Fwd: E-Mail about Sugar (long)

[Guest guest]

The email is so large, that I had to make a text file from it. Just download it and it will ask you if you want to locate it. Click on yes to read the post on Sugar.

Love,

----------/----------

The road to englightenment is long and difficult...

So bring snacks and a magazine.

2001/03/17 19:11:49 CST

Message: 22

Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 20:46:36 -0000

From: " D & WMcPhail " <dwmcphail@...>

Subject: Interesting report on sugar....

this is kinda long ?? but it is so good.... thought someone might appreciate

it....

wendy

WHY SUGAR IS TOXIC TO THE BODY

In 1957, Dr Coda tried to answer the question: When is a food a

food and when is it a poison? His working definition of " poison " was:

" Medically: Any substance applied to the body, ingested or developed within the

body, which causes or may cause disease. Physically: Any substance which

inhibits the activity of a catalyst which is a minor substance, chemical or

enzyme that activates a reaction. " 1 The dictionary gives an even broader

definition for " poison " : " to exert a harmful influence on, or to pervert " .

Dr classified refined sugar as a poison because it has been depleted of

its life forces, vitamins and minerals. " What is left consists of pure, refined

carbohydrates. The body cannot utilize this refined starch and carbohydrate

unless the depleted proteins, vitamins and minerals are present. Nature supplies

these elements in each plant in quantities sufficient to metabolize the

carbohydrate in that particular plant. There is no excess for other added

carbohydrates. Incomplete carbohydrate metabolism results in the formation of

'toxic metabolite' such as pyruvic acid and abnormal sugars containing five

carbon atoms. Pyruvic acid accumulates in the brain and nervous system and the

abnormal sugars in the red blood cells. These toxic metabolites interfere with

the respiration of the cells. They cannot get sufficient oxygen to survive and

function normally. In time, some of the cells die. This interferes with the

function of a part of the body and is the beginning of degenerative disease. " 2

Refined sugar is lethal when ingested by humans because it provides only that

which nutritionists describe as " empty " or " naked " calories. It lacks the

natural minerals which are present in the sugar beet or cane. In addition, sugar

is worse than nothing because it drains and leaches the body of precious

vitamins and minerals through the demand its digestion, detoxification and

elimination make upon one's entire system.

So essential is balance to our bodies that we have many ways to provide against

the sudden shock of a heavy intake of sugar. Minerals such as sodium (from

salt), potassium and magnesium (from vegetables), and calcium (from the bones)

are mobilised and used in chemical transmutation; neutral acids are produced

which attempt to return the acid-alkaline balance factor of the blood to a more

normal state.

Sugar taken every day produces a continuously overacid condition, and more and

more minerals are required from deep in the body in the attempt to rectify the

imbalance. Finally, in order to protect the blood, so much calcium is taken from

the bones and teeth that decay and general weakening begin.

Excess sugar eventually affects every organ in the body. Initially, it is stored

in the liver in the form of glucose (glycogen). Since the liver's capacity is

limited, a daily intake of refined sugar (above the required amount of natural

sugar) soon makes the liver expand like a balloon. When the liver is filled to

its maximum capacity, the excess glycogen is returned to the blood in the form

of fatty acids. These are taken to every part of the body and stored in the most

inactive areas: the belly, the buttocks, the breasts and the thighs.

When these comparatively harmless places are completely filled, fatty acids are

then distributed among active organs, such as the heart and kidneys. These begin

to slow down; finally their tissues degenerate and turn to fat. The whole body

is affected by their reduced ability, and abnormal blood pressure is created.

The parasympathetic nervous system is affected; and organs governed by it, such

as the small brain, become inactive or paralysed. (Normal brain function is

rarely thought of as being as biologic as digestion.) The circulatory and

lymphatic systems are invaded, and the quality of the red corpuscles starts to

change. An overabundance of white cells occurs, and the creation of tissue

becomes slower. Our body's tolerance and immunising power becomes more limited,

so we cannot respond properly to extreme attacks, whether they be cold, heat,

mosquitoes or microbes.

Excessive sugar has a strong mal-effect on the functioning of the brain. The key

to orderly brain function is glutamic acid, a vital compound found in many

vegetables. The B vitamins play a major role in dividing glutamic acid into

antagonistic-complementary compounds which produce a " proceed " or " control "

response in the brain. B vitamins are also manufactured by symbiotic bacteria

which live in our intestines. When refined sugar is taken daily, these bacteria

wither and die, and our stock of B vitamins gets very low. Too much sugar makes

one sleepy; our ability to calculate and remember is lost.

