Day: June 5, 2023

Countries that treasure individual freedom and respect bodily autonomy have only one choice: Exit the World Health Organization. It is now beyond clear that the WHO intends to eliminate both of those, and then some, through an international program called One Health, formally adopted by the WHO and the G20 health ministers in 2017.¹

The term “One Health” was first coined by EcoHealth Alliance,² the group that subcontracted risky gain-of-function research to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), the lab from which SARS-CoV-2 emerged.

In hindsight, it’s easy to see that the globalists’ plan to concentrate power has been in the works for decades, and the playbook is always the same: “Give us more power so we can protect you and keep you safe.” Alas, every time we give them more power, we find ourselves both less safe and less free.

What Is One Health?

In the video above, Dr. Meryl Nass explains the implications of One Health. In short, our entire way of life, our freedom, our quality of life — indeed, our very humanity, are now at stake.

One Health is basically the culmination of a grand global plan that places human health, animal health, environmental concerns, food, travel, housing and everything else under a single umbrella, and the WHO is being set up as the central decision-maker and overseer of it all.

As explained by Nass, the One Health concept was initially based on the concept that veterinarians and doctors stood a better chance of combating zoonotic diseases — infections that jump species from animal to human — by working together. While that’s a reasonable idea, the concept was hijacked by globalists who saw that it could be used to gain power and control over the whole world.

The One Health agenda is based on the premise that a broad range of aspects of life and the environment can impact health and therefore fall under the “potential” to cause harm.

The graphic above illustrates some of the areas that fall within the scope of One Health. But that’s not all. According to a One Health Commission document, One Health also includes:³

Communications	Economics
Civil society	Global trade, commerce and security
Public policy and regulation	Research
Noncommunicable diseases (basically human medicine as a whole)	Mental health
Agricultural land use (which involves forcing farmers off their land)	Disaster preparedness and response
Disease surveillance	The “human-animal bond” (the relationship with our pets) and much more

The WHO Will Have Power to Dictate Every Facet of Our Lives

If the WHO’s proposed pandemic treaty is enacted, the WHO will have unilateral power to make decisions about all of these areas, and its dictates will supersede and overrule any and all local, state and federal laws.

For example, under One Health, the WHO will be able to declare climate change as a health emergency and implement climate lockdowns to address it. It will be able to restrict local and international travel under the guise of environmental and/or human health, implement a vaccine passport requirement as a biosecurity measure, radically alter diets around the world in the name of animal welfare and environmental protection, and much more.

As noted by Nass, “they’re basically trying to lasso everything in the world under One Health.” Meanwhile, One Health “lacks a conceptual system, real world evidence and a method for being implemented and evaluated,” she notes.

The One Health joint plan of action itself is pure word salad. It tells us nothing, really, other than it’s about forming a global coalition to “drive change” and transform life at the “global, regional and country level” under the guise of “health.”

The One Health Network Has Already Been Built

Behind the scenes, One Health partnerships have already been formed in countries around the world. According to Nass, the One Health network was built and expanded in the U.S. primarily by cutting public health funding. One Health then stepped in with funding but, of course, recipients of One Health grants had to embrace the concept and push it out to others.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), nongovernmental organizations and universities are all disbursing funds to expand the One Health network in the U.S. “Advancement of a One Health approach” is even included in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).⁴

The One Health concept is also creeping into the school system, where students are being taught the importance of “responsible citizenship,” “cultural sensitivity” and “global mindedness.” The same tactics are used to build this network in other countries as well.

One Health Is Baked Into IHR Amendments

Importantly, as explained by Nass,⁵ One Health is also baked into the proposed amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR), which the World Health Assembly (WHA) is scheduled to vote on in May 2024. This is how the WHO will gain the authority to dictate how we live our lives.

“So, people need to be aware that this is coming, it’s a runaway train and we have to do what we can to stop it — which we can do by pulling out of the WHO,” Nass says.

As noted by Nass, in the U.S., a small group of national legislators are introducing House^6,7 and Senate bills^8,9,10 to require Senate supermajority approval of the WHO treaty before it’s signed.

In the U.K., conservative MPs are also warning ministers of an “ambition evident … for the WHO to transition from an advisory organization to a controlling international authority,” and are urging the Foreign Office to block efforts to “intrude materially into the U.K.’s ability to make its own rules and control its own budgets.”¹¹

Andrew Mitchell, the minister of the Foreign Officer, has vowed to “block any law that prevents the U.K. from setting its own health policy,” but he also stressed that the U.K. is “supportive of the pandemic treaty currently being negotiated by national governments,”¹² and that treaty, as it’s currently written, completely eliminates member states sovereignty.

