lunch or the

full " gourmet "

dinner in the evening, chemically the average American diet is a

formula

that guarantees bubble, bubble, stomach trouble.

 

Unless you've taken too much insulin and, in a state of insulin

shock,

need sugar as an antidote, hardly anyone ever has cause to take

sugar

alone.

 

Humans need sugar as much as they need the nicotine in tobacco.

Crave it

is one thing-need it is another.

 

From the days of the Persian Empire to our own, sugar has usually

been

used to hop up the flavour of other food and drink, as an ingredient

in

the kitchen or as a condiment at the table.

 

Let us leave aside for the moment the known effect of sugar (long-

term

and short-term) on the entire system and concentrate on the effect

of

sugar taken in combination with other daily foods.

 

When Grandma warned that sugared cookies before meals " will spoil

your

supper " , she knew what she was talking about.

 

Her explanation might not have satisfied a chemist but, as with many

traditional axioms from the Mosaic law on kosher food and separation

in

the kitchen, such rules are based on years of trial and error and

are

apt to be right on the button.

 

Most modern research in combining food is a laboured discovery of

the

things Grandma took for granted.

 

Any diet or regimen undertaken for the single purpose of losing

weight

is dangerous, by definition. Obesity is talked about and treated as

a

disease in 20th-century America.

 

Obesity is not a disease.

 

It is only a symptom, a sign, a warning that your body is out of

order.

Dieting to lose weight is as silly and dangerous as taking aspirin

to

relieve a headache before you know the reason for the headache.

Getting

rid of a symptom is like turning off an alarm. It leaves the basic

cause

untouched.

 

Any diet or regimen undertaken with any objective short of

restoration

of total health of your body is dangerous.

 

Many overweight people are undernourished. (Dr H. Curtis Wood

stresses

this point in his 1971 book, Overfed But Undernourished.) Eating

less

can aggravate this condition, unless one is concerned with the

quality

of the food instead of just its quantity.

 

Many people-doctors included-assume that if weight is lost, fat is

lost.

This is not necessarily so.

 

Any diet which lumps all carbohydrates together is dangerous.

 

Any diet which does not consider the quality of carbohydrates and

makes

the crucial life-and-death distinction between natural, unrefined

carbohydrates like organic whole grains and vegetables and man-

refined

carbohydrates like sugar and white flour is dangerous.

 

Any diet which includes refined sugar and white flour, no matter

what

" scientific " name is applied to them,

is dangerous.

 

Kicking sugar and white flour and substituting whole grains,

vegetables

and natural fruits in season,

 

is the core of any sensible natural regimen.

 

Changing the quality of your carbohydrates can change the quality of

your health and life. If you eat natural food of good quality,

quantity

tends to take care of itself.

 

Nobody is going to eat a half-dozen sugar beets or a whole case of

sugar

cane.

 

Even if they do, it will be less dangerous than a few ounces of

sugar.

 

Sugar of all kinds-natural sugars, such as those in honey and fruit

(fructose), as well as the refined white stuff (sucrose)-

 

tends to arrest the secretion of gastric juices and have an

inhibiting

effect on the stomach's natural ability to move.

 

Sugars are not digested in the mouth, like cereals, or in the

stomach,

like animal flesh.

When taken alone, they pass quickly through the stomach into the

small

intestine.

 

When sugars are eaten with other foods-perhaps meat and bread in a

sandwich-they are held up in the stomach for a while.

 

The sugar in the bread and the Coke sit there with the hamburger and

the bun waiting for them to be digested.

 

While the stomach is working on the animal protein and the refined

starch in the bread, the addition of the sugar practically

guarantees

rapid acid fermentation under the conditions of warmth and moisture

existing in the stomach.

 

One lump of sugar in your coffee after a sandwich is enough to turn

your

stomach into a fermenter.

 

One soda with a hamburger is enough to turn your stomach into a

still.

 

Sugar on cereal-whether you buy it already sugared in a box

 

or add it yourself-almost guarantees *acid* fermentation.

