Dr. James Muecke - 'Blinded by Sugar'

[Music] my name is james mukey i'm an eye surgeon and i've been one for 30 years and for 30 years i've been dealing with the consequences that diabetes inflicts on the eyes every year i'm seeing more and more patients with eye disease due to diabetes in particular type 2 diabetes which is a preventable dietary disease related to the consumption of too much sugar can you imagine waking up one morning completely blind it's impossible to comprehend isn't it one of my patients had this experience his name is neil hansel an everyday aussie bloke with a wife and four kids he constructs light machinery for a living and he also has type 2 diabetes and a few years ago at the age of 50 diabetes changed his world forever unfortunately he'd neglected his disease he'd neglected his health and he paid the price he went to bed one evening with normal sight and woke up the next day blind in both eyes one of my colleagues worked really hard to retrieve his sight unfortunately it was too late neil was to spend the rest of his life in darkness this is how neil views the world these days basically i think i would describe it as seeing everything as a um as a motion not as an actual vision the images unfortunately aren't clear the images are basically what you see of a day through your eyes is what you see overnight through your eyes so there's no clarity obviously black figures as people or animals or you know trees and just black onto onto a grayish background neil lost his driving license he lost his independence and he lost his ability to teach the javelin it was a hobby that gave him so much pleasure the thing that upsets neil the most though is losing his ability to see their smiles the beautiful smiles and the faces of his wife and grandkids this is a picture of neil's wife and grandkids this is how he should see them and this is the reality neil has been truly blinded by sugar diabetes causes damage to the blood vessels throughout the body including the retina the light-sensitive layer of tissue that lines the inside of the backs of our eyes diabetes gives rise to bleeding inside the eyes that can take away the eyesight in an instant and sometimes permanently the important point is that nearly all of the vision loss and blindness due to diabetes is preventable or treatable however in order to avoid the blinding complications of diabetes patients with this disease must have their eyes checked on a regular basis however in australia of the 1.7 million people who are estimated to have diabetes more than half are not having these regular all-important eye checks sometimes with devastating results and that's why diabetes is now the leading cause of blindness amongst working age adults in this country and the fastest growing causes of blindness in aboriginal people today i'm going to talk to you about type 2 diabetes why it arises why it's a growing epidemic and what we can do to slow the growth of this dietary disease which is the greatest threat to our health system type 2 diabetes is related to the ingestion of too much sugar in our diet and when we talk about sugar we think of table sugar or sucrose it's important to realize that sugar comes in other forms in particular refined carbohydrates foods such as white rice and the products made from white flour white potatoes these are pure starch which are long chains of glucose which are broken down into glucose when they reach the gut so in essence when we're consuming refined carbohydrates we're consuming pure sugar when glucose is absorbed into the bloodstream it triggers the release of the hormone insulin from the pancreas an insulin helps move the glucose into every cell of our bodies where it's stored as an energy source with persistent and excessive intake of sugar the cells become full and the overflow of glucose is taken up by the liver and stored as glycogen when the glycogen stores are full the liver starts converting the glucose into fat when the production of fat by the liver outstrips the liver's ability to export it the liver then starts to store the fat and we develop what's called a fatty liver the normal liver is a deep red color and you can see this fatty liver is yellow it's suffused with fat a great example of how a fatty liver develops comes from foie gras the french culinary delicacy foie gras is created by force-feeding geese high-starch corn mash and the fatty liver develops in these unsuspecting creatures within two weeks in humans with excessive fructose consumption a fatty liver can develop within two months fructose is a molecule of sugar that gives sugary food and drinks their sweet flavor it's not recognized as a food stuff by the body it has no nutritional value and it doesn't trigger the release of insulin as soon as it hits the liver is converted directly to fat and so it is far more toxic than glucose and giving rise to type 2 diabetes ultimately and through a complex metabolic process it can take many years for humans to develop type 2 diabetes in children type 2 diabetes can develop within 2 years eventually the liver becomes full of fat and can take no more in and the excess fat is exported away as triglyceride which is harmful to the body together with the high insulin level in the blood it gets rise to the fatty plaques which clog the arteries and this in turn gives rise to the many life-changing and life-threatening complications of type 2 diabetes blockage of the small blood vessels gives rise to impotence it can also cause numbness of the hands and feet which can sometimes manifest as intractable pain and it can also give rise to kidney failure and kidney failure often requires dialysis up to seven hours a day four days a week in order to filter the blood blockage of the major blood vessels gives rise to gangrene at the lower limbs necessitating amputation in australia every year