Okay, so yesterday I sat thinking, deeply, about something that is troubling me!
Then I also
started to wonder about a lot of my clients and friends falling ill with colds
and flu and not being able to get over it regardless of taking lots of Vit C,
staying in bed… etc.
THEN it
struck me, something I had completely forgotten about which I had read years
ago.
It was
research done by Dr Linus Pauling that I had read….
I have always been aware of the fact that
Sugar negatively affects your immune system but as I went about paying
attention to other things it had slipped my mind… something as important as that
should definitely NOT so I did some research and found this article explaining
it pretty well!
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Sugar and Your Immune System
Dr. Linus Pauling's
Forgotten Research
Your body has a very
efficient system for protecting itself from outside "invaders" such
as viruses, bacteria, fungi, etc. The single most important part of this system
is the body's ability to identify and destroy any invaders that get inside.
There is a fact that
you may not know about your body’s immune system:
EATING ANY KIND OF SUGAR HAS THE
POTENTIAL TO REDUCE YOUR BODY'S DEFENSES BY 75% OR MORE FOR FOUR TO SIX HOURS.
This is not new data.
In the 1970's Dr. Linus Pauling (one of the greatest researchers in the field
of microbiology) discovered that vitamin C helps the body to combat the common
cold. As part of the same research, Dr. Pauling found that sugar severely slows
down this same process.
This is very important
to know, as using this information can prevent illness and dramatically assist
healing. Because the idea that sugar is "bad" for you is so
controversial, I am going to give you a quick, simplified tour through your own
immune system so you can see for yourself what Dr. Pauling discovered.
1. How Your Body Disposes Of
Invaders
Bacteria, viruses,
etc. are literally "swallowed" by a special type of cell called a
"phagocyte." This is a cell, such as a white blood cell, that engulfs
and absorbs waste material, harmful microorganisms, or other foreign bodies in
the bloodstream and tissues.
2. Vitamin C
Dr. Pauling discovered
that vitamin C is needed by white blood cells to engulf and absorb viruses and
bacteria. In fact, a white blood cell has to contain 50 times the concentration
of vitamin C as would normally be found in the blood around it. That's how Dr.
Pauling came up with the "take vitamin C for a cold" theory. In order
to continue to destroy bacteria and viruses, the white blood cells have to
accumulate vitamin C all the time to keep up the 50-times concentration. So,
vitamin C is being moved through the cell membranes into the white blood cells
all over your body, all the time. That's why it's important to have plenty of
vitamin C available to your body.
3. Sugar
Glucose (sugar in its
simplest form, as found in the blood stream) and vitamin C have a similar
chemical structure. So similar, in fact, that when a white blood cell tries to
pull in more vitamin C from the blood around it, glucose can get substituted by
mistake. If the concentration of glucose in the blood goes beyond a certain
concentration, the white blood cell's 50-times vitamin C concentration can
start to drop because of the large amount of glucose it's pulling in as a
substitute for vitamin C.
In fact, at a blood
sugar level of 120, the white blood cell's ability to absorb and destroy
viruses and bacteria is reduced by 75%. This blood sugar level would be easily
obtained by any normal person eating some sugar (cake, cookies, candy, soda or
even drinking fruit juice). Further, it can take four to six hours for the
vitamin C concentration in the white blood cells to reach that optimum 50-times
concentration again.
Conclusion
As you can see, it's
not a great idea to eat any kind of sugar if you're sick, including the
much-recommended orange juice (which may contain vitamin C, but this won't help
if the white blood cells can't get past the sugar to use it!).
Further, if you were
on a program of health improvement of any kind, sugar would be your number-1
enemy! No matter if you're healing from an injury, either. White blood cells
and other phagocytes remove dead tissue as well as other types of waste
associated with injury healing.
The next time you go
to the drug store and notice that the cough syrup contains mostly sugar, you
can wonder as we do what happened to this valuable research that no one seems
to know?
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