Consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks are associated with cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, fatty liver, insulin resistance and an increase in small dense LDL even in children notes Kimber Stanhope, PhD, a researcher from the University of California at Davis, who has done studies comparing the effects of consuming glucose vs fructose, who was interviewed on ReachMD.com.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: If you limit your sugar you decrease your chances of developing cancer?

Lewis Cantley, PhD: Absolutely.

Cantley, a Harvard professor and the head of the Beth Israel Deaconess Cancer Center, says when we eat or drink sugar, it causes a sudden spike in the hormone insulin, which can serve as a catalyst to fuel certain types of cancers.

Lewis Cantley: What we’re beginning to learn is that insulin can cause adverse effects in the various tissues. And of particular concern is cancer.

Why? Nearly a third of some common cancers—including breast and colon cancers—have something called insulin receptors on their surface. Insulin binds to these receptors and signals the tumor to start consuming glucose [which allows it to grow].

Lewis Cantley: Every cell in our body needs glucose to survive. But the trouble is, these cancer cells also use it to grow. So if you happen to have the tumor that has insulin receptors on it then it will get stimulated to take up the glucose that’s in the bloodstream rather than go into fat or muscle, the glucose goes into the tumor. And the tumor uses it to grow.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: The mantra that you hear from most nutritionists is that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie.

Kimber Stanhope, PhD: And I think the results of the study showed clearly that is not true.

Stanhope has found that fructose increase small dense LDL cholesterol as well as other risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

Lewis Cantley’s research team is working on developing drugs that will cut off the glucose supply to cancer cells and keep them from growing. But until there’s a breakthrough, Cantley’s advice? Don’t eat sugar. And if you must, keep it to a minimum.

Cantley, a Harvard professor and the head of the Beth Israel Deaconess Cancer Center, says when we eat or drink sugar, it causes a sudden spike in the hormone insulin, which can serve as a catalyst to fuel certain types of cancers.

Lewis Cantley: What we’re beginning to learn is that insulin can cause adverse effects in the various tissues. And of particular concern is cancer.

Why? Nearly a third of some common cancers—including breast and colon cancers—have something called insulin receptors on their surface. Insulin binds to these receptors and signals the tumor to start consuming glucose [which allows it to grow].

Lewis Cantley: Every cell in our body needs glucose to survive. But the trouble is, these cancer cells also use it to grow. So if you happen to have the tumor that has insulin receptors on it then it will get stimulated to take up the glucose that’s in the bloodstream rather than go into fat or muscle, the glucose goes into the tumor. And the tumor uses it to grow.

Kimber Stanhope, PhD: We found that the subjects who consumed [25% of their calories as] high fructose corn syrup had increased blood levels of LDL cholesterol and other risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: How quickly did these changes occur?

Kimber Stanhope: Within two weeks.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: What are all these various diseases that you say are linked to sugar?

Dr. Robert Lustig: Obesity, type II diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease itself.

Lustig says the American lifestyle is killing us.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: And most of it you say is preventable?

Dr. Robert Lustig: Seventy-five percent of it is preventable.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Is it worse than just table sugar?

Dr. Robert Lustig: No. ‘Cause it’s the exact same. They are basically equivalent. The problem is they’re both bad. They’re both equally toxic.

Since the 1970s, sugar consumption has gone down nearly 40 percent, but high fructose corn syrup has more than made up the difference. Dr. Lustig says they are both toxic because they both contain fructose—that’s what makes them sweet and irresistible.

The one-third of men consuming the most dietary magnesium—an average of 523 mg per day—were 6% MORE likely to die over the next 10 years compared to the one-third of men consuming the least dietary magnesium—an average of 387 mg per day—according to a study that followed 23,366 Swedish men, aged 45–79 years, who were NOT taking dietary supplements.

However, this difference was not statistically significant which means it could have been due to random chance.

“EDTA chelation does retard or reverse atherosclerosis with improvements in edema, wound healing and in walking distance before pain,” writes Joel M. Kauffman, PhD, the author of Malignant Medical Myths: Why Medical Treatment Causes 200,000 Deaths in the USA each Year, and How to Protect Yourself.