SUGAR: HARMFUL TO HUMANS AND ANIMALS

Shipwrecked sailors who ate and drank nothing but sugar and rum for nine days

surely went through some of this trauma; the tales they had to tell created a

big public relations problem for the sugar pushers.

This incident occurred when a vessel carrying a cargo of sugar was shipwrecked

in 1793. The five surviving sailors were finally rescued after being marooned

for nine days. They were in a wasted condition due to starvation, having

consumed nothing but sugar and rum.

The eminent French physiologist F. Magendie was inspired by that incident to

conduct a series of experiments with animals, the results of which he published

in 1816. In the experiments, he fed dogs a diet of sugar or olive oil and water.

All the dogs wasted and died.3

The shipwrecked sailors and the French physiologist's experimental dogs proved

the same point. As a steady diet, sugar is worse than nothing. Plain water can

keep you alive for quite some time. Sugar and water can kill you. Humans [and

animals] are " unable to subsist on a diet of sugar " .4

The dead dogs in Professor Magendie's laboratory alerted the sugar industry to

the hazards of free scientific inquiry. From that day to this, the sugar

industry has invested millions of dollars in behind-the-scenes, subsidised

science. The best scientific names that money could buy have been hired, in the

hope that they could one day come up with something at least pseudoscientific in

the way of glad tidings about sugar.

It has been proved, however, that (1) sugar is a major factor in dental decay;

(2) sugar in a person's diet does cause overweight; (3) removal of sugar from

diets has cured symptoms of crippling, worldwide diseases such as diabetes,

cancer and heart illnesses.

Sir Frederick Banting, the codiscoverer of insulin, noticed in 1929 in Panama

that, among sugar plantation owners who ate large amounts of their refined

stuff, diabetes was common. Among native cane-cutters, who only got to chew the

raw cane, he saw no diabetes.

However, the story of the public relations attempts on the part of the sugar

manufacturers began in Britain in 1808 when the Committee of West India reported

to the House of Commons that a prize of twenty-five guineas had been offered to

anyone who could come up with the most " satisfactory " experiments to prove that

unrefined sugar was good for feeding and fattening oxen, cows, hogs and sheep.5

Food for animals is often seasonal, always expensive. Sugar, by then, was dirt

cheap. People weren't eating it fast enough.

Naturally, the attempt to feed livestock with sugar and molasses in England in

1808 was a disaster. When the Committee on West India made its fourth report to

the House of Commons, one Member of Parliament, Curwin, reported that he

had tried to feed sugar and molasses to calves without success. He suggested

that perhaps someone should try again by sneaking sugar and molasses into

skimmed milk. Had anything come of that, you can be sure the West Indian sugar

merchants would have spread the news around the world. After this singular lack

of success in pushing sugar in cow pastures, the West Indian sugar merchants

gave up.

With undaunted zeal for increasing the market demand for the most important

agricultural product of the West Indies, the Committee of West India was reduced

to a tactic that has served the sugar pushers for almost 200 years: irrelevant

and transparently silly testimonials from faraway, inaccessible people with some

kind of " scientific " credentials. One early commentator called them " hired

consciences " .

The House of Commons committee was so hard-up for local cheerleaders on the

sugar question, it was reduced to quoting a doctor from faraway Philadelphia, a

leader of the recent American colonial rebellion: " The great Dr Rush of

Philadelphia is reported to have said that 'sugar contains more nutrients in the

same bulk than any other known substance'. " (Emphasis added.) At the same time,

the same Dr Rush was preaching that masturbation was the cause of insanity! If a

weasel-worded statement like that was quoted, one can be sure no animal doctor

could be found in Britain who would recommend sugar for the care and feeding of

cows, pigs or sheep.

While preparing his epochal volume, A History of Nutrition, published in 1957,

Professor E. V. McCollum (s Hopkins University), sometimes called America's

foremost nutritionist and certainly a pioneer in the field, reviewed

approximately 200,000 published scientific papers, recording experiments with

food, their properties, their utilisation and their effects on animals and men.

The material covered the period from the mid-18th century to 1940. From this

great repository of scientific inquiry, McCollum selected those experiments

which he regarded as significant " to relate the story of progress in discovering

human error in this segment of science [of nutrition] " . Professor McCollum

failed to record a single controlled scientific experiment with sugar between

1816 and 1940.

Unhappily, we must remind ourselves that scientists today, and always,

accomplish little without a sponsor. The protocols of modern science have

compounded the costs of scientific inquiry.

