Wonderfully Made

Sugar

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Timothy Howe and Sheryl McWilliams

Home

Series Code: WM

Program Code: WM000395


00:01 The following program presents principles
00:03 designed to promote good health and is not intended
00:05 to take the place of personalized
00:06 professional care. The opinions and ideas
00:09 expressed are those of the speaker.
00:11 Viewers are encouraged to draw their own conclusions
00:14 about the information presented.
00:35 Hi, my name is Sheryl McWilliams
00:37 and welcome to Wonderfully Made.
00:39 Are any of you like me, you like things that are sweet.
00:42 Well today we are gonna be talking about
00:44 the sweet things of life particularly sugar,
00:47 we like to welcome as our guest Dr. Timothy Howe.
00:49 Welcome, Dr. Howe. Thank you Sheryl,
00:52 it's good to be here with you on Wonderfully Made.
00:55 Good. Well, I have a huge sweet tooth,
00:58 I always have and it seems to get worse as I get older.
01:03 So, I am curious what does sugar do to the body.
01:07 Well you know there is this idea that sugar is bad
01:11 for you that's not really true saying that
01:15 sugar is bad for you is really a little bit
01:17 like saying gasoline is bad for your car.
01:21 It's not bad for you in fact sugar
01:25 is the preferred fuel of the body.
01:28 I am really glad to know that because
01:29 I really like it. That's good,
01:31 but like your car it's important to get
01:35 just the right amount at the right time.
01:38 If you get too much gasoline in your car
01:41 at one time, the car does not run well
01:44 and if you have two little the car
01:47 doesn't run well either. It is very important to have
01:50 just the right mixture of fuel and oxygen to have
01:56 perfect combustion the same is true with your body
02:00 and sugar, sugar is the preferred fuel of the body.
02:04 Yes, we can burn fat but even with protein
02:08 we have to change it from protein to sugar
02:11 in order to burn it. So, I understand that
02:14 part of the food if not much of the food that
02:16 we eat is actually converted into sugar
02:18 and the digestives process what happens?
02:21 That's right the foods that we eat
02:24 if they are not pure sugar already
02:25 and few of them really are pure sugar,
02:28 but if they are not pure sugar in order to burn them
02:31 they are changed into sugar. For instance,
02:34 if you eat a baked potato you have sugar molecules
02:38 that are attached to one to another to another
02:40 to another that's call starch,
02:43 it's long chains of sugar and when you eat
02:47 your baked potato the body has an enzyme
02:51 that cuts those sugar molecules off one
02:53 after another after another, they are observed
02:56 into the bloodstream carried through
02:58 the blood to the cells, where you burn them
03:01 and that is just how we like it not too fast,
03:05 not too slow just the right amount,
03:08 so that the body burns that sugar well.
03:13 How much sugar is too much or either certain
03:16 kinds of sugars, certain kinds of food
03:18 that are better with regards to that process?
03:20 To answer that question we really have to look
03:24 at blood sugar because blood sugar is the key.
03:28 If your blood sugar is too high you clog
03:32 the blood flow as we often say sugar clogs the system
03:39 that's true only if the blood sugar is over 100,
03:44 that's the fasting blood sugar we are talking about
03:47 provided the fasting blood sugar stays at 100
03:51 or even a little bit lower sugar does not clog
03:54 the system it's when it gets in excess.
03:58 Now if it goes up a fasting sugar to 126
04:02 or more we call that diabetes as long as
04:05 it's less then 126, but over 100
04:09 we call that pre-diabetes. It's still important though
04:15 to remember that even if you have pre-diabetes
04:18 your as the sugar goes up your risk for heart attack
04:22 and stroke and cancer also go up and many of us
04:26 don't handle the sugar we eat well
04:28 and have to be very careful to not dump that sugar
04:32 into our system too fast because if we dump it
04:35 in too fast the body can't get it out of the blood
04:38 fast enough to prevent that elevation in sugar.
04:43 Okay so what foods get sugar into the system
04:47 more slowly or kinds of foods?
