New Study

I really had every intention to leave sugar alone for a while, but a recent article from the Journal of Experimental Medicine has changed my mind.

If you thought the extra sugar you and your kids ate at Easter had little or only a short term effect, think again.  This latest research has shown that human genes remember a sugar hit for up to two weeks and change the way your body functions.  These authors concluded that all poor eating habits have what they referred to as “dramatic and long-lasting effects” on our cells.  Regular poor eating seems to amplify this effect.

This research can be added to the long list of material that suggests that ‘nurture’ is a bigger factor in determining health than ‘nature.’  We used to be taught that we were victims of our genes and that health and sickness comes down to a matter of good or bad luck.  They now know that our genes are turned on or off based on our lifestyle choices and our environment – this is the determining factor of health over disease.

The life lesson here is that all the lifestyle choices we make last a lot longer than we might think.  Furthermore, because lifestyle choices change the expression of our genes, we pass these tendencies to future generations.

The Flu

In the past couple articles, I’ve discussed how sugar decreases a person’s potential for wellness by compromising the immune system and limiting a person’s defense.  In this article, I’d like to point out one of the many ways to strengthen the immune system and improve defense.

One of the studies that inspired me to pursue chiropractic in the first place was performed in 1989 by Ronald Pero, Ph.D.  Dr. Pero was the chief cancer prevention researcher at New York University.  Since cancer is recognized as an immune system problem, Dr. Pero decided to check the immune systems of people under chiropractic care as compared to people in the general population and to people with cancer or other serious disease.  In a 3 year study of 107 individuals who had been under regular chiropractic care for at least 5 years, he found that this chiropractic group had a 200% greater immune function than the general public.  More than this, he found that the chiropractic group had a 400% greater immunity than people with cancer and other disease.

In his conclusion, Dr. Pero reported, “I have never seen a group other than this chiropractic group to experience a 200% increase over the normal patients.”

In addition to regular exercise, proper diet and reduced stress, maintaining the proper function of your spine and nervous system through regular chiropractic adjustments is proven to be a vital component of optimal health and wellness.

Sugar and Immunity

If you missed last week’s column, I picked on sugar.  If you missed it, that’s o.k. because this week I’m going to do it again!

Last week I reported how cutting sugar in schools improves student performance and behavior.  We all know that sugar contributes to obesity and of course is the main cause of type II diabetes.  This week I’d like to talk about how sugar adversely impacts your body’s defense or your immune system.

I’ve heard it reported that the amount of sugar in a single soda (which is about 12 teaspoons!) will virtually shut down your immune system for about two hours.  This makes you much more susceptible to all types of infection.

Did you know that about 75 years ago the Nobel Prize was given to Dr. Warburg of Germany when he discovered that sugar caused cancer?  Dr. Warburg reported that almost anything can cause cancer, but that there is only one prime cause and that is the fermentation of sugar in normal body cells.

A similar 2004 study concluded that women who ate more sugar-laden foods were nearly three times more likely to develop colon cancer.

We all know that sugar is bad for us, but hopefully this information can serve as motivation to avoid the sweets more often for better health.