We have no right to be surprised when we read the introduction to McCollum's A

History of Nutrition and find that " The author and publishers are indebted to

The Nutrition Foundation, Inc., for a grant provided to meet a portion of the

cost of publication of this book " . What, you might ask, is The Nutrition

Foundation, Inc.? The author and the publishers don't tell you. It happens to be

a front organisation for the leading sugar-pushing conglomerates in the food

business, including the American Sugar Refining Company, Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola,

Curtis Candy Co., General Foods, General Mills, Nestlé Co., Pet Milk Co. and

Sunshine Biscuits-about 45 such companies in all.

Perhaps the most significant thing about McCollum's 1957 history was what he

left out: a monumental earlier work described by an eminent Harvard professor as

" one of those epochal pieces of research which makes every other investigator

desirous of kicking himself because he never thought of doing the same thing " .

In the 1930s, a research dentist from Cleveland, Ohio, Dr Weston A. Price,

travelled all over the world-from the lands of the Eskimos to the South Sea

Islands, from Africa to New Zealand. His Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A

Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects,6 which is

illustrated with hundreds of photographs, was first published in 1939.

Dr Price took the whole world as his laboratory. His devastating conclusion,

recorded in horrifying detail in area after area, was simple. People who live

under so-called backward primitive conditions had excellent teeth and wonderful

general health. They ate natural, unrefined food from their own locale. As soon

as refined, sugared foods were imported as a result of contact with

" civilisation " , physical degeneration began in a way that was definitely

observable within a single generation.

Any credibility the sugar pushers have is based on our ignorance of works like

that of Dr Price. Sugar manufacturers keep trying, hoping and contributing

generous research grants to colleges and universities; but the research

laboratories never come up with anything solid the manufacturers can use.

Invariably, the research results are bad news.

" Let us go to the ignorant savage, consider his way of eating and be wise, "

Harvard professor Ernest Hooten said in Apes, Men, and Morons.7 " Let us cease

pretending that toothbrushes and toothpaste are any more important than shoe

brushes and shoe polish. It is store food that has given us store teeth. "

When the researchers bite the hands that feed them, and the news gets out, it's

embarrassing all around. In 1958, Time magazine reported that a Harvard

biochemist and his assistants had worked with myriads of mice for more than ten

years, bankrolled by the Sugar Research Foundation, Inc. to the tune of $57,000,

to find out how sugar causes dental cavities and how to prevent this. It took

them ten years to discover that there was no way to prevent sugar causing dental

decay. When the researchers reported their findings in the Dental Association

Journal, their source of money dried up. The Sugar Research Foundation withdrew

its support.

The more that the scientists disappointed them, the more the sugar pushers had

to rely on the ad men.

SUCROSE: " PURE " ENERGY AT A PRICE

When calories became the big thing in the 1920s, and everybody was learning to

count them, the sugar pushers turned up with a new pitch. They boasted there

were 2,500 calories in a pound of sugar. A little over a quarter-pound of sugar

would produce 20 per cent of the total daily quota.

" If you could buy all your food energy as cheaply as you buy calories in sugar, "

they told us, " your board bill for the year would be very low. If sugar were

seven cents a pound, it would cost less than $35 for a whole year. "

A very inexpensive way to kill yourself.

" Of course, we don't live on any such unbalanced diet, " they admitted later.

" But that figure serves to point out how inexpensive sugar is as an

energy-building food. What was once a luxury only a privileged few could enjoy

is now a food for the poorest of people. "

Later, the sugar pushers advertised that sugar was chemically pure, topping

Ivory soap in that department, being 99.9 per cent pure against Ivory's vaunted

99.44 per cent. " No food of our everyday diet is purer, " we were assured.

What was meant by purity, besides the unarguable fact that all vitamins,

minerals, salts, fibres and proteins had been removed in the refining process?

Well, the sugar pushers came up with a new slant on purity.

" You don't have to sort it like beans, wash it like rice. Every grain is like

every other. No waste attends its use. No useless bones like in meat, no grounds

like coffee. "

" Pure " is a favourite adjective of the sugar pushers because it means one thing

to the chemists and another thing to the ordinary mortals. When honey is

labelled pure, this means that it is in its natural state (stolen directly from

the bees who made it), with no adulteration with sucrose to stretch it and no

harmful chemical residues which may have been sprayed on the flowers. It does

not mean that the honey is free from minerals like iodine, iron, calcium,

phosphorus or multiple vitamins. So effective is the purification process which

sugar cane and beets undergo in the refineries that sugar ends up as chemically

pure as the morphine or the heroin a chemist has on the laboratory shelves. What

nutritional virtue this abstract chemical purity represents, the sugar pushers

never tell us.

