If you are not familiar with the A1C blood test, that probably means that you’ve showed no signs of diabetes, or you got the test as part of a routine exam and didn’t notice it. The A1C test is a way of looking how your body has been handling sugar over the last few months. If you haven’t received this test, chances are that you will fairly soon, because diabetes is a growing problem in America, especially with increasing age.
According to the American Journal of Managed Care, around 25% of 65 years and older adults in the U.S. have diabetes. Worse, however, is that more that 50% of this group meet the criteria for prediabetes, which is, per the American Diabetes Association, an A1C level from 5.7% to 6.4%.
If your A1C is high (or anything besides “low”), you are doing more than risking diabetes. David Sinclair, Ph.D. has become a popular self-proclaimed longevity expert on social media. He has compelling credentials: he is a tenured professor at Harvard Medical School. One major enemy of longevity that he sees is sugar.
He so strongly believes that blood sugar is an enemy to longevity that he is using a prescription drug to lower his blood sugar below what even his diet and exercise could do. This approach ignores the unexpected dangers and toxicity of drugs, but it underscores how determined he is to keep blood sugar remarkably low.
Diabetics and pre-diabetics use blood glucose meters to change their habits, because they get quick feedback when their eating behavior results in high blood sugar. This kind of feedback surprises people initially: food patterns that they thought were not all that harmful would still spike their blood sugar. In that regard these meters may help some people, especially those who have little knowledge of how to reduce their blood sugar through diet.
Normal physiology shows us that if someone is not on blood sugar lowering medication, their blood sugar will not go below a safe threshold. Their bodies won’t allow it. Only when on medication, where this mechanism is inactivated, will their blood sugar potentially drop to life-threatening levels. It may drop to uncomfortable levels though, especially for those unaccustomed to fasting or regularly limiting sugar. Prolonged high insulin levels is the cause of type II diabetes, and getting vacations from insulin is a valuable key to reversing the diabetic problem of insulin resistance.
Sugar is a major enemy of longevity, perhaps enemy number one. This is not hard to prove. Many Americans will reject this concept however, because it challenges their most cherished foods and eating habits. Let’s look at the problem of sugar, and where it can lead.
Let’s break it down…
When your body wants energy from available glucose, it performs a multi-step process called glycolysis. The normal process is clean; that is, it breaks glucose down into energy and carbon dioxide. Glycolysis breaks down the glucose into pyruvate, which through the Kreb’s Cycle (Citric Acid cycle), produces CO2 and energy. However, in the presence of reactive oxidative species (ROS), glycolysis will create methylglyoxal, which is a precursor of advanced glycation end products (AGE’s), which is not so clean and contributes to the aging process.
ROS
Reactive oxidative species means highly damaging molecules are a byproduct of the air we breathe. Although oxygen has tremendous benefits and is necessary for the life we live, it also has extremely harmful side effects of producing oxidative free radicals . The way we counter this is with anti-oxidants. These are most powerful when they’re supplied by living and raw plants in the form of vegetables and fruits.
AGE’s are also produced outside of glycolysis: in cooking food, especially charring (grilling, high heat cooking, or frying) or browning (the coveted flavor-enhancement known as the Mallard Reaction — think of browned crust on bread for instance). Fermentation also produces methylglyoxal, and it is high in raw honey. This diet can make the methylglyoxal problem much worse. Fermentation in the gut also occurs due to bacterial action. So your battle isn’t to prevent methylglyoxal — because it is an unfortunate by-product of sugar metabolism — but to minimize it. Low sugar, uncooked diets rich in antioxidants (to counter the ROS) will minimize these glycations that most of us are getting in abundance.
Glycation happens in the bloodstream, but not only there. Glucose can attach to hemoglobin molecules, because sugar is chemically very reactive. Once attached, the sugar cannot be removed by the body and the blood cell is stuck with the extra sugar for the rest of its life. That life is only a few months however, so high A1C doesn’t have to be a long-term or permanent condition. A1C measures the percentage of the blood that is glycated, and as those glycated cells die off without more glycated ones being created, the A1C measured percentage drops. The glycated hemoglobin can be detected and separated in blood tests, allowing a determination of what percentage is glycated and what is normal.
