My Healthiest Life1

Many of you may have already seen the ads on TV featuring the couple picnicking on a blanket where the woman asks the man if he wants a Popsicle and he says 'no it has corn syrup and isn't corn syrup bad' and she replies 'it's naturally derived from corn and is no more dangerous than sugar' etc. It's a comical commercial to say the least. I must have had 10 different people call me to ask if I had seen it. The corn industry is putting huge money into trying to convince the public at large that all corn products are good for you when the facts would tell you just the opposite.

Corn is one of the highest sugar content grains and one of the most difficult to digest for most people. It is one of the most unhealthy of all grains and one of the most highly allergenic.

Courtesy of Mercola.Com

SweetSurprise.com offers a number of surprising facts about high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). For example, the site tells you that, “Research confirms that high fructose corn syrup is safe and no different from other common sweeteners like table sugar and honey. All three sweeteners are nutritionally the same.”

They also claim that “Though the individual sugars are metabolized by different pathways, this is of little consequence since the body sees the same mix of sugars from caloric (nutritive) sweeteners, regardless of source.

Of course, SweetSurprise.com is a site run by the Corn Refiners Association ... so I suspect there’s a chance they may be biased.

There are two types of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS): HFCS-55 and HFCS-42. HFCS-55 is composed of 55 percent fructose, 42 percent glucose and 3 percent higher sugars, and tastes as sweet as table sugar, while HFCS-42 is somewhat less sweet.

When HFCS-55 was developed, it was specifically formulated to provide sweetness equivalent to table sugar so that consumers would not perceive a difference in product sweetness and taste.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that the consumption of high fructose corn syrup was just over 40 pounds per year, per person, as of 2007. It accounts for roughly 41 percent of all caloric sweeteners consumed in the U.S.

High Fructose Corn Syrup Does NOT Metabolize in the Same Way as Sugar

HFCS is a highly processed product that contains similar amounts of unbound fructose and glucose. Sucrose, on the other hand, is a larger sugar molecule that is metabolized into glucose and fructose in your intestine.

Part of what makes HFCS such an unhealthy product is that it is metabolized to fat in your body far more rapidly than any other sugar, and, because most fructose is consumed in liquid form, its negative metabolic effects are significantly magnified.

Whereas the glucose in other sugars is used by your body, and is converted to blood glucose, fructose is a relatively unregulated source of fuel that your liver converts to fat and cholesterol.

There are over 35 years of hard empirical evidence that refined man-made fructose like high fructose corn syrup metabolizes to triglycerides and adipose tissue, not blood glucose. The downside of this is that fructose does not stimulate your insulin secretion, nor enhance leptin production. (Leptin is a hormone thought to be involved in appetite regulation.)

Because insulin and leptin act as key signals in regulating how much food you eat, as well as your body weight, this suggests that dietary fructose may contribute to increased food intake and weight gain.

Additionally, fructose is also known to significantly raise your triglycerides and LDL (bad cholesterol).

Triglycerides, the chemical form of fat found in foods and in your body, are not something you want in excess amounts. Intense research over the past 40 years has confirmed that elevated blood levels of triglycerides, known as hypertriglyceridemia, puts you at an increased risk of heart disease.

New Evidence That HFCS Contributes to Development of Diabetes

Recent research, reported at the 2007 national meeting of the American Chemical Society, found new evidence that soft drinks sweetened with HFCS may contribute to the development of diabetes because it contains high levels of reactive compounds that have been shown by others to trigger cell and tissue damage that cause diabetes.

Chemical tests among 11 different carbonated soft drinks containing HFCS were found to have ‘astonishingly high’ levels of reactive carbonyls. Reactive carbonyls are undesirable and highly-reactive compounds associated with “unbound” fructose and glucose molecules, and are believed to cause tissue damage.

By contrast, reactive carbonyls are not present in table sugar because its fructose and glucose components are “bound” and chemically stable.

Reactive carbonyls are elevated in the blood of individuals with diabetes and are linked to the health complications of diabetes. Based on the study data, the researchers estimate that a single can of soda contains about five times the concentration of reactive carbonyls than the concentration found in the blood of an adult person with diabetes.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is the Number One Source of Calories in U.S. Diet

See Entire Article Here

Most of us aren't even aware of where the immune system is located in our bodies unless we study physiology or biology. Well, the medical profession is finally becoming savvy to the fact that roughly 80% of all immune system cells are located inside the digestive tract. This is huge, important information. Growing up, we were all taught to take antibiotics if we got sick, to take allergy pills if we had allergies and to take antacids if we had upset stomachs. Little did we know that all of these problems were originating in the digestive tract. For years and years allergists have built huge, successful practices basing treatments on skin testing and adverse reactions. The treatment protocol has been to give shots for the offending allergen to build up resistance and make the person immune over time. Some times the allergy shots worked and sometimes they didn't. Many of us are also aware of commonly prescribed treatments for allergies which include, sinus sprays, anti-histamines, steroidal creams, asthma medications etc. If only Dr's could tell you one simple thing in the first place. Change your diet!

If the diet is causing problems for your immune system, your immune system will have an allergic response. All people manifest allergic responses differently. Some have sinus issues, other's have digestive issues, and other's have skin issues. Never knowing that spending their whole life running from one Dr. to another to try and get these issues taken care of, the answer has been in their diet all along. Usually it's one of 3 things. Dairy, wheat or gluten or sugar. Obviously there are other things in the diet you can be allergic to, however because the 3 aforementioned culprits are such common components to the American diet, they are usually what start messing up the digestive system in the first place. The digestive system actually corrodes over time and builds up yeast and unfriendly bacteria. This makes for the beginnings of an unhealthy immune system which shows itself through on going allergic responses or various health issues. I've known people who have been dealing with health issues for years running from one specialist to another, day after day, year after year, given prescriptions for tons of different medications only to realize that none of them help. In fact, most of them make the issues worst. What most people want in the first place is just an answer, a cause, a reason that they are having these issues! That is very often hard to find in a traditional medical setting, unfortunately. Then, when they start cutting out dairy, wheat and sugar, amazingly their allergies start to go away.

Enter the world of probiotics. Many of you might be familiar with probiotics yet confused as to which ones to use, or how to use them or what they even are. This is where I will lead you into an extremely important article taken from Mercola.com which explains very clearly what role probiotics have in your health. Please read this and then read below about the giveaway today.