An 84 year-old gentleman presented with difficulty sleeping, tired, mental acuity diminished; all over the past few months.  He was a long-time advocate of good eating and supplement intake.

Let me show you what happened when we took him off of the sugar.  You can check out the chart below.  Although there’s a lot of “doctorspeak” in the stats, I think you’ll get the idea.  We started in February with the initial lab results listed below, and you can observe the progress in the subsequent months as he completely eliminated sugar from his diet:

Month             Triglycerides        Fibrinogen        HsCRP    TPPE

February               206                   412                     7.0       35%

March                   165                                                          25%

May                      152                    312                   0.9          2%

August                 124                                             0.3           0

Lab work initially revealed high triglycerides of 206, elevated fibrinogen of 412, high HsCRP of 7.0 and a transketolase of 35%.  High triglycerides are usually a product of excessive carbohydrates.  He realized he had slowly started introducing sugar into his diet. He stopped all intake of sugar, and changed nothing else.  One month later his triglycerides were 165 and transketolase was 25%.  Two months later his triglycerides were 152, fibrinogen was 312, HsCRP was 0.9 and transketolase was 2%.  Three months later triglycerides were 124, HsCRP was 0.3 and transketolase was 0%.  Over a six month period of no sugar intake, his triglycerides became almost normal, the previously elevated fibrinogen and HsCRP, both risk factors for vascular disease, became normal, and his thiamine level became totally functional as indicated by a normal transketolase.  His sleeping returned to normal, his tiredness resolved and mental acuity returned.

When white rice was introduced into Japan for the first time, beri-beri, a thiamine deficiency, emerged as a major disease.  The B vitamins, especially B1 or thiamine, are needed for carbohydrate metabolism.  The B vitamins are found in the brown hull of the rice, but the hull is removed when white rice is processed.  This caused the emergence of a thiamine deficiency in Japan, which subsequently has produced some of the best literature on beri-beri in the world.  I share this with you so you can get a grasp on how vital it is to eat whole, unprocessed, nutritive foods in their natural state.

The only sweets we need to eat can be found in fruits—hip hip hurray for the no sugar diet!