Video

Transcript

today I’d like to discuss the myth

around metabolic syndrome they call it

Syndrome X and that’s a combination of

several conditions

central abdominal fat blood pressure

glucose levels are starting to go up we

have high triglycerides with insulin

resistance for sure and also we have a

higher levels of insulin in the blood

it’s called hyper insulinemia an

association with an increased amount of

uric acid we automatically associate

metabolic syndrome with something really

really bad it’s a disease that you get

and doctors are going to put you a lot

of medications there’s going to be a lot

of testing and it’s very complex and no

one really knows what causes it but

today I’m going to give you a completely

new viewpoint on metabolic syndrome

as it relates to a type of sugar called

fructose now what I believe metabolic

syndrome really is it’s a protective

mechanism now if we look at our history

as a hunter-gatherer Down The

evolutionary Trail humans did eat fruit

and they did eat honey not very often

which has a really good amount of

fructose okay so I want to just talk

about fructose for a second it’s a

unique type of sugar and when you

consume glucose there’s receptors all

over your body that can metabolize

glucose but fructose is different the

liver is really the only place where

your body can metabolize fructose and

there’s some very unique things about

fructose that relate to this topic that

I’m going to talk about number one it’s

a lot more lipogenic which means that it

produces more fat than other types of

sugar also fructose enhances the fat

genes much more than glucose and other

sugars if you just think about fructose

for a minute and what would be this

survival benefit of consuming some

fructose you know infrequently in the

past as we’re trying to survive in our

environment

food did not come very easily and

anytime that you had some fruit or honey

it was a survival thing and so this

really aligns with what fructose does in

the body number one it retains sodium

now what would be the survival mechanism

for that well way back in time we did

not have a lot of salt available in our

diets we had animal meat there were some

plants we pretty much ate anything we

could and apparently if we look at some

interesting differences between way back

then and now

we ate a lot less salt back then or

sodium because it just wasn’t available

and so sodium does help retain fluid and

water and prevents dehydration and so

one thing that fructose does is it helps

you retain sodium and sodium chloride

salt which connects to sodium so way

back then when we had fruit and honey we

could retain more fluid and prevent

dehydration in fact fructose stimulates

this hormone called vasopressin which is

called the antidiuretic hormone so it

prevents the loss of fluid from the body

it helps you retain fluid so this is a

survival mechanism now if we take a look

at what else we did way back then

compared to now we consumed a lot more

potassium from just vegetation plants

things like that compared to now the

average person consumes about one and a

half cups of vegetables so that doesn’t

give us much potassium so nowadays we

have a lot of sodium and very low

amounts of potassium very different from

in the past another interesting thing

about fructose is it causes sodium

sensitivity what’s the advantage of that

survival wise well if you can make

sodium more sensitive you can absorb it

more it goes in your body it can be

retained more and another benefit of

holding this sodium is to help you

increase blood pressure because one of

the really important things in the past

was you don’t want to end up with low

blood pressure because you don’t have

enough sodium because we need to

maintain the same amount of pressure to

push the nutrients and the oxygen

throughout our body including our brain

next thing is abdominal obesity what

would be the survival mechanism of that

well we’re storing fuel for another day

that’s what fat is it’s a survival

mechanism and we have a lot of extra

space in our bellies right it’s almost

an unlimited amount of space well it’s

not completely unlimited but you can

store a tremendous amount of stored

energy in your midsection so that would

be a survival mechanism during lean

times now of course nowadays we consume

a bit more fructose than we did in the

past right I mean fruits are available

24 7 every day of the Year honey is also

available and also other types of

fructose in the form of high fructose

corn syrup we’re actually drinking our

fructose now well I mean even table

sugar is like 50 fructose so fructose is

pretty much everywhere now what about

this other thing with insulin resistance

is there any survival mechanism with

that

there sure is number one insulin

resistance helps protect against the

toxicity of glucose because it makes

receptors for insulin very resistant so

you can’t absorb as much glucose into

the cell because if there’s too much

glucose that’s going to be toxic and

it’s a way to protect you against both

glucose and insulin and along with

insulin resistance

there’s another thing that happens that

helps you survive and that’s called

gluconeogenesis that’s production of new

sugar that doesn’t involve a

carbohydrate so when people are a

pre-diabetic and they have insulin

resistance they actually make more

glucose okay but it’s not coming from

the diet it just their liver is just

making more glucose from other sources

and this is behind the dawn phenomena

this is where you wake up in the morning

and all of a sudden you have high blood

glucose but maybe you didn’t have any

glucose tonight before it just means

that you have insulin resistance and the

liver makes more glucose because of it

and this is what you see in diabetes as

well you have a diabetic with high blood