04:50 It's interesting first may be I'll tell you
04:54 what gets food, what gets sugar into the blood fast.
04:57 The fastest way to get sugar into your blood
05:01 is to eat either pure sugar or to drink it
05:04 in a liquid like soda or even juice.
05:08 If I have a diabetic whose sugar is too low,
05:11 I can give them orange juice with a little sugar
05:15 added or I can give them a soda they drink
05:19 that rapidly the sugar goes right up that's why
05:23 it's so important for us when we are eating
05:27 and don't want to push our sugar up very rapidly
05:30 to avoid those foods that will push it up fast
05:33 particularly avoiding them between meals
05:36 those are the ones that really cause problems
05:40 with elevation of the blood sugar as far as what
05:44 foods cause the sugar to go up in your blood
05:48 more slowly let's talk for a moment
05:51 about what glycemic index is.
05:53 If I gave you pure glucose and measure it how fast
05:58 that could it get into your blood stream we give it
06:03 a number of 100 if I gave you white rice
06:07 it has a glycemic index of 95,
06:11 so it pushes your blood sugar up almost
06:15 as fast as pure glucose. If I gave you brown rice,
06:21 it will only push your blood sugar up not quite
06:25 as fast and the number we give the brown rice is 68.
06:30 The more complex the carbohydrate,
06:35 the more fiber there is with that carbohydrate
06:39 or more indigestible carbohydrate
06:41 that's what fiber is, the slower
06:44 the blood sugar goes up.
06:46 Okay, so what I hear you saying is that
06:50 all the juice that I am drinking between meals
06:52 may not be the best option for me with regards
06:56 to my health and blood sugar. That's exactly right
06:59 you know that juice will push your blood sugar up
07:03 almost as fast as a regular soda. Many people say well
07:08 it's good for me, it's natural, it's juice,
07:10 I'll just have that between meals not so
07:14 if you want to keep your blood sugar down.
07:16 Juice is not the preferred thing for between meals
07:20 in fact you are better off not to eat anything between
07:23 meals if you want to have juice have a small amount
07:26 with your meal that will help prevent
07:30 that blood sugar from going too high.
07:32 And then you mentioned complex carbohydrates
07:36 those are things, which are not processed
07:39 what are some examples of a complex carbohydrates?
07:42 Well, let's you give you some examples
07:44 of how this works. If I give you a baked potato
07:48 and measure how fast the sugar goes
07:51 from a baked potato into your system
07:53 and then I give you mashed potatoes
07:56 and measures how fast the sugar from mashed potatoes
07:59 goes into your system you will find that
08:02 from mashed potatoes it goes in quite a bit faster
08:05 then from a baked potato. For instance,
08:08 if I give you another example,
08:10 if I give you an orange and I measure how fast
08:13 it takes for the sugar from an orange
08:15 to get in your system versus orange juice
08:18 you will find that from an orange the sugar
08:22 goes into your system more slowly
08:24 then from orange juice. The reason of course
08:27 is when you eat an orange you have to chew it,
08:29 you get more fiber, the little sacks of juice
08:34 are each separate those have to be broken down,
08:37 you get the sugar and you get as much
08:40 but you get it nice and slow and smooth,
08:44 where as if you have the orange juice you dump it
08:48 into your system rapidly and it makes the body work
08:51 much more, much faster to try to get the sugar
08:55 out of the blood and into the cells,
08:57 where it belongs. So, digestion actually begins
09:01 in the mouth not in the stomach
09:03 that many of us think. That's correct
09:05 our digestion takes place in the mouth much of it
09:09 does in fact it's important to chew our food
09:11 very thoroughly to aid in digestion.
09:15 If I have a diabetic for instance whose blood sugar
09:18 is too low, we find that if we just put some
09:21 glucose gel under their lip or in their cheek
09:24 they will absorb the sugar right through their mouth.