People in other countries also need to educate their legislators about the dangers of One Health, the IHR amendments and the pandemic treaty under consideration, and call on them to protect their nations against this stealth takeover.

So, to summarize, One Health is a global project to centralize power with the WHO so that it will have the authority to control every aspect of human life, across the world, without regard for national sovereignty or human rights. Any number of countermeasures, including those used during the COVID pandemic, can then be deployed to combat things like climate change, loss of biodiversity, noncommunicable diseases, pollution, hunger, poverty and so on.

Overblown Warnings of Doom and Other Tactics

In a May 25, 2023, Substack article, Nass highlights the three elements used repeatedly to push what is ultimately a global takeover agenda:¹³

1. An overblown warning about impending doom
2. A totally inaccurate description of the cause
3. A vague solution that benefits the globalists at the expense of the population at large

These were used during the COVID pandemic. They’re also being used to push the false idea that antibiotic resistance is caused by global warming, and therefore requires a more comprehensive approach — a One Health approach.

Nass cites a February 2023 report by the UN Environmental Program (UNEP) titled “Bracing for Superbugs: Strengthening Environmental Action in the One Health Response to Antimicrobial Resistance.”¹⁴

UNEP is one of the four international agencies that are pushing the One Health agenda globally and, according to this report, the fact that nations are already addressing antibiotic resistance is not enough.

Instead, nations must all work together using a singular, coordinated approach that includes “environmental-related plans such as national chemical pollution and waste management programs, national biodiversity and climate change planning.”

Countries must also come up with “innovative financial incentives and schemes” to pay for the proposed action plan and “guarantee sustainable funding.” UNEP also calls for “science-policy interfaces,” the prioritization of interventions and the strengthening of surveillance systems. They also stress that all strategies employed must “utilize the One Health approach while addressing financial/business, climate and cultural contexts.”

Does anyone else see how problematic that can become? To raise just one example, overuse of antibiotics in food production is at the root of the problem, yet any strategy to address it must take stakeholders’ financial and business concerns into account. At the end of the day, it becomes all about protecting and promoting the interests of certain “stakeholders,” which are primarily NGOs and private businesses. As noted by Nass:¹⁵

“Antimicrobial resistance is so simple. Bacteria develop mutations that allow them to evade antibiotics, and their new genes are often contained in small plasmids that can be excreted by the cell and shared with other bacteria …

Until this present moment, the FDA, CDC and the WHO all knew that antimicrobial resistance was due primarily to the use of antibiotics in livestock feed, because it increased the rate of growth; 75% of antibiotics by weight are used for this purpose, globally.

And people consume these antibiotics when they eat the meat, or the farmed fish, or the chickens. But now we must believe that antibiotic resistance is an environmental problem, which can only be solved by using the … One Health approach.”

‘Climate-Aggravated Outbreak Threats’ Being Pushed

If climate lockdowns and the like sound unbelievable, start paying attention to what you read in the news. For example, PR Newswire¹⁶ recently announced a partnership between the WHO and the Rockefeller Foundation aimed at “genomic surveillance, adoption of data tools for pathogen detection and assessment of climate-aggravated outbreak threats.”

More and more, we’re seeing “pandemic threats” being tied to things like climate change, so that the first can be used to justify drastic action on the second. As reported by PR Newswire:¹⁷

“The Rockefeller Foundation and the World Health Organization (WHO) have announced a new partnership to strengthen the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence.

As part of the collaboration, the Foundation is investing US $5M in partners working with WHO to cultivate global networks for pathogen detection and strengthen pandemic preparedness capabilities, including broadening surveillance for diseases worsened by rising temperatures and extreme weather.”

October 2022 Pandemic Simulation

There’s also no doubt that we’ll be faced with additional pandemics, because the pandemic threat is what drives the push for global centralization of power. The globalists who practiced what was to become the global COVID response have also told us there will be more pandemics, and at this point, it would be foolish not to believe them. So, what might the next pandemic be, and when might it strike?

October 23, 2022, the WHO, Johns Hopkins University and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation cohosted a tabletop exercise dubbed “Catastrophic Contagion,” involving a novel (and supposedly fictional) infection called “severe epidemic enterovirus respiratory syndrome 2025” (SEERS-25), which primarily affects children and teens.

These are the same groups that ran Event 201, which turned out to be a pandemic simulation for COVID. According to the Catastrophic Contagion simulation, SEERS-25 — an enterovirus like the polio virus — will originate in Brazil in 2025.

