Can you inform me about stevia? Is it a safe sweetener?

We all know that refined sugar is not good for our health. We also know that artificial sweeteners are bad for our health. Refined sugar is present in many of our processed foods. Artificial sweeteners are praised extremely on their role in controlling obesity or weight loss although the opposite is the truth. The lobbyists from sugar and artificial sweetener industries have everything under control. For this group profit is more important than health.

We have an alternative for refined sugar and artificial sweeteners. It is stevia rebaudiana, commonly known as stevia, sugar leaf or sweet leaf. Stevia is a natural sweetener. The extracts of this plant is up to 300 times sweeter than sugar. It is a native of South America, Central America and Mexico. The Native Americans of Paraguay and Brazil use this for centuries.

Research has shown the benefits of stevia in treating obesity and high blood pressure. In Japan it is used as a sweetener for decades without any problems. It is restricted or banned in many countries. There are few studies on rats which try to manipulate the fact of its usefulness and based on this it is banned in some countries. In some countries it is allowed as a herb, but not as a sweetener. It is because of the lobby work of sugar and artificial sweetener industry. There is no abnormal increase of cancer in Japan or in South America.

European Union has tested stevia thoroughly and they are going to allow this a sweetener later in this year as a sweetener. Then it is a boon to many who suffer from diabetes, obesity or overweight.

Avoid refined sugars and artificial sweeteners to live healthy. The presence of sugar is mostly concealed under many terms like fructose, corn syrup or cane extract by the food industry. It is better to minimize the intake of processed food. I hope more research will be done to know the good health effects of stevia.

A day will surely come when we don’t use refined sugar and artificial sweeteners.

Sugar, sugar everywhere sugar; how to avoid this in our daily life for weight loss?

Whether it is candies or chocolates or other sweets we know that much sugar is present there. It is easy to avoid. But what about the hidden sugars? Many processed foods like potato salad, bread spreads, tomato ketchup or ready-made soup mix contain much sugar. It is also mostly not declared on the label. To reduce your weight and to maintain it you must know well about this.

If it is declared sugar-free on the label mostly the industry means sucrose free. Sucrose is table sugar. But glucose, maltose, fructose, fructose, lactose and sucrose are the different names for sugar and only the origin is different, but all have the same calories. Some declare only as carbohydrates. That is why you must be in a position to interpret rightly the misleading labels. Do not forget sorbitol, xylitol and maltitol also contain calories. Sugar-free means no sugar or honey are added extra, but there can be other carbohydrates.

If we take too much of sugar our nerves lose their capacity to enjoy the natural sweetness of our food. Moreover, sweet foods increase the production of insulin which decreases the blood sugar levels. This is the reason for cravings for something sweet. Then we eat too much without any control and the weight gain is the result.

It is possible to change your habits to sweet your food with natural sweets. They include:

• Use fresh fruits to sweet yogurt or cottage cheese
• Add to muesli honey or sulphur-free dry fruits or grated coconut
• Mix your fruit juice with water and everyday increase the amount of water
• Select the raw or cooked grains or vegetables which have the natural sweet taste
• Avoid soft drinks, Ice-tea and drinks with caffeine, but coffee and tea are allowed
• Never go for shopping if you are hungry. Mostly you buy all the foods which are sweet or high fat foods.

It is easy to reduce and maintain your weight. You must know only the necessary information. Once you have understood this it is a great joy to lose weight.

What are the right foods for a pregnant?

There is no need to eat for two during the pregnancy. It is recommended that for the first trimester the food intake should remain about the same as it was prior to the pregnancy. During the second and third trimesters the food intake should be increased upto 30%. It is easy to achieve this with more fruits intake.

It is important to eat variety of foods to ensure the nutritional needs of both mother and the baby. The recommendations include:

• Fruits and vegetables very generously
• Whole grain products and cereals, but not milled grain products
• Milk and dairy products should not be eaten in excess
• Lean meat, chicken and fish in moderate amounts
• Avoid excess intake of fats, sugar and salt
• Beans, pulses, nuts and seeds
• Drink enough water

Do not diet if you are a pregnant. This bad for you as well as to your baby. Green leafy vegetables are very important for the intake of folic acid. Folic acid supplement is recommended for the health of your baby. It is better to consult your doctor before you take a supplement.

