a recent study found approximately 75 of
americans consume too much sugar even
more shocking many of those people are
classified as having a sugar addiction
board certified naturopathic doctor
erica steele
joins us today to give us the lowdown on
why sugar is so
bad
welcome to the show dr steele thank you
so much for having me dr steele did this
study surprise you no not not
particularly i mean i think by nature
we're all kind of looking for that quick
fix right um i know me as a reformed
type a personality i get my fix and work
education that sort of thing but some
people definitely get it through food
such as sugar you know it's really
incredible when you think about sugar
and the brain when you study this stuff
evolutionarily
we need to crave sugar because back in
the day that's where the
the calorie dense stuff was right but
nowadays we have too many candy bars and
soft drinks and all kinds of stuff so
accessible that we take too much sugar
and you know what we do see things
happen to the brain like addictive sort
of behaviors in that reward circuit yes
indeed we we go through the dopamine and
then the serotonin it's like up down up
down it's like crash burn crash burn and
then that's just our western culture in
general let's go go go go crash out on
the couch go go go go crash on the couch
and sugar does the same thing to the
chemicals in the brain you know what i
find amazing is when you have sugar it
actually causes a dopamine response and
that dopamine response is that reward
center of our brain and that's why we
want that candy bar but not so good for
us tell us dr steele how does sugar
affect our bodies so it acts as a
gasoline on any fire when we put sugar
in there it just continues to drive that
inflammatory response in the body it
inhibits the immune system also a
healthy blood sugar is the foundation of
your health so when you're spiking it up
down up down all day long you're not
really able to have a stable health with
the system overall
all right so we need some tips here what
are some foods people can eat to reduce
their sugar intake
i'm all about protein protein protein
protein helps to balance and stabilize
the blood sugar we often don't eat
enough protein protein breaks down into
amino acids so if a person doesn't eat
enough protein they can always
supplement with amino acids but you know
your chicken breast your turkey breast
your white fish even though those are
not the most you know glamorous of
things to eat definitely the healthiest
and highest protein dense foods you know
it's incredible to realize and i
remember you know being in medical
school learning how high blood sugar
affects our bodies in such detrimental
ways not only our brain but our blood
vessels our eyes our kidneys
so anything that we could do to bring
down that blood sugar and keep it a
little bit lower is going to be better
for us and even more
amazing is that from what i understand
there's some studies being done with
plant medicine
to help sugar addiction and to help
lower sugar so what's going on in that
regard yeah i think you know the use of
ayahuasca iboga even san pedro it helps
to really get you more internalized
right working with those plant medicines
help you get to the root cause because a
lot of times it's not just physiological
meaning that it's not just the body
craving and of course if there's over
abundance of yeast bacteria a person's
gonna crave sugar but sometimes mentally
emotionally it's about being sweet to
themselves right so if they're not able
to be internally sweet to themselves
based off of you know their childhood
their subconscious mind etc they're
going to go to external sources to be
able to mimic that and so i love plant
medicine because it allows for a lot of
deep introspection both mentally
emotionally as well spiritually
all right dr steele thank you so much
for joining us today and sharing your
insight
with us we have to reevaluate our
relationship with sugar awesome thank
you so much for having me again have a
great day