Dr. Shmuel Shields - Guard Your Health Series (Part 3) - Live Well: Tips for More Energy

welcome everybody this is uh part three in a series that we've been doing called uh guide your health uh my name is dr shmuel shields i'm the author of uh safer called lachaim 18 chapters to live by it's a torah-based book on health and the series is based somewhat on the book so today we are going doing something on sugar and the implications of sugar on our health and what i'd like to do is just to begin by citing some torah sources regarding the sweetness of torah so we know in the morning in the morning brachas we we pray that learning should be sweet in our mouths and safe at the hillem david hamel teaches us that the pleasure of torah is described as sweeter than honey from the honeycombs and also in uh safer to hellum uh david pr david mellick praises hashem's torah sweet to my palate is your word more than honey the eretz explains proverbs cautions us against indulging in too much honey while torah is always satisfying and the last quote i'd like to share with you today before we get into the topic is when a three-year-old child starts learning torah and hater for the first time it's customary to place a little honey on the letters so his so his learning is sweet from the very beginning and we all know how sweet torah is for the neshama and on the flip side on the physical side sugar is very sweet to the body but there are problems with sugar and i want to sort of get into that right now and explain some of the problems with the sugar in the diet today we actually titled the talk today sugared out what you need to know about sugar so i know there's a lot of confusion in terms of what we mean by that so i'm going to try to explain there are different types of sugars and different sources in the diet first of all there are naturally occurring sugars that are found in many of the foods that we eat fruits for example are a source of naturally occurring sugars other foods have sugar as part of their makeup as well milk for example has lactose and then there are foods that when they break down in the body grains and starches they they turn to sugar and then of course we have um a category of foods um well we have what we call refined or processed sugars there are many many of those types of sugars that are added to our foods and those are the ones that we have to be most concerned about and i'm going to give you some of the names of those types of sugars so when you look on your ingredient list if you see one of these names appear you'll know that it's a form of sugar some sort of a processed sugar that's been taken out of one food refined in some way and added into another food so anything that ends in oats o-s-e is a form of sugar so we're all familiar with things like sucrose dextrose glucose maltose fructose and then we have other sweeteners and other sugars that called corn syrup maple syrup white sugar brown sugar raw sugar turbinado sugar invert sugar and then of course there's honey and other forms of sweeteners and sugars that are part of our daily intake and then we have a category of foods called refined or processed carbohydrates now some of these actually have a lot of added sugars and the other ones actually convert or break down in the body and turn to sugar very rapidly and some of those foods are cakes cookies pastries candy pies donuts muffins croissants white bread which probably has some added sugar but it also will convert and break down into glucose very rapidly so things like white bread white rice white potatoes white pasta these foods are on the top of what we call the glycemic index meaning they release the sugar into the blood very rapidly having said that i want to give you a little perspective on how much sugar intake we have currently in what we call the acronym sad s.a.d standard american diet which is sad and let's go back to the 1600s when the pilgrims first came to this country the average person back then was consuming approximately seven pounds of sugar a year which is about enough to bake about 25 apple pies today if we fast forward the camera the average person today is consuming somewhere as between 125 and 150 pounds of sugar annually which is just astounding let me give you a little perspective of what that means it's taking a cup like this which is about an eight ounce cup or so filling it more than halfway with sugar and consuming that amount of sugar every day to get into the range that i just mentioned so some of you are probably wondering so what's the problem with sugar it's sweet tastes good i like it it's all over the place what's the problem so i want to tell you what the problem is but before i do that i want to just share with you from my clinical experience as a nutritionist some of the information i get from my patients sometimes a patient will tell me i always ask when i do my intake do you add sugar to your foods you have sugar in your diet whatever no no no they feel that if they're not taking sugar out of the sugar bowl and putting it into coffee or tea or adding it to foods that they're not using sugar but i want to assure you that that really is not true because almost all the processed foods that we consume have added sugars so for example if you take a look at the glass of juice that you might have had for breakfast this morning and you look at the nutritional label you look under nutrition facts and you look down to serving size an eight-ounce cup whatever it might be then you go down to grams of sugar and you'll be surprised to find that there are 28 grams of sugar in that juice even though sugar isn't added it's the sugar that's found in the juice every 4 grams of sugar equals one teaspoon so if we do the math quickly 