A Spoonful Of Sugar A Day – Can It Keep The Doctor Away?

Sugar might as well be a four-letter word the way science and pseudo-science has demonized it over the years. The nemesis of dieters everywhere, sugar has become the scapegoat for obesity as well as a number of other diseases and conditions. People have been told by nutritionists that carbohydrates are bad, sugar is bad, and now there seems to be a Diet version of practically everything on the market. But is sugar really as evil as everyone thinks it is?

A scientific field called glycoscience and/or glycobiology disagrees with much of the popular opinion about sugar, and not just regarding weight loss. There is an ever-increasing amount of research that suggests certain types of sugars can have an enormous benefit to our health, including boosting human immune response, to inhibiting cancerous tumor growth.

Glyco is derived from the Greek word sweet and refers to monosaccharides or sugars. For decades, Scientists have known about the link between sugars, carbohydrates and their effect in boosting energy. Its no secret that carbs and sugars are our main source of fuel, and help us perform our everyday tasks, as well as provide the oomph we need to hit the ol stairclimber. But especially since the popularity of the Atkins diet which demonizes carbs and sugars, many people have been missing out on the benefits of the sweet stuff.

Glycoscience is amassing more and more evidence that the role of carbs is crucial to maintaining the healthy function of the body. Most people are familiar with the term glucose but there are over 200 monosaccharides found in plants and, of those, less than ten are used by the body to maintain a healthy equilibrium. Some other sugars are: mannose, galactose, xylose, fucose, N-acetylglucosamine, N-acetylgalactosamine, and sialic acid (N-acetylneuraminic acid or NANA).

Recent scientific evidence is showing that these sugars and carbs help us on a cellular level. They allow our cells to better interact with each other, thus making every basic bodily function more efficient and effective. This cellular response from carbs flies in the face of the fad low-carb diets that are finally beginning to wan. What was formerly a no-carb or low-carb mentality really should be a right-carb mentality. With the right carbs and sugars, the human body becomes a well-oiled machine that can live longer, and more importantly live better than ever before.

Human beings, from a purely biological standpoint, have not really changed in thousands of years. We are still basically the same beings that survived on mainly plants for millennia. And yet the food we eat today is a far cry from the food we ate thousands of years ago or even as much as 50 years ago. Genetic engineering, growth hormones, and preservatives are now an integral part of almost everything we eat. Especially with fast food, and enormous portion of the population eats foods that are virtually bereft of nutrients. Empty calories are on the diets of millions of people every single day.

Now although most people would agree with that statement, most of them would heartily disagree that sugar and carbs are the answer to many of the health questions plaguing our modern society. Well surprise everybodysugar might be the way to go. Again though, they have to be the right sugars; the monosaccharides found in plants, not the table sugar you find in your local grocery store.

So the question remains, where do we get these beneficial sugars? Simple. The company is called Mannatech. Publicly traded on the NASDAQ, Mannatechs main product is something called Ambrotose, and most recently, Advanced Ambrotose. This product has been heralded by many in the scientific community as the next big thing in the multi-billion dollar supplement industry.

When you see how many diseases are preventable simply by an alteration in diet and taking proper supplements, its heartbreaking to see the thousands that are unaware of the damage they are doing to themselves by rigorously maintaining their strict low-carb regimes. People hear thisCARBS ARE GOODas long as they are the right carbs and sugars. This point has to be made again and again until people start listening and taking charge if their own well-being.

Note: Glyconutrients are not intended to heal, treat, or cure any disease.

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Tags: atkins diet, diet version, human immune response

Who does not desire to have a fit and shaped up body? Perhaps we all do. Overweight is the biggest enemy of our health. But factors such as sedentary work, lack of time to exercise and the availability of delectable fast food have made it extremely difficult to have stabilized weight.

It is not only a persons appearance that is badly affected by being overweight but also his fitness. Usually obese people keep on confronting one or the other health problem. There are times when excess of weight becomes a mental torture and leads to depression.

It is quite an easy task to gain weight but immensely difficult to reduce it. Though there are various remedies prescribed to shed weight, all cant to followed or trusted. One old and quite effective way to become light is the use of Atkins Diet.

Dr. Robert Atkins (1930-2003) was the father of Atkins Diet. In 1972 he popularized the diet in his famous series of books. In practical application also the diet turned out to be quiet successful. Thus it became more and more popular with time.

Dr. Atkin believed that carbohydrate is the primary reason behind gaining weight. This is because carbohydrates are composed of energy providing items such as sugar, starch, cellulose and gums. So if a person reduces the intake of carbohydrates (carbs) he or she can greatly get rid of many pounds. Thus people should avoid potatoes and other starchy vegetables along with sugar, grains, pastas and fruits for these are the major sources of carbs. In the opinion of Dr. Atkins doing this will translate a carbohydrate-burning metabolism to a fat burning one. Atkins diet is critical of carbs related but not of fatty and protein rich stuff. In fact it recommends its users to eat food that provides them fats and proteins. In the case of proteins it particularly emphasizes the consumption of animal protein.

Though atkins diet has done wonders in many cases, it has many shortcomings. If this diet is quite popular with one set of people, some others are enormously critical of it. this is because of several reasons. Firstly Atkins meals are not only low in carbs but contain negligible amount of essential vitamins, minerals, fiber and other nutrients. Secondly atkins diet is flourishing with cholesterol boosting fats that can be very troublesome. Thirdly since atkins diet promulgates animal protein, vegetarians find it difficult to adopt it. In the fourth place according to the American Heart Association (AHA), a high protein diet is not adequate to lose weight. So diets such as Atkins can cause nutritional deficiency and other cholesterol related problems (cardiac arrests) in the long run. Finally critics believe that eating meat and other high protein products can lead to osteoporosis, colon cancer, heart diseases and renal diseases.

However the best way to reduce weight is to avoid excess as well as complete elimination of anything. A person should take a diet rich in essential nutrients (vitamins, minerals, proteins, fibers etc.), stay away from fatty foods as much as possible. Also carbs such as sugar should be consumed in a regulated manner.

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Tags: atkins diet, dr atkin, dr robert atkins