Sugary Sweet Sabotage Part Two - Sugar is an Anti-Nutrient

In Part One of our Sugary Sweet Sabotage series, we learned that sugar diminishes the function of White Blood Cells. In this post we'll discover that sugar depletes several important nutrients from our bodies.

At ImmuneStrong Kids, we are on a mission to help kids have great immune systems. Identifying sources of Immune System Sabotage is crucial in this journey, and we believe that sugar is the number one source of sabotage for most children.

Let's examine what sugar does to nutrients. We'll start with Vitamin D and Vitamin C because they are essential immune system vitamins, but don't miss the paragraphs about sugar and magnesium because it's life-changing info.

Vitamin D is "the Immune System Vitamin", so anything that hurts its absorption or depletes it is a severe problem. Sugar can inflame the lining of your digestive system, which means that Vitamin D in your food may not be absorbed fully. (The fact that sugar inflames your digestive system should not be overlooked. Terrifying.

A paper published in 2014 in the journal Nutrients found an association between drinking sugar-sweetened colas and lower Vitamin D levels. A possible explanation is that sugar can stimulate the production of enzymes that break down Vitamin D stores.

Vitamin C - It turns out that we've known that Vitamin C and sugar have similar chemical structures since the 1970s, yet I just learned about this recently! This is a crucial bit of information. Sugar and Vitamin C use similar mechanisms to enter into your cells. Vitamin C entering your cells is good, but sugar replacing Vitamin C in your cells is devastatingly destructive! Sir Linus Pauling researched this 50 years ago, and most parents have no idea about the way that sugar is sabotaging their children's immune systems. This is a perfect example of sugar being an antinutrient. Not only does sugar provide no nutritional benefit, but it also robs the body of the benefits of Vitamin C consumed through food.

Magnesium - It is estimated that 50% of adults in America don't consume enough magnesium in their diet, and to make matters worse, sugar can negatively affect magnesium levels. There are at least two ways that sugar reduces sugar levels:

1. High blood sugar and, consequently, raised insulin levels to reduce magnesium absorption. This means that even if you consume enough, you might pee it out before it can do any good.

2. Magnesium is involved in the metabolism of sugar. This means that if you eat too much sugar, more than average amounts of magnesium will be used to process it all.

Consider this: Half the population is already not consuming enough magnesium in their diet, and the problem is amplified because the average person eats too much sugar. Magnesium helps people reduce stress, sleep better, and prevent anxiety. No wonder so many people are stressed out, anxious, and suffering from poor sleep!

Key takeaways: Sugar is toxic to the immune system in many ways. Here are the highlights from this article.

• Sugar depletes and blocks the absorption of Vitamin D

• Sugar can block and replace Vitamin C in White Blood Cells, damaging their function.

• Sugar can contribute to magnesium deficiency, which leads to poor sleep, anxiety, and depression.