09:27 And so it's good to help keep the blood sugar low
09:31 because high blood sugar produces insulin,
09:34 which is a growth hormone and that leads me to think
09:36 that perhaps eating foods that are
09:40 complex carbohydrates might actually help me to control
09:43 my weight as well. That's true we don't want to keep
09:46 the sugar low, we want to keep the sugar normal
09:49 keeping the sugar within the range of say 80 to 100
09:54 or 60 to 100 is good after meals we allow it go up
09:59 a little bit higher those are fasting levels,
10:01 but even after a meal you don't want it to go up
10:04 too high because if you have it go up too high
10:07 you have problems with elevated blood sugar
10:11 and also as you mentioned elevated insulin.
10:15 Insulin is a very interesting molecule,
10:18 it's actually made by the pancreas
10:20 and it has many other effects then helping sugar.
10:25 What insulin actually does is it move sugar
10:28 from the blood stream into the cell and that's good
10:33 we want that to happen, but insulin also signals
10:37 the body that there sugar on hand,
10:40 there calories on hand, it's time to grow
10:43 and that's fine if you are a child, but in my age
10:47 where am I going to grow taller, no I wish perhaps
10:51 that won't happen I'll grow wider and
10:55 that's really not what I want to do.
10:57 I read somewhere recently that eating sugar
11:02 with a lot of fat may not necessarily
11:05 be the best idea with regards to health,
11:07 help me understand that? Well at first glance you
11:10 think that eating sugar and fat together
11:12 would be a good idea because fat does slow
11:16 the absorption of the sugar,
11:18 but fat has another effect on the body particularly
11:22 saturated fat effects the pancreas and makes it less
11:27 able to secrete insulin. We find that in people
11:32 who have high intakes of saturated fat
11:34 they are at much higher risk for developing
11:38 diabetes because the fat is toxic to the pancreas,
11:42 if you get it in excess amounts it's important
11:46 to keep that saturated fat which is animal fat
11:49 at least four legged fat is what I like to call
11:53 it's fat from four legged animals.
11:55 If we keep that level very low then the fat
11:58 in the sugar mix isn't so toxic to us.
12:01 Interesting, what role does sugar
12:04 play on the immune system?
12:06 Sugar has an interesting effect on cell membranes.
12:11 One of the problems that we have when the blood sugar
12:15 gets above normal is that sugar attaches to proteins,
12:20 it attaches to the protein in red blood cells,
12:24 it attaches to the protein in white blood cells.
12:27 In white blood cells as a result of sugar
12:32 attaching to the cell, the membrane stiffens.
12:35 Now if you look at the white blood cell the way it
12:39 works is it identifies a foreign object
12:45 such as a viral particle or bacteria.
12:48 Then once it identifies that it actually flows
12:53 around the bacteria or the virus pose it in
12:58 and then eats it inside. Now you can imagine if that
13:03 viral particle is presented to the white blood cell
13:07 and the white blood cell membrane is stiff
13:09 it will not flow around the viral particle
13:15 or the bacteria as rapidly. Studies were first done
13:18 by Sanchez in the 1960's to show that if you have
13:22 the equivalent of a banana split it would decrease
13:25 your ability to eat bacteria by up to
13:28 50 percent for four hours. These studies
13:31 were later repeated by Dr. Lou also at Loma Linda
13:36 showing how much excess sugar decrease the ability
13:40 of our white bloods cells to phagocytize or eat bacteria
13:45 and viral particles. A similar thing happens
13:48 with the red blood cell, it's interesting
13:51 the red blood cells are about 8 microns
13:54 in diameter, where as the smallest capillaries
13:58 are about 4 microns in diameter or about half
14:02 the width you say well how am I going to get that
14:05 red blood cells through that small capillary.
14:08 What exactly happens is the red blood cell folds in half
14:12 and then slides down that's smaller tube,
14:15 however, if you have high sugar in your blood
14:19 and you have sugar attached to the hemoglobin
14:24 in the red cell what happens is the red blood cell
14:27 stiffens and then when it comes to those
14:30 small capillaries it can't flow through, it just stops
14:34 and you get a process called low formation,
14:38 where the red cells come to that small blood vessel
14:42 and they just stack up like pancakes and the blood flow
14:45 just stops all from high sugar.