close to four and a half thousand amputations are performed for complications of type 2 diabetes here's our friend neil hansel in hospital the day after his ninth amputation for gangrene of his left lower limb and neil has also had a heart attack and type 2 diabetes can cause stroke and so it's also a deadly disease in fact it's the sixth leading cause of death in our society and it also plays a major role in the development of cancer and alzheimer's disease and type 2 diabetes is an incredibly expensive disease costing our health system close to 20 billion dollars every single year how did this all come about humans are hardwired to love and seek out sweet things it's an ancient survival mechanism that helped our early ancestors to survive extended periods of fasting which were common in those days it also allowed them to avoid bitter and potentially poisonous foods prior to the 1600s sugar was an expensive commodity it was the domain of healers and holy men and an indulgence that could only be afforded by the wealthy and the powerful over the next 300 years the rising availability and popularity of sugar due to the booming sugar trade led to diminishing costs turning sugar from a luxury item to an everyday necessity these days sugar is cheap and sugar is everywhere things took a turn for the worst in 1980 when the dietary guidelines for americans was released there had been a rise in heart disease in the decades after world war ii and based on no real scientific evidence the guidelines recommended reducing our dietary fat to less than 30 percent and increasing our carbohydrates to 60 percent and rather than see a downturn in heart disease heart disease soared along with it type 2 diabetes in fact globally there's been a four-fold increase in type 2 diabetes since 1980 and this has been even more profound in some communities and countries in china for example there's been a ten-fold increase in type 2 diabetes since 1980 and this is paradoxical because the chinese diet is rich in refined carbohydrate in the form of white rice what's happened in asia in the last few decades is increasing sugar consumption which currently amounts to about five percent every year in the aboriginal communities of australia there's been an 80-fold increase in type 2 diabetes over the past four decades i find that deeply concerning in australia there are now over a thousand children and teens with type 2 diabetes if we're going to call type 2 diabetes a dietary disease and surely there's a dietary cure it should be as simple as reducing the sugar in our diet however there are a number of factors that make this more difficult to achieve and i call them the five days of sugar toxicity addiction alleviation accessibility addition and advertising let's look at these each in turn firstly addiction sugar is a highly addictive substance it's been shown to be as addictive as nicotine like drugs its consumption activates the reward center in our brains leading to the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine it's what makes us feel good it's what makes us want to do it again and that's what gives us those cravings and like drugs the more sugar we ingest the more we need to give us that feel-good hit it's a vicious cycle that's very hard to break the second a is alleviation we often use sugar to alleviate stress and to make us feel better when we're down the third a is accessibility sugary products are quite literally everywhere these days you can't walk into most service stations without being confronted by a wall of confectionary you can't check out from most supermarkets without being enticed by soft drinks and chocolates often heavily discounted the fourth day is addition an astronomical amount of sugar is added to our food and drinks in the united states 75 percent of food and drinks have added sugar i'm sure australia is not far behind and this becomes problematic in remote communities where sugary food and drinks are in abundance and fresh healthy foods are scarce and often very expensive the fifa is advertising our world is flooded for ads and commercials for sugary products often in the most insidious of ways and it's been going on for decades to deal with this toxic impact of sugar we're going to need resilience personal resilience national resilience and global resilience three of the key features of resilience are keeping a cool head having a positive approach and being innovative i like to use the example of mr spock from star trek when i talk about resilience he has a very cool head and i know what spock would do he'd look to the smoking epidemic to see what's causing its decline back when spock first graced our screens smoking was socially acceptable in the years after world war ii something like 80 percent of all men smoke cigarettes have a look at this ad for candy cigarettes from the 50s and look at the caption just like dad the realization of the health dangers of smoking in the 60s and the subsequent banning of advertising for cigarettes the taxing of tobacco products and the rollout of hard-hitting graphic awareness strategies such as these have all made smoking socially unacceptable and as a result smoking and smoking related diseases and deaths are on the decline in most countries we're going to have to use the same positive resilient approach to the toxic impact of sugar and the growing threat of type 2 diabetes we're going to need innovation to deal with these five days of sugar toxicity for addiction and alleviation it's about personal awareness being aware that sugar is highly addictive and that we're using it to alleviate stress in our lives for accessibility addition and advertising it's about accountability accountability of business of industry and of government so let's look at these each in turn firstly addiction i'm sure that much of the world is addicted to sugar i certainly was