Even though the glycated hemoglobin dies off over a few months, while it remains it is doing damage. As blood is carried throughout the body, it is causing inflammation through these altered cells.
Sugar is stuck on me…
The rest of the body isn’t reinventing itself as fast as red blood cells. Cells in the body may take years rather than months to die and be replaced. Glycation, however, isn’t limited to hemoglobin. Lipids (fat molecules) and long-lasting proteins also become glycated, and they damage the DNA of cells with much longer lifespans than a few months. Sugar can bind to DNA nucleotides, damaging them and altering the DNA. Altered DNA means the cell may malfunction if the damage is in the active portion of the DNA code, or if it is on an inactive portion, the cell may malfunction later when that code becomes active.
Once the cell DNA is damaged, perhaps the cell will never trigger the damaged portion of the code. Or, maybe it triggers and the code is nonsensical, causing the cell to self destruct. Worse, it could become cancerous. The glycation is permanent in any case until the cell dies, because glycation isn’t reversible. Just like you can’t un-brown bread crust or reverse fruit spoilage — these are glycation reactions — you can’t undo glycation in cells. That is why you want to avoid glycation as much as possible.
Research points to the dangers of sugar from many different directions. Some look to diabetes, which in addition to directly threatening normal metabolism, also increases inflammation which increases cancer risk. Others point to excess weight, particularly obesity, where the fat itself is constantly inflammatory and increasing risk of many diseases including cancer. Some, like a study published in Cell, where researchers from the National University of Singapore studied the impact of methylglyoxal on the DNA and the impact of high sugar levels. They saw “that repeated episodes of poor diet or uncontrolled diabetes can ‘add up’ over time to increase cancer risk.” The repeated episodes of high sugar mean greater methylglyoxal production more often, resulting in more DNA damage over time. They also noted that certain cancer-blocking genes can be damaged by methylglyoxal, opening the door for cancer.
Comprehensively, glycation is a root of many diseases and age-like deterioration. From a review article published in Fluids and Barriers of the CNS, researchers looked in depth at damage to the brain caused by methylglyoxal. In this article they show that it compromises the blood-brain barrier (BBB). They show that it particularly affects the brain endothelial cells and mural cells. “… elevated methylglyoxal stress and glycation have been shown to lead to endothelial dysfunction, micro- and macro-vascular dysfunction, pancreatic beta-cell dysfunction, cancer, neurodegeneration, and cognitive disorders.” Glycation often doesn’t show up in a named disease, because it gets covered under the term “aging”. We think of aging as inevitable deterioration, when much of it we bring upon ourselves. The brain is particularly susceptible.
You don’t need AGEs aging your body: you don’t want to consume them, and you don’t want your body producing them. Keep the sugar low, and your AGEs will also be low. Keep at it, because the impact builds over time. Sugar enslaves you, so break free and build a lifestyle where you can stay free of its bondage.
Dr. Nemec’s Review
Sugar is one of the most detrimental anti-nutrients you can put in your body. It will most definitely lead to early cell death or cell mutation. With either option, you lose. You either age prematurely — this means more inflammation, more disease processes, more pain; or you develop cancer and die prematurely. So you will end up living a miserable life or you will lose your life — either way you lose.
Let’s go into a little more of the vivid details just to make sure you’re paying attention to this message of warning. Glycation is when the sugar molecule is changed, usually by heat. So when a plant is cooked or processed in any way, it produces this glycation and advanced glycation end products. Everything that is picked in the field is processed in some way when it’s packaged or frozen, and this processing always includes heating. So unless you eat it right from the garden, you’re going to have glycation and AGEs.
What is the source of the glycation and advanced glycation end products?
It’s the sugars and carbohydrates that have been heated and processed. Every time you turn on the stove, oven, or the microwave — if there’s a carbohydrate you’re cooking then you’re glycating and producing very damaging AGEs. This includes all grains, rice, root vegetables like potatoes, everything that Americans eat, they eat mostly in the cooked and processed form.
