Why You Should Never Quit Fruit During a Low-Carb Diet, According to Science

One of my patients, who had been struggling with diabetes and was struggling with her weight, agreed to adopt a more plant-based diet.

She did a great job. She stopped eating candy, cookies and cakes and increased her fresh fruit and vegetable intake. She lost 19 pounds and her HbA1c went from 11.5 to 7.6 percent over the course of six months.

She was doing so well that I expected her HbA1c to continue to drop and that she would be one of our plant-based successes who had reversed diabetes.

The three-month follow-up visit was canceled because of the COVID-19 lockdowns. When I saw her again in May 2021, she had regained some of the weight and her HbA1c had gone up.

She said that her doctor and a diabetes nurse educator told her that she was eating too much sugar on the plant-based diet.

She was told to limit her Carbohydrates by cutting back on fruits and vegetables and eating more fish and chicken. Sugar-free candy, cakes, cookies, and artificial sweeteners were encouraged. She fell back on the conventional wisdom that "sugar" is bad and should be avoided if you have diabetes.

I'm a board certified preventive medicine physician with a lifestyle medicine clinic at Morehouse healthcare in Atlanta. Helping patients make healthy lifestyle behavior modifications is the specialty of this emerging medical specialty.

Patients who adopt a whole-food plant-based diet see a reversal of chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. Patients and health professionals have myths about sugar and carbohydrates.

Fruit is sweeter than sugar.

Your body runs. Cells use sugar for energy.

One of the three essential macronutrients isglucose. The other two are not fat. There are long, branching chains of sugar.

The images are from Trinset.

The three types of sugars are found in fruit and milk.

Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and seeds are packed with naturally occurring carbohydrates.

The images are from Trinset.

The chain of sugar molecules are linked together.

Humans evolved to crave sweet tastes to get the nutrition they needed to survive. Our bodies can't make vitamins, minerals and fiber on a daily basis. The best source of substances for our ancestors was fruit.

Fruits contain chemicals that are produced by plants. ellagic acid in strawberries has cancer-fighting properties.

The refined sugars are stripped of all the vitamins and minerals. They are a concentrated form of sugar. refined sugars are produced by the food industry. The most common are table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, which are found in many processed foods and sweetened beverages.

You may not get all the vitamins and minerals you need if you keep eating foods with refined sugar.

Over time, this deficit may lead to a vicious cycle of over eating that leads to health problems. Women who eat the most fruit tend to be less obese.

Toxicity of sugar

Sugars can combine with other substances in food and the bloodstream to make toxic substances, such as advanced glycation end products. High blood sugar levels can cause low-density lipoproteins. High levels of these and other toxic substances are associated with an increased risk of a wide range of chronic health problems.

Diabetes is the most common disease associated with sugar. Many people, including health professionals, wrongly believe that eating sugar causes diabetes. The real cause of progressive loss of Pancreatic beta cell function is ignored by this myth. Between 40 and 60 percent of a patient's beta cells may have been lost at diagnosis.

The production of sugar in the body is controlled by the hormone in the blood, called lysin. The high blood sugar levels characteristic of Type 2 diabetes can be caused by the loss of beta cell function.

The low levels of antioxidants in the cells make them vulnerable to attack by free radicals and AGEs. Fruits have anti-oxidants in them that can protect cells. People who eat the most fruit have the lowest risk of Type 2 diabetes.

It's a cleanse from sugar.

People who want to lose weight and improve their health often ask if they should do a sugar cleanse. It is not possible to eliminate sugar from the body, so this is a waste of time. If you only ate baked chicken breasts, your body's immune system would make a process called gluconeogenesis.

A low-carb diet may lead to weight loss, but it may also lead to health problems. The risk of death from any cause is higher if the diet reduces carbohydrates significantly. The body will break down muscles on a low-carbohydrate diet. There is a lack of fiber.

Eliminating refined sugar is a worthy goal. Don't think of it as a "detox", it should be a permanent lifestyle change. Increasing your intake of fruits and vegetables is the safest way to go on a refined sugar "detox". If you eliminate refined sugar, your taste buds will become more sensitive to the natural sugars of fruits.

Morehouse School of Medicine has an assistant professor of community health and preventive medicine.

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