With proper food it is possible to manage the iron content of your body also. Iron supplement could be taken only if your doctor recommends it.

Avoid excess of vitamin A intake and vitamin A supplements are not required. The excessive intake of vitamin A may cause birth deformities.

Are the non-nutritive sweeteners safe?

Everything started in the 1950s with non-nutritive sweeteners. They helped to reduce the cost and considered a good alternative to sugar, thus to reduce the weight.

The FDA-approved non-nutritive sweeteners are:

• Saccharin
• Aspartame
• Sucralose
• Acesulfame potassium
• Neotame

Twenty years later, in the 1970s, studies reported that the consumption of non-nutritive sweeteners has connection with cancer. Even today the controversy is great. For every positive argument, there is an equally compelling negative argument against their use.

Saccharin has no calories, does not raise blood sugar levels and is 200 to 700 times sweeter than the table sugar. It may cause bladder cancer in humans and allergy is the negative reports.

Aspartame was discovered in 1965 and the FDA approved it in 1996 as a “general purpose sweetener”. More than 6000 foods including the carbonated soft drinks contain this. It is 160 to 220 times sweeter than the table sugar.

Aspartame is one of the most controversial non-nutritive sweeteners. Headaches, depression, cancer and increased hunger are the reported negative aspects of aspartame.

Sucralose is the newest non-nutritive sweetener and it is 600 times sweeter than the table sugar. It has few calories from the raw materials and is not fully absorbed. It is approved as a general-purpose sweetener in 1999. It is found in more than 4500 food products.

The controversy surrounding sucralose comes from the fact that it was discovered while trying to create a new insecticide. Sucralose contains chlorine and this may bring health problems. There are no long-term studieson humans done. The available studies are only short-term animal studies. The alleged symptoms are gastrointestinal problems, skin irritations, wheezing, cough, runny nose, chest pain, anxiety, mood changes, anger, itchy eyes and depression.

Acesulfame potassium is approved as a non-nutritive sweetener from 1988. It is 200 times sweeter than the table sugar. It is used as a flavour enhancer or to preserve the sweetness of the sweet food.

Acesulfame potassium contains the carcinogen methylene chloride and long-term exposure to methylene chloride can cause headaches, depression, mental confusion, liver and kidney problems, visual disturbances and cancer. Long-term studies are necessary in humans to know more about this sweetener.

Neotame is approved by the FDA in 2002 and this new version of aspartame. It is chemically related to aspartame, but it is not dangerous to individuals with phenylketonuria. It is 7000 to 13000 times sweeter than table sugar.

Neotame may have all the negative effects of aspartame. Here also long-term studies on humans are missing.

If you have diabetes to have the sweet taste you can use these non-nutritive sweeteners. Infants, children and pregnant must avoid these. Read the label well before you buy sweet foods.

What are the risk factors to get Type-2 Diabetes and what are its symptoms?

Millions of people are suffering from type-2 diabetes in our world and one can do a lot to prevent or postpone this disease.

The main risk factors include:

• Having a first-degree relatives – parents, brother, sister or child – with type-2 diabetes
• Having overweight or obesity
• High blood pressure
• HDL-cholesterol is less than 35 mg/dl or triglyceride level greater than 250 mg/dl
• Having a waist measuring more than 80 cm in women and 94 cm in men
• Having high blood sugar levels than normal without having diabetes
• Having diabetes or blood sugar levels above normal without having diabetes during pregnancy

Normally the problem of type-2 diabetes starts when the people are above 40 years old. But in recent times even young people get this disease. South Asians and African-Caribbean people have five times more risk to get type-2 diabetes.

The symptoms of type-2 diabetes often come on gradually and can be quite vague in the beginning. Many people have type-2 diabetes for a long period without knowing.

The common symptoms include:

• Being thirsty always
• Passing excess urine
• Tiredness
• Weight loss

If you have the symptoms go to your doctor and he could do the right diagnosis and treatment.