Beginning with World War I, the sugar pushers coated their propaganda with a

preparedness pitch. " Dietitians have known the high food value of sugar for a

long time, " said an industry tract of the 1920s. " But it took World War I to

bring this home. The energy-building power of sugar reaches the muscles in

minutes and it was of value to soldiers as a ration given them just before an

attack was launched. " The sugar pushers have been harping on the energy-building

power of sucrose for years because it contains nothing else. Caloric energy and

habit-forming taste: that's what sucrose has, and nothing else.

All other foods contain energy plus. All foods contain some nutrients in the way

of proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins or minerals, or all of these. Sucrose

contains caloric energy, period.

The " quick " energy claim the sugar pushers talk about, which drives reluctant

doughboys over the top and drives children up the wall, is based on the fact

that refined sucrose is not digested in the mouth or the stomach but passes

directly to the lower intestines and thence to the bloodstream. The extra speed

with which sucrose enters the bloodstream does more harm than good.

Much of the public confusion about refined sugar is compounded by language.

Sugars are classified by chemists as " carbohydrates " . This manufactured word

means " a substance containing carbon with oxygen and hydrogen " . If chemists want

to use these hermetic terms in their laboratories when they talk to one another,

fine. The use of the word " carbohydrate " outside the laboratory-especially in

food labelling and advertising lingo-to describe both natural, complete cereal

grains (which have been a principal food of mankind for thousands of years) and

man-refined sugar (which is a manufactured drug and principal poison of mankind

for only a few hundred years) is demonstrably wicked. This kind of confusion

makes possible the flimflam practised by sugar pushers to confound anxious

mothers into thinking kiddies need sugar to survive.

In 1973, the Sugar Information Foundation placed full-page advertisements in

national magazines. Actually, the ads were disguised retractions they were

forced to make in a strategic retreat after a lengthy tussle with the Federal

Trade Commission over an earlier ad campaign claiming that a little shot of

sugar before meals would " curb " your appetite. " You need carbohydrates. And it

so happens that sugar is the best-tasting carbohydrate. " You might as well say

everybody needs liquids every day. It so happens that many people find champagne

is the best-tasting liquid. How long would the Women's Christian Temperance

Union let the liquor lobby get away with that one?

The use of the word " carbohydrate " to describe sugar is deliberately misleading.

Since the improved labelling of nutritional properties was required on packages

and cans, refined carbohydrates like sugar are lumped together with those

carbohydrates which may or may not be refined. The several types of

carbohydrates are added together for an overall carbohydrate total. Thus, the

effect of the label is to hide the sugar content from the unwary buyer. Chemists

add to the confusion by using the word " sugar " to describe an entire group of

substances that are similar but not identical.

Glucose is a sugar found usually with other sugars, in fruits and vegetables. It

is a key material in the metabolism of all plants and animals. Many of our

principal foods are converted into glucose in our bodies. Glucose is always

present in our bloodstream, and it is often called " blood sugar " .

Dextrose, also called " corn sugar " , is derived synthetically from starch.

Fructose is fruit sugar. Maltose is malt sugar. Lactose is milk sugar. Sucrose

is refined sugar made from sugar cane and sugar beet.

Glucose has always been an essential element in the human bloodstream. Sucrose

addiction is something new in the history of the human animal. To use the word

" sugar " to describe two substances which are far from being identical, which

have different chemical structures and which affect the body in profoundly

different ways compounds confusion.

It makes possible more flimflam from the sugar pushers who tell us how important

sugar is as an essential component of the human body, how it is oxidised to

produce energy, how it is metabolised to produce warmth, and so on. They're

talking about glucose, of course, which is manufactured in our bodies. However,

one is led to believe that the manufacturers are talking about the sucrose which

is made in their refineries. When the word " sugar " can mean the glucose in your

blood as well as the sucrose in your Coca-Cola, it's great for the sugar pushers

but it's rough on everybody else.

People have been bamboozled into thinking of their bodies the way they think of

their cheque accounts. If they suspect they have low blood sugar, they are

programmed to snack on vending machine candies and sodas in order to raise their

blood sugar level. Actually, this is the worst thing to do. The level of glucose

in their blood is apt to be low because they are addicted to sucrose. People who

kick sucrose addiction and stay off sucrose find that the glucose level of their

blood returns to normal and stays there.