Fictional news reports featured in the simulation reported 1 billion cases worldwide and some 20 million deaths, including 15 million children, plus millions more left permanently paralyzed from the infection. Based on this exercise, we can assume (unless additional pandemic exercises are carried out) that the next pandemic will target children and young people.

This would be a logical progression, from a totalitarian perspective, considering people are typically willing to do just about anything to keep their children safe.

COVID showed them that most people were willing to sacrifice even their most basic freedoms “to save grandma.” So, what won’t they willingly give up if it comes down to “saving children”? The globalists intend to take our human rights and civil liberties away from us, and to be successful in that endeavor, they will need all the help and cooperation they can get.

Dr. Abdullah Assiri, co-chair of the WHO’s Working Group on Amendments to the International Health Regulations (WGIHR) recently stated¹⁸ that the world “requires a different level of legal mandates” to address future pandemics, and that “actions that may restrict individual liberties” is a priority.

Who Is Making Decisions on Our Behalf?

Clearly, the idea that unelected and unaccountable globalists are trying to strip away individual freedoms and implement a totalitarian system of global top-down control is not a loony “conspiracy theory.” It’s a plain fact, and we, the public, have NO say in this.

In the video above, author, researcher, activist and natural health advocate James Roguski¹⁹ explains the World Health Assembly’s (WHA) role in the WHO’s takeover. Part of what makes it so difficult to stop this power grab is because the WHA is the body that will vote on the IHR amendments and the pandemic treaty, but the public is not allowed to know who, from their country, is part of the WHA.

Roguski tried filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to get a list of the U.S. delegates and was told there’s no such list. So, we can’t know who the WHA delegates are until they’ve signed in at the meeting and cast their vote on our behalf.

Needless to say, this means we cannot contact them beforehand to tell them how we think they should vote on a given issue. That said, Roguski was able to determine that Xavier Becerra, U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services, is the U.S. lead delegate.

Past the Point of No Return, All Freedom Will Be Lost

It’s now beyond imperative that people understand where we’re headed, and that the COVID measures weren’t just responses to a given pandemic, but rather were the foundation for a totalitarian one world government, where human rights and freedoms will no longer exist.

This is likely the biggest challenge mankind has ever faced as a collective, and it requires strong collective resistance. In order for that resistance to occur, however, people must understand what’s going on and how all of these various programs, treaties, partnerships and agendas work together. They’re all part of the same scheme, which is to implement a One World totalitarian technocratic government under which humans have no intrinsic value.

Call on Congress to Withdraw US From the WHO

While the U.S. House and Senate have introduced identical bills to thwart the WHO’s power grab through the proposed pandemic treaty, that still might not protect us if President Biden signs it, because the treaty is specifically written to circumvent the Senate-approval process.²⁰

A far more effective strategy would be for Congress to withhold its annual contributions to the WHO, and then withdraw the U.S. from the WHO altogether. I believe it may be worth supporting all these strategies. So, please, contact your representatives and urge them to:

• Support the No WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty Without Senate Approval Act
• Withhold funding for the WHO
• Support U.S. withdrawal from the WHO

We also need to protect our nation against the IHR amendments. To that end, the World Council for Health has launched a global #StopTheWHO campaign. Here’s how you can get involved:²¹

Speak — Raise awareness on the ground and online. Use articles, posters, videos

Act — Campaign through rallies, political mobilization, legal notices and cases and similar campaigns

Collaborate with health freedom coalitions such as the World Council for Health

Explore activist toolboxes such as: World Council for Health Stop the Who Campaign and stopthewho.com

Engage global indigenous leadership to take a united stand against the WHO’s IHR

Notify World Health Assembly country delegates to oppose the IHR amendments (if you can identify them)

Activate people’s parliaments, legislatures or referendums to oppose power grabs

In a May 2023 paper, Canadian researchers announced they had newly identified a protective role that vitamin K plays against diabetes.¹ In 2019, diabetes was the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S.,² a disease which affected approximately 37.3 million people in 2019.³

How Diabetes Affects Public Health

According to the CDC,⁴ the total number of existing cases of diabetes steadily increased from 2001 to 2020 and similar trends were seen when the population was examined by ethnic group, education level, race, age and sex. The CDC further broke down the data by the percentage of adults with diagnosed diabetes in each state.

When this table is compared against 2021 data of obese adults,⁵ it is apparent that many of the states with higher numbers of obese adults also have higher percentages of adults with diagnosed diabetes.

In 2017,⁶ it was estimated the total health care cost for people diagnosed with diabetes was $327 billion. The total direct cost in 2017 was $237 billion, which rose dramatically from $188 billion in 2012. In 2018 diabetes was responsible for 8.25 million hospital discharges, 17 million emergency room visits and 62,012 people with end-stage kidney disease.

