Kicking Sugar and the path to a healthy future

I am reading Outlive by Peter Attia, and I am finding the book equal parts refreshing, liberating, and informative.  As a student of nutrition and wellness for over thirty years, I am an avid reader and learner of all things health and nutrition.  This book has given me so many applicable bits of information, that I am hard-pressed to measure the impact on my life.  As a woman who lost her husband and mother to cancer, I have spent the last thirty years researching cancer and the tie to healthy eating.  My life is the picture of prevention and awareness, yet my world has been shaken by the information shared in this book.  

Dr. Attia has chosen to focus on the three major health crises that we face, heart disease, cancer, and Alzhiemers’ and demention.  He connects the dots through science and research crediting all of these to genetics in a small part, but lifestyle choices as the larger part.  Metabolic disorder is the term, but it is more commonly know as obesity, insulin resistance, or just a diet of excess. These are not uncommon terms in our society, with the CDC defining 41% of American adults as obese.  These numbers have become so commonplace in our world, that we are starting to become numb to them.  When we are told the numbers of Americans that have type 2 diabetes 11.6% or are pre diabetic 38%, it begins to feel like we are doomed to become a statistic. 

I have always been one to go against the crowd and not accept the statistics as my fate.  I gave up red meat and pork when my mother was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, feeling like it could only help me be a bit healthier and to stave off what I thought was my genetic destiny.  Fast forward twenty-five years later and my husband is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer at the age of 53.  Looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack to understand his illness led me down many rabbit holes.  Three years post death, I stumbled on one big piece of the puzzle in Outlive. 

In the chapter discussing cancer and how it has changed in our modern history, Dr. Attia delivers such a gem that it instantly changed my diet.  Citing the Warburg theory that showed that cancer cells devour glucose up to forty times faster than healthy cells piqued my interest. Further elaborating on the tie between cancer and glucose comes this quote from Lewis Cantley, PhD, director of Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medical Center, “ (h)aving high insulin is likely to drive cancer. And what drives insulin levels is sugar.”  Additionally, the American Cancer Society states that excess weight is a leading cause for both cancer and deaths, second only to smoking.

As of seven days ago, since reading the cancer chapter I have not eaten any processed sugar.  Am I overreacting? Possibly.  Do I feel like this choice is made from an informed place.Absolutely!  I will write about my sugar- less diet in my next post. I will add that I feel great and accomplished to have finally kicked the emotional crutch of sugar.