Since the late 1960s, millions of Americans have returned to natural food. A new

type of store, the natural food store, has encouraged many to become dropouts

from the supermarket. Natural food can be instrumental in restoring health. Many

people, therefore, have come to equate the word " natural " with " healthy " . So the

sugar pushers have begun to pervert the word " natural " in order to mislead the

public.

" Made from natural ingredients " , the television sugar-pushers tell us about

product after product. The word " from " is not accented on television. It should

be. Even refined sugar is made from natural ingredients. There is nothing new

about that. The natural ingredients are cane and beets. But that four-letter

word " from " hardly suggests that 90 per cent of the cane and beet have been

removed. Heroin, too, could be advertised as being made from natural

ingredients. The opium poppy is as natural as the sugar beet. It's what man does

with it that tells the story.

If you want to avoid sugar in the supermarket, there is only one sure way. Don't

buy anything unless it says on the label prominently, in plain English: " No

sugar added " . Use of the word " carbohydrate " as a " scientific " word for sugar

has become a standard defence strategy with sugar pushers and many of their

medical apologists. It's their security blanket.

CORRECT FOOD COMBINING

Whether it's sugared cereal or pastry and black coffee for breakfast, whether

it's hamburgers and Coca-Cola for lunch or the full " gourmet " dinner in the

evening, chemically the average American diet is a formula that guarantees

bubble, bubble, stomach trouble.

Unless you've taken too much insulin and, in a state of insulin shock, need

sugar as an antidote, hardly anyone ever has cause to take sugar alone. Humans

need sugar as much as they need the nicotine in tobacco. Crave it is one

thing-need it is another. From the days of the Persian Empire to our own, sugar

has usually been used to hop up the flavour of other food and drink, as an

ingredient in the kitchen or as a condiment at the table. Let us leave aside for

the moment the known effect of sugar (long-term and short-term) on the entire

system and concentrate on the effect of sugar taken in combination with other

daily foods.

When Grandma warned that sugared cookies before meals " will spoil your supper " ,

she knew what she was talking about. Her explanation might not have satisfied a

chemist but, as with many traditional axioms from the Mosaic law on kosher food

and separation in the kitchen, such rules are based on years of trial and error

and are apt to be right on the button. Most modern research in combining food is

a laboured discovery of the things Grandma took for granted.

Any diet or regimen undertaken for the single purpose of losing weight is

dangerous, by definition. Obesity is talked about and treated as a disease in

20th-century America. Obesity is not a disease. It is only a symptom, a sign, a

warning that your body is out of order. Dieting to lose weight is as silly and

dangerous as taking aspirin to relieve a headache before you know the reason for

the headache. Getting rid of a symptom is like turning off an alarm. It leaves

the basic cause untouched.

Any diet or regimen undertaken with any objective short of restoration of total

health of your body is dangerous. Many overweight people are undernourished. (Dr

H. Curtis Wood stresses this point in his 1971 book, Overfed But

Undernourished.) Eating less can aggravate this condition, unless one is

concerned with the quality of the food instead of just its quantity.

Many people-doctors included-assume that if weight is lost, fat is lost. This is

not necessarily so. Any diet which lumps all carbohydrates together is

dangerous. Any diet which does not consider the quality of carbohydrates and

makes the crucial life-and-death distinction between natural, unrefined

carbohydrates like whole grains and vegetables and man-refined carbohydrates

like sugar and white flour is dangerous. Any diet which includes refined sugar

and white flour, no matter what " scientific " name is applied to them, is

dangerous.

Kicking sugar and white flour and substituting whole grains, vegetables and

natural fruits in season, is the core of any sensible natural regimen. Changing

the quality of your carbohydrates can change the quality of your health and

life. If you eat natural food of good quality, quantity tends to take care of

itself. Nobody is going to eat a half-dozen sugar beets or a whole case of sugar

cane. Even if they do, it will be less dangerous than a few ounces of sugar.

Sugar of all kinds-natural sugars, such as those in honey and fruit (fructose),

as well as the refined white stuff (sucrose)-tends to arrest the secretion of

gastric juices and have an inhibiting effect on the stomach's natural ability to

move. Sugars are not digested in the mouth, like cereals, or in the stomach,

like animal flesh. When taken alone, they pass quickly through the stomach into

the small intestine. When sugars are eaten with other foods-perhaps meat and

bread in a sandwich-they are held up in the stomach for a while. The sugar in

the bread and the Coke sit there with the hamburger and the bun waiting for them

to be digested. While the stomach is working on the animal protein and the

refined starch in the bread, the addition of the sugar practically guarantees

rapid acid fermentation under the conditions of warmth and moisture existing in

the stomach.

