Some sweet new facts about sugar and Crohn’s disease that may surprise you!

Much of what is being heard these days about sugar is that it is public enemy number one, when it comes to our health. The media in our country likes to continually beat the drum over and over again about how bad sugar is for us and our children, because it makes us fat and it’s not healthy for us to eat in general. Some so-called experts even suggest cutting sugar out of our diets, recommending that popular restaurants like McDonald’s replace their milk shakes with apples and carrots. Having said that, how much do we really know about sugars? Are these people justified in making such a sweeping claim about them?

I discovered that there are many different types of alternative sugars available for sugar lovers, good sugars that are completely harmless for Crohn’s, Colitis and IBS sufferers. Not only are many sugars harmless, but they have been found to be actually beneficial to us, containing valuable healing properties vital to our good digestive health! These sugars are not only harmless to our bodies, but also have healing properties in them!

It’s true that bad sugars, like so-called “table sugar” that contains corn syrup, are really bad for all of us and should be avoided at all costs, especially if you suffer from Crohn’s disease, colitis, or IBS. This is especially true if you take steroids for your condition. If you are taking steroids and have a high sugar diet, you are setting yourself up for serious trouble. Corn syrup based sugar is one of the most toxic foods on the digestive lining and quite intolerable for all those who suffer from digestive disorders. The trickiest part about sugar is that it doesn’t cause pain and intestinal blockages like nuts or a high-fiber food does. Consequently, many people do not link sugar consumption with their stomach attacks and, as a result, continue to suffer from not knowing the truth.

So why is sugar so bad for Crohn’s and similar illnesses? Sugar totally strips the intestines of its healthy bacteria and replaces it with an overgrowth of bad bacteria, leading to a condition known as Candida. Sugar consumption also leads to a serious PH imbalance in the body, making it difficult for us to recover from a recent outbreak. Side effects of sugar in the gut include gas, bloating, diarrhea, and even mouth ulcers (even in people without digestive problems). To make matters worse, Sugar is obviously addictive (just ask millions) and a hard habit to break. It can be especially difficult for children and adolescents with Crohn’s disease to wean themselves off sugar because they see their peers eating it all the time without similar side effects. In addition to staying away from table sugar, even imitation sugars such as NutraSweet and sorbital should be avoided as they have been shown to upset the digestion of almost everyone, even those without Crohn’s disease. Alcohol also behaves like sugar when in the body and should be consumed in moderation, if not at all, depending on the severity of your digestive condition.

So what are the good sugar alternatives available to Crohn’s patients and what are their positive effects on your body? These types of sugars are found naturally in fruits and vegetables, including honey. Although honey can cause allergic reactions in some people and trigger seizures in people with ADD/ADHD, it is harmless to most people and healthy to consume. Honey is actually much easier to digest than regular sugar, can promote wound healing, kill bacteria, ease digestive upset, and even lessen allergy symptoms. The sugar found in the fruit called wolfberry contains complex sugars called polysaccharides, or complex sugars, clinically shown to help support the pancreas, boost immunity, build and tone muscle, and actually help you lose weight! Also, this fruit speeds up your metabolism, which makes your immune system stronger, leading to better and faster healing of the Crohn’s induced flare-ups you have. Sugar polysaccharides have been shown to break down tumors and fight free radicals in the body. These are the toxins we ingest from polluted air, pesticides, and carbon monoxide fumes from gasoline and diesel vehicles, to name a few.

Another healthy sugar alternative that you can use in your Crohn’s diet, that also doesn’t have the bad effects that traditional table sugar has on your health, is xylitol. Like the polysaccharides found in Wolfberry, xylitol is also completely natural, coming from fibrous vegetables and fruits, as well as corn on the cob and various hardwood trees such as birch. Actually, amounts of xylitol occur naturally in our bodies… up to 15 grams a day. It occurs daily as the natural glucose metabolism of man and animals, as well as various plants and microorganisms. While the sugar derived from corn syrup wreaks havoc on your digestive system, xylitol actually helps heal and repair it. It does this by strengthening our immune system, which allows it to improve or protect us against chronic degenerative diseases that we suffer from, such as Crohn’s disease, colitis or IBS. Xylitol is considered a five-carbon sugar, which means that it is an antimicrobial that prevents the growth of bacteria. It actually makes the cell walls of our digestive system slippery for viruses and germs, allowing them to slip through and be eliminated. Xylitol also has no known toxic levels. Xylitol has even been credited with helping to slow down the aging process! But most of all, xylitol tastes and looks exactly like sugar and doesn’t leave an unpleasant aftertaste! It is available in many forms. In its crystalline form, it can replace sugar in cooking, baking, or as a sweetener for beverages. It is also included as an ingredient in chewing gum, mints, and nasal sprays. In fact, it was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1963.

Another good sugar on the list is called acetylglucosamine. A more common name for this saccharide is glucosamine, which is found in supplements to relieve symptoms of joint and muscle pain associated with arthritis. Arthritis is a byproduct of many Crohn’s sufferers. Glucosamine actually repairs cartilage and reduces swelling in the joints. This is just another sugar that challenges the critics’ claim that we should eliminate sugar from our diets.

So while there are sugars (processed sugars) that we really should stay away from as Crohn’s patients, there are a lot of sugars, natural sugars, some of which haven’t been included in this article, that we’d be foolish not to educate. going forward, especially with the great access we have to the Internet today. We really can have our cake and eat it too (pardon the pun), getting all the benefits of good sugar, i.e. the good taste, but we still don’t have to be guilty of a food that we suspect is bad for us. our Crohn’s disease. illness.