Enhance Your Health

Health Tip of the Week: Unhealthy Sweetener

High fructose corn syrup is an industrial food product and far from “natural” or a naturally occurring substance. It is extracted from corn stalks through a, believe it or not, “secret process.”  That alone should raise some eyebrows. Once the sugars are extracted, what remains is High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS).

The chemistry of HFCS is not that difficult to understand. Regular cane sugar (sucrose) is made up of two types of sugar – glucose and fructose in equal amounts. The enzymes in your digestive tract must break down the sucrose into glucose and fructose, which are then absorbed into the body.

HFCS is made up of the same sugars, but not the same ratio, with there being more fructose in the mixture than glucose. Fructose is sweeter than glucose.

Products with HFCS are sweeter and cheaper than products made with cane sugar.  HFCS is cheaper than sugar because of the government farm bill corn subsidies.

This allowed for the average soda size to balloon from 8 ounces to 20 ounces with little financial costs to manufacturers.

The main problem with HFCS is that the fructose and glucose are not bonded together, so once in the body no digestion is required and they are more rapidly absorbed into your blood stream.

Fructose goes right to the liver and triggers lipogenesis (the production of fats like triglycerides and cholesterol) this is why it is the major cause of liver damage in this country and causes a condition called “fatty liver” which affects 70 million people.

The rapidly absorbed glucose triggers big spikes in insulin – our body’s major fat storage hormone.

Both these features of HFCS lead to increased metabolic disturbances that drive increases in appetite, weight gain, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia, and more.

Ok, so now that we understand the make-up of HFCS, here is the biggest concern.

Excessive amounts of sugar in your diet has toxic effects, and processed high fructose corn syrup is far worse, from a metabolic standpoint, than refined sugar.

Female mice fed a diet that contained 25 percent of calories from corn syrup had nearly twice the death rate compared to those fed a diet in which 25 percent of calories came from table sugar.

Mice fed corn syrup also had 26 percent fewer offspring than their sugar-fed counterparts.

The bottom line is that reading food labels is extremely important.  It is the only way you will avoid HFCS in your diet. Organic foods do not contain HFCS.

Thought for the Week

Exercise produces large cognitive gains and helps fight senile dementia. It promotes a process known as neurogenesis, i.e. your brain’s ability to adapt and grow new brain cells, regardless of your age.

Exercise stimulates production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) that helps preserve existing brain cells and stimulates growth of new neurons. ~ Mercola.com

Chiropractic Thought for the Week

Spinal bones that are NOT in proper alignment cause friction on the spinal joints.  This leads to wear and tear (arthritis).

Spinal adjustments improve the spinal alignment and reduce friction on the joints, preventing wear and tear (arthritis).

Pregnancy And Chiropractic

A recent study showed that mothers' vitamin D levels during pregnancy were associated with their children's IQ, suggesting that higher vitamin D levels in pregnancy may lead to greater childhood IQ scores.  According to the study, vitamin D deficiency is prevalent in society and has an impact on over health and wellbeing. Many studies have shown the importance of vitamin D on immune system function.

This new study suggests that intelligence levels in children may affected by D deficiency during pregnancy and how important it is for pregnant women to maintain normal vitamin D levels.

 

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