14:48 We see these in diabetics and in fact
14:50 the higher the blood sugar, the faster we see
14:54 deterioration of the blood vessel membranes
14:57 and of the arteries themselves in diabetes.
15:02 As a result there are higher rates of not only
15:05 heart attacks and strokes, but higher rates
15:09 of amputations of the extremities,
15:11 there are higher rates of kidney disease
15:14 and also of neuropathy and blindness
15:18 all from high sugar. We don't see that of course
15:21 in a normal individual as far as the eyes
15:25 and the kidneys and the nerves,
15:26 but increase in blood sugar does increase your risk
15:31 for having a heart attack. Remember I said for every
15:34 one percent for every one point that your blood sugar
15:38 exceeds one hundred fasting your risk of having a
15:42 heart attack goes up to one percent doesn't sound
15:45 like much, but if you are fasting sugar is 110
15:48 you are not a diabetic, but you are at 10 percent
15:51 increase risk for having a heart attack.
15:54 Interesting so all the sugar that I am eating
15:57 is actually not only putting me at greater risk
16:00 for diabetes, but is also putting me at greater risk
16:04 for vascular disease. Yes, it certainly does put you
16:09 at higher risk for vascular disease.
16:11 It also puts you at higher risk for infections.
16:14 I know that in my office I am going to be busiest
16:18 after Thanksgiving also after Christmas and Easter.
16:23 Why? Well people say it's the flu season doc.
16:27 Why is it the flu season? Well it's also the season,
16:31 where you eat lots of sweets
16:32 and if we eat lots of sweets and decrease
16:34 our bodies ability to phagocytize
16:37 or eat the viral particles and the bacteria;
16:41 infection rates will go up. I've often thought may be
16:45 I should give people a discount for eating sweets.
16:49 You know, it gives me business in a way,
16:51 but how much better it would to chose carefully
16:55 what we ate and at what times we ate the sweets
16:59 if we were going to keep our blood sugars normal,
17:02 keep our immune system in good shape
17:04 and also avoid those chronic diseases
17:08 that we would like to. I remember when I
17:11 was in school and preparing for exams or tests
17:16 or studies that the teachers would tell us
17:18 during those exams don't eat sugar that it would
17:23 actually help us to think more clearly,
17:25 is there any validity to that? Sure there is,
17:28 it's really interesting it's an experiment that
17:31 you can do to yourself or you can think back
17:34 to the time you ate at Thanksgiving dinner.
17:37 How did you feel after you ate at Thanksgiving dinner?
17:41 I was pretty stuffed. Stuffed may be
17:44 a little sleepy. Absolutely sleepy.
17:47 And why is that, why do we get sleepy after we eat
17:50 a meal like that two reasons one is we increase
17:54 the fat in the blood and that slows the blood flow,
17:58 the other is sugar and if you increase the sugar
18:01 in the blood, stiffen the red cell membranes,
18:04 you can't get the blood flow through those
18:06 small capillaries as well. You can't think as clearly,
18:10 they did a study where they gave people a series
18:14 of math tests just simple additions, subtraction,
18:18 multiplication, division, well may be not too simple
18:21 but four columns of addition,
18:23 some multiplication and division, and they had them
18:27 do those problems and then they gave them
18:30 a very sweet drink waited 10, 15, 20 minutes
18:35 and then they had them do the problems again,
18:38 it was a speed test and they found that
18:40 after the sweet drink the speed at which they could
18:44 perform those calculations was reduced markedly.
18:48 Additionally, there were more errors.
18:50 If you have a high blood sugar you are not
18:53 going to be thinking as clearly of course
18:56 if your sugar is very low, if you are a diabetic
18:59 and you take too much insulin or you don't eat
19:01 in time and your sugar drops slow,
19:03 you won't be thinking clearly either,
19:05 sugar is the only food that the brain likes to burn.
19:09 Oh, in a very hard time it may burn a little bit
19:13 of fat, but it doesn't like too; it will break down
19:16 protein to make sugar so it can function optimally.
