Sugar Sugar
Before I get around to my recent ride reports (HPC at PIR and 100MON) I just have to write this down.
Mostly for myself, because I am proud to have found a reliable cause-n-effect relationship and because, you know, I have a few relatives who might have some of the same things going on – this might put a bug in their ear.
Sugar.
My body doesn’t like it.
Rather, my brain LOVEs it – honey, candy, jellybeans, cherry sours, gum drops, hot tamales, kool-aid, I could keep going. But the rest of my body “freaks out” – and that is a direct quote from my attending naturopathic physician.
A short history.
Several years ago I was ‘diagnosed’, by the blood mobile, with hepatitis. I was too young to care and blew it off – I was healthy.
Skip forward 5 years and my life insurance exam also noted high liver enzymes indicative of someone with either hepatitis, heavy drinker/smoker, overweight, or…”
It must be the ‘or’ I said…cause none of the others apply”. The ‘or’ I found out was a small cadre of individuals blessed with fatty liver for ‘no reason whatsoever’.
I pay more [be]cause the life insurance company only needs one excuse.
Skip forward 5+ more years and a ‘regular’ checkup with my medical doctor showed high cholesterol. Prescription? – “more exercise, it isn’t that high”
Uhhh, I already bike to work nearly every day and I am currently training for the Seattle To Portland classic – putting in 100s of extra miles each month.
"Oh…well then take some of this medicine and we’ll check back in 6 months – oh and that medicine might cause some flushing, don’t be alarmed."
Fearing the loss of the better part of my lower intestine, they didn’t bother to explain what flushing was, I again prepared to completely blow it off but maybe having gotten wiser or maybe succumbing to the preponderance of independently verified data AND recognizing that my traditional doctor and nurse hadn’t recognized me for who I am individually I stumbled across a naturopathic physician.
I’ll skip the iterations of blood tests and trial and error in the interest of brevity but I met with her every couple of months for a year as she tried all the usual suspects in search of a root cause. She was also addressing the symptoms and narrowing down the cholesterol numbers to a rather singular portion of the “overall” test – my triglycerides.
With a host of supplements, vitamins, and more minor medications meant to address the symptoms, my numbers were slowly coming down but the triglycerides were still in the 250’s when 2 winters ago [late 2009] she recommended going off sugar – as much as possible.
The science, the explanation, and my habits (see aforementioned list of candies) all pointed to this being an issue so I stopped, pretty much cold turkey for about 4-5 months and took the blood test again.
We were dumbfounded – with no new medications my tryglycerides came down to 67.
67! What the heck did you do?
I stopped eating sugar.
Well I should say so…and I think we found your achilles heel.
Indeed we had…in fact, in the coming months, I noticed that I no longer used my skin cremes for eczema…for the most part I wasn’t even
having eczema any more.
Right after that I took the leap and began tapering my asthma medication. Now, for most intents and purposes, I don’t need my asthma medication either. I commute hard by bike nearly every morning and only after a cold (or after pie) do I find that I might have a use for some asthma rescue medication – very mild usually.
Long term preventative meds? Totally not necessary.
That has been a lifelong thing with me, since that morning when I was a toddler stumbling into my parents bedroom barely breathing.
The docs said it might go away with age – it didn’t. But they didn’t know anything about the sugar factor.
Skip forward one more year to yesterday. My recent tests came back after 14 months of NO supplements and a steady increase** in sugar and simple carbohydrates estimated by me to be peaking at roughly 40-50% of BN (Before Naturopath) – and my numbers are right on the edge of tolerable.
** read that as me slowly giving in to the difficulties of reducing simple sugars and carbohydrates entirely.
So now, my goal is to tighten the sugar-belt a little bit, some sugar or simple carbs in moderation (if I can stick to it in moderation) will be fine, make sure and balance that with protein intake and fiber (to make it harder for my body to absorb it) and it seems I have found a good balance. We estimate that based on these new findings I can probably eat whatever I want sugar/carb-wise during an endurance event (like 150 miles around the mountain…ohh man those Oreos tasted good that time).
And I remain, for the most part, asthma free, eczema free, medicine free, and on a path to not expressing those genes I clearly have which turn sugar into triglycerides at an alarming rate in my body. Lot’s of triglycerides tend to turn into (or at least be related to) things like hypertension, high blood-pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and probably other bad things.
Oh, and I almost forgot – my liver enzymes are way below normal.
WHA WHA WHA??
This seems to be the last thing to move in the right direction. The blood mobile, the life insurance company, my medical physician, none of them could explain it – for that matter neither has my naturopathic physician. These particular enzymes used to be over 50, as low as 40 on the medicine, and now they are 25 – without any supplements or medicines of any kind, unless you count coffee.
Hell! I dunno!??
Wrapping this up – suffice it to say that sugar and I will have a long-distance relationship from here on out – with an occasional tryst, chaperoned by my bike…naturally.
Now…about that Vitamin D!??
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blief. All Rights Reserved.