Jamie C. Cole
Pen Ultimate Class
Dr. Broadway
Informative Research Paper
Research Question
Is sugar a toxin to human beings?
Throughout my life, I have heard people say “Sugar is bad for you!” Sugar causes diabetes!
Sugar rots the teeth. I LOVE CANDY! I LOVE SUGAR! I EAT SUGAR! I am healthy! I
have low cholesterol. I have great blood pressure, and I do not suffer from diabetes. I also have
great teeth. I get a professional cleaning 4 times a year to combat the sugar I consume. All in
all, I have not paid much attention to the SUGAR warnings that I hear. Therefore, something
alarmed me when presented with the opportunity to research something in the Pen Ultimate
class. I thought about researching multiple things that interest me. I wanted to research John
Brown, Alcohol, and affirmative action. The list of topics that were interesting to me was
endless. As I sat to decide my topic, I was eating pink starburst, my favorite color of starburst
and one of my favorite sugary candies. This question jumped into my head, “why am I enjoying
this o much?” What is in it? As a result, I thought that it would be a good idea to research
SUGAR. In my research I used three primary sources. The first source is Sugar Blues. The
second source is Just the Rules, The Eat Clean Diet. The third source is Sugar, Why we can’t
resist it from National Geographic.
In my search to better understand Sugar, I looked for positive components or good qualities of
refined sugar. I COULD NOT FIND ANY! That worried me. I thought if I can’t find any good
then it must be ALL BAD. It seems as if all the research about refined sugar and human
consumption equated to bad and even horrid information.
Dr. William Coda Martin classified refined sugar as a poison because it has been depleted of its
life forces, vitamins and minerals. "What is left consists of pure, refined carbohydrates. The body
cannot utilize this refined starch and carbohydrate unless the depleted proteins, vitamins and
minerals are present. Nature supplies these elements in each plant in quantities sufficient to
metabolize the carbohydrate in that particular plant. There is no excess for other added
carbohydrates. Incomplete carbohydrate metabolism results in the formation of 'toxic metabolite'
such as pyruvic acid and abnormal sugars containing five carbon atoms. Pyruvic acid
accumulates in the brain and nervous system and the abnormal sugars in the red blood cells.
These toxic metabolites interfere with the respiration of the cells. They cannot get sufficient
oxygen to survive and function normally. In time, some of the cells die. This interferes with the
function of a part of the body and is the beginning of degenerative disease.
William Dufty Sugar Blues Chilton Book Co. Padnor, PA, USA
From my understanding of the previous citation, refined sugar is stripped of ALL nutrients that
the body can actually use. Therefore, it is foreign to the body in the refined form. When foreign
substances are ingested in the body and cause disease they are considered poisonous.
Refined sugar is lethal when ingested by humans because it provides only that which nutritionists
describe as "empty" or "naked" calories. It lacks the natural minerals which are present in the
sugar beet or cane. In addition, sugar is worse than nothing because it drains and leaches the
body of precious vitamins and minerals through the demand its digestion, detoxification and
elimination make upon one's entire system.
Sugar taken every day produces a continuously over acid condition, and more and more
minerals are required from deep in the body in the attempt to rectify the imbalance. Finally, in
order to protect the blood, so much calcium is taken from the bones and teeth that decay and
general weakening begin.
Excess sugar eventually affects every organ in the body. Initially, it is stored in the liver in the
form of glucose (glycogen). Since the liver's capacity is limited, a daily intake of refined sugar
(above the required amount of natural sugar) soon makes the liver expand like a balloon. When
the liver is filled to its maximum capacity, the excess glycogen is returned to the blood in the
form of fatty acids. These are taken to every part of the body and stored in the most inactive
areas: the belly, the buttocks, the breasts and the thighs.
William Dufty Sugar Blues Chilton Book Co. Padnor, PA, USA
According to the above article, refined sugar cannot be processed by the human liver. Therefore,
the excess is distributed in the form of fatty acids. The fatty acids are distributed in the most
inactive areas of the body like the buttocks, the belly, the breast and the thighs. Additionally,
refined sugar also leaches the body precious minerals in your body because the refined sugar is
trying to survive in your body. Therefore to me it seems that your body and organs are
competing with the refined sugar in your body for nutrients. The overabundance of the refined
sugar is actually WINNING the competition. Therefore, leaving your body deprived of lifegiving nutrients. Disease in the body is the result.
