Why You Should Avoid Sugar
There is a type of food which contains no purines but which creates lots of additional uric acid in your body. And there is nothing you can do ecxept avoid it, if you want to avoid a gout attack. But all over the world, if you eat modern cuisine and drink the internationally available soft drinks, you as good as giving yourself a sugar overdose and with that a gout attack.
SUGAR IS BAD NEWS
Sugar is bad news if you have gout. Your body uses glucose as fuel, but first the different sugars have to be converted to glucose in the liver. The more complex the sugar, the more energy the conversion itself uses. Glucose is the simplest sugar, and you can think of it as building blocks for other sugars. Fructose consists of two glucose molecules linked together, but a complex sugar like starch consists of tens of glucose molecules.
When the liver has broken down the sugars to glucose (using purines and creating uric acid in the process), it sends the glucose into the bloodstream, where iit will be picked up by the cells and turned into energy - or stored as fat.
When the liver has broken down the sugars to glucose (using purines and creating uric acid in the process), it sends the glucose into the bloodstream, where iit will be picked up by the cells and turned into energy - or stored as fat.
Sugar is bad news if you have gout, but good news if you are six years old.
The driver behind storage as fat is insulin, the same hormone that diabetics lack in sufficient amounts. Or have enough of, but the cells in the body do not react properly to it. They have become insuline resistant. A very common, and often invisible, complication of obesity is insuline resistance and pre-diabetes. Make sure to check that you are not becoming insuline resistant. That means your body is producing insuline as it should, but the cells can not react to it. Being fat is dangerous.
Body fat is usually created by fat in the food being absorbed into fat cells, but glucose can also be turned into fat.
It takes more energy for the body to release fat and use it as energy than it does using glucose, so normally the body leaves the fat where it is, or adds to it for lean times. On a keto diet, the fat is burned instead of the glucose, as keto diets do not contain any (or very little) carbohydrates.
Body fat is usually created by fat in the food being absorbed into fat cells, but glucose can also be turned into fat.
It takes more energy for the body to release fat and use it as energy than it does using glucose, so normally the body leaves the fat where it is, or adds to it for lean times. On a keto diet, the fat is burned instead of the glucose, as keto diets do not contain any (or very little) carbohydrates.
URIC ACID IS A BYPRODUCT
Since all other sugars can be broken down into glucose, they can be consumed quickly as well. Glucose is like gasoline for your body. It burns fast and releases a lotnof energy, but it has byproducts as well. One of those is uric acid.
The faster the sugar gets released into the blood, the faster it becomes uric acid.
Fat, on the other hand, burns much more slowly and for a longer time. Burning fat does not create uric acid in the same way as burning sugar (although it does create some).
The faster the sugar gets released into the blood, the faster it becomes uric acid.
Fat, on the other hand, burns much more slowly and for a longer time. Burning fat does not create uric acid in the same way as burning sugar (although it does create some).
KETO CREATES UA TOO
Both keto metabolism and glucose metabolism uses purines, and both create uric acid. But in keto diets, the amount of purines in the food is much higher than on a vegetable diet. An all-dairy and egg keto diet would be purine-free, which would promote weight loss at the same time as it would have all the benefits of a meat-based keto diet.
The easier it is to get the sugar out of the food, the faster it gets from the intestines into the blood. Sugar from food without dietary fibers are absorbed into the bloodstream much faster than sugar from food with dietary fibers. Juice is fruit with the dietary fibers removed, and the sugars in juice are taken up much faster than the sugar from an orange eaten as a fruit. Add to that the fact that it takes a lot more energy to peel an orange than to pour juice from a jug, and you start understanding
BEYOND WHITE POWDER
Most of us are used to think sbout sugar as a white powder, and that is how you usually get it. But sugar pressed from a sugar cane is a sweetish liquid, and only becomes sugar when you boil away the water. Sugar from sugar beets is also yellowish, but recognizably sugar. That is not true of many natural sweeteners, such as maple syrup, agave syrup and honey, which contain a lot more glucose than table sugar (which is sucrose, an even more complex sugar). And then there is High Fructose Corn Syrup, which often is the main ingredient in soft drinks.
SUGAR KILLS
If you are diabetic, or know someone who is, you know the importance of managing your blood sugar, since it can kill you. But here is the bad news: Sugar can kill you even if you are not diabetic. Killing you slowly. And gove you gout even faster.
