Autoimmune Disease affects over 50 million Americans.  It is one of the top ten causes of death among women over 65, and is the second highest cause of chronic illness in the US.  Autoimmune Disease is on the rise, not only in the US but worldwide.

There are over 100 different autoimmune diseases currently.  Autoimmune diseases are chronic and are often life threatening. They can affect any system in the body, and symptoms can vary, making them difficult to diagnose. 

The current medical system offers little in treatment other than medications. Often only prescribing them once damage has been not, and not offering options for prevention. Autoimmune disease has an underlying cause, a trigger, that cause the body to overreact and attack itself. The goal of TCM and Functional Medicine is to find and treat the underlying cause to reverse and prevent damage.

I love sugar just as much as the next person. In the evenings I crave something sweet after dinner, most nights. I have an addiction to Brownies (when I was pregnant, I ate a batch a week, no lie, and I don't recommend this. It was a nutritional low point, I admit it). There are biological, nutritional, emotional and primitive reasons that we crave and need sugar. The problem with the modern diet and sugar is that we are often consuming our sugars in extremely high amounts and from nutritionally poor sources. We consume much more than we need for it's necessary biological roles in the body, we are not active, and this excess sugar becomes a health problem.

More and more research is linking sugar as the the primary cause of degenerative diseases in the body. It promotes excessive weight gain and inflammation. It hyper stimulates the brain, and is more addictive than many illegal drugs. 

It is extremely important to find a balance with the normal needs of sugar for cellular energy. This all starts with choosing clean and natural sugar choices, and limiting the amount we consume based on our realistic energy consumption. 

In today's post, we are going to dive deep into sugar, the good the bad and the super ugly. My goal is to help you achieve balance, and understand the how sugar affects our bodies. I want you to leave this post with the knowledge to look at your sugar consumption realistically.