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a hundred pounds of sugar per per–
son every year, while Western Euro–
peans average about 90 pounds.
The problem is, it's so easy in our
modern processed society to ingest
large amounts of sugar. The five
ounces of sugar now consumed by
the average person per day in West–
ernized societies can be easi ly con–
.sumed in the concentrated form
found in candy bars and other sweet
confections. But taking that same
five ounces of sugar in the form of a ·
2~-lb.
sugar beet, or the equivalen!
amount of raw fruit, such as sorne
20 average apples, is far more diffi–
cult.
"lt's much more difficult to get
sugar from natural foods because
you have to eat so much," says Dr.
Briggs. "lf we just ate sugar from
natural foods , we wouldn't get more
than five or six percent of our cal–
ories from sugar. But it's very easy
to get sugar from refined foods.
It
comes in the form of candy, dough–
nuts, cakes, frostings - all these
good-tasting things. Many people
eat sugar-coated breakfast cereals
which may be more than 50 percent
sugar."
Perhaps the most importan!
point, however, is this: As our af-
ftuent diet has spread, so have a
wide variety of once rare diseases
such as
hear~
disease, diabetes,
hypertension, and cancer-the so–
called diseases of civilization.
The Fat Soclety
One major problem resulting from
the affiuent diet is an overweight , fat
society. Obesity is more than a so–
cial problem; it's a source of great
concern to health authorities be–
cause obese people run a higher risk
of premature death thari do those of
normal weight. For example, men
who are
lO
percent overweight have
a one-third greater chance of dying
prematurely from ailments such as
coronary heart disease, high blood
pressure and diabetes than do those
of average weight. Men more than
20 percent overweight are one and a
half times as likely to die pre–
maturely.
"Obesity is probably the biggest
nutritional hazard or risk that we
know," states Hill. "Not only is obe–
sity a condition that most people
would prefer not to have, but there
is a close relationship between being
overweight and various degener–
ative diseases, including diabetes,
high blood pressure, and the com-
"We would never feed the average American diet to
farm animals. No farmer would give his pigs or
his poultry a good diet and then dilute it down with
sugar and fat at the levels we're doing in our die
t."
The
PLAIN TRUTH August 1978
plex of changes that are involved in
cardiováscular disease."
The Way to a Man's Heart
la Through Hls Stomach
Heart disease was once a rare affiic–
tion even among the aged, but it's
now the leading killer of the old and
the middle-aged in many countries.
And it sometimes takes the lives of
the young as well.
All cardiovascular diseases to–
gether, including coronary and
other heart diseases, strokes, and ar–
terial diseases, account for about
one-half of all deaths in the indus–
trialized countries. Coronary heart
disease, which involves the coronary
arteries through which the heart
supplies itself with blood, often cul–
mina tes in a "heart attack" when
the blood supply is cut off. This dis–
ease accounts for one in every three
deaths in the United States, claim–
ing annually sorne 700,000 lives.
In North America and Europe, 1
O
percent of all coronary deaths strike
those under the age of 55, and over
halfinvolve people under 75. Most of
these probably
~ould
be prevented–
and certainly could be postponed-by
changes in diet and life-style.
Therush to the affiuent diet has also
been correlated with atherosclerosis.
Atherosclerosis, the partial blockage
of arteries with tissue growth and
fatty deposits, can lead to coronary
heart disease when the coronary ar–
teries are affected. Since these arteries
supply blood directly to the heart. a
heart attack will result ifthey become
sufficiently clogged. Any population
suffering from a high incidence of
atherosclerosis will almost certainly
have high coronary heart disease
rates as well.
The amount offatty deposits in the
arteries seems to be affected by the
consumption of saturated fats and
cholesterol. Considerable evidence
indicates that a diet high in unsatu–
rated fats lowers the cholesterol out–
put ofthe body, while high intake of
saturated fats, such as those in meat
and dairy products, apparently stim–
ulates the body to produce more cho–
lesterol. High consumption of meat ,
eggs, and other cholesterol-rich foods
can raise cholesterol levels in the
bloodstream by about 10 percent.
Indeed, a well-known study con–
ducted in Framingham, Massachu-
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