One lump of sugar in your coffee after a sandwich is enough to turn your stomach

into a fermenter. One soda with a hamburger is enough to turn your stomach into

a still. Sugar on cereal-whether you buy it already sugared in a box or add it

yourself-almost guarantees acid fermentation.

Since the beginning of time, natural laws were observed, in both senses of that

word, when it came to eating foods in combination. Birds have been observed

eating insects at one period in the day and seeds at another. Other animals tend

to eat one food at a time. Flesh-eating animals take their protein raw and

straight.

In the Orient, it is traditional to eat yang before yin. Miso soup (fermented

soybean protein, yang) for breakfast; raw fish (more yang protein) at the

beginning of the meal; afterwards comes the rice (which is less yang than the

miso and fish); and then the vegetables which are yin. If you ever eat with a

traditional Japanese family and you violate this order, the Orientals (if your

friends) will correct you courteously but firmly.

The law observed by Orthodox Jews prohibits many combinations at the same meal,

especially flesh and dairy products. Special utensils for the dairy meal and

different utensils for the flesh meal reinforce that taboo at the food's source

in the kitchen.

Man learned very early in the game what improper combinations of food could do

to the human system. When he got a stomach ache from combining raw fruit with

grain, or honey with porridge, he didn't reach for an antacid tablet. He learned

not to eat that way. When gluttony and excess became widespread, religious codes

and commandments were invoked against it. Gluttony is a capital sin in most

religions; but there are no specific religious warnings or commandments against

refined sugar because sugar abuse-like drug abuse-did not appear on the world

scene until centuries after holy books had gone to press.

" Why must we accept as normal what we find in a race of sick and weakened human

beings? " Dr Herbert M. Shelton asks. " Must we always take it for granted that

the present eating practices of civilized men are normal?... Foul stools, loose

stools, impacted stools, pebbly stools, much foul gas, colitis, haemorrhoids,

bleeding with stools, the need for toilet paper are swept into the orbit of the

normal. " 8

When starches and complex sugars (like those in honey and fruits) are digested,

they are broken down into simple sugars called " monosaccharides " , which are

usable substances-nutriments. When starches and sugars are taken together and

undergo fermentation, they are broken down into carbon dioxide, acetic acid,

alcohol and water. With the exception of the water, all these are unusable

substances-poisons.

When proteins are digested, they are broken down into amino acids, which are

usable substances-nutriments. When proteins are taken with sugar, they putrefy;

they are broken down into a variety of ptomaines and leucomaines, which are

nonusable substances-poisons.

Enzymic digestion of foods prepares them for use by our body. Bacterial

decomposition makes them unfit for use by our body. The first process gives us

nutriments; the second gives us poisons.

Much that passes for modern nutrition is obsessed with a mania for quantitative

counting. The body is treated like a cheque account. Deposit calories (like

dollars) and withdraw energy. Deposit proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins

and minerals-balanced quantitatively-and the result, theoretically, is a healthy

body. People qualify as healthy today if they can crawl out of bed, get to the

office and sign in. If they can't make it, call the doctor to qualify for sick

pay, hospitalisation, rest cure-anything from a day's pay without working to an

artificial kidney, courtesy of the taxpayers.

But what doth it profit someone if the theoretically required calories and

nutrients are consumed daily, yet this random eat-on-the-run, snack-time

collection of foods ferments and putrefies in the digestive tract? What good is

it if the body is fed protein, only to have it putrefy in the gastrointestinal

canal? Carbohydrates that ferment in the digestive tract are converted into

alcohol and acetic acid, not digestible monosaccharides.

" To derive sustenance from foods eaten, they must be digested, " Shelton warned

years ago. " They must not rot. "

Sure, the body can get rid of poisons through the urine and the pores; the

amount of poisons in the urine is taken as an index to what's going on in the

intestine. The body does establish a tolerance for these poisons, just as it

adjusts gradually to an intake of heroin. But, says Shelton, " the discomfort

from accumulation of gas, the bad breath, and foul and unpleasant odors are as

undesirable as are the poisons " .9

SUGAR AND MENTAL HEALTH

In the Dark Ages, troubled souls were rarely locked up for going off their

rocker. Such confinement began in the Age of Enlightenment, after sugar made the

transition from apothecary's prescription to candymaker's confection. " The great

confinement of the insane " , as one historian calls it,10 began in the late 17th

century, after sugar consumption in Britain had zoomed in 200 years from a pinch

or two in a barrel of beer, here and there, to more than two million pounds per

year. By that time, physicians in London had begun to observe and record

terminal physical signs and symptoms of the " sugar blues " .