 

Since the beginning of time, natural laws were observed, in both

senses

of that word, when it came to eating foods in combination.

Birds have been observed eating insects at one period in the day and

seeds at another. Other animals tend to eat one food at a time.

Flesh-eating animals take their protein raw and straight.

 

In the Orient, it is traditional to eat yang before yin. Miso soup

(fermented soybean protein, yang) for breakfast;

raw fish (more yang protein) at the beginning of the meal;

afterwards

comes the rice (which is less yang than the miso and fish); and then

the

vegetables which are yin.

 

If you ever eat with a traditional Japanese family and you violate

this

order, the Orientals (if your friends) will correct you courteously

but

firmly.

 

The law observed by Orthodox Jews prohibits many combinations at the

same meal, especially flesh and dairy products.

 

Special utensils for the dairy meal and different utensils for the

flesh

meal reinforce that taboo at the food's source in the kitchen.

 

Man learned very early in the game what improper combinations of

food

could do to the human system.

 

When he got a stomach ache from combining raw fruit with grain, or

honey

with porridge, he didn't reach for an antacid tablet. He learned not

to

eat that way.

When gluttony and excess became widespread, religious codes and

commandments were invoked against it.

 

Gluttony is a capital sin in most religions; but there are no

specific

religious warnings or commandments against refined sugar because

sugar

abuse-like drug abuse-

did not appear on the world scene until centuries after holy books

had

gone to press.

 

" Why must we accept as normal what we find in a race of sick and

weakened human beings? " Dr Herbert M. Shelton asks. " Must we always

take

it for granted that the present eating practices of civilized men

are

normal?... Foul stools, loose stools, impacted stools, pebbly

stools,

much foul gas, colitis, haemorrhoids, bleeding with stools, the need

for

toilet paper are swept into the orbit of the normal. "

 

When starches and complex sugars (like those in honey and fruits)

are

digested, they are broken down into simple sugars

called " monosaccharides " ,

which are usable substances-nutriments.

 

When starches and sugars are taken together and undergo

fermentation,

they are broken down into carbon dioxide, acetic acid, alcohol and

water. With the exception of the water, all these are unusable

substances-poisons.

 

When proteins are digested, they are broken down into amino acids,

which are usable substances-nutriments. When proteins are taken with

sugar, they putrefy;

 

they are broken down into a variety of ptomaines and leucomaines,

which

are nonusable substances-poisons.

 

Enzymic digestion of foods prepares them for use by our body.

 

Bacterial decomposition makes them unfit for use by our body.

 

The first process gives us nutriments; the second gives us poisons.

 

Much that passes for modern nutrition is obsessed with a mania for

quantitative counting. The body is treated like a cheque account.

Deposit calories (like dollars) and withdraw energy.

 

Deposit proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals-

balanced

quantitatively-and the result, theoretically, is a healthy body.

 

People qualify as healthy today if they can crawl out of bed, get to

the

office and sign in. If they can't make it, call the doctor to

qualify

for sick pay, hospitalisation, rest cure-anything from a day's pay

without working to an artificial kidney, courtesy of the taxpayers.

 

But what doth it profit someone if the theoretically required

calories

and nutrients are consumed daily, yet this random eat-on-the-run,

snack-time collection of foods ferments and putrefies in the

digestive

tract?

 

What good is it if the body is fed protein, only to have it putrefy

in

the gastrointestinal canal?

 

Carbohydrates that ferment in the digestive tract are converted into

alcohol and acetic acid, not digestible monosaccharides.

 

" To derive sustenance from foods eaten, they must be digested, "

Shelton

warned years ago. " They must not rot. "

 

Sure, the body can get rid of poisons through the urine and the

pores;

the amount of poisons in the urine is taken as an index to what's

going

on in the intestine. The body does establish a tolerance for these

poisons, just as it adjusts gradually to an intake of heroin.

