Inflammation huh? I wouldn't have believed it or directly correlated it if I hadn't felt it for myself. On two different occasions I have consumed something that had small amounts of refined sugar; one was my husbands homemade barbecue sauce, I didn't even think to ask about the ingredients; the other was one of our favorite desserts of berries and cream. We usually make this dessert with honey, but tonight my husband added powdered sugar as we made it for someone else. On both occasions I have felt a noticeable swelling of my fingers within 30 minutes to an hour later. I ignored it the first time just thinking I was tired or maybe it was something I ate, althougth I expected the barbecue was the culprit. Tonight when I felt the tightness and inflammation I knew I must have eaten some sort of refined sugar. So I started itching to do the research. Here's what I found:
- According to wetherchange.com "One of the reasons inflammation occurs is due to the rapid rise in blood sugar, which causes biochemical changes in the cell. When the blood sugar goes up rapidly, sugar can attach itself to collagen in a process called glycosylation, increasing inflammation."
- Also, according to Dr. Sears, prolonged silent inflammation can lead to chronic disease.
- wellnessletter.com states that "inflammation is a normal response to infection or injury. Immune cells congregate at the site so that they can overwhelm and dispose of infectious organisms or debris from injury. It also states that "some researchers now believe that low-grade inflammation is associated with everything from heart disease and diabetes, to alzheimer's and arthritis, and may even be the cause of most chronic diseases."
I guess what I am learning is that if my body responds to a small amount of sugar (which I doubt I would have ever noticed outside the context of this 365 day challenge) with inflammation; and if inflammation is a normal response to infection or injury.....shouldn't I assume that sugar is harming my body or at the very least, slowing it down?
2 comments:
My friend, Andrea, put me onto your blog and it's great! I too have been systematically trying to cut all the unnatural sugars out of my life, but I'm shocked that such a small amount caused a recognizable response in your body!
Thanks for your post! I was surprised as well to notice the swelling with the small amounts of sugar. When I think of how many teaspoons of sugar were probably in the barbecue sauce, High Fructose Corn Syrup that is already in the ketchup, the added white sugar my husband used, not to mention the amount of BBQ sauce I usually like to have on my chicken :) it really adds up. If there are 4 grams of sugar in 1 tsp. and the typical store-bought BBQ sauce has anywhere from 10-14 in one serving, you could be consuming 2-4 teaspoons of white table sugar or HFCS without even knowing it. It's amazing to see how the little things add up, I think that was the big surprise for me.
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