and i'm sure i still am the thing i love the most is ice cream the bigger the better as a child the worst punishment i could receive was to be sent to my bedroom after dinner without ice cream and there's really been a day since when i haven't had ice cream after dinner each night sugar addiction can be beaten for me it was about giving up the heavily sweetened products in my diet the fruit juices and soft drinks the chocolate and candy the biscuits and cake and yes the ice cream i still want to go to a restaurant and be able to enjoy a delicious dessert i still want to receive a mint chocolate frog for my birthday and i still want to be able to enjoy the occasional ice cream just not every night giving up these heavily sweetened products did give me withdrawal symptoms headache irritability clouded thoughts fatigue they only lasted for about three days and the cravings were pretty intense but now i can walk past the fridge and not have to reach in and grab an ice cream and they can walk past a cake at work and not have to take a slice or two the second a is alleviation rather than reaching for a chocolate bar or a can of soft drink when you're feeling down why not take the healthier option go for a run or a walk in nature take a cycle listen to your favorite musical playlist watch a comedy or do a good deed these have all been shown to be as effective as sugar encountering the cortisol reaction that's flooding our body during anxious times the third day is accessibility vending machines supplying sugary food and drinks should be removed from government buildings schools and universities and chocolate and soft drinks should be banned from checkout counters in supermarkets and stores and the fourth a is addition i can barely read those nutritional guidelines in the packets of our food let alone understand them they certainly don't indicate the amount of added sugar contained within i prefer a traffic light system where red means high sugar don't buy amber means think twice and green means safe to buy it's a clear and transparent labeling system in australia we've adopted the healthstar rating system which i feel is flawed it's flawed because it's voluntary what manufacturer would put a low level rating on one of the foods it's trying to sell and some products such as orange juice get a five star rating a glass of orange juice has almost as much sugar as a glass of cola and this is where the contentious issue of taxing heavily sugared products comes in however there's some good reasoning behind it in australia in the 10 years leading up to 2017 there was a 30 increase in the consumption of sugary drinks and we know from a number of studies that there is a link between the consumption of sugary drinks and the development of type 2 diabetes and we know from a number of countries that placing a levy on sugary drinks has resulted in a reduction in consumption the final a is advertising commercials for sugary products should be removed from frito air tv during those times when our kids are watching ads for sugary food and drinks also should be removed from government office buildings and services such as trams and buses and there's a predatory form of marketing which is preying on our addiction preying on our withdrawal symptoms this is immoral and absolutely has to stop and what we need is a comprehensive strategy raising awareness amongst the public of the multitude of health dangers of sugar obesity tooth decay type 2 diabetes we also need positive messages that type 2 diabetes is a preventable dietary disease and for many people it's also reversible the public needs to hear that natural fats in our diet have never been proven to cause cardiovascular disease and indeed a mediterranean diet has been proven to reduce heart disease it's time to see on free-to-air tv hard-hitting tv commercials that warn us of the serious complications of type 2 diabetes commercials such as this one i should have kept my medication up and i should have followed the plans that were given to me by my doctors i woke up one morning completely blind um thought i was dreaming went back to sleep for an hour uh woke up and i was still completely blocked off my wife's face when we went to bed [Music] it was the last clear image i had [Music] ultimately it's about education these days would you leave a packet of cigarettes on the kitchen counter for your children to enjoy i'm sure you wouldn't so why leave a bowl of sugary treats we need to exchange that bowl of sugary treats for a bowl of nuts we need to educate our kids although we can't educate our kids until we know and understand ourselves and how about those soft drinks in our fridge perhaps this is their gloomy future i'm going to leave you with one last message from neil hansel the day after his ninth amputation the gangrene of his left lower leg due to complications of his type 2 diabetes i had a little joke the other day and i put my hand up and had a grain of sugar in between my fingers and i said meet my killer and people are trying to see what was in my fingers and all it was is one grain salt that one grain of sugar and that's what it takes you know you've got to we've got we as a society we have to do something we've got to make people aware that the more sugar we can take the worse this is going to get and it's just it's not good it's often as an eye surgeon i never again want to see a patient who's blind due to complications of their type 2 diabetes as doctors we shouldn't be seeing the life-changing and life-threatening complications of a dietary disease that's entirely preventable and as an australian i believe it's time to declare war on type 2 diabetes thank you [Music] you

Channel: Low Carb Down Under

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Id: 2rZ4hdGzx2A

Length: 20min 50sec (1250 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 11 2020