We hear always insulin and diabetes. Does insulin have other functions?

Insulin is a natural hormone of the body which controls the level of sugar in the blood. It is like a key to open the cells and send sugar there. Cells cannot utilize sugar without insulin.

Sugar is the body’s important and primary source of fuel. Excess sugar builds up in blood can lead to diabetes. Without insulin the cells cannot take sugar from the blood.

The other functions of insulin include:

• Stimulates growth
• DNA synthesis
• Cell replication
• Increases amino acid transport into cells
• Stimulates lipogenesis (conversion of sugar to fat, triglycerides)
• Decreases lipolysis (breakdown of triglycerides for energy production)
• Altering the cell content of numerous mRNAs (messengerRNAs carry coding information to the sites of protein synthesis)
• Modulates transcription (helps to transfer of genetic information from DNA to mRNA)

Insulin is thus important to our health.

Can you tell me three important things which I must avoid to reduce my weight?

Although there are many important points for the weight reduction I consider the following three points are very decisive.

They are:

• Avoid trans-fat
• Avoid high fructose corn syrup
• Avoid sugar

If you avoid these three foods then you avoid most of the unhealthy food. These are in many junk foods and in processed foods.

Enough vegetables and fruits and physical activity are a must. Your goal is easily attainable if you have the will power.

Are soft drinks healthy?

There are many soft drinks in our world. There are many chemicals present in these soft drinks. These chemicals may have adverse effects on our health. Of course the major part is water, but all the other things present are not healthy.

The soft drink contains many chemicals and they include:

• Sugar – soft drink manufactures are the largest single user of refined sugar in our world. Sugar increases insulin levels. The result can be diabetes, high blood pressure, high blood triglycerides. Weight gain and premature aging and many other health problems go to the account of sugar.

• Aspartame – many diet soft drinks contain this chemical, as a sugar substitute. Many side effects are associated with aspartame intake. Weight gain, diabetes, birth defects and many other health problems go to aspartame’s account. If stored in a warm place for a long time it is automatically converted in to methanol which is converted to formaldehyde and formic acid, which are carcinogens. Acesulfame-K and Saccharin are the other artificial sweeteners mostly used.

• Phosphoric acid – it may interfere with calcium metabolism. The result may be softening of bones, teeth and osteoporosis. Too much of this can affect the utilization of nutrients.

• Carbon dioxide – it is used to produce carbonated soft drinks. The adverse effects are acidosis and adverse effects in calcium metabolism. Brushing your teeth after drinking an acidic soft drink can increase the damage to your tooth enamel and dissolving down the gum line.

• Caffeine – excess caffeine is not good for our health. Two cups of coffee per day is good but too much from the soft drinks are not good.

Obesity is a big problem and one of the main reasons is soft drinks.

Moreover, the taste what we enjoy with soft drinks are also only chemicals. It is better to avoid all soft drinks. If it is not possible now and then a glass is good. Particularly we must inform the youth about the dangers of soft drinks. If explained properly surely they will understand the problems with the soft drinks.

Pure drinking water and fresh fruit juices are the best drinks.

You promised me to write about diabetes. When could I expect this?

To explain diabetes very simply we can say that it means excess of sugar in blood. There are three reasons for that: pancreas secretes less insulin or no insulin and the secreted insulin is ineffective to do its metabolic function, which is to send the glucose inside the cells for the production of energy.

Insufficient insulin secretion causes increase of blood sugar, thirst and excessive urination, fatigue and cardiovascular and kidney damage.

There are two types of diabetes. In type-1 there is no secretion of insulin and the patients must take insulin injection. In type-2 insulin is there but this is resistant and not able to do its function.

Age, weight and physical activity also play a role in type-2 but we should not also forget the hereditary factor.

Whatever you eat, there is an effect on your blood sugar because carbohydrate is inevitable in our food. We must select the food correctly so that we can have a control on the blood sugar.

There are many effects of food on diabetes. Food can also act in a helpful manner by supporting insulin or decreasing the sugar by itself.