“This chapter [in my book] also showed the first example that mainstream medicine does not ‘fight fair’ in debunking alternative treatments any more than in promoting mainstream treatments,” Kauffman notes.

People with cardiovascular disease whose blood sugar levels were at the top of the normal range, being 100 mg per deciliter, were 2.4 times more likely to die over the next two (2) years than those with blood sugar levels in the bottom of the normal range, being 67 mg per deciliter according to a analysis by UCLA statistician, Sidney Port, PhD.

People with cardiovascular disease whose elevated blood sugar levels of 133 mg per deciliter, were 3.8 times more likely to die over the next two (2) years than those with blood sugar levels in the bottom of the normal range, being 67 mg per deciliter according to a analysis by UCLA statistician, Sidney Port, PhD.

“Trans fatty acids are sufficiently similar to natural fats that the body readily incorporates them into the cell membrane; once there their altered chemical structure creates havoc with thousands of necessary chemical reactions—everything from energy provision to prostaglandin production,” writes lipid biochemist, Mary Enig, PhD, and journalist, Sally Fallon Morell in a wonderful, eye-opening article about fats and heart disease titled The Oiling of America.
“But most of the trans isomers in modern hydrogenated fats are new to the human physiology and by the early 1970’s a number of researchers had expressed concern about their presence in the American diet, noting that their increasing use had paralleled the increase in both heart disease and cancer,” they note.

A 1968 statement from the American Heart Association (AHA) noted that Partial hydrogenated vegetable oils contained trans fats rather than natural cis fats, but the statement was never distributed, and a researcher from Proctor and Gamble convinced the AHA’s medical director to remove this statement before their recommendations were released to the public.

Lipid biochemist, Mary Enig, PhD, and journalist, Sally Fallon Morell write about this in a wonderful, eye-opening article about fats and heart disease titled The Oiling of America.

“The 1968 International Atherosclerosis Project, in which over 22,000 corpses in 14 nations were cut open and examined for plaques in the arteries, showed the same degree of atheroma [ occlusions or plaque buildup in the arteries ] in all parts of the world—in populations that consumed large amounts of fatty animal products and those that were largely vegetarian, and in populations that suffered from a great deal of heart disease and in populations that had very little or none at all,” writes lipid biochemist, Mary Enig, PhD, and journalist, Sally Fallon Morell in a wonderful, eye-opening article about fats and heart disease titled The Oiling of America.

“[Myocardial infarction / heart attacks were] almost nonexistent in 1910 and caused no more than three thousand deaths per year in 1930,” writes lipid biochemist, Mary Enig, PhD, and journalist, Sally Fallon Morell in a wonderful, eye-opening article about fats and heart disease titled The Oiling of America.

“By 1960, there were at least 500,000 [heart attack] deaths per year in the US,” they continue.

“What life-style changes had caused this increase?”

“[I]f you have come to believe that you can ward off death from heart disease by altering the amount of cholesterol in your blood, whether by diet or by drugs, you are following a regime that still has no basis in fact,” wrote Edward R. Pinckney, MD, editor of four medical journals and former co-editor of JAMA.
“Rather, you as a consumer, have been taken in by certain commercial interests and health groups who are more interested in your money than your life.”

[This is an article written by Uffe Ravnskov, MD PhD, and is an excerpt from his book The Cholesterol Myths: Exposing the Fallacy That Saturated Fat and Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease.]

[Note: The book Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You is a shortened, simplified and updated version of Dr. Ravnskov’s first book, “The Cholesterol Myths”.]

George Mann [ScD, MD], now retired, was previously a professor in medicine and biochemistry at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. From his studies of the Masai people (see section 3) he realized that diet couldn’t possibly be the main cause of high cholesterol and coronary heart disease. As long ago as 1977, in The New England Journal of Medicine he published a strong argument against the diet-heart idea citing the lack of relationship between dietary habits and blood cholesterol, the lack of correlation between this century’s trends in fat consumption and death rates in the United States, and the disappointing outcome of the cholesterol lowering trials (92).