 

But, says Shelton, " the discomfort from accumulation of gas,

the bad breath, and foul and unpleasant odors are as undesirable as

are

the poisons " .9

 

 

 

SUGAR AND MENTAL HEALTH

In the Dark Ages, troubled souls were rarely locked up for going off

their rocker.

 

Such confinement began in the Age of Enlightenment, after sugar made

the

transition from apothecary's prescription to candymaker's

confection.

 

" The great confinement of the insane " , as

one historian calls it,10 began in the late 17th century, after

sugar

consumption in Britain had zoomed in 200 years from a pinch or two

in a

barrel of beer, here and there, to more than two million pounds per

year.

 

By that time, physicians in London had begun to observe and record

terminal physical signs and symptoms of the " sugar blues " .

 

Meanwhile, when sugar eaters did not manifest obvious terminal

physical symptoms and the physicians were professionally bewildered,

patients were no longer pronounced bewitched, but mad, insane,

emotionally disturbed.

 

Laziness, fatigue, debauchery, parental displeasure-any one problem

was

sufficient cause for people under

twenty-five to be locked up in the first Parisian mental hospitals.

 

All it took to be incarcerated was a complaint from parents,

relatives

or the omnipotent parish priest. Wet nurses with their babies,

pregnant

youngsters, retarded or defective children, senior citizens,

paralytics,

epileptics, prostitutes or raving lunatics-

anyone wanted off the streets and out of sight was put away. The

mental

hospital succeeded witch-hunting and heresy-hounding as a more

enlightened and humane method of social control. The physician and

priest handled the dirty work of street sweeping in return for royal

favours.

 

Initially, when the General Hospital was established in Paris by

royal

decree, one per cent of the city's population was locked up.

From that time until the 20 century, as the consumption of sugar

went up

and up-especially in the cities-so did the number of people who were

put

away in the General Hospital.

 

Three hundred years later, the " emotionally disturbed " can be turned

into walking automatons, their brains controlled with psychoactive

drugs.

 

Today, pioneers of orthomolecular psychiatry, such as Dr Abram

Hoffer,

Dr Allan Cott, Dr A. Cherkin as well as Dr Linus Pauling,

have confirmed that mental illness is a myth and that emotional

disturbance can be merely the first symptom of the obvious inability

of

the human system to handle the stress of sugar dependency.

 

In Orthomolecular Psychiatry, Dr Pauling writes: " The functioning of

the brain and nervous tissue is more sensitively dependent on the

rate

of chemical reactions than the functioning of other organs and

tissues.

 

I believe that mental disease is for the most part caused by

abnormal

reaction rates, as determined by genetic constitution and diet, and

by

abnormal molecular concentrations of essential substances...

Selection

of food (and drugs) in a world that is

undergoing rapid scientific and technological change may often be

far

from the best. " 11

 

In Megavitamin B3 Therapy for Schizophrenia, Dr Abram Hoffer notes:

" Patients are also advised to follow a good nutritional program with

restriction of sucrose and sucrose-rich foods. " 12

 

Clinical research with hyperactive and psychotic children, as well

as

those with brain injuries and learning disabilities, has shown:

 

" An abnormally high family history of diabetes-that is, parents and

grandparents who cannot handle sugar; an abnormally high incidence

of

low blood glucose, or functional hypoglycemia in the children

themselves, which indicates that their systems cannot handle sugar;

dependence on a high level of sugar in the diets of the very

children

who cannot handle it.

 

" Inquiry into the dietary history of patients diagnosed as

schizophrenic

reveals the diet of their choice is rich in sweets, candy, cakes,

coffee, caffeinated beverages, and foods prepared with sugar.

 

These foods, which stimulate the adrenals, should be eliminated or

severely restricted. " 13

 

The avant-garde of modern medicine has rediscovered what the lowly

sorceress learned long ago through painstaking study of nature.

 

" In more than twenty years of psychiatric work, " writes Dr Thomas

Szasz,

" I have never known a clinical psychologist to report, on the basis

of a

projective test, that the subject is a normal, mentally healthy

person.