What is your morning blood sugar? Are you perhaps pre-diabetic? Are you insulin resistant (bad) or insulin sensitive (good)? Do you have a fatty liver or fatty kidneys? Do you have metabolic syndrome? There are lots of possible causes and all are related to your diet.
What is your morning blood sugar? Are you perhaps pre-diabetic? Are you insulin resistant (bad) or insulin sensitive (good)? Do you have a fatty liver or fatty kidneys? Do you have metabolic syndrome? There are lots of possible causes and all are related to your diet.
DEADLY SUGAR ADDICTION
Sugar addiction is a well established medical fact, an throughout history sugar has been the fuel of slavery, the annexation of at least two independent countries, and the European agrichemical industry. Today there are sugars in almost any manufactured food, if not from sugar canes or sugar beets, then from high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Turning the sugar in corn to fructose is a fairly simple chemical process, but makes the soft drinks which contains it more addictive than they would be otherwise. And arguably tastier.
Your body has two sources of fuel...
1) Glucose
2) Ketones otherwise known as fatty acids
Glucose is a high octane fuel - burns like gasoline, hot and quickly
Ketones are a subtle fuel - they burn like charcoal - not nearly as hot but it burns for a lot longer time.
100 calories and 100 calories of ketones produce the same amount of energy, but one burns up quickly and hot and the other much more slowly and less hot.
Simple as I can explain it.
When your body metabolizes fructose- a direct byproduct of that process is uric acid. So HIGH-fructose sugar, or anything with fructose will obviously increase your uric acid.
When you consume sugar(s), then your liver converts them to glucose (using purines and creating uric acid in the process), and so will the cells when they turn the glucose to energy - or store the energy as fat. So simply put, sugar promotes the creation of uric acid.
1) Glucose
2) Ketones otherwise known as fatty acids
Glucose is a high octane fuel - burns like gasoline, hot and quickly
Ketones are a subtle fuel - they burn like charcoal - not nearly as hot but it burns for a lot longer time.
100 calories and 100 calories of ketones produce the same amount of energy, but one burns up quickly and hot and the other much more slowly and less hot.
Simple as I can explain it.
When your body metabolizes fructose- a direct byproduct of that process is uric acid. So HIGH-fructose sugar, or anything with fructose will obviously increase your uric acid.
When you consume sugar(s), then your liver converts them to glucose (using purines and creating uric acid in the process), and so will the cells when they turn the glucose to energy - or store the energy as fat. So simply put, sugar promotes the creation of uric acid.
There is a reason why your uric acid is high and why it is crystallizing and causing gout. There is some systemic inflammation or kidney or liver issue somewhere.
Gout is a symptom of a larger underlying problem. The challenge is to figure out what is the root cause. For me it was sugar, I was a carbaholic, ESPECIALLY when it came to liquid sugars like sodas, sweet tea, fruit juices, Gatorade, beer, and wine. Beginning in my forties I was pre-diabetic and did not know it. I had coronary bypass surgery at age 46. Then came the gout. I fought gout with everything imaginable for six miserable years. When I went on a Ketogenic Diet to lose some weight my gout flare ups disappeared. My triglycerides dropped from 166 to 67. My HDL rose from 32 to 57. My blood pressure dropped 20 points. My weight dropped 45 pounds. My morning blood sugar dropped from the 140s to the 90s. And I have been gout free since December, 2017. Keto may not work for you but it couldn’t hurt to try it for a few months and see.
Gout is a symptom of a larger underlying problem. The challenge is to figure out what is the root cause. For me it was sugar, I was a carbaholic, ESPECIALLY when it came to liquid sugars like sodas, sweet tea, fruit juices, Gatorade, beer, and wine. Beginning in my forties I was pre-diabetic and did not know it. I had coronary bypass surgery at age 46. Then came the gout. I fought gout with everything imaginable for six miserable years. When I went on a Ketogenic Diet to lose some weight my gout flare ups disappeared. My triglycerides dropped from 166 to 67. My HDL rose from 32 to 57. My blood pressure dropped 20 points. My weight dropped 45 pounds. My morning blood sugar dropped from the 140s to the 90s. And I have been gout free since December, 2017. Keto may not work for you but it couldn’t hurt to try it for a few months and see.