One of the hallmark signs of diabetes is high blood sugar, which happens for several reasons. For example, the pancreas may not make enough insulin, which is the hormone that helps glucose move from the bloodstream into the cells to be used for energy. The cells may also become insulin resistant, a significant risk factor for which is overeating carbohydrates and added sugars. These spike your insulin level and gradually increase resistance.

Sugar and carbohydrate can cause a hormonal response, which changes metabolism and is a primary cause of weight gain.^7,8 In essence, this data supports the statement that you cannot out-exercise your diet and therefore your risk for Type 2 diabetes. According to the CDC,⁹ the daily mean percentage of carbohydrate intake for men and women is 45.9% and 47.4% respectively.

The current Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025, lists the upper limit for carbohydrates at 65%,¹⁰ although the limits were based on nearly 20-year-old data. According to the 2020 guidelines, the “Estimates are based on Estimated Energy Requirements (EER) set by the Institute of Medicine. Source … 2005.”

Vitamin K and Gamma Carboxylation Protects Insulin Production

Scientists know that vitamin K is necessary for gamma-carboxylation of glutamic acids that occurs in the cells and affects protein secretion.¹¹ Past clinical studies have also implicated vitamin K in the development of diabetes, yet the underlying mechanism has remained unclear.

Vitamin K is best known for the role it plays in blood clotting. The gamma-carboxylation reaction is essential to the process of blood clotting and scientists have suspected this process may also have other functions in the body.¹² Past studies show a link between a lower intake of vitamin K and an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes.

Researchers from the University of Montreal first determined that vitamin K was present in large quantities in beta cells — where insulin is produced — and involved in gamma-carboxylation. Then, using an animal model, they identified the role vitamin K plays in the gamma-carboxylation inside the beta cells and how the presence of vitamin K may help protect against diabetes. Julie Lacombe conducted the laboratory work and commented in a press release:¹³

“We were able to identify a new gamma-carboxylated protein called ERGP. Our study shows that this protein plays an important role in maintaining physiological levels of calcium in beta cells in order to prevent a disturbance of insulin secretion. Finally, we show that vitamin K through gamma-carboxylation is essential for ERGP to perform its role.”

The researchers point out that this is the first time in 15 years a new vitamin K-dependent protein has been identified. This potentially opens a new area of research in the role vitamin K plays in the body, as well as new therapeutic applications for diabetes.

More Health Benefits From Vitamin K

Vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin that significantly influences your health.¹⁴ Since your body stores very little, it’s rapidly depleted without regular dietary intake. Several common drugs can also deplete levels of vitamin K, which makes ensuring adequate consumption even more important.

Vitamin K is involved in several bodily functions, including bone metabolism and preventing blood vessel mineralization. This means it plays a particularly important role in the prevention of osteoporosis, heart disease and bleeding disorders.

There are two main forms of vitamin K and several subtypes, which can make matters a little confusing. The difference between vitamins K1 and K2 was clearly established in the 2004 Rotterdam study,¹⁵ which focused on the effect the vitamins had on heart health. While vitamin K1 has no real effect on heart disease, vitamin K2 is important to the cardiovascular system.

Vitamin K1 plays other roles. In a 2020 study,¹⁶ researchers found older individuals with low levels of vitamin K1 had a higher probability of mobility issues and disability than those with higher levels. One of the reasons vitamin K2 plays an important role in bone and heart health has to do with complex biochemical reactions involving the enzymes matrix gla-protein and osteocalcin.

“Gla” stands for glutamic acid, which binds to calcium in the cells of the arterial walls and removes it from the lining of your blood vessels.¹⁷ It then helps facilitate the integration of calcium into the bone matrix.

Calcium deposits in the arteries are responsible for atherosclerosis, commonly called hardening of the arteries, which slowly blocks blood flow. This is a common cause of heart attacks, strokes and peripheral vascular disease. Vitamin K2 also helps move calcium into tooth enamel and plays a role in preventing tooth decay.¹⁸

Vitamin K2 plays a role in cancer prevention, as noted in the 2010 European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study.¹⁹ People with higher intakes of vitamin K2 also had lower cancer risk and mortality. Evidence has also suggested²⁰ that vitamin K2 can reduce the risk of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma by 45% as compared to those with the lowest intake of vitamin K2. The researchers attribute this role to the vitamin’s ability to inhibit inflammatory cytokines.

