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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Melgar" data-source="post: 2734674" data-attributes="member: 520626">I enjoyed reading your clarification [USER=585131]@Chris24Main[/USER] . This is more a reaction than a response to the points raised. It’s not about theory or what I’ve read. It’s a personal reaction. I am always mindful of apportioning blame for diseases because there is always a context. Even smoking has a context. Very few people set out to destroy their own bodies, unless addiction kicks in. Then we are in the sphere of Societal v medical.Simple sugars , single molecule chains that demand the pancreas release insulin at break neck speed. It always reminds me of horse racing, horse and jockey  at the start gate, bang and they’re off. Just like our pancreas’. A sprint down the track and then it’s all over. Horses sweating and gasping for breath from that sprint. That  momentary rush of Adrenalin horse and rider feels, short lived but real. That is how I see the consumption of simple sugars, be it Cocacola, *******, fruit juice or just raw sugar.I can imagine it as I write. I’m an adrenaline junkie. From a personal perspective I steer well clear of simple sugars even though I enjoy the dopamine rush. Dopamine is never far from my ADHD addled brain. Dopamine that feel good factor, a chemical we enjoy. I have a lack of it, so that rush gives me a big high, a feeling of elation. It’s a cheap mind drug. My CGM tells it all really. Within minutes my body has absorbed these single chain molecules, a rush of insulin, a feeling of elation, then the crash and it’s all over. My CGM graph plotting the whole sorry episode. The high spike (the dopamine rush), the sudden plunge (the crash), the low sugar episode (urgh). If I’m really unlucky then my brain, starved of glucose goes into a spin, I sweat, I feel anxious, nightmares if I’m sleeping through the event.  The pancreas is left wondering what the hell just happened as it puts the breaks on insulin release and now all that excess insulin is in our system taking our blood glucose lower and lower for what our brain needs to function at optimum. If we are Type 2 it usually recovers. I know all this because I can see it on my CGM graph. It’s a big hit in a small space of time. That thin needle like spike. No wonder it’s a quick hypo fix. I know why it occurred and I know the science behind it. We live in a world where finding joy is like looking for diamonds in the rough.  We are always looking to feel good. And why not. Sugar does it for a lot of people it’s Cheap and readily available. It’s in our face. It’s everywhere, along with carb ridden fast food dripping with fat in a carb filled bun. I could throw up thinking about it. My own reaction a part, fast food is exactly that, quick and easy. No preparing or cooking, all ready for us. Kids are satisfied we can enjoy the evening.  In a world of long hours, sitting at a desk, and let’s face it a lot if office work is repetitive and boring, I can see the allure. I worked in a windowless office, I never moved from my seat. I ate at my desk, I ate candies at my desk. I never moved. I didn’t talk to anyone because that was the nature of my work. I would jump on the treadmill after work and do a quick 5 k Run as a release. We have become reliant on Manufactured flavours, full of salt, sugars and chemicals that activate the tastebuds , the dopamine flooding the brain , a feeling of fullness and well-being. That, in my opinion, is where we are at as a society. It’s not just simple sugars, it the complex ones too, complex chains, not water soluble. We often eat then with fats, that unholy combo of carbs and fat. The fat slows the metabolism of the sugars, causing raised and longer periods of insulin release. The body takes no prisoners. For most people it doesn’t matter how our bodies  are dealing with these foods, people don’t think about what chemicals and hormones are released in response to the food we are consuming, we simply enjoy it. Then it’s payback, years later we are dealing with excess weight, high blood pressure,  elevated blood sugars and goodness know what else. Excess energy supply, the by-product of a body out of whack, but is it? The body naturally puts it all away for a rainy day, because we are all primal beings when all said and done. Insulin resistance, a primal reaction; fat storage, a primal response, these are all primal responses to an unknown future. Our bodies are still in primal mode. In days gone by we would have worked it all off in the fields, the work houses, the mills or what ever. It was a physical world we lived in not a desk bound office. Yes, [USER=585131]@Chris24Main[/USER] you used sugar cane plantations as an example of why this theory can be challenged, but in my view you can’t really pluck out a single example. We don’t know the context of this particular group of workers. During world war 2 people were out working the fields, growing food for a nation at war.Im not sure where I am going with this. We seem to live in a world where food is the driver of well being. Even if we have had a great time out, the insatiable desire to eat something, whether it’s a late night curry after a night out with friends, or a glug of a sugary fizzy drink on a hot summers day, we never seem satisfied with just being. I don‘t think we have changed other than what makes us feel good about ourselves. What is available to give us that dopamine rush, that happy feeling. Food - fast food, processed food, carbs, sugar and salt have taken the place of simple external pleasures. We can no longer feel satisfied going to the beach with a flask of tea and an apple maybe a sandwich no we want chips and a burger. I might be doing a lot of people an injustice here so I apologize. Just my humble none scientific take. I am prone to turn to theory, but here Is a societal take. No answers really, just thoughts.</blockquote>

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