The 14-Day No Sugar Diet
Jeff Csatari
INTRODUCTION
Sugar Scare
A simple blood test changed my life. It may have even saved my life because the results revealed something about me that I didn’t know and would never have guessed: I had a problem with sugar.
My doctor told me I had “prediabetes.” A prediabetes diagnosis meant my blood sugar level was higher than it should be but not yet high enough to be classified as “type 2 diabetes.” Prediabetes is one key condition in a cluster of health problems (including high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol, and a high triglyceride level) that some doctors refer to as “metabolic syndrome.” This cluster of health issues increases my risk of heart disease and stroke. The blood test showed that I could be on the express train headed for full-blown type 2 diabetes and could potentially need daily insulin injections if I didn’t make some lifestyle changes to prevent it from getting worse.
This was all a huge shock to me. Actually, I left my doctor’s office shaking. See, as a health journalist for nearly two decades, I’ve been well aware of prediabetes and the frightening things that can happen if it turns into type 2 diabetes and isn’t managed properly. Having high levels of glucose (sugar) in your blood means your body isn’t processing the sugar you get from foods properly to use as energy. Untreated, elevated blood sugar can damage your heart, brain, kidneys and eyes. Diabetes can lead to limb amputation, blindness, kidney and nerve damage, and Alzheimer’s disease. So, you can imagine why this news worried me. And why it surprised me. I had no idea I was getting too much sugar in my diet.
You might not either.
But that’s exactly why diabetes should concern you, too. It can sneak up on you even when you think your health is fine. This book will show you where to find the sources of hidden sugars in your diet and how to reduce their negative impact on your health. The good news for all of us is that by taking control of our health with the simple steps outlined in this book we can drop pounds, lose belly fat (a key risk factor for diabetes) and keep our blood sugar under control all at the same time. And if you have prediabetes or even type 2 diabetes, you can reverse that diagnosis, doctors say, through simple changes to your eating habits and getting more physical activity every day. It worked for me and I know it can work for you, too.
Your No Sugar Solution
Type 2 diabetes is a dangerous disease that is now reaching epidemic proportions in the United States and most of the world. From 1988 to 2014, the number of people with the disease has increased by 382 percent. Now, nearly 10 percent of the U.S. population, or 29 million people, have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association, and more than a quarter don’t know they have it. Many, many more Americans are headed toward a type 2 diagnosis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says 86 percent of adult Americans—that’s more than a third of the population—are living with prediabetes. The CDC says 90 percent of them have no idea they are at risk.
How the heck did I become one of them? I write about nutrition and exercise every day. I believed my diet was much healthier than that of most people simply because I’m exposed to nutrition information every day. It’s my job to keep up with medical journals with names like Clinical Nutrition, Journal of Endocrinology and JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association. I’m a runner. I lift weights pretty regularly. I’m not obese. I rarely drink soda. I don’t smoke. And because of all of the above, I never thought to have my blood sugar level tested. Ever.
Then, while doing research for a book about healthy aging, I went to Quest Diagnostics for a blood draw to test for various markers of health, including high blood sugar. The test that revealed my prediabetes is called the hemoglobin A1c blood test (HbA1c for short). Hemoglobin (Hb) is a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to the body’s tissues. When a person’s blood sugar becomes high, glucose (a type of sugar) attaches to the hemoglobin. The hemoglobin becomes glycosylated. Think of a jelly donut (the red blood cell) covered in powdered sugar (the glucose). The glucose stays attached for the life of the red blood cells, about 2 to 3 months. So a hemoglobin A1c blood test measures the amount of sugarcoated hemoglobin in the blood for the 2 to 3 months before the test. That’s what makes it so useful; it measures high blood sugar over time.
My HbA1c topped 5.8%, which put me in the prediabetes category, according to my doctor, Florence Comite, MD, an endocrinologist in New York City. Now, some doctors wouldn’t be very alarmed at my score. It’s on the low end of the prediabetes spectrum, but Dr. Comite is more aggressive than most. She practices what’s called Precision Medicine, looking deep into one’s whole physiology to prevent disease before it emerges. She knew that I had a family history of diabetes, so she wanted to make sure I nipped this in the bud. And subsequent blood tests suggested that my numbers were trending toward diabetes. If your HbA1c results are 6.5% or higher, you have type 2 diabetes. Now that I think about it, I should have been smarter about getting checked out sooner. My mom has had elevated high blood sugar over the years. And my grandfather was diabetic.
Your Crystal Ball
HbA1c is one of the most useful diagnostic tests and predictors of your potential longevity. It’s like peering into a crystal ball to see your health future. How? Because the higher your numbers, the higher your chances for developing long-term health problems caused by consistently elevated blood sugar levels. Your blood sugar has a huge impact on your veins and tissues and can over time trigger a host of problems including obesity, heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure, vision problems and numbness in your legs or feet. That’s scary stuff.