|
You are going on vacation. But this year you are going to new
and never-before-visited places: you are checking out sugar and
artificial sweeteners.
America and Americans, Canada and Canadians (and most of Western
Europeans), are in a health crises. We are overweight, we are
physically unfit. Oh, not all of us, but a huge, tremendous
proportion of the populations of these countries.
So who, or what, is the culprit? Well, there's many of them –
culprits, that is. But one - let's make that two – of them are:
sugar and aspartame/sucaryl. This is perhaps the absolute
health-related double-edged sword the Western World faces today?
Sugar, in its refined state, is a horror for our diets, our
nutrition, and our overall health. Aspartame is generally
sweeter than sugar and is known to create an imbalance in the
system that is, of itself, just as bad as the sugar. Further, it
is a known, proven cancer causing agent. But there's another,
equally and faster danger aspect to aspartame.
Some people are allergic to aspartame. I'm one.
Allergies take many forms. Some people break out in hives. Some
people get sick. There are other reactions of which I'm unaware.
However, in my case, I react to aspartame, sucaryl and their
predecessor, exactly the same way: they raise my blood pressure.
Not just a little, but a lot.
My particular allergic reaction (and I say "allergic" reaction
as it was documented over a period of two years by three
different doctors and an allergenist and confirmed as an
allergic reaction) raises my blood pressure. Not just a little.
My blood pressure normally runs about 135 / 75. On aspartame or
sucaryl daily for just one month my blood pressure rises above
165 / 90. If I go longer, say two months, it gets up to the 175
/ 100 range. This is dangerous territory indeed.
The downside here is not how high it gets. Your blood pressure
can go up that high without much danger provided you get it
under control. Medication can lower it. But for me, simply going
off aspartame is not the solution. It takes about four to six
months to flush the residual aspartame (blood pressure raising
constituents of aspartame, that is) out of my system.
I won't go into the details of how I got there. But in 1989-1990
I was using diet sweetened food products for about 6 months. In
February I had a checkup and my blood pressure came out at 170 /
95 – pretty high. I immediately stopped using
aspartame-sweetened products and went back on sugar. By March
1st my blood pressure was down to 155 / 80 and on the 7th of
March I had my first stroke. It was a very mild one. By the end
of May my blood pressure had been at 135 / 75 for at least a
month – and I had my second stroke. Again, fortunately, a very
mild one.
They were in fact so mild that I put them off as pseudo strokes
and never saw a physician. What we did notice, my wife and I,
was that my memory for words and names – of people, places and
things including the name of the street I lived on – was very
obviously getting worse over that summer. And in August, reading
an article in Reader's Digest, I realized that I had actually
had two very mild strokes.
So use of refined sugars can help bring on either an obese
condition with all the health risks pertaining thereto, or
diabetes, or both. Killing you slowly. Aspartame can, over a
very long period of time (I compare it to smoking) bring on
cancer and then kill you, painfully and not quite slowly. Or, if
you are like me, allergic, it could in a very short period of
time cause a stroke or heart attack and lead to mild to more
serious physical impairment including becoming a total cripple.
Or death.
So what's my bottom line here? I limit my sugar intake. And I
avoid with a passion any and all encounters with everything
containing aspartame. You probably should too. And what should
your "bottom line" be? Wellllllll, that's purely up to you. But
I'd suggest, if you are not diabetic you should choose to avoid
all aspartame/sucaryl sweetened products like the plague. And
cut down on your refined sugar intake as well. See: Artificial
Sweeteners: The Real Skinny before you make your final decision
on sweeteners.
Disclaimer: This article in no way should be taken as “medical
advice” on any product, condition or course of action, nor does
it constitute in any way “medical advice” endorsing any specific
product, specific result, nor any possible cure for any
condition or problem. This article is meant as a source of
information upon which you may base your decision as to whether
or not you should begin using any vitamin, mineral and/or herbal
supplement for better health, or begin using a “greens” product
as a dietary supplement.
If in doubt, or if you have questions, you should consult your
physician and, if possible, consult a second physician for a
possible different opinion. The author does not bear any
responsibility for your decisions nor for the outcome of your
actions based upon those decisions.
This article may be freely copied and used on other web sites
only if it is copied complete with all links and text, including
the Authors Resource Box, intact and unchanged except for minor
improvements such as misspellings and typos.
About the author:
Loring Windblad has studied nutrition and exercise for more than
40 years, is a published author and freelance writer.
This article is Copyright 2005 by http://www.organicgreens.us,
http://www.organicgreens.ca and Loring Windblad. This article
may be freely copied and used on other web sites only if it is
copied complete with all links and text, including the Authors
Resource Box, intact and unchanged except for misspellings and
typos.
|