Is This Behind This Country's Leading Killer?

Scott: You touched on this next topic in your book a little bit too. The connection between sugar and heart disease. Most people wouldn't connect the two, but we're finding out more and more about the major connection there is between the two aren't we?

Jacob Teitelbaum, MD: Even the American Heart Association is now putting out position papers. And they're a relatively conservative organization, telling people they've got to cut back the excess sugar because it increases high blood pressure, increases diabetes, increases heart disease, increases cancer risk as well. You know me Scott, I'm not one for giving up things that are pleasurable. I consider pleasure good. I would be telling people... I have a sweet tooth and that's how I learned about these first hand! About many of these things that are going on.

Again, the sugar is something, we've never seen it in human history, in this severe amount. Get what's normally in the food, that's fine. But 140, 150 pounds dumped into the food, 18% of our calories. The biggest killer is cardiovascular disease... heart attacks and strokes. And we think it's always been this way, no! 200 years ago, heart attacks were really rare. People didn't clutch their chests and fall to the ground. They died of infections, they died of malnutrition, they died of trauma. They didn't die of heart attacks. Now it's the number one killer. This is one of the main reasons. It used to be if you wanted sugar, if you're the king of England, or the Queen of England you might sprinkle a little on your food as a sign of power, put a teaspoon on. You had to sail to the west Indies to get it if you wanted. It was very, very pricey. So this is a new phenomenon and so is the epidemic of heart disease that we're seeing. And the two are very connected.

Scott: Speaking of heart disease, we hear a lot about inflammation being a root cause of that. So then everybody says, well how's inflammation started? Can sugar come in there?

Dr. Teitelbaum: (hahaha) Sugar is a major trigger. That one, sugar and white flour are both inflammatory and we have an epidemic of immune problems. And again, inflammation is not bad, it's a normal, healthy part of our immune system, it's just out of balance. And that's why so many modern illnesses are associated with excessive inflammation. And sugar is a major culprit of that. One reason why people not only have increased heart disease, but increased pain, when they have a sweet tooth.