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 7 teaspoons of sugar in that one glass of juice and then maybe after that the person might have um a sweetened yogurt a flavored yogurt a fruit flavored yogurt once again look at the label another 28 grams or so of sugar in many of the commercial fruit flavored yogurts so there are up to 14 teaspoons of sugar from that one meal and as the day progresses and a can of regular soda finds its way into the diet we have another 10 teaspoons of sugar in the soda and maybe some cookies or cake or pastries or some candy along the way and at the end of the day who knows 25 30 40 teaspoons of sugar could have just entered your body okay so that's the story with amounts and some of the sources of where it comes from again keep in mind when you shop in the supermarket and you pick up anything that's processed anything in a bag a package a box a jar a container whatever it might be and you look at the ingredient list you're bound to find some form of sugar added to that problem uh to that product whether it's a corn sweetener or any of the number ones i've just mentioned sometimes it even appears more than once on the label you might see sucrose you might see some other form of sugar listed um so so again whether it's things like mayonnaise or ketchup or mustard or a box of cereal or a canned item you know canned vegetables canned beans whatever it whatever the sauce might be breads they all come along with sugar so so that's some of the sources so let me talk a little bit about what sugar does in the body and some of the health implications of consuming the amounts of sugar that we're currently consuming particularly in the refined form we're not quite as concerned about the naturally occurring sugars that we find in things like fruits or vegetables or you know in let's say in a plain yogurt those natural sugars that are part of the food when you consume that food you're getting vitamins you're getting minerals you're getting the fiber you're getting a lot of other nutritional ingredients that makes that food worth eating another aspect i want to just share with you is that when you use sugar in the refined processed form let's say you eat some candy or cake or cookies the release of sugar into the blood is very rapid and you get a spike when you eat the apple on the other hand the body has to digest the apple and because it's bound the sugar is bound into the food item with fiber and other nutrients it gets released it's held in the stomach longer so the release of sugar into the blood is much slower which is a much better thing what happens is when blood when sugar is released into the blood very rapidly you get a spike in sugar and therefore the body has to draw on a hormone called insulin to deal with that sugar insulin is the key that allows the sugar to get into the cells where it's used for energy the problem is when you get the spike the body has to release a lot of insulin because the body treats it as an emergency the brain says hey we got an emergency here the sugar in the blood just soared we got to get it down it's out of the range so the body the brain communicates the pancreas to release insulin a lot of insulin to handle the crisis a lot of insulin gets released and then the blood sugar is sometimes brought down to a lower level than it was before in a relatively short amount of time and then you're craving sugar again you give yourself another dose of sugar it spikes up and you can go through this throughout the day and sometimes that will cause mood swings anxiety depression okay the bouncing around of sugar up and down it might affect your ability to concentrate and work and a lot of other uh subtle effects and so on on the other hand as we mentioned earlier if you choose a whole food item and the sugar is released slowly and gently into the bloodstream without a spike the body releases small amounts of insulin to deal with that sugar and you'll have a more sustained level of energy for a longer period of time okay so having said that i want to share with you some of the other health implications or ramifications of having too much sugar in the body ushmartem we have a torah obligation a mitzvah to guard our bodies well to god our it actually means god our neshama the kaapakayim tells us that it really means to safeguard our our bodies and to protect our bodies so having said that let me just share with you uh some of the consequences of the amount of sugar that we're consuming first of all we know unfortunately low elenu that heart disease cancer diabetes obesity are in soaring today you know it's almost it's not almost it is like an epidemic it's not like it's an epidemic and a lot of that is due to lifestyle choices foods we consume so on and so forth and particularly to the amounts of sugar that we consume because the amounts of sugar actually have a negative impact on all of those conditions and can sometimes maybe set the stage for developing a health problem or disease down the road and i'm going to show you how that might take place first of all when we have that insulin spike by consuming lots of sugar particularly refined and processed foods that contain sugar and added sugars and so on insulin is a fat producing hormone it tends to cause people to gain weight any diabetic who finds themselves on insulin often times the first year they may put on 10 20 30 pounds it's not uncommon also if we have too much insulin in the blood and that's what happens when we get that spike it also is a hormone that produces inflammation in the body an inflammatory response inflammation can also affect the blood vessels and and damage the blood vessels so we could see either directly or indirectly however you want to look at it