In the book titled, Just the Rules- The Eat Clean Diet, Tosca Reno has a chapter titled Sugar-the
legal cocaine. She states “It’s white, powdery and gives you a high- a rush of energy to
accomplish anything. It’s legal and it’s practically everything North Americans consume. What
is it? It’s sugar, an anti-food I like to call “the White Poison.” She also states “People can’t
leave sugar alone because they are addicted. In fact, most people today are sugar addicts- high
on sweet, delicious taste of this substance. Sugar addicts will do anything to get their fixsearching co-workers offices for candy, scrounging for loose change to buy Coke from the
vending machine, causing scenes when there is no sugar or sweetener available for their
afternoon coffee.”
Reno Tosca Just the Rules The Eat-Clean Diet Robert Kennedy Publishing Co.
I see many of the things that Tosca Reno speaks of daily. In my school daily, someone searches
for something sweet or high in carbohydrates. Many people probably see similar craving daily
from their co-workers too.
The Culprit
“It seems like every time I study an illness and trace a path to the first cause, I find my way back
to sugar.”
Richard Johnson, a nephrologist at the University of Colorado Denver, was talking to me in his
office in Aurora, Colorado, the Rockies crowding the horizon. He’s a big man with eyes that
sparkle when he talks. “Why is it that one-third of adults [worldwide] have high blood pressure,
when in 1900 only 5 percent had high blood pressure?” he asked. “Why did 153 million people
have diabetes in 1980, and now we’re up to 347 million? Why are more and more Americans
obese? Sugar, we believe, is one of the culprits, if not the major culprit.”
As far back as 1675, when western Europe was experiencing its first sugar boom, Thomas Willis,
a physician and founding member of Britain’s Royal Society, noted that the urine of people
afflicted with diabetes tasted “wonderfully sweet, as if it were imbued with honey or sugar.” Two
hundred and fifty years later Haven Emerson at Columbia University pointed out that a
remarkable increase in deaths from diabetes between 1900 and 1920 corresponded with an
increase in sugar consumption. And in the 1960s the British nutrition expert John Yudkin
conducted a series of experiments on animals and people showing that high amounts of sugar in
the diet led to high levels of fat and insulin in the blood—risk factors for heart disease and
diabetes. But Yudkin’s message was drowned out by a chorus of other scientists blaming the
rising rates of obesity and heart disease instead on cholesterol caused by too much saturated fat
in the diet.
As a result, fat makes up a smaller portion of the American diet than it did 20 years ago. Yet the
portion of America that is obese has only grown larger. The primary reason, says Johnson,
along with other experts, is sugar, and in particular fructose. Sucrose, or table sugar, is
composed of equal amounts of glucose and fructose, the latter being the kind of sugar you find
naturally in fruit. It’s also what gives table sugar its yummy sweetness. (High-fructose corn
syrup, or HFCS, is also a mix of fructose and glucose—about 55 percent and 45 percent in soft
drinks. The impact on health of sucrose and HFCS appears to be similar.) Johnson explained to
me that although glucose is metabolized by cells all through your body, fructose is processed
primarily in the liver. If you eat too much in quickly digested forms like soft drinks and candy,
your liver breaks down the fructose and produces fats called triglycerides.
Some of these fats stay in the liver, which over long exposure can turn fatty and dysfunctional.
But a lot of the triglycerides are pushed out into the blood too. Over time, blood pressure goes
up, and tissues become progressively more resistant to insulin. The pancreas responds by
pouring out more insulin, trying to keep things in check. Eventually a condition known as
metabolic syndrome kicks in, characterized by obesity, especially around the waist; high blood
pressure; and other metabolic changes that, if not checked, can lead to type 2 diabetes, with a
heightened danger of heart attack thrown in for good measure. As much as a third of the
American adult population could meet the criteria for metabolic syndrome set by the National
Institutes of Health.
Recently the American Heart Association added its voice to the warnings against too much
added sugar in the diet. But its rationale is that sugar provides calories with no nutritional
benefit. According to Johnson and his colleagues, this misses the point. Excessive sugar isn’t just
empty calories; it’s toxic.
“It has nothing to do with its calories,” says endocrinologist Robert Lustig of the University of
California, San Francisco. “Sugar is a poison by itself when consumed at high doses.”
Cohen, Richard Sugar Why Can’t We Resist It The National Geographic, August 2013
In the aforementioned article from National Geographic’s, Richard Cohen provides that certain
illnesses and ailments have directly increases as the consumption of sugar increases. I also, find
it interesting that the data in this article supports the information in the previous two articles.
Indeed, I tried to find credible sources that disagreed with the authors. I did not find any refuting
evidence. Based on the evidence in the three articles that I have researched, I am in agreement
that refined sugar is a toxic, poisonous substance.
In conclusion, this class and this paper has really been eye opening in realizing some scary things
that I have been doing in my struggle to lead a healthy, happy lifestyle. Since I started
researching this topic, I have significantly cut my refined sugar intake. I pray that my continued
research will lead me to a refined-sugar free lifestyle.