Participants: Timothy Howe and Sheryl McWilliams
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. |
Revised 2014-12-17