A sugar-free diet may sound straightforward but it’s a little more difficult than it seems because avoiding sugar actually means avoiding all urban convenience foods—they all contain cane sugar and high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

The hazardous nature of this fair is obvious: a diet based on highly processed sugars, grains and fats is acidifying, inflammatory and causes chronic oxidative stress. It also severely impairs basic homeostatic mechanisms reliant on mineral and pH balance. The regulation of appetite, energy metabolism and blood sugar are similarly affected.

Furthermore, it was discovered as long ago as the 1970s that sugars including fructose, sucrose and glucose significantly supressed immune system activity (neutrophils) for at least five hours after a meal.¹ The implication of this is that if we consume sugary foods at all meals during the week, plus snacks and drinks in between, then immune suppression is long-term.

These factors are ultimately responsible for a rapid increase in chronic degenerative diseases that are fortunately reversible to some extent when the diet is changed. It is not, however, a simple matter of moderation and self-control because refined sugar has to be completely removed from the diet in order to restore balance to normal appetite signalling. In fact, refined sugar is considered by some to be a toxin because of its pronounced effect on this easily disturbed mechanism. The evident damage to the circulatory system, liver and pancreas bears this out.

Most doctors use serum cholesterol to get a measure of general health, but this is of little real value because elevated cholesterol can be a symptom of the whole urban lifestyle which includes sedentary habits, environmental pollution, smoking, sugary factory foods and high stress levels. It is not a cause of bad health per se as we know from the traditional lifestyles and diets of the Inuit, Mexicans and French.²

Nevertheless, when cholesterol is oxidised in the presence of sugar it becomes inflammatory and damages the circulatory system. In fact, sugar consumption correlates well with heart disease while fats other than trans fats do not.³ Part of the reason is that sustained high blood sugar causes the glycation of proteins (advanced glycation end products) which is a process that is implicated in heart disease and diabetic neuropathy. More useful clinical measures are markers of inflammation such as C-reactive protein (CRP), and serum homocysteine. Elevated homocysteine reflects nutrient deficiencies such as B-vitamins caused by a reliance on devitalised foods.

The steadily increasing consumption of HFCS present in modern industrial foods adds to the problem of a diet already enriched with cane sugar over the last century. Fructose is a type of sugar that cannot be directly used by the cells of the body, and is converted preferentially by the liver into fat for long term storage, promoting obesity and causing fatty liver. Fructose also adversely influences important appetite hormones, that is, it lowers your leptin level and raises your ghrelin level. High leptin promotes satiety, indicating to the brain that the fat warehouse is full, while high ghrelin promotes appetite by making you feel hungry—we eat more, steadily put on weight, but never feel full.

This state of a relentless appetite while full meets the definition of an addiction. It is an uncontrollable, maladaptive behaviour caused by a substance that stimulates its own excess consumption, generates tolerance and obsessive thoughts, as well as cravings that last throughout the day.

In addition, the gut can only absorb a minimal quantity of fructose and the unabsorbed amount stays in the intestines where it ferments, nourishes bacteria and causes bloating and flatulence. This is called fructose malabsorption and is not an allergy or food sensitivity.

Nevertheless, the dieter can eat fruit on the sugar-free diet, because fruit is eaten whole and therefore contains the necessary fibre to slow down the absorption of fructose in the fruit. It also contains the cofactors required to metabolise the fructose which are absent in refined foods and sweetened fruit juices. When these are absent, metabolism increasingly calls on the body’s own stores of these nutrients and it soon become deficient, as we see in diabetes. Diabetes is associated with deficiencies of chromium, zinc, selenium and magnesium.

While refined sugars contribute to overeating because they subvert satiety signalling, fats and proteins directly encourage a sense of fullness. This means that it is impossible to overeat fat, and a handful of nuts and seeds or a tin of tuna eaten as a snack is usually enough to satisfy the appetite between meals and give enduring energy. By contrast, sugary snacks give a short-lived boost then a sudden energy drop, or even hypoglycaemia (the blood-sugar rollercoaster), leading to cravings for more snacks soon afterwards.

Processed foods also come laden with chemical additives and pesticides that accumulate in fat tissues and interfere with hormone signalling, called obesogens. These chemicals are implicated in weight gain and the formation of cellulite, so going sugar-free means that we start to avoid this hidden menace as well, or at least reduce the build-up of residues already sequestered in our fat cells.