The inflammatory response is crucial in many chronic diseases and diseases of aging, and research has suggested both vitamin K1 and K2 have anti-inflammatory properties. In one analysis,²¹ researchers found vitamin K helps protect against chronic aging conditions, cardiovascular disease and inflammation.

Another study²² demonstrated a reduction in C-reactive protein, a common biomarker used to evaluate inflammation in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Vitamin K2 may also play a role in chronic kidney disease. One clinical trial²³ demonstrated four weeks of supplementation with vitamin K2 MK-7 significantly reduced calcification in the participants’ blood vessels.

Vitamin K2 MK-7 has also demonstrated benefits in participants with age-related macular degeneration.²⁴ In a 2012 paper,²⁵ researchers revealed the role vitamin K2 serves as a mitochondrial electron carrier, which helps maintain normal ATP production in mitochondrial dysfunction like that found in Parkinson’s disease.

Multiple Factors Contribute to Diabetes

There were an estimated 96 million adults diagnosed with prediabetes in 2019. However, this may only be a matter of semantics as many are suffering from what the late Dr. Joseph Kraft calls “diabetes in situ.”²⁶ I believe any fasting blood sugar that regularly measures over 90 suggests insulin resistance and Kraft suggested 8 out of 10 Americans were insulin resistant based on data from 14,384 patients.

The risks of prediabetes include being overweight and inactivity.²⁷ One factor that significantly increases your risk of obesity, and therefore Type 2 diabetes, is artificial sweeteners. A 2018 animal study²⁸ confirmed that artificial sweeteners raise your risk of obesity and diabetes.

Other studies²⁹ have demonstrated that women who consume artificial sweeteners feel hungrier and consume more food than those who drink sugar-sweetened beverages. This research showed³⁰ the body is not fooled by artificial sweeteners, which is another reason why they promote, rather than prevent, obesity.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a 17% rise in deaths in people with diabetes.³¹ During the pandemic, 39.5% of all deaths related to COVID occurred in those with diabetes.³² Inactivity and a poor diet fueled the diabetic crisis during the pandemic. Diets that focus on ultraprocessed foods and fast foods are at the root of the problem as they are loaded with dangerous seed oils, misleadingly named “vegetable oils.”

Yet, the American Diabetes Association continues to recommend seed oils like canola “as part of a healthy balanced diet.”³³ These oils are rich in omega-6 linoleic acid, which is the most common fat in the American diet. An important take-home message is that linoleic acid is not digested. Instead, it is stored while saturated fat is mostly burned or oxidized and used up.³⁴ This aptly illustrates the importance of the type of fat you eat.

Secondary effects from some medications can also increase the risk of developing diabetes. One of the most significant of those medications is statins. These are cholesterol-lowering medications with a long history of adverse events and side effects that could double the risk of diabetes with long-term use.³⁵

Ensuring your bedroom is pitch black is a simple way to reduce your risk of chronic disease. A real-world study³⁶ in individuals aged 63 to 84 found those who were exposed to light during sleep were more likely to be obese and have high blood pressure or diabetes.

Strategies to Reduce Your Risk or Reverse High Blood Sugar

Eating a balanced, healthy diet of fresh, organically raised fruits and vegetables and steering clear of artificial sweeteners and all processed foods is the best way to take control of your glucose levels. The timing of your meals also matters.

Time-restricted eating (TRE) is a simple yet powerful intervention for weight loss. TRE mimics the eating habits of our ancestors and restores your body to a more natural state that allows a host of metabolic benefits to occur.³⁷ If you’re overweight or obese, I recommend limiting your eating window to six to eight hours per day instead of the more than 12-hour window most people use.

As mentioned, one of the most important strategies to reduce your risk for diabetes or reverse the disease is to reduce your LA intake. Many people will experience weight loss as a “side effect” of reducing intake of LA. Ideally, consider cutting LA down to below 7 grams per day, which is close to what our ancestors used to get before all of these chronic health conditions, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer, became widespread.

To do so, you’ll need to avoid nearly all ultraprocessed foods, fast foods and restaurant foods, as virtually all of them contain seed oils. The easiest way to do this is to prepare the majority of your food at home so you know what you are eating.

Also, be aware that, because animals are fed grains that are high in linoleic acid,³⁸ it’s also hidden in “healthy” foods like chicken and pork, which makes these meats a major source that should be avoided. Olive oil is another health food that can be a hidden source of linoleic acid, as it’s often cut with cheaper seed oils. Instead, use tallow, ghee or butter to cook with. Ghee is better than butter as it has a higher smoke point.

Still Other Strategies

Several other strategies can also help improve blood sugar control and protect your overall health. One is to pay attention to the type of fat in your diet.