[This is an article written by Uffe Ravnskov, MD PhD, and is an excerpt from his book The Cholesterol Myths: Exposing the Fallacy That Saturated Fat and Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease.]

[Note: The book Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You is a shortened, simplified and updated version of Dr. Ravnskov’s first book, “The Cholesterol Myths”.]

Michael F. Oliver, a former professor and director of the Wynn Institute for Metabolic Research, London, [and formerly worked at the National Heart and Lung Institute in London, England] those at a very high risk for cardiovascular risk may benefit from cholesterol lowering, but in several papers he has warned against campaigns for cholesterol lowering in the general population.

He notes that the accumulated evidence [of cholesterol-lowering in the general population] is that total mortality is unchanged or possibly even increased (94).

[This is an article written by Uffe Ravnskov, MD PhD, and is an excerpt from his book The Cholesterol Myths: Exposing the Fallacy That Saturated Fat and Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease.]

[Note: The book Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You is a shortened, simplified and updated version of Dr. Ravnskov’s first book, “The Cholesterol Myths”.]

“The idea that saturated fats cause heart disease is completely wrong, but the statement has been “published” so many times over the last three or more decades that it is very difficult to convince people otherwise unless they are willing to take the time to read and learn what all the economic and political factors were that produced the anti-saturated fat agenda,” lipid biochemist Mary Enig was quoted as saying in an interview when asked if saturated fat causes heart disease.

[This is part of an article written by Uffe Ravnskov, MD PhD, and is an excerpt from his book The Cholesterol Myths: Exposing the Fallacy That Saturated Fat and Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease.]

[Note: The book Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You is a shortened, simplified and updated version of Dr. Ravnskov’s first book, “The Cholesterol Myths”.]

Hypoglycemia, defined as having a blood sugar level of 69 mg/dl or less, increased the risk of dying from cancer by 30 percent during the next eight years in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) compared to those with normal blood sugar levels of 80-109 mg/dl according to a 2004 study.

The difference did not reach statistical significance, meaning there was greater than a 5% chance the difference was due to random chance, however, it still suggests that it is likely.

Diabetes, defined as having a blood sugar level of 140 mg/dl or greater, increased the risk of dying 2.1-fold during the next eight years in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) compared to those with normal blood sugar levels of 80-109 mg/dl according to a 2004 study.

Diabetes, defined as having a blood sugar level of 140 mg/dl or greater, increased the risk of dying from coronary artery disease (CAD) 2.3-fold during the next eight years in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) compared to those with normal blood sugar levels of 80-109 mg/dl according to a 2004 study.

Borderline diabetes, defined as having a blood sugar level of 126-139 mg/dl, increased the risk of dying from coronary artery disease (CAD) 1.7-fold during the next eight years in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) compared to those with normal blood sugar levels of 80-109 mg/dl according to a 2004 study.

Hypothyroidism reduces the number and activity of mitochondria, the energy-producing cells, notes Mark Starr, MD, author of the wonderful book Hypothyroidism Type 2: The Epidemic.

Mitochondria make up one-third of the weight of the heart muscle, Dr. Starr notes in this short audio clip from a speech he gave in 2007 at an Orthomolecular Conference.

This appears to the connection as to how hypothyroidism can cause some forms of congestive heart failure where the heart muscle is too weak to pump enough blood to the rest of the body (cardiomyopathy). It’s an energy problem.

Dr. Starr’s book contains the wonderful “Before” and “After” pictures showing X-rays of enlarge hearts that shrink back to normal size after the patient is given natural desiccated thyroid.

A decrease in mitochondria also appears to be the connection of hypothyroidism to Alzheimer’s, which Dr. Starr noted in another audio clip. Again, it’s an energy problem.

Hypothyroidism is the major cause of cardiovascular disease according thyroid expert, Broda Barnes, MD, PhD, author of Hypothyroidism, The Unsuspected Illness.

He also notes that in his patients on desiccated thyroid, there were 94 percent fewer heart attacks than were predicted by the famous Framingham Study.

This two-minute audio clip is from from a speech he gave called “The Importance of Thyroid Therapy in Preventive Medicine”. The text of the audio clip is below.