heart disease diabetes obesity certain cancers are certainly dietarily linked and sugar is kind of at the root there are other foods and other things that are problematic but today we're talking about sugar but it does play a role in these types of conditions what happens is with diabetes is that many people who are type 2 diabetic their bodies produce just as much insulin as a healthy person but the body becomes insulin resistant it can't use its own insulin and there is a belief that due to taxing that insulin mechanism as much as we do with the amounts of sugars that we use and the spikes that we get we cause that insulin to be less effective and it doesn't work the way it should the body has to constantly use need more of it more of it because become more resistant so so these are some of the problems uh so besides some of the problems again might be feelings of anxiety mood swings we may have from these sugar sugar spikes blood sugar fluctuations which can lead to mood swings depression anxiety neurotransmitter disturbances nutrient losses particularly depletion of b vitamins the refined sugars cause the body to lose the b vitamins and more importantly the displacement of nutrient-dense healthy foods that contain important vitamins and minerals necessary to keep us healthy for the immune system to work properly to keep us more stress resilient if we don't have these important vitamins and minerals because they're being squeezed out by the the amounts of sugary foods that are being brought in the central nervous system the brain various organs in the body the blood vessels are all going to be affected in some some negative way by loss deficiency of essential nutrients so i think in a relatively short time i've given you a little perspective on some of the problems and i hope i made you more aware of some of the health implications and so on um now just to uh before we conclude i just want to give you what might be what would be considered some better uh food choices so again the body does need glucose for energy what gasoline is to the car glucose is to the billions or possibly trillions of cells that are in the body that all need glucose to do the jobs they need to do so where do we get it from well the best place to get it from is from whole foods fruits vegetables these are all carbohydrates that ultimately will body will convert these foods into sugar at the same time the body will be getting the vitamins and minerals that are present in these foods and we'll also be getting the fiber that's in these whole foods that will prevent the spike and the release of insulin will not be as dramatic or as excessive by using these kind of foods so what are these foods oatmeal brown rice squash we mentioned fruits and vegetables sweet potatoes beans legumes peas whole grains like 100 whole wheat these kinds of starches millet barley um a whole wheat matzah or a whole spelt matzah or quinoa these types of what we call complex carbohydrates are much better sources of energy than the refined and processed counterpart so i would say when you're planning your meals if you want to have better blood sugar control you know having some protein some healthy fats in the diet having a good fiber intake and choosing healthier starches is the direction to start to move in and then of course trying to get off as much of the refined and processed sugars that are added to foods as possible read your labels try to buy fresh and frozen instead of canned and packaged and so on so if you use more fresh or frozen or whole foods you'll be cutting down dramatically on your sugar intake and ultimately over time that should lead yes hashem to better health to more energy and so on we didn't even mention the problems with the teeth and cavities and with all the fluoridated water it ain't helping because kids today their mouths are loaded with cavities and they're all drinking water with fluoride in it and i think it's just the amount of sugar and candy that these kids eat that are destroying their teeth i mean young kids today six seven eight year olds are already having root canals so it's a big big problem on a lot of levels anyone who's viewing this i would hope that you could be an advocate in some way and contact your your rebbe's your principals your teachers and tell them not to reward the kids with candy anything that could be done in the shul in the homes to get the sugar out of the diet these kids are becoming addicted to sugar they already have there's a obesity problem with children today some of the kids have high cholesterol levels i see it in my practice it's shocking to me to see kids that are so overbeat or overweight and and already have blood sugar probably either blood sugar or cholesterol problems that such young ages it's it's like the pathway is being set for them for you know more serious consequences down the road at much earlier ages so i would encourage everybody to do everything they can to try to plan healthier meals healthier snacks they're available i'm available for more information if anybody wants to contact me 718 four four zero three six is my office number um anything i can do to help or be of assistance to you in this area uh please let me know my book is also available you get a lot of information from it lot of rabbinic endorsements of the book so it should be a good resource for you and your families and it will give you an education on how to eat better and how to live healthier anyway i want to thank hazak for letting me do these presentations i i hope their people are benefiting and we do have a few more coming up next week stay tuned for lave tove keeping your good heart healthy once again thank you for uh for listening and we'll hopefully see everybody next week