In fact, if there is any kind of trouble with the hormonal system (endocrine system), and a high cholesterol level reflects this because cholesterol is a key precursor of steroid hormone synthesis, then going organic is necessary. There are hundreds of known chemicals including pesticides, PCBS, dioxin, phthalates and fire retardants that can disrupt the endocrine system, and they are implicated in thyroid disorders, prostate problems, infertility, endometriosis, adrenal failure (chronic fatigue), pancreas insufficiency (diabetes)  and non-endocrine system problems such as immune dysfunction and hyperactivity (ADHD).⁴

A transition away from highly-processed foods to a nutrient-dense wholefood diet avoids these obvious hazards and begins the journey back to health. The dieter should eat good carbs and fibre that are present in a variety nuts, seed, legumes, whole grains, vegetables and good quality organic bread. They should also eat plenty of protein derived from pasture-fed animals, free-range eggs, wild fish or from plant sources such as legumes, tofu, quinoa and brown rice. Dairy consumption is not necessary, but good organic butter and cheese provide essential nutrients for health in moderate amounts as they do in the traditional Mediterranean diet and are available in the supermarket. Healthy fats can include olive oil, coconut oil, nuts, seeds and butter. In addition, coconut oil and butter contain saturated fats in the form of medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) which are efficient sources of energy.

Saturated fats have been given a bad name since the 1950s, however, recent analysis of many older clinical trials show that consuming saturated fat has no real effect on heart disease risk, just like cholesterol.⁵ What scientist do know is that the diet needs to contain protective omega-3 oils derived from fatty fish or plants to balance other fats in the diet, and that saturated fat or fish oil should not be replaced with low-fat foods that contain added carbs (sugars).⁶

Honey is permitted on a sugar-free diet, but it must be organic because conventional honey is often cut with sucrose and HFCS, or completely synthetic. Genuine honey can even help control diabetes.⁷ The herb stevia can be used to sweeten drinks, while synthetic sweeteners should be strictly avoided as they have a worse impact on homeostatic mechanisms than refined cane sugar or HFCS.⁸

Eating organic or biodynamic food is the very best form of protection, and this additional step gives more satisfaction, but not the initial big gains that come from just getting rid of refined sugar and factory fats. Nevertheless, consuming only organic food is often necessary to make clinical progress in cases of chronic diseases or infertility, often making it possible to replace life-time medicine regimes (statins, diuretics, cortisone, metformin, laxatives, blood thinners, ACE inhibitors, β-blockers, NSAIDS). Remember that any effort to change to a better diet, no matter how limited or gradual, is worthwhile and is paid back in equal measure.

The controversial issue of the toxicity of sugar, as well as the question concerning its addictive nature are dealt with in more detail in the eBook Sweet Tooth, Rotten Health.

References:

1.         Sanchez A, Reeser JL, Lau HS, et al. Role of sugars in human neutrophilic phagocytosis. Am J Clin Nutr 1973;26:1180–4.

2.         Ravnskov U. The Cholesterol Myths: Exposing The Fallacy That Saturated Fat And Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease. Washington, DC: New Trends; 2000.

3.         Yudkin J. Pure, White and Deadly: How Sugar is Killing Us and What We Can Do to Stop It. London: Penguin Books; 2012.

4.         Colborn, Dumanoski, Myers. Our Stolen Future. Dutton Adult; 1996.

5.         Chowdhury R, Warnakula S, Kunutsor S, et al. Association of dietary, circulating, and supplement fatty acids with coronary risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Ann Intern Med 2014;160:398–406.

6.         Siri-Tarino PW, Sun Q, Hu FB, Krauss RM. Saturated fatty acids and risk of coronary heart disease: modulation by replacement nutrients. Curr Atheroscler Rep 2010;12:384–90.

7.         Bobiş O, Dezmirean DS, Moise AR. Honey and Diabetes: The Importance of Natural Simple Sugars in Diet for Preventing and Treating Different Type of Diabetes. Oxid Med Cell Longev 2018;2018:4757893.

8.         Choudhary AK, Pretorius E. Revisiting the safety of aspartame. Nutr Rev 2017;75:718–30.