Sugars and starches lower our immunity to infectious diseases

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Part 3: consequences

Based on these studies, any person who eats largely carbohydrate-based meals, particularly those containing sugars, and snacks with carbohydrate-based meals spread throughout the day — as the latest advice suggests we should — could lose up to half their immunity to disease for much of the waking day.

That puts you at risk, not only of bacteria and viruses attacking the walls of your arteries, but of the whole gamut of infections.

It is important to note that the worst sugar was fructose. Fructose is the sugar found in fruit — fruits bred today for sweetness are generally little more than sugared water. So if you want to live a healthy life, free from infection, 'five portions of fruit' may not be such a good idea, even if vegetables are.

Have you noticed that it is only hospital patients who are harmed or die from hospital-borne diseases like MRSA? Doctors, nurses, porters, cleaners as well as the patients' visitors don't seem to be affected by these nasty bugs. That could be because of some way patients are fed. If you are unfortunate enough to need hospital treatment that involves intravenous feeding, that feed will be heavily glucose-based. So with a condition in which your immune system is probably already compromised by your illness, the hospital will feed you a sugar-rich concoction that could damage it still further.

It is important to understand that it is not easy to boost the immune system artificially; but given the right conditions, principally the right nutrients through a correct diet — rather than our 'healthy' one — it soon regenerates of its own accord.