Antioxidants from food can bring the free radicals under control so that the beta cells in pancreas are not damaged. Carbohydrates and excessive sweets increase the blood sugar value very sharply.

The allergic reaction to food constituents in type 1 are much delayed, e.g. protein in milk.

People regularly eating fish have only 50% of the risk to get diabetes than the people who do not eat fish normally. The food which contains a lot of saturated fat gives problems. Overweight and obesity are risk factors for diabetes type-2.

Broccoli is rich in chromium and chromium supports the insulin and the sugar value is reduced. Nuts, barley, mushrooms, whole grains, yeast, tea and broccoli are the foods rich in chromium.

Fenugreek is well known for its action against sugar and cholesterol, both are lowered. But you must be careful if you have only high blood pressure or diabetes.

Cinnamon also has the effect to lower blood sugar.

Legumes which have complex carbohydrates and high fibre also lower cholesterol as well as sugar.

The diluted juice of bitter gourd helps to reduce the blood sugar but the exact mechanism behind this action is not clearly known.

It is better to take food high in antioxidants such as vitamin C, E and beta-carotene. Sugar metabolism produces harmful free radicals and these must be scavenged from our body, otherwise they can oxidize LDL.

To prevent type-1 diabetes, avoid dairy products to the babies at least till they become one year old.

To prevent type-2 diabetes, you must reduce weight and do more physical work. Eat fish, nuts, legumes, whole grain food and food containing antioxidants.

If you have diabetes, contact your doctor or dietician for a course which will inform you clearly the connection between diabetes and food. Whole grain food, boiled rice, potato, legumes including soy beans, noodles, fish and lean meat are the better food.

Whenever I talk to persons about fruits, the topic touches always fructose (commonly known as fruit sugar in India) and they do not know what it is exactly. Fructose is not alone present in the fruits. Glucose, fructose and sucrose are present in fruits in different amounts and that makes it difficult to say how much sugar is present in a fruit. To take banana as example, here approximately 50% sugar and 50% fructose is present in it. Fructose is metabolized through liver and has nothing to do with insulin and sugar metabolism.

It is also important to know that too much of fructose is harmful to the liver and thus to your health. Sucrose has sugar and fructose in equal amounts.

What is the correct diabetic food? About 40 to 60% of total calories come from carbohydrates
Less than 20% from mono and polyunsaturated fats
Less than 10% from saturated fat, for example animal fat and plant fat
It is not easy to take the necessary amount of food that contains the required quantity of fibre daily. But this is the optimum.

It sounds so easy and you may ask where the problem is? Each diabetes patient is different. He has different weight, his job is different, his physical activity is different and his stress is different.

One is lucky because his wife manages the whole diet very good. The other is a single woman or man. We cannot make a general diet plan. The plan must be individual and tailor made. This makes the whole thing difficult.

The second important problem in the management of diabetes is the fat metabolism. Excess sugar is converted in the liver to fat, the triglyceride and excess fructose is also converted into triglyceride. Apart from this excess protein is converted in the liver to sugar. In turn this sugar is also converted to triglyceride. Now, you know why the diet plan must be tailor made.

With an individual diet plan and a good explanation to the patient diabetes is very good manageable for decades.

What is the difference between sugar and fruit sugar?

Sugar is glucose and fruit sugar is fructose. We need for sugar metabolism insulin, but fructose is metabolised in the liver.

Many think that only fructose is present in the fruits. In fruits there are fructose, glucose and sucrose. Sucrose has one molecule of glucose and fructose. The fruits thus have approximately equal amount of glucose and fructose. Table sugar is normally sucrose.

High-fructose corn syrup which is present in many soft drinks is usually a mixture of approximately equal amounts of glucose and fructose.

Fructose is metabolised exactly like alcohol and so in excess bad for the liver health.

Both excess glucose and fructose are converted into triglycerides in the liver. We must be careful with sugar as well as with fructose.

Berries, melons, tree fruits are rich in fructose. Honey and some root vegetable also contain significant amount of fructose.

Is Fructose Healthy?

