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Restricting the simple sugar glucose from your diet, while avoiding vitamin supplements, may extend your lifespan, according to German researchers.
While your body needs glucose, a sugar found in high amounts in sweets, too much of it is harmful.
When the researchers used a chemical to block worms’ ability to process glucose, their lifespan was extended by up to 25 percent, which is equal to 15 human years.
The beneficial effect came from an unlikely source: free radicals. Typically, free radicals are thought to cause damage to your body, and many consume antioxidants and vitamins to fight them.
However, when the worms were unable to use glucose for energy, they increased energy power from other cells -- a process that generated more free radicals than normal.
In response, the worms generated enzymes that fought the free radicals and strengthened their long-term protection against the damaging molecules.
The study also points to a reason why antioxidants may not be beneficial in the long run.
When some of the worms were given antioxidants, the free radicals were neutralized. However, this also prevented the worms from generating the beneficial, long-term defenses.
Cell Metabolism October 2007, Vol 6, 280-293, 03
Reuters October 2, 2007
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First, limiting glucose (sugar) in your diet is a well-known key to longevity. In worms, cutting down on this one element increased their lifespan the equivalent of 15 human years, which is a major improvement.
If you avoid glucose in your diet, does this mean that you’ll live for another 15 years? It’s impossible to say, but what I can say is that you may very likely live quite a bit longer.
Your blood glucose levels actually rise slightly every time you eat. This is natural. What is not natural is that, with the average American now eating about 2.5 pounds of sugar every week, your blood glucose levels may very likely become excessively elevated, then stay that way.
It is a well proven fact that sugar increases your insulin and leptin levels and decreases receptor sensitivity for both of these vital hormones. This can lead to:
- High blood pressure and high cholesterol
- Heart disease
- Diabetes
- Weight gain
- Premature aging
When you eat these low-quality carb foods -- things like white bread, sugar, pasta, pastries, cookies, and candy -- your blood sugar levels rise. This, in turn, causes your insulin and leptin levels to rise as well, which will accelerate the effects of aging.
Avoiding sugar, on the other hand, helps you to control your insulin and leptin levels, which will help you to feel and look younger for longer.
If you’re having trouble with the notion of giving up your favorite sweet treats and refined carbs, The Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is one of the best solutions I know of for this challenge. EFT is an energy psychology tool that includes a marvelous technique called Turbo Tapping, which has helped tens of thousands of people kick the sugar habit.
Also, instead of focusing on what you will be losing (negative focus), it helps to look at all the things you will be gaining, such as increased energy and a lower risk of many diseases. Meanwhile, you can enjoy healthy foods that are in-line with your nutritional type, such as meats, dairy products, fresh veggies, nuts and seeds, and much more.
Are Supplements Healthy or Harmful?
The above study also raised an interesting point about free radicals. Free radicals are highly reactive molecules that steal electrons from the first thing they encounter, such as a cell wall, or a strand of DNA. The loss of an electron, in turn, oxidizes these cells, which makes them unstable and easily breakable.
As this free-radical damage continues, your cells can no longer perform properly, and hence, tissues begin to degrade and disease sets in.
An interesting point to consider is that it is not unusual that in trying to do a good thing, some supplements could actually harm you. Depending on your clinical circumstances, suppression of free radicals may actually be harmful. It all depends on your specific circumstances. So the key here is to realize that fact.
It seems that, once again, your body may have far more intelligence in knowing the appropriate actions to take for you.
No matter what, you still need a certain level of free radicals, as your body uses the chain reaction of the free radicals to turn air and food into chemical energy. They also play a vital role in your immune response, attacking foreign invaders and bacteria.
It is certainly possible that taking some antioxidants may actually prevent some free radicals from doing the job they were designed to do. Playing doctor with using supplements as drugs can clearly cause complications, so don’t play with them lightly or use them willy nilly. You need to have expert counsel or carefully study the literature before you embark on a supplement regimen.
So it turns out that it may not be wise to drastically cut back on these natural free radicals in your body (even breathing produces free radicals).
That said, it’s not wise to let them get out of control, either.
If you eat a lot of junk food and sugar, don’t sleep enough, are stressed, and are exposed to a lot of environmental pollution, your body could easily become overwhelmed by free radicals, and be unable to neutralize them on its own.
Your ticket to keeping free radicals in check, and to leading a long, healthy life, remains leading a balanced lifestyle that includes antioxidants and vitamins from fresh, whole foods, with a minimum of artificial interventions.
Please
Oddly enough they concluded that current treatment for type 2 diabetes was questionable, and I completely agree with that. However, extrapolating the vitamin/antioxidant issue to humans is ridiculous. Restricting glucose in a worm may result in the generation of ROS in them [1] , but there is no evidence that it does so in humans. Worms have always eaten cellulose/glucose and things like bacteria and fungi in the soil – not quite equivalent to our diet. In mammals the preferred substrate for our cells is actually fatty acids [2] . Depriving a mammal of glucose is more likely to increase endogenous antioxidants [3] and decrease free radicals [4] .
1. Schulz, T.J., et al., Glucose Restriction Extends Caenorhabditis elegans Life Span by Inducing Mitochondrial Respiration and Increasing Oxidative Stress. Cell Metab, 2007. 6 (4): p. 280-93.
