Sugar, Immunity, and the Sweetener Trap If you’ve been around Beyond Health for any length of time, you know that strong immunity begins with staying away from sugar. That’s not ideology—it’s biochemistry. Sugar undermines immune function in two distinct and well-documented ways. How Sugar Weakens Immunity 1. Sugar Blocks Vitamin C Entry Into Immune Cells Glucose (blood sugar) and vitamin C use the same transport pathways to enter cells. Immune cells cannot function without vitamin C—and during an infection, their requirement for vitamin C can increase ten-fold or more. But if glucose levels are elevated, vitamin C is crowded out at the cellular level. The result?An artificial, functional vitamin C deficiency, even if you’re taking supplements. This is one of the primary reasons sugar intake is so damaging during periods of immune stress. 2. Sugar Disrupts Blood Sugar and Oxygen Delivery Large swings in blood sugar—sharp spikes followed by cr…

Fructose is a form of sugar found naturally in fruits and vegetables. It’s also a component of refined table sugar, or sucrose, which is half glucose and half fructose, and of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which has a ratio of 55% fructose to 42% glucose.When it was discovered that fructose, unlike glucose, didn’t raise blood sugar levels or insulin and was significantly sweeter than glucose, it was hailed as a boon to all diabetics who could now satisfy a sweet tooth with impunity.But then a dark side of fructose came to light. Scientists discovered that while the body can handle reasonable amounts of fructose from fruits and vegetables without serum fructose concentrations rising to dangerous levels, it can be overwhelmed by large quantities of fructose, especially refined (man-made) fructose. Unfortunately, our steadily increasing consumption of refined sugar and HFCS seems to have done just that.In the 19th century, average refined sugar consumption was about 7 pounds per year p…