Quotes from The Obesity Code - Part 3
From The Obesity Code, by Jason Fung, MD
Part 5: What’s Wrong with our Diet?
Chapter 14: The Deadly Effects of Fructose
Page 157-158: “Per capita intake of sugar-sweetened drinks doubled in the 1970s. By the 1980s, sugar-sweetened drinks had become more popular than tap water. By 1998, Americans were drinking 56 gallons per year. By the year 2000, sugar-sweetened drinks provided 22 percent of the sugar found in the American diet, compared to 16 percent in 1970. No other food group even came close.”
Page 164: “The more you eat, the more you metabolize. The bottom line is that excess fructose is changed into fat in the liver. High levels of fructose will cause fatty liver. Fatty liver is absolutely crucial to the development of insulin resistance in the liver. “
Page 165: “The liver, like an overinflated balloon, will try to expel the sugar back into circulation, so continuously high insulin levels are also required to keep it bottled up in the liver. If insulin levels start to drop, the stored fat and sugar comes whooshing out. To compensate, the body keeps raising its insulin levels.”
Chapter 15: The Diet Soda Delusion
Page 172: “The important question is this: Do artificial sweeteners increase insulin levels? Sucralose raises insulin by 20 percent, despite the fact that in contains no calories and no sugar. This insulin-raising effect has also been shown for other artificial sweeteners, including the ‘natural’ sweetener stevia. Despite having a minimal effect on blood sugars, both aspartame and stevia raised insulin levels higher even than table sugar. Artificial sweeteners that raise insulin should be expected to be harmful, not beneficial. Artificial sweeteners may decrease calories and sugar, but not insulin. Yet it is insulin that drives weight gain and diabetes.”
Part 16: Carbohydrates and Protective Fiber
Page 181: “However, removal of dietary fiber is a key component of food processing. And improving the texture, taste[,] and consumption of foods directly increases food companies’ profits.”
Page 182: “The key to understanding fiber’s effect is to realize that it is not as a nutrient, but as an anti-nutrient—where its benefit lies. Fiber has the ability to reduce absorption and digestion. Fiber subtracts rather than adds. In the case of sugars and insulin, this is good. Soluble fiber reduces carbohydrate absorption, which in turn reduces blood glucose and insulin levels.”
Page 186:” Two teaspoons of vinegar taken with a high-carbohydrate meal lowers blood sugar and insulin by as much as 34 percent, and taking it just before the meal was more effective than taking it five hours before meals. The addition of vinegar for sushi rice lowered the glycemic index of white rice by almost 40 percent. Addition of pickled vegetables and fermented soybeans (natto) also significantly lowered the glycemic index of the rice. In a similar manner, rice with the substitution of pickled cucumber for fresh showed a decrease in its glycemic index by 35 percent.”