While omega-6 linoleic acid primarily found in vegetable/seed oils, nuts and seeds are damaging in the amounts consumed by Americans, most people don’t get enough omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3 fats are found in fatty, cold-water fish such as wild-caught Alaskan salmon, anchovies, sardines, mackerel and herring.

It’s best to avoid farmed salmon as there is an exaggerated potential for contamination, including pollution, disease, toxicity and inferior nutritional quality. Most farmed fish are also fed genetically engineered corn and soy, which is a completely unnatural diet for marine life and loaded with hazardous omega-6 fat that is stored in the flesh, raising the consumers’ intake of omega-6 fat.

A December 2020 study³⁹ showed adults who test positive for glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD65) antibodies can significantly reduce the risk of adult-onset Type 1 diabetes by eating omega-3-rich fatty fish. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition and the researchers found that those who did not eat fatty fish were twice as likely to develop the disease.⁴⁰

Other nutrient deficiencies associated with the development of diabetes include vitamin C, vitamin D and magnesium. With vitamin C, one study showed that supplementation may help lower glucose levels.⁴¹ Likewise, other studies show that vitamin D supplementation can be an ally against diabetes.⁴²

Magnesium is also an often-overlooked nutrient. Deficiency is associated with Type 2 diabetes and heart disease⁴³ and low levels may be the greatest predictor of heart disease.⁴⁴ Magnesium deficiency is linked to a higher risk of insulin resistance since it impairs the body’s ability to regulate blood sugar.⁴⁵

In one study⁴⁶ of prediabetics, those with the highest magnesium intake lowered their risk for blood sugar and metabolic problems by 71% when compared to those with the lowest intake. To compound the problem, high serum levels of insulin, which is common in insulin resistance, lead to further magnesium loss.⁴⁷

Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint. It was originally published August 4, 2018.

“Sugar Crash,” a documentary, details the havoc that excess sugar consumption is causing for the people of Ireland, a country that ranks No. 4 in sugar consumption worldwide. On average, the Irish are consuming 24 teaspoons of sugar per person daily, whereas the World Health Organization recommends limiting it to 6 teaspoons a day to protect your health.¹

For comparison, in the U.S, the No. 1 consumers of sugar worldwide, the average American consumes 31.6 teaspoons of sugar each day. The start of the film details the perils of tooth decay, with children just 4 and 6 years old requiring numerous tooth extractions.

Sugar was blamed as the definite culprit, starting from the time the children are infants chewing on sugar-laced teething biscuits into later childhood when sugary juices became the drink of choice. There are more than 50 different names to describe sugar on food labels, which means if you’re trying to remove it from your diet, you’d better become well-versed in the many pseudonyms.

Even savory foods like pizza and pasta sauce have added sugars, as do popular condiments like ketchup and salad dressings. Sugary drinks alone can contain 10 or 11 teaspoons of sugar in one can, which puts you well over the recommended limit for the day. While the documentary focuses on Ireland’s sugar habit, it’s one that’s shared through much of the developed world, with devastating repercussions on global health.

How Did so Much Sugar Creep Into Our Diets?

Ireland was the thinnest country in Europe after World War II, and the increasing weight that occurred during the ’50s and ’60s was seen as a good thing. However, average weight caught up with the rest of Europe by the ’70s and continued rising, such that Ireland is slated to become the fattest country in Europe by 2030.

Expanding waistlines are again blamed largely on diet. As occurred in the U.S., food manufacturers and health agencies alike began to vilify fat, removing it from foods starting in the ’70s.

Without fat to make food taste good, food manufacturers turned to other less-healthy additives, namely processed salt and sugar. Dr. Robert Lustig, professor of pediatric endocrinology at the University of California in San Francisco (USCF), explained that sugar was added in such a way that it made the food irresistible. If you find it difficult to stop eating sugary foods, or find that the more you eat them, the more you want them, it’s because sugar is addictive.

Sugar stimulates the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that plays a role in many important pathways, most notably the mesolimbic pathway.² The way dopamine affects your brain in this area changes with addiction and spikes your perception of motivation or pleasure.

In fact, evidence in humans shows that sugar can induce reward responses and cravings that are comparable to those induced by addictive drugs, which may “explain why many people can have difficultly … [controlling] the consumption of foods high in sugar when continuously exposed to them.”³

Even if You’re ‘Healthy,’ Sugar Can Devastate Your Body

Sugar makes you pack on excess pounds and prevents your body from burning body fat. It’s been implicated as a foundational cause of obesity as well, but even if you’re not overweight, it’s very possible that sugar is damaging your health. “Sugar Crash” documents the story of one family, including a couple in their 40s who aren’t overweight but admit to eating sugary treats on a regular basis.