So the pasta, the bread, the rice, the oatmeal, all the cereal, the beans, the potatoes, all the starches in the American diet — when they’re cooked, they are glycated.
This is why a raw uncooked white potato has a glycemic index of approximately 20, whereas when you cook it, it has the highest possible glycemic index of 100. This applies to all grains flours, rice, and beans, because all are starches.
Now let us touch the area that you thought was always safe: FRUIT.
We think fruit is OK because it’s not cooked, but what they’ve done with fruit is genetically hybridize it, meaning they have crossed-hybridized the seeds over the generations to make fruit that’s 100 times sweeter than it was originally. Why? Because sweet sells better than sour.
What does glycation do?
Well, primarily it makes everything sticky, because it is sticky sugar that is sticking to everything it comes in contact with. So if it sticks to a red blood cell, we call it a glycated red blood cell — so imagine a red blood cell with glue on it and instead of flowing smoothly through the blood vessels, it sticks to the blood vessels and sticks to each other. Can you see where this is leading? A blockage in the blood flow this means hypoxia or low blood oxygen, causing cells to die prematurely or turn malignant. Then the blood flow is so slow that the red blood cells stick together and stick to the blood vessels — this will cause a complete blockage: you know that as a heart attack or stroke. Now, are you starting to see the big picture?
Sugar is the modern day, most subtle, most addictive, most damaging poison you can put in your body. Not only will it decrease your lifespan, it will greatly decrease your quality of life. Most damaging of all is never addressed: it is the greatest addiction on the planet. What is an addiction? It is a reinforced neurotransmitter-produced mind-brain-body action. Once you’ve established the addiction, you are the slave to it. This is the greatest detriment of all: you have basically been put in prison by the addiction and it controls every aspect of your life.
The most damaging side effect of sugar…
It keeps you in addictive bondage, in a mental pattern that prevents you from living in your true identity as a son or daughter of your Father in heaven. It prevents you from living from His purpose placed in your heart, because you’re too preoccupied feeding the addictive mind on a regular schedule.
The answer
Everyone that we treat at Revolution New Medicine, and that we have treated for over 40 years, is placed on a very low glycemic index living raw plant food diet. The most important purpose of this: to break the bondage of the mind, which is blocking the heart, the spirit from manifesting in the person’s life. So start changing your life right now — start eating more living raw plant food that has a very low glycemic index. Decrease your cooked carbohydrates until you can get off of them completely.
And you will know the truth in your heart, in your spirit — not in the mind — and the truth will set you free. It will set your heart, your spirit free to be all that you were created to be in spirit, brain, and body.
Here are the ways we can help you in your health journey:
- Outpatient Comprehensive Teaching and Treatment Program-has the most benefit of teaching, treatment, live classes and personalized coaching. This program has the most contact with Dr. Nemec with 3- 6 month programs that can be turned into a regular checking and support program for life. This is our core program that has helped so many restore their health and maintain that restoration for years.
- Inpatient Comprehensive Teaching and Treatment Program-is our four-week intensive inpatient program for those that are not in driving distance, usually over 4 hour drive. This is the program that is an intensive jumpstart with treatment, teaching, live classes and coaching designed for all our international patients along with those in the US that do not live in Illinois. This program is very effective especially when combined with our new membership program support.
- Stay at Home Program-is offered to continental US patients who cannot come to Revolution New Medicine but still want a more personal, customized plan to restore their health. This program also includes our Learn Membership Program.
- Membership Program is our newest program offered for those that want to work on their health at a high level and want access to the teaching at Revolution New Medicine along with the Forums: both Dr. Nemec’s posts and other members posting. And also, to have the chance to get personalized questions answered on the conference calls which are all archived in case you miss the call. The Membership Program has 3 levels to choose from: Learn, Overcome and Master. The difference is at the Overcome and Master levels you received one on one calls with Dr. Nemec personalizing your program for your areas of focus.
