From the Desk of Carolyn Dean MD ND
In doing research for my book, Sugar Without The Icing, I read Sugar Crush and learned from the brilliant peripheral nerve surgeon, Dr. Richard Jacoby, that sugar is constantly crushing our nerves. The full title of the book is Sugar Crush: How to Reduce Inflammation, Reverse Nerve Damage, and Reclaim Good Health. The following is an edited excerpt from my book.
Damaged Nerves or System of Nerves
From this title we surmise that sugar inflames, irritates, and damages the peripheral nerves. DANG! How did this get missed by allopathic medicine and alternative medicine? Doctors say there is no cure for peripheral neuropathy and just prescribe toxic drugs like Neurontin (gabapentin) to try to give some relief.
Neuropathy is a result of damage to a nerve or system of nerves. Your nerves send out messages originating from your brain and spinal cord throughout the rest of your body. If they become damaged, that message does not make it to its destination. A damaged nerve can lead to weakness, numbness, tingling, burning, painful, and unpleasant sensations, usually in hands and feet. Nerve damage can also manifest as restless leg syndrome, carpal tunnel, plantar fasciitis, and migraine headaches.
Neuropathy affects up to half of patients with diabetes, so it’s a huge problem in this population and it gives us a clue that too much sugar is associated with neuropathy. As a diabetic, your blood stream may be saturated with high levels of sugar all day, or you may give it jolts of sugar with your Sugar Pops in the morning, donuts at snack time, sodas through the day, and dessert at dinner. However you obtain your excess sugar, you are damaging your nerves. Nancy Appleton says that ingesting any more than 2 teaspoons of sugar at a time is a burden on your body.
The Mechanism of Injury
Allopathic doctors say that half of diabetics experience neuropathy and say that chronically high sugar levels can damage nerves. But in medical school, I never learned why that happens. What is the mechanism of injury? When there is too much glucose in the blood stream that hasn’t been shunted into the cells by insulin, the body must use other ways to remove glucose. One is called the polyol pathway, a two-step process that converts excess glucose to fructose. On the way to fructose, sorbitol is produced inside the cells. That’s very important because sorbitol, once it’s in the cell, is stuck and can’t get out. The retina, kidney, and nerves are not dependent on insulin to allow glucose to enter cells – so they can be flooded with glucose at times of hyperglycemia. This is important because these are the areas that sustain the most damage in diabetes.
NOTE: This is very important information, sugar causes peripheral neuropathy so we are in charge of the cure – by stopping sugar.
Any glucose not used for energy will enter the polyol pathway. If the blood sugar is normal – at around 100 mg/dL – the polyol pathway is not activated. If the blood sugar is high, then sorbitol accumulates, stays in the cell, attracts water into the cell, and, if there is enough sorbitol, causes cellular swelling and cell death. Death by Sugar! So, that’s what happens; the microvascular damage to the retina, kidneys, and nerves is caused by high blood sugars that make toxic sorbitol.
It may be hard to imagine nerves swelling up with sorbitol, but nerves are made up of cells and these nerve cells are wide open to glucose – which then morphs into sorbitol. Sorbitol-swollen nerves get less oxygen and nutrients, gradually stop conducting effectively, and start being symptomatic.
Only Two Teaspoons a Day
Allopathic medicine will list several factors that can cause neuropathy such as chemotherapy, exposure to toxins, alcoholism, traumatic injuries, or a B vitamin deficiency, but the most common cause of neuropathy is high blood sugar. Neuropathy is common in diabetic patients who have high sugar levels. But what about the high sugar intake by pre-pre-diabetic patients. That’s what I call people who are ingesting more than two teaspoons of sugar per day – pre-pre-diabetics!
When I searched for studies about “sugar and peripheral neuropathy” there were only 190 human studies in the past five years that came up, and it seemed like the majority referenced diabetes. Nobody but Dr. Jacoby is looking any further at sugar-induced neuropathy! I thought that sugar tissue damage common in diabetics was caused by advanced glycation end products. AGEs are proteins or lipids that become glycated (with sugars) as a result of high levels of blood sugar. AGEs can be a factor in aging and in the development or worsening of many degenerative diseases, such as diabetes, atherosclerosis, chronic kidney disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. The most well-known AGE is HgA1C, a measurement of glucose building up in the body over a 3-month period and, when elevated, is a sign of diabetes.
When I learned about AGEs decades ago, the advice was to avoid cooking foods at high temperature – especially meat. Now researchers realize it’s mainly due to cooking fat and protein along with sugar. But instead of making sugar the bad guy, they picked on meat. Many processed foods are heated, and most of these foods have sugar – therefore, AGEs are common in processed foods. All tissues and systems of the body are at risk from the buildup of AGEs. These compounds can clog the tiny capillaries throughout the body, especially in the kidneys, eyes, heart, and brain, the areas that are targeted in diabetes.
Sugar is the Problem
The treatment for peripheral neuropathy is primarily to avoid sugar just like it is the treatment for diabetes! Dr. Jacoby recommends the Ketogenic diet which is a great way to limit sugar and carbs. He even says, “sugar is the problem, fat is the answer.” Because sugar is the problem, he’s also leery of too much fruit. I’ve always recommended that people with yeast overgrowth only eat 2 pieces of fruit a day and that everyone else take no more than 4 pieces a day. Jacoby urges you to read labels and not get seduced by words like “natural” or “sugar free.”
To this diet I add the Completement Formulas to get the right building block nutrients into your body.