(Forewarned. There are graphic images of the damage sugar causes to human limbs. Continue at your own discretion.)
Before getting into the column, I have to tell you that I thought long and hard about posting this column. This is not my typical column content. At the same time, I felt the need to be bluntly honest about the risks of excess sugar consumption. I wanted the same bluntness that occurs with the risks of smoking.
When I was in grade school, I remember having presentations on the dangers of smoking. Instructors would bring glass boxes into class. One box contained a preserved, healthy lung and the second contained a lung, a black lung, full of cancer. It scared the pants off of me.
That vivid, visual memory got me thinking – maybe there should be a task force organized to visit schools to give kids visual images of the dangers of too much sugar and refined carbohydrate consumption?
The Fat-Burning Machine diet was developed to trim sugar and refined carbohydrates from your diet. The purpose is not only for weight loss, but to address Metabolic Syndrome (MetS) symptoms. MetS is one tiny step away from diabetes and cardiovascular disease, unless people stop the progression.
One issue with diabetes is that in some cases, people can “get away with” high sugar and carbohydrate consumption for years before there is a problem. Blood sugars may appear in the normal range for 10 or more years and then within a year to two, there is a very sharp spike in blood sugar. This sharp spike is called exponential growth.
The American Diabetes Association noted that in 2015, approximately 30.3 million Americans (9.4% of the population) had diabetes. Of those 30.3 million, 23.1 were diagnosed and some 7.2 million didn’t know they had the disease.
The Access Prosthetics Company notes that approximately 300 to 500 amputations are performed every day in the US. Nearly half of the individuals that lose a limb due to vascular disease will die within five years. This is higher than the five-year mortality rates for breast cancer, colon cancer and prostate cancer.
One of the most common complications in people living with diabetes is chronic wounds.
Diabetes and the Risk of Chronic Wounds – Vascular Health
Unfortunately, wounds can progress very quickly. Below is the photographic progression showing the foot of a 50-year-old man that didn’t even know he had diabetes. Within 10 days, he was in urgent need of surgery.
The great news about this fellow is that he was able to save his limb. He took his condition seriously and lost a considerable amount of weight.
Photo from the New England Journal of Medicine.
For your health and wellbeing, please cut out as much sugar and refined carbohydrates as possible. If you are still not convinced of the dangers of excessive sugar and refined carbohydrate consumption, see the link below.