Meanwhile, when sugar eaters did not manifest obvious terminal physical symptoms

and the physicians were professionally bewildered, patients were no longer

pronounced bewitched, but mad, insane, emotionally disturbed. Laziness, fatigue,

debauchery, parental displeasure-any one problem was sufficient cause for people

under twenty-five to be locked up in the first Parisian mental hospitals. All it

took to be incarcerated was a complaint from parents, relatives or the

omnipotent parish priest. Wet nurses with their babies, pregnant youngsters,

retarded or defective children, senior citizens, paralytics, epileptics,

prostitutes or raving lunatics-anyone wanted off the streets and out of sight

was put away. The mental hospital succeeded witch-hunting and heresy-hounding as

a more enlightened and humane method of social control. The physician and priest

handled the dirty work of street sweeping in return for royal favours.

Initially, when the General Hospital was established in Paris by royal decree,

one per cent of the city's population was locked up. From that time until the 20

century, as the consumption of sugar went up and up-especially in the cities-so

did the number of people who were put away in the General Hospital. Three

hundred years later, the " emotionally disturbed " can be turned into walking

automatons, their brains controlled with psychoactive drugs.

Today, pioneers of orthomolecular psychiatry, such as Dr Abram Hoffer, Dr Allan

Cott, Dr A. Cherkin as well as Dr Linus ing, have confirmed that mental

illness is a myth and that emotional disturbance can be merely the first symptom

of the obvious inability of the human system to handle the stress of sugar

dependency.

In Orthomolecular Psychiatry, Dr ing writes: " The functioning of the brain

and nervous tissue is more sensitively dependent on the rate of chemical

reactions than the functioning of other organs and tissues. I believe that

mental disease is for the most part caused by abnormal reaction rates, as

determined by genetic constitution and diet, and by abnormal molecular

concentrations of essential substances... Selection of food (and drugs) in a

world that is undergoing rapid scientific and technological change may often be

far from the best. " 11

In Megavitamin B3 Therapy for Schizophrenia, Dr Abram Hoffer notes: " Patients

are also advised to follow a good nutritional program with restriction of

sucrose and sucrose-rich foods. " 12

Clinical research with hyperactive and psychotic children, as well as those with

brain injuries and learning disabilities, has shown:

" An abnormally high family history of diabetes-that is, parents and grandparents

who cannot handle sugar; an abnormally high incidence of low blood glucose, or

functional hypoglycemia in the children themselves, which indicates that their

systems cannot handle sugar; dependence on a high level of sugar in the diets of

the very children who cannot handle it.

" Inquiry into the dietary history of patients diagnosed as schizophrenic reveals

the diet of their choice is rich in sweets, candy, cakes, coffee, caffeinated

beverages, and foods prepared with sugar. These foods, which stimulate the

adrenals, should be eliminated or severely restricted. " 13

The avant-garde of modern medicine has rediscovered what the lowly sorceress

learned long ago through painstaking study of nature.

" In more than twenty years of psychiatric work, " writes Dr Szasz, " I have

never known a clinical psychologist to report, on the basis of a projective

test, that the subject is a normal, mentally healthy person. While some witches

may have survived dunking, no 'madman' survives psychological testing...there is

no behavior or person that a modern psychiatrist cannot plausibly diagnose as

abnormal or ill. " 14

So it was in the 17th century. Once the doctor or the exorcist had been called

in, he was under pressure to do something. When he tried and failed, the poor

patient had to be put away. It is often said that surgeons bury their mistakes.

Physicians and psychiatrists put them away; lock 'em up.

In the 1940s, Dr Tintera rediscovered the vital importance of the endocrine

system, especially the adrenal glands, in " pathological mentation " -or " brain

boggling " . In 200 cases under treatment for hypoadrenocorticism (the lack of

adequate adrenal cortical hormone production or imbalance among these hormones),

he discovered that the chief complaints of his patients were often similar to

those found in persons whose systems were unable to handle sugar: fatigue,

nervousness, depression, apprehension, craving for sweets, inability to handle

alcohol, inability to concentrate, allergies, low blood pressure. Sugar blues!