If I have to answer you in one sentence then I must say in excess it is not healthy. Fructose is present in honey, fruits and some of the root vegetables. I hear even from my FB friends that it contains only fructose and so surely it is better than sugar.

Is it correct? No, it is not at all correct. A simple comparison is that there are trillions of cells in our body which could metabolize sugar, but only liver can metabolize fructose. Liver has many other important functions than metabolizing fructose. In excess it is as bad as alcohol because fructose is metabolized immediately if it is present in the blood. This is an extra and excess work to the liver.

Most of the non-alcoholic soft drinks including cola drinks contain high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). It is used because it is cheaper than sugar and here mostly the ratio of fructose:glucose is 55% to 45%. Now and then a glass is OK, but not too much.

What are the health problems we may get from fructose? There are many and they include:

• Excess is converted into blood fat, triglycerides which is a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases
• Excess may cause insulin-resistance, elevated LDL-cholesterol and obesity
• It is also one of the causes for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease
• It can react with protein and so fructose found in soft drinks may cause gout

If you have diabetes you can use less of it.

When I buy some processed food I found a lot of information in the label, but what are the important ones for me?

The calories present in that food, fat, sugar and salt content are important. Moreover, information about the chemicals as additives or colouring agents and the nature of the food, whether it is radiated or genetically manipulated.

All other matters are only advertisement for the industry. Many western countries try to make this a law, the lobbyists are working against this in many countries, but to our surprise Great Britain has this law as a traffic light system, green is good, yellow, not very good and red may be a colour of love but it is the worst. If we can achieve this it is easy for you to avoid all these bad foods for our health, no wonder the food industry is against this. Only the knowledge and thus avoiding these foods has a deciding effect on the industries because only the unsold products make them to change their policy and products.

What about chocolates if I have diabetes?

Nowadays there are chocolates that have up to 95% cocoa and these are bitter with no taste.

75%+ cocoa chocolates are healthy because of the high amount of polyphenols, flavonoids and other antioxidants.

Chocolates with more than 85%+ cocoa are not much harmful to your health. These bitter chocolates can reduce the blood pressure, can reduce cholesterol level and even help for sugar metabolism. Cocoa absorbs the sugar and there fore it is reduced slowly in the stomach.

If you use it in a proper way even 95+ cocoa chocolates are useful in weight reduction. A good dietician could arrange this in four diet plan.

Eat moderately if you have diabetes and reduce the amount of carbohydrates from other sources. What is moderate? It is 35 to 50 g per day.

Normal chocolates have cocoa butter, cocoa solids and sugar. Milk chocolates have milk powder or condensed milk, cocoa butter, cocoa solids and sugar. White chocolates have milk powder, cocoa butter and sugar but no cocoa solids. These chocolates have a maximum of 30% cocoa and have no health effects. We must be careful with these, otherwise you could become chocoholic.

I eat always rice, can rice increase cholesterol?

No, rice will not increase your cholesterol.

Boiled rice is healthy, but, the dose makes the poison and it is applicable to rice also.

But excess sugar from rice in the blood is converted into triglycerides in the liver which is also a risk factor for heart diseases.

It is not the genes which raise the fats but excess carbohydrates or sugars.

Reduce the amount of carbohydrates in your food and eat lot of vegetables and fruits to be always healthy.

Most of the South Indian vegetarians have elevated values of triglycerides. Are genes culprits?

Genes may play a role here, but the scientific explanation is simple; if you consume huge amount of carbohydrates, after digestion the sugars are used to produce energy in our cells and the excess sugars are sent to the liver where they are converted into triglycerides.

There are two more significant points are also there. They are:

• The intake of fruit sugar, fructose
• Excess intake of protein

Fructose is metabolized in the liver and the excess of it is converted to triglycerides. If you consume more protein than your body requires the excess is converted into sugar which in turn will be converted to triglycerides.

You must be careful in the intake of carbohydrates including fructose and also many soft drinks which can also contain sugar or fructose.

With half the amount of carbohydrates intake from your food and enough physical activity you could bring down the triglycerides without any medicine. This is good for your health.