2. Weibel, E.R., et al., Design of the oxygen and substrate pathways. VII. Different structural limits for oxygen and substrate supply to muscle mitochondria. J Exp Biol, 1996. 199 (Pt 8): p. 1699-709.
3. Descamps, O., et al., Mitochondrial production of reactive oxygen species and incidence of age-associated lymphoma in OF1 mice: effect of alternate-day fasting. Mech Ageing Dev, 2005. 126 (11): p. 1185-91.
4. Bevilacqua, L., et al., Effects of short- and medium-term calorie restriction on muscle mitochondrial proton leak and reactive oxygen species production. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab, 20
The heavily politically sandbagged number, from USDA, for 2006, is about 152 pounds per year per capita, of total sweeteners consumption per capita per annum in the USA, but the real number is closer to 183 pounds per year per person.
For those counting, that's, at the very least, a 146 pound per year per person increase in refined saccharide intake in 102 years!!!
Of this massively increase total sweetener number, 84 pounds per year per person in the USA is High Fructose Corn Syrup which is automatically converted to triglycerides or brown adipose tissue (body fat) in metabolization. HFCS did not exist in the American food or beverage chain until 1971.
Yes, the food and beverage chain in the USA is SATURATED with refined sweetener sources, that are harming health from CAUSING insulin resistance, hyper or hypo insulinism, hypoglycemia, syndrome X, diabetes, cardio vascular disease, many forms of cancer, and obesity, as a direct result of over consumption of refined sweeteners in the typical daily caloric intake in the USA.
Read Dr. Mercola's SWEET DECEPTION, if you have not yet and recommend it to your family, friends and associates.
As a European living in England, I can say that sugar intake and obesity levels in this country are just as bad as in the States...It is frightening how many fat people, whether young or middle aged, live here and eat high amounts of junk food and sugar. As someone who has always eaten my greens, works out regularly, and avoids processed foods, it saddens me to see how they are destroying their health through ignorance and laziness, but...!
With all the bad things out there, I have to take exception to the fact that Durum Wheat pasta, ie the "ordinary" one, always gets lumped in with the foods one should avoid...
I have eaten pasta all of my life, whether ordinary or whole wheat, have never had insulin or diabetic problems, have a low LDL and very high HDL levels (must be all that red wine at dinner!), am 5"7 and weight 127 pounds, so definitely not overweight, and I've also been known to have a few desserts here and there - All this at the tender age of 40!
Most of my slim Italian friends eat a lot of pasta as well!
So, the moral of the story is that there is no one size fits all....We can only do the best we can, eat moderately, try and avoid sugar, don't eat carbohydrates with protein, take a good multivitamin, and keep fit!
Pasta lovers of the world, unite! GC
There is no way to extrapolate the effects of vitamin supplementation to a worm's diet and the effects on a nutritional deficient modern human diet.
At last ethanol is good for something! (Islander, I did not use the ' f ' word ^_^)
Interested parties can view the story here:
http://www.energyrefuge.com/blog/
Duly noted. Thank you for your respect for the language, Bridestein! Now, to convince the ad men...
My next campaign? Howzabout separating ALOT into two words: A LOT. Yes, folks, it really is. After all, it's the opposite of A LITTLE.
I'm launching this campaign today. Cue the fanfare and trumpets. No purchase necessary. Some restrictions may apply. Void where prohibited.
And not to worry Dr. Mercola will equally blast the articles downfalls as well; when he posts his comments for the Newsletter!!
Vitamins? Oh yes, I take plenty of them ever day. The only prescription med I take is 10 mg of Prednisone, and have for 35 years with no side effects. I will be 80 Halloween and work every day. Even though I had back surgery that left my left side numb with little control over it, it hasn't stopped me from working, just slowed me down. My wife is 52 years old and we work side by side. She cooks only healthy foods for our family. I drive a bull dozer, backhoe, tractor, and just about anything I can get upon. Work? I live to work and really enjoy life here on this 307 acre farm. I have a sawmill and cut our own lumber for everything we want to build. My suggestion if you want to live long, eat the right food, work hard, don't sit on your "buttski" and be married to the right woman. I do take "EpiCor" and "Taurox" which has helped me a lot. This may not fit in with the "worm" bit, but just wanted to let everyone know, that you don't have to die young. I have better health than my kids. 2 to 3 beers a day, and can still "cut the mustard" LOL
and now, I have to get "atterit" as they say down here. "Get after it" Work, that is! LOL
Good health to everyone and live a long life. I promised my better half another 20 years of hard work.
love and not hate also helps.
Janiebabe said October 18, 2007
I was born in 1934, I have eaten tons of sugar, lard, fat and carbs for 70 years. Thats the way my mother cooked. And I followed suit. But, I never allowed myself to go over 10 lbs. my ideal weight of 120 and I always took 20-30 vitamins daily since in my 30's, still do. It's just been in the last 3 years that I have cut sugar and all the bad stuff and have gotten back to pumping iron. I just my attended my 55th class reunion, and I have to say that at almost 73, I was the only one in 4" leopard high heels. I have incredible energy and am still working. So who really knows! I am a total health freak now, j(love Dr. Mercola) ust to see how far I can still go looking and feeling like a 50 something girl.
I would like to know the normal sources of glucose in a worm's diet before passing judgement.