While some witches may have survived dunking,

no 'madman' survives psychological testing...there is no behavior or

person that a modern psychiatrist cannot plausibly diagnose as

abnormal

or ill. " 14

 

So it was in the 17th century. Once the doctor or the exorcist had

been

called in, he was under pressure to do something. When he tried and

failed, the poor patient had to be put away. It is often said that

surgeons bury their mistakes.

 

Physicians and psychiatrists put them away; lock 'em up.

 

In the 1940s, Dr John Tintera rediscovered the vital importance of

the

endocrine system, especially the adrenal glands, in " pathological

mentation " -or " brain boggling " . In 200 cases under treatment for

hypoadrenocorticism (the lack of adequate adrenal cortical hormone

production or imbalance among these hormones), he discovered that

the

chief complaints of his patients were often similar to those found

in

persons whose systems were unable to handle sugar: fatigue,

nervousness,

depression, apprehension, craving for sweets, inability to handle

alcohol, inability to concentrate, allergies, low blood pressure.

Sugar

blues!

 

Dr Tintera finally insisted that all his patients submit to a four-

hour glucose tolerance test (GTT) to find out whether or not they

could handle sugar.

 

The results were so startling that the laboratories double-checked

their

techniques, then apologised for what they believed to be incorrect

readings. What mystified them was the low, flat curves derived from

disturbed, early adolescents.

 

This laboratory procedure had been previously carried out only for

patients with physical findings presumptive of diabetes.

 

Dorland's definition of schizophrenia (Bleuler's dementia praecox)

includes the phrase, " often recognized during or shortly after

adolescence " , and further, in reference to hebephrenia and

catatonia,

" coming on soon after the onset of puberty " .

 

These conditions might seem to arise or become aggravated at

puberty,

but probing into the patient's past will frequently reveal

indications

which were present at birth, during the first year of life, and

through

the preschool and grammar school years. Each of these periods has

its

own characteristic clinical picture. This picture becomes more

marked at

pubescence and often causes school

officials to complain of juvenile delinquency or underachievement.

 

A glucose tolerance test at any of these periods could alert parents

and physicians and could save innumerable hours and small fortunes

spent

in looking into the child's psyche and home environment for

maladjustments of questionable significance in the emotional

development

of the average child.

 

The negativism, hyperactivity and obstinate resentment of discipline

are absolute indications for at least the minimum laboratory tests:

urinalysis, complete bloodcount, PBI determination, and the five-

hour

glucose tolerance test.

 

A GTT can be performed on a young child by the micro-method without

undue trauma to the patient. As a matter of

fact, I have been urging that these four tests be routine for all

patients, even before a history or physical examination is

undertaken.

 

In almost all discussions on drug addiction, alcoholism and

schizophrenia, it is claimed that there is no definite

constitutional

type that falls prey to these afflictions.

 

Almost universally, the statement is made that all of these

individuals

are emotionally immature. It has long been our goal to persuade

every

physician,

whether oriented toward psychiatry, genetics or physiology, to

recognise

that one type of endocrine individual is involved in the majority of

these cases: the hypoadrenocortic.

 

Tintera published several epochal medical papers. Over and over, he

emphasised that improvement, alleviation, palliation or cure was

" dependent upon the restoration of the normal function of the total

organism " . His first prescribed item of treatment was diet.

 

Over and over again, he said that " the importance of diet cannot be

overemphasised " . He laid out a sweeping permanent injunction against

sugar in all forms and guises.

 

While Egas Moniz of Portugal was receiving a Nobel Prize for

devising

the lobotomy operation for the treatment of schizophrenia, Tintera's

reward was to be harassment and hounding by the pundits of organised

medicine.

 

While Tintera's sweeping implication of sugar as a cause of what was

called " schizophrenia " could be confined to medical journals, he was

let

alone, ignored. He could be tolerated-if he stayed in his assigned

territory, endocrinology.

