Item — HN Reader

my favorite part:

'Based on what I told him, Dr. Hoffman ran a number of alternative diagnostic tests on me: glucose tolerance (which tests fluctuation of blood sugar levels in response to sugar intake), food and chemical sensitivities, vitamin and fatty-acid levels, and heavy metals toxicity.

The most relevant test appeared to be the glucose tolerance test. If I recall correctly, I appeared to be highly sensitive to sugar: after eating sugar, my blood sugar spiked higher, and then crashed lower, than most people’s.

Dr. Hoffman told me there is mounting clinical evidence linking moodswings to blood sugar issues, and that in his experience bipolar patients respond well to cutting out refined sugar, and coffee and alcohol (which affect blood sugar) from their diets. “You should stop eating refined sugar altogether, and stop drinking alcohol and coffee,” he told me.'

The sugar thing certainly tallies with my experience. I've never done a glucose tolerance test, but something about sugar highs, followed by deep crashes, sounds very familiar.

I ended up largely eliminating refined sugar from my diet. I still eat some, very hard to avoid entirely, but I try to eat mainly scratch cooked food, wholewheat bread, lots of bulky starches and proteins.

There is so much sugar added to our food that it's not surprising that aside from epidemic diabetes there might be other health impacts.

Nearly all processed food has sugar (or corn syrup) added. The only really easy way to avoid it is to buy unprocessed or minimally processed ingredients and make meals from scratch.