However, now I have a name to the monkey on my back, and after I was able to talk about it with a physician, it changed the game completely, even though we decided my symptoms were mild enough not to require medication. Sugar intolerance is the name of that monkey.
Sugar intolerance is much like lactose intolerance or gluten intolerance. It means that you're body has a lesser ability to break down sugars. Sugar is also known to increase small intenstine and colonic motility; indicating irritable bowels. It can also show up in other forms such as diabetes and hypoglyemia. Not to mention other unwanted side effects such as acne.
Sugar Intolerance is an umbrella term. It can refer to fructose intolerance, fructose malabsorpotion, a sugar allergy even lactose intolerance. Fructose intolerance is the most rare. Those who have a sugar intolerance and continue to consume large amounts of sugar, can develop a resistance to insulin, which can lead to diabetes complications.
Sugar, also referred to as sucrose, is a disaccharide. It is made up of the monosaccharides glucose and fructose. Fructose can be the most irritating through the body, the bond that it shares with glucose, actually helps make it get broken down easier. However there are some people who can not do this if they are missing the enzyme responsible for this breakdown. That is the fructose intolerance. Those people need to look into staying away from some fruits that are high in fructose, such as an apple. If they chose to eat fruits it should be ones that are low in fructose such as strawberries. Strangely enough, the fruits that I love are low in fructose and the fruits that I never got too crazy about are high in fructose. The body is a strange and wondrous thing. You can look up the content of your fruits on Nutritiondata.self.com.
If you go to sugar.org, they insist that sugar has nutritional value instead of being just empty calories. It's actually pretty laughable. They quote the American Heart Association saying that sugar can be beneficial to add to a diet it make it more appealing to children. Such as flavored milks. Granted, I'm sure we've all had a little Nesquick growing up but shame on you AHA! Sugar.org also calls sugar nature's natural sweeteners and talk about how all other fake sweeteners are terrible for you. While sugar is a far cry from a "natural" sweetener by my standards, I do agree with staying away from artificial sweeteners. If I'm going to have something sweet, I'd rather deal with sugar than aspartame or truvia.
Anyhow, think spring my friends! It is coming and we'll all be playing out in the sun! Today was such a beautiful day and so many of the birds are back. I forgot how much my backyard sounds like an aviary when the weather is nice!