glucose a certain portion of that is not

coming from the sugar they’re eating

it’s coming from the liver producing a

lot of sugar what is the survival

mechanism of gluconeogenesis well number

one it helps you protect against

hypoglycemia because your brain depends

partially on glucose which can be made

by your body and in times when there’s

not a lot of glucose available this

extra added gluconeogenesis can help the

brain during survival modes but of

course nowadays it’s gotten out of

control right because we’re having way

too much sugar and we have way too much

gluconeogenesis now the next point I

want to bring up is uric acid you

probably already know that when you

consume fructose you spike your uric

acid now what is a connection survival

wise with uric acid well number one it’s

a potent antioxidant okay so from that

Viewpoint it protects you against

oxidation oxidation of what well

fructose which is a type of sugar that

kind of oxidizes the inside of the

arteries and it creates a lot of damage

unless there’s some protective factors

that are connected to it one being uric

acid but uric acid is a good predictor

of high blood pressure and heart disease

so uric acid tends to increase blood

pressure what’s the survival mechanism

of that well like I said before when you

don’t have enough sodium okay we’re

going to end up with low blood pressure

and that is not a good survival mix

so the uric acid comes in there

to help increase the blood pressure

under conditions of low sodium

okay so in the past uric acid was one

way to raise the blood pressure of

course nowadays when you have a lot of

fructose and a lot of salt

that creates a huge problem with uric

acid very pathogenic uric acid also

directly makes salt more sensitive

nowadays when someone’s salt sensitive

we tell people to restrict their salt

but what they really should do is

restrict their fructose and increase

that other mineral that I mentioned

called potassium potassium is something

that our body has evolved with way back

in the past we used to eat a lot more of

it than we do now and so as long as you

have higher amounts of potassium

you can handle

a lot more sodium and it just happens

that more potassium lowers blood

pressure very very nicely so when we

talk about blood pressure you know we’re

not necessarily avoiding fructose what

do we do we avoid salt diets right so

very simply just understanding these

mechanisms

you can very easily control your blood

pressure by increasing potassium

getting rid of the sugars especially

fructose

and as far as sodium goes as long as you

have enough potassium you have like a

two to one ratio twice as much potassium

as sodium you’re going to be totally

fine another thing about uric acid it’s

involved with the immune inflammation

reaction as it can help fight off

infections things like that in the past

we use that as a survival mechanism

nowadays if we have too much uric acid

we get inflammation throughout our

bodies especially in the big toe and

that’s called gout now another really

interesting survival thing is just the

storage of fat and the storage of

glucose as glycogen right glycogen is is

stored glucose what’s interesting about

this as it relates to water

in times of survival when we didn’t have

enough water believe it or not as we

burned our fat glycogen can make water

in fact just a little over one gram like

1.1 gram of fat when it’s burned

produces one gram of water which is

interesting so that’s going to be a

survival mechanism to help against

dehydration but also glycogen so if you

envision these string of glucose

molecules connected together they’re

connected together with a lot of water

so for every one gram of glucose that

you burn you release a 3.5 grams of

water so you’re releasing a lot of

available water when you burn up this

glucose as glycogen now in the past when

we consumed fructose

um it always came with a bunch of

antioxidants because we ate fruit

and of course the fruit wasn’t as sweet

as it is now but fruit generally has

antioxidants and antioxidants protect

against the oxidative damage of the

fructose it gets rid of the

complications of just high sugar and

this is why a diabetic will have much

less problems if they actually also have

the antioxidants connected with that

sugar versus the refined sugars where

you’re just doing high fructose corn

syrup and you’re drinking it related to

antioxidants

I’m going to just touch on vitamin C

which is interesting vitamin C has a

very similar chemistry

to both glucose and fructose and so the

more glucose and fructose you consume

the more vitamin C is required one is it

helps protect the immune system another

is it helps to get rid of oxidative

damage from the high glucose vitamin C

can even inhibit the burning of fat as

well so it can actually

help you survive because it slows down

to a certain degree fat oxidation or fat

burning now what I’m not saying is

avoiding vitamin C because it’s going to

help you lose weight that’s not how it

works the point I’m making is the

vitamin C in the fruit is protective

against that fructose so when you study

metabolic syndrome and you look at

what they say is a cause they said

overeating it could be obesity stress a

lack of exercise age and when you really

understand this you’re going to be less

susceptible to just going oh let’s just

treat each part of this with a different

drug which makes no sense whatsoever so

if you have problems with sodium if you

have problems with your midsection if

you have problems with high blood

pressure if you have problems with uric

acid

fructose is what you need to avoid and

in all forms as well now if you want a

complete diet to know exactly what to

eat to reverse a lot of the problems

that you might have I put that video up

right here check it out