The first step to teshuva is improving your physical health for a healthy body is the basis for a healthy soul [עי' אורות התשובה פרק א]. In that spirit:
From an article by Dr. Olson in theheathierlife.