carbs turn to sugar

Dr. Natasha Winters said this best and its true – “all carbohydrates turn to sugar. And sugar stimulates the same pleasure centers of the brain that respond to heroin and cocaine, so naturally we want more of it.” Sugar is a powerful drug and we need to understand it better and its effect on our overall health and well-being!

Let’s back up to a better understanding glucose and its important role here. You see, all sugars, carbohydrates and starches are converted to glucose, thanks to pancreatic enzymes called amylases. When we load up our plates with carbohydrates, we send our blood sugar levels through the roof. The pancreas kicks in to produce insulin, which essentially allows glucose to enter the cells. However, if there is too much glucose, cells get full and the leftover glucose is converted to fat. Our bodies simply can’t handle the excess! This is why people gain weight. It’s not because they are eating fat, it’s the excess sugar that gets converted into fat.

This connection between sugar, fat and weight gain is not a new topic. It’s been proven in hundreds of studies. Nearly 70% of American adults are overweight and our children are unfortunately following in our footsteps (30% of kids aged 6-19 are obese).

And sadly, as our sugar consumption rises, so do our increased chances of cancer. Cancer feeds off of sugar, so the effects of sugar on the body create a nice little environment for disease to manifest. And all of that excess fat Americans carry around, well it produces estrogen. And estrogen is a major promoter of cancer growth too.

Type 2 diabetes, obesity, and cancer are all on the rise! It’s time we really evaluate our own role in our health care. As mentioned earlier, its no wonder we’re addicted to sugar. It’s a powerful drug, made even more appealing by the companies that produce all of those pre-packaged foods we see every.single.day. And our kids too!

And keep in mind not all sugar is bad, per se.  Fruit sugars are naturally and can be consumed in moderation like anything else. Same goes for natural sugars like honey, maple syrup and monk fruit. They are healthy alternatives, when used sparingly, avoid all of the nasty insulin bumps mentioned above and without all of the scary processing.

*information directly sourced from Dr. Natasha Winter, author of The  Metabolic Approach to Cancer, p. 63

*image directly sourced from here

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