Pharmacist Doug Talks: Sugar

Pharmacist Doug is here re-emphasizing the negatives of sugar. He is going to give some helpful tricks to begin the removal of excessive amounts of sugar from your everyday life.

Here are some statistics:

- Researchers say that sugar and the taste of sweet causes stimulation of the brain in the same way that heroin and morphine do by activating beta endorphin receptor sites.(1)

-  94% of rats that were allowed to choose mutually-exclusively between sugar water and cocaine, chose sugar. Even rats who were already addicted to cocaine soon switched their preference to sugar.(2)

-  A Refined sugar, high-fat diet reduces chemicals in a section of the brain (hippocampus) that decreases learning.(3)

-  Research done at Princeton in 2002 began showing that due to the neurochemical effects of sugar it may be considered a gateway drug for other drugs.(4)

-  According to the FDA the average American consumes between 140-200lbs of sugar per year, that is about 1/2 lb of sugar per DAY!!

 Ways to Stop Sugar

-Stop Soda Pop all together- even diet sodas

-  Eat nuts with dried fruit or dark chocolate. Having small sweet snacks with some protein before your craving starts will help you avoid reacting with desperation when your blood sugar is low.

-  Peanut/Almond butter with a little dark chocolate will satisfy your sweet craving. Note: if you choose milk chocolate you should be aware that the milk in milk chocolate blocks chocolate's anti-oxidant activity.

-  Carrots or celery with dried fruit like raisins, cranberries, apricots, plums. You can also add a little bit of some un-sweetened nut butter (peanut,almond,cashew,sunflower...)

Click here for some more information.

References:

1.) ^ Yamamoto, Takashi (May 2003). "Brain mechanisms of sweetness and palatability of sugars". Nutrition Reviews 61 (Supplement S5): S5-S9. PMID

2.)Intense Sweetness Surpasses Cocaine RewardMagalie Lenoir#, Fuschia Serre#, Lauriane Cantin, Serge H. Ahmed*University Bordeaux 2, Universit Bordeaux 1, CNRS, UMR 5227, Bordeaux, France

3.)Neuroscience. 2002;112(4):803-14.A high-fat, refined sugar diet reduces hippocampal brain-derived neurotrophic factor, neuronal plasticity, and learning.Molteni R