19:20 The brain needs just the right amount not too much,
19:23 not too little just the right amount.
19:26 Fortunately, most of the foods we eat if we eat them
19:29 naturally provide the brain with just the right amount
19:33 of sugar to function optimally.
19:35 What about during the cold and flu season,
19:38 I see these school children eating you know Fruit Loops
19:42 for breakfast, a very sweet breakfast
19:45 and then there is a mid afternoon snack of cookies
19:48 and milk or whatever it seems that there is a lot
19:50 of sugar consumed during times when people might
19:54 actually try to avoid sickness. Well you know
19:58 if I have a patient and they come in
20:02 and they say doc you know I am really worried
20:04 that I am gonna get the flu what can I do?
20:07 I tell them two things, well three,
20:10 one I say get plenty of rest there are quite
20:13 a few studies that show that
20:15 if you want to get a cold the best way to do it
20:18 is don't get enough sleep, get a little more stress
20:22 and not enough sleep and you will get a cold.
20:25 Another thing that I tell them is drink enough water
20:28 that's very important because if our secretions
20:32 are thin in our nose and in our mouth we can wash those
20:36 viral particles out that enter through the nose,
20:39 but the third thing is certainly sugar
20:42 if you want to avoid an infection during flu season
20:46 when other people are not avoiding sugar
20:49 then you avoid it because if you will avoid
20:52 that sugar particularly the sugar between the meals
20:56 that's snacking that will really help you reduce
21:00 the risk of developing an infection.
21:04 So, whatever you are saying is it okay
21:06 to eat sugar, we just need to eat it small amounts
21:09 and be careful when we eat it.
21:10 When is the best time to eat it
21:13 because we are all going to eat it?
21:15 We are all going to eat it, well yet I suppose
21:17 so I do like sugar myself. If you are going to have
21:25 some sugar remember what your mother said you can't
21:26 have your dessert until you finish your vegetables,
21:28 you want to eat that sugar at the end of the meal,
21:33 but also remember what she said save room for you
21:36 pie if you are going to have sugar
21:39 save room for it. You know, I can eat a nice meal
21:46 and I am all full and my wife can say would you like
21:49 some more squash. No, I am full up to here
21:53 with squash I don't want another bite I am just full,
21:56 full as a tick and she will say well
21:59 how about some dessert. Oh, well now I have more room
22:02 for dessert, we have selective fullnesses,
22:06 so the first principle is if you are going to have
22:10 a sweet make sure it's with the meal.
22:13 The second is save room for it, don't overeat to have
22:17 that sweet. If you can't have any more squash
22:20 you are full up to here you shouldn't
22:22 have the dessert either, save room for that dessert
22:25 don't over eat, have it with your meal
22:27 and chew sweets that aren't too sweet.
22:31 When you make your sweets it's best to use
22:35 whole grain flours with them or oatmeal.
22:39 For instance, if you are going to make an
22:41 oatmeal cookie alright make an oatmeal cookie,
22:44 but don't make a sugar cookie with white flour
22:47 and lots of sugar and saturated fat with it,
22:51 choose a good sweet to eat and eat a small amount
22:55 with your meal. You know, some people tell me
22:58 I just don't get satisfaction from eating
23:02 just one cookie, I like to have a three or four
23:05 and I ask them this I say how much pleasure
23:08 do you get from that cookie when it's in your stomach.
23:11 Oh, well if I have eaten three I don't get much
23:15 pleasure at all in fact I feel a little bit full.
23:18 Oh, there is the key if you are going to have a sweet,
23:21 have a good one at the end of your meal
23:25 and eat it slowly, enjoy it because we get pleasure
23:29 from our sweets in our mouth not in our stomach.