They have no outward indications of health problems, but MRI scans revealed they both had fat around their abdominal organs (visceral fat), which is linked to an increased risk of diseases like heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and stroke, along with imbalanced cholesterol.

They cut down their sugar intake significantly and were able to reduce their visceral fat and improve their cholesterol, as shown later on in the film. Sugar Crash also features an interview with documentary filmmaker Damon Gameau, from “That Sugar Film,” who conducted an experiment during which he went from eating a low-sugar diet to consuming about 40 teaspoons of sugar a day.

What makes the experiment even more surprising is that he got to 40 teaspoons not by feasting on candy and soda but by eating supposedly “healthy” foods like energy drinks, fruit juice, cereal and yogurt. After 12 days of ramping up his sugar intake, Gameau had gained almost 7 pounds, the majority of which went straight to his abdomen.

In a month of eating 40 teaspoons of sugar per day, he added 2.75 inches (7 centimeters) to his waistline. Beyond weight gain, Gameau began displaying signs of fatty liver disease within three weeks. “By the end, I’d developed pre-Type 2 diabetes, I had heart disease, I had 11 centimeters of visceral fat. But the big one was, the nonalcoholic fatty liver disease was almost in a full-blown state,” said Gameau in a news article highlighting his film.⁴

What Excess Sugar Does to Your Liver

Researchers have known since the 1960s that your body metabolizes different types of carbohydrates, like glucose and fructose, in different ways, causing very different hormonal and physiological responses that absolutely may influence fat accumulation and metabolism.⁵ Unlike glucose, which can be used by virtually every cell in your body, fructose can only be metabolized by your liver, because your liver is the only organ that has the transporter for it.

Since all fructose gets shuttled to your liver, it ends up taxing and damaging your liver in the same way alcohol and other toxins do, particularly if you consume excess amounts of it. In fact, fructose is virtually identical to alcohol with regard to the metabolic havoc it wreaks. According to Lustig, fructose is a “chronic, dose-dependent liver toxin.” And just like alcohol, fructose is metabolized directly into fat — not cellular energy, like glucose.

His findings were published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, where he explained the three similarities between fructose and its fermentation byproduct, ethanol (alcohol):⁶

1. Your liver’s metabolism of fructose is similar to alcohol, as they both serve as substrates for converting dietary carbohydrate into fat, which promotes insulin resistance, dyslipidemia (abnormal fat levels in the bloodstream) and fatty liver
2. Fructose undergoes the Maillard reaction with proteins, leading to the formation of superoxide free radicals that can result in liver inflammation similar to acetaldehyde, an intermediary metabolite of ethanol
3. By “stimulating the ‘hedonic pathway’ of the brain both directly and indirectly,” Lustig noted, “fructose creates habituation, and possibly dependence; also paralleling ethanol”

“We keep alcohol out of the hands of children, but we don’t think twice about giving them a glass of soda or orange juice,” Lustig says in the film. “Children are getting the diseases of alcohol without alcohol, because sugar is the alcohol of the child.” While childhood obesity is a growing problem, it’s also true that lean children who eat a high-sugar diet may be metabolically unhealthy, even though it’s not obvious from looking at them.

On a global scale, massive sugar addiction is responsible for not only obesity and diabetes, but also heart damage and heart failure, cancer, neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease, hypertension, stroke and shorter lifespans.

Big Sugar Similarities to the Tobacco Industry

U.S. Dietary Guidelines only recommend limiting calories from added sugars to no more than 10% each day, or 12 teaspoons, for a 2,000-calorie diet. Most Americans eat far more, but why wouldn’t U.S. Dietary Guidelines, which are intended to protect public health, recommend a far lower amount? In fact, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) did recommend that Americans reduce their intake of sugar-sweetened foods and beverages.

However, this was followed by a flurry of activity from sugar industry groups who, using tobacco-industry tactics, attempted to sway the dietary debate in their favor. It’s common knowledge that senior leaders in the food industry seek to influence science, politics and public health recommendations in their favor. Several tactics were revealed, according to a Critical Public Health report, including:⁷

• Influence on evidence generation and summation, such as the food industry generating its own evidence by directly commissioning the work and using external organizations to do so
• Highlighting the limitations of non-industry sponsored research to raise doubts in science
• Exerting influence over scientific bodies and medical associations by seeking key leadership roles in such organizations and using their positions to direct debate and discussions in their favor
• Using academic contacts to guide global debate and advocating “broad-based collaboration with government and key opinion leaders, and involvement in nutrition-related government reviews of the evidence base”

American taxpayers have contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to sugar subsidies,⁸ which is why the Sugar Policy Modernization Act is seeking to eliminate all direct and indirect subsidies that benefit the production or export of sugar.