Dr Tintera finally insisted that all his patients submit to a four-hour glucose

tolerance test (GTT) to find out whether or not they could handle sugar. The

results were so startling that the laboratories double-checked their techniques,

then apologised for what they believed to be incorrect readings. What mystified

them was the low, flat curves derived from disturbed, early adolescents. This

laboratory procedure had been previously carried out only for patients with

physical findings presumptive of diabetes.

Dorland's definition of schizophrenia (Bleuler's dementia praecox) includes the

phrase, " often recognized during or shortly after adolescence " , and further, in

reference to hebephrenia and catatonia, " coming on soon after the onset of

puberty " .

These conditions might seem to arise or become aggravated at puberty, but

probing into the patient's past will frequently reveal indications which were

present at birth, during the first year of life, and through the preschool and

grammar school years. Each of these periods has its own characteristic clinical

picture. This picture becomes more marked at pubescence and often causes school

officials to complain of juvenile delinquency or underachievement.

A glucose tolerance test at any of these periods could alert parents and

physicians and could save innumerable hours and small fortunes spent in looking

into the child's psyche and home environment for maladjustments of questionable

significance in the emotional development of the average child.

The negativism, hyperactivity and obstinate resentment of discipline are

absolute indications for at least the minimum laboratory tests: urinalysis,

complete bloodcount, PBI determination, and the five-hour glucose tolerance

test. A GTT can be performed on a young child by the micro-method without undue

trauma to the patient. As a matter of fact, I have been urging that these four

tests be routine for all patients, even before a history or physical examination

is undertaken.

In almost all discussions on drug addiction, alcoholism and schizophrenia, it is

claimed that there is no definite constitutional type that falls prey to these

afflictions. Almost universally, the statement is made that all of these

individuals are emotionally immature. It has long been our goal to persuade

every physician, whether oriented toward psychiatry, genetics or physiology, to

recognise that one type of endocrine individual is involved in the majority of

these cases: the hypoadrenocortic.15

Tintera published several epochal medical papers. Over and over, he emphasised

that improvement, alleviation, palliation or cure was " dependent upon the

restoration of the normal function of the total organism " . His first prescribed

item of treatment was diet. Over and over again, he said that " the importance of

diet cannot be overemphasised " . He laid out a sweeping permanent injunction

against sugar in all forms and guises.

While Egas Moniz of Portugal was receiving a Nobel Prize for devising the

lobotomy operation for the treatment of schizophrenia, Tintera's reward was to

be harassment and hounding by the pundits of organised medicine. While Tintera's

sweeping implication of sugar as a cause of what was called " schizophrenia "

could be confined to medical journals, he was let alone, ignored. He could be

tolerated-if he stayed in his assigned territory, endocrinology. Even when he

suggested that alcoholism was related to adrenals that had been whipped by sugar

abuse, they let him alone; because the medicos had decided there was nothing in

alcoholism for them except aggravation, they were satisfied to abandon it to

Alcoholics Anonymous. However, when Tintera dared to suggest in a magazine of

general circulation that " it is ridiculous to talk of kinds of allergies when

there is only one kind, which is adrenal glands impaired...by sugar " , he could

no longer be ignored.

The allergists had a great racket going for themselves. Allergic souls had been

entertaining each other for years with tall tales of exotic allergies-everything

from horse feathers to lobster tails. Along comes someone who says none of this

matters: take them off sugar, and keep them off it.

Perhaps Tintera's untimely death in 1969 at the age of fifty-seven made it

easier for the medical profession to accept discoveries that had once seemed as

far out as the simple oriental medical thesis of genetics and diet, yin and

yang. Today, doctors all over the world are repeating what Tintera announced

years ago: nobody, but nobody, should ever be allowed to begin what is called

" psychiatric treatment " , anyplace, anywhere, unless and until they have had a

glucose tolerance test to discover if they can handle sugar.

So-called preventive medicine goes further and suggests that since we only think

we can handle sugar because we initially have strong adrenals, why wait until

they give us signs and signals that they're worn out? Take the load off now by

eliminating sugar in all forms and guises, starting with that soda pop you have

in your hand.

The mind truly boggles when one glances over what passes for medical history.

Through the centuries, troubled souls have been barbecued for bewitchment,

exorcised for possession, locked up for insanity, tortured for masturbatory

madness, psychiatrised for psychosis, lobotomised for schizophrenia. How many

patients would have listened if the local healer had told them that the only

thing ailing them was sugar blues?