23:33 Too many people I think they know oh well
23:37 I shouldn't be eating sweets and so they look
23:39 around and they say nobody is looking,
23:42 I'll have it and they eat it real fast
23:45 and then it's all down, but they didn't enjoy it much
23:49 so they have to have another one and they eat
23:51 that really fast too. Now you don't want to do that
23:54 if you are going to have a sweet be proud
23:56 that you are eating a sweet, show your friends
23:59 that you are eating a sweet, enjoy it,
24:01 but have a small amount, eat it slowly,
24:04 get the best kind you can and have it with your meals
24:08 not between meals by all means.
24:11 So it's okay to have sweets we probably. Occasionally.
24:15 Occasionally, we should probably save them
24:16 for special occasions. I personally have lived
24:19 around the world in a number of different
24:21 countries and if I tried really hard
24:22 I could find those special occasion almost everyday
24:25 so at our family we have actually set aside Saturday
24:31 or Sabbath afternoons is our time to have dessert.
24:34 We know we are gonna have it every Saturday,
24:36 my daughter looks forward to it and the other days
24:39 of the week we try not to have the desserts
24:42 and that is something that's worked really well
24:43 in our family. The other thing is that
24:46 we should have it with our meal because hopefully
24:48 in our meal there has being some fiber
24:51 and having that fiber on board is gonna help
24:54 to get the blood, you know, the sugar
24:57 into our blood more slowly. That's right.
24:59 Any other words of wisdom, as it relates to eating sugar
25:02 or particular kinds of sweeteners, are they all
25:05 pretty much the same. No all sweeteners
25:08 are not the same, if you took sweeteners
25:12 you can divide them into several categories
25:14 you have refined sugars and you have
25:17 concentrated sugars. For instance,
25:20 maple syrup is not refined it's concentrated.
25:24 We make maple syrup, where in Maine
25:26 where I live my boys and I in years past have gone out
25:31 and tapped the trees and we don't have sugar maples,
25:36 we have red maples and it takes about 40 gallons
25:39 of sap boil down slowly overtime,
25:42 we do it over an open fire, we boil it down
25:45 until we get one gallon of syrup that's not refined.
25:49 That's the lot of sap. It's concentrated
25:52 and it is very concentrated,
25:54 but the minerals and the vitamins
25:56 what few there are, are concentrated
25:59 so it is a little better then refined sugar.
26:02 For instance refined white sugar comes most frequently
26:07 from cane, sometimes from beets,
26:10 but they take a lot of things out
26:12 to get the refined sugar. We don't want that
26:16 so much it would be better to have molasses
26:19 it still has quite a few of the vitamins
26:21 or if you want sucanat or purified,
26:25 let's says it's dehydrated cane juice that's it.
26:31 You just take the cane juice and you dehydrate
26:34 it similar to maple syrup, you just take the water out
26:39 then you still have the minerals
26:40 and some of the vitamins its a little better
26:43 honey is another one as one of my teachers
26:46 said the nice thing about honey as you get
26:47 lots of bees spit in it. Well, I don't know
26:50 about the bee spit, but it is okay
26:52 provided you have it with the meal, with fiber
26:57 a small amount, the Bible says Thou hast found honey,
27:02 eat quiet a sufficient on to thee lest thou vomit.
27:06 Now, we don't want to eat so many sweets
27:09 that we have that sort of a reaction that's for sure,
27:12 small amount of sweet with the meal never
27:15 between meals that's the key.
27:17 So, we should be wise in the sugars that
27:21 we choose hopefully we choose one has some
27:24 nutritional value like a maple syrup
27:26 or something of that nature. Don't think about
27:30 necessarily eliminating all sugar at least
27:32 that would be difficult for me, but be wise in how
27:34 we incorporate sugar into our lifestyles,
27:36 eat the sweets and enjoy them,
27:38 savor them small portions with the meal not between
27:42 meals are best for our long-term health.
27:45 That's right and eat them slowly
27:47 and really truly enjoy them. The Lord gave us
27:50 a desire for sweets for a purpose we should enjoy
27:53 them, but with control remembering that
27:57 we need to be in control of our body rather
28:01 then it in control of us.
28:03 Thank you Dr. Howe and thank you guests
28:05 for joining us today on Wonderfully Made.


Home

Revised 2014-12-17