The bill has yet to be passed, and many members of Congress receive hundreds of thousands of dollars from the sugar industry, so it’s unknown whether the subsidies, which occur in the form of “loans, price guarantees, import restrictions and government promises to buy surplus product,”⁹ will ever fully disappear. In the film, it’s even suggested that labeling similar to that required on tobacco products may be necessary to help people understand the health risks of excess sugar.

Remember Excess Omega-6 Fat Is Far More Harmful Than Sugar

While much attention has been focused on excess sugar as a contributor to chronic disease, review of the data makes it clear that sugar is a relatively minor contributor to disease when compared to excess omega-6 fat like linoleic acid (LA). The more than tenfold increase in LA over the last 150 years is the primary contributor to cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and dementia.

As an example, if you look at seed oils and sugar consumption in China, between 1961 and 2018 seed oil consumption has increased from a very low 3.3g/day in 1961 to 23g/day in 2018, which is a seven-fold increase in seed oils during this time. During that time China’s sugar consumption was and remains among the lowest in the world, at just 5.5g/day in 1961, rising slightly but still remaining extremely low at just 19.5g/day in 2018.

China has a shocking low intake of sugar, in fact data from the Food and Agriculture Organization out of 169 countries for which the data exists, only seven countries have less sugar consumption per capita than China. Yet it still has an explosion in all chronic degenerative that correlates with seed oil use, not sugar use.

If we look back to the year 1900, 99% of the added fats in the human diet were animal fats, mostly lard, butter, and beef tallow. But by 2005, 86% of added fats were seed oils, which are biological poisons, and just like any toxin, the more one consumes, the greater the damage done.

Could it be that low sugar and low carbohydrate diets works, not primarily because they’re eliminating sugar and ‘carbs,’ but because they’re simultaneously eliminating a stealth fat that lurks within processed foods and most carbohydrate rich foods everywhere?

How Can You Reduce Sugar in Your Diet?

Cutting back on sugar isn’t as simple as skipping dessert or a morning doughnut, because added sugars are found in virtually every processed food at your grocery store. In addition to ingredients that contain the word “sugar,” such as beet sugar or date sugar, you’ll know a food contains added sugars if you spot any of these on the label:¹⁰

Blackstrap molasses	Buttered syrup	Cane juice crystals	Evaporated cane juice
Caramel	Carob syrup	Fruit juice	Honey
Fruit juice concentrate	Brown rice syrup	Corn syrup solids	Florida crystals
Golden syrup	Maple syrup	Molasses	Refiner’s syrup
Sorghum syrup	Sucanat	Treacle	Turbinado
Barley malt	Corn syrup	Dextrin	Dextrose
Diastatic malt	Ethyl maltol	Glucose	Glucose solids
Lactose	Malt syrup	Maltose	D-ribose
Rice syrup	Galactose	Maltodextrin	Castor

The film recommends looking for “reduced sugar” foods, but in reality the best way to avoid sugar is to eat real foods. Following a high-fat, low-carb, moderate-protein diet like the one described in “Fat for Fuel” is an excellent guide, which will help you reduce not only your fructose intake but also your net carbs.

Sugar is metabolized as a carbohydrate in your body, spiking your blood sugar and insulin levels. Your net carbs are calculated by taking the total grams of carbs and subtracting the total grams of fiber. By keeping your net carbs below 100 grams per day, and for a healthier diet as low as 50 grams per day, you will reduce your cravings for sweets.

Eating healthy fats like grass fed butter, avocados and coconut oil, will keep you satisfied to help you avoid the urge to binge on sweets. Fermented foods are another great dietary addition, as the sour taste squelches sugar cravings.

For processed foods you do purchase, scour the label for ingredients that represent sugar to evaluate the total amount. Remember that the less sugar you eat, the less you’ll crave. Avoid swapping sugar for artificial sweeteners like aspartame, which are toxic in their own right.

On occasion, you can try stevia, an herbal sweetener I use in my recipes, as a sugar alternative. Finally, if you’re finding it difficult to overcome an emotional addiction to sugar, the Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is another great option, which has been shown to significantly reduce food cravings and increased peoples’ ability to show restraint — even after six months.¹¹

If necessary, start slowly by removing some of the biggest high-sugar offenders from your diet then gradually cutting back from there. And remember, the more you cut back on added sugars, the better for your health.