 

Even when he suggested that alcoholism was related to adrenals that

had

been whipped by sugar abuse, they let him alone; because the medicos

had

decided there was nothing in alcoholism for them except aggravation,

they were satisfied to abandon it to Alcoholics Anonymous.

 

However, when Tintera dared to suggest in a magazine of general

circulation that " it is ridiculous to talk of kinds of allergies

when

there is only one kind, which is adrenal glands impaired...by

sugar " , he

could no longer be ignored.

 

The allergists had a great racket going for themselves. Allergic

souls had been entertaining each other for years with tall tales of

exotic allergies-everything from horse feathers to lobster tails.

Along comes someone who says none of this matters: take them off

sugar,

and keep them off it.

 

Perhaps Tintera's untimely death in 1969 at the age of fifty-seven

made

it easier for the medical profession to accept discoveries that

had once seemed as far out as the simple oriental medical thesis of

genetics and diet, yin and yang.

 

Today, doctors all over the world are repeating what Tintera

announced

years ago: nobody, but nobody, should ever be allowed to begin what

is

called " psychiatric treatment " , anyplace, anywhere,

 

unless and until they have had a glucose tolerance test to discover

if

they can handle sugar.

 

So-called preventive medicine goes further and suggests that since

we

only think we can handle sugar because we initially have strong

adrenals,

 

why wait until they give us signs and signals that they're worn out?

Take the load off now by eliminating sugar in all forms and guises,

starting with that soda pop you have in your hand.

 

The mind truly boggles when one glances over what passes for medical

history.

 

Through the centuries, troubled souls have been barbecued for

bewitchment, exorcised for possession, locked up for insanity,

tortured for masturbatory madness, psychiatrised for psychosis,

lobotomised for schizophrenia.

 

How many patients would have listened if the local healer had told

them

that the only thing ailing them was sugar blues?

 

 

 

Endnotes:

 

1. Martin, William Coda, " When is a Food a Food-and When a Poison? " ,

Michigan Organic News, March 1957, p. 3.

2. ibid.

3. McCollum, Elmer Verner, A History of Nutrition: The Sequence of

Ideas in Nutritional Investigation, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston,

1957, p. 87.

4. op. cit., p. 88.

5. op. cit., p. 86.

6. Price, Weston A., Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A

Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects, The

American Academy of Applied Nutrition, California, 1939, 1948.

7. Hooton, Ernest A., Apes, Men, and Morons, Putnam, New York, 1937.

8. Shelton, H. M., Food Combining Made Easy, Shelton Health School,

Texas, 1951, p. 32.

9. op. cit., p. 34.

10. Foucault, Michel, Madness and Civilization: A History of

Insanity

in the Age of Reason, translated by R. Howard, Pantheon, New York,

1965.

11. Pauling, Linus, " Orthomolecular Psychiatry " , Science, vol. 160,

April 19, 1968, pp. 265-271.

12. Hoffer, Abram, " Megavitamin B3 Therapy for Schizophrenia " ,

Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal, vol. 16, 1971, p. 500.

13. Cott, Allan, " Orthomolecular Approach to the Treatment of

Learning Disabilities " , synopsis of reprint article issued by the

Huxley Institute for Biosocial Research, New York.

14. Szasz, Thomas S., The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative

Study

of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement, Harper & Row, New

York, 1970.

15. Tintera, John W., Hypoadrenocorticism, Adrenal Metabolic

Research

Society of the Hypoglycemia Foundation, Inc., Mt Vernon, New York,

1969.

 

 

 

 

Editor's Note:

This article is extracted and edited from the book, Sugar Blues, ©

1975 by William Dufty; specifically, the chapters " In Sugar We

Trust " , " Dead Dogs and Englishmen " and " What the Specialists Say " .

The book was first published by the Chilton Book Company, Padnor,

PA,

USA. Warner Books, Inc., NY, published an edition in 1976 and

reissued it in April 1993

 

 

 

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