What we know about sugar and what it’s doing to our body: If we go back to the 1970s, the average person consumed 40 pounds of sugar a year, and diabetes, cancer, gout, heart disease, stroke, dementia, Alzheimer’s was around but rare, a baby born diabetic was very rare. This had stayed like this for decades before the 70s.

Today, the average person consumes over 150 pounds of sugar a year. This rise in sugar consumption started in the 80s, this was when all those power drinks came out, they were full of sugar. Al the known ailments mentioned above went up at the rate and today it’s quite common to see babies born diabetic. Obesity has gone up at the same rate of increase as sugar.

One interesting thing while our medical scientists were checking cancer cells, they took away the insulin and the cancer cells died. Our pancreas produces insulin; it’s what produces the sugar in our blood — a teaspoon of sugar in our blood is fatal.

With all these tiny sugar crystals in our blood, it’s what causes inflammation and when we have inflammation, we will have pain. The pain alerts our liver to send out cholesterol, the HDL is a healing agent, but to get to where it’s needed, it’s carried there by the LDL. Think of the LDL like a taxi. There’s no such thing as bad cholesterol.

When an autopsy is performed, they find all this cholesterol; it’s there to heal the inflamed area, which was caused by these sharp sugar crystals.

If our body is given the proper fuel, it performs like a smooth-running engine. That’s what a good diet will do for us, along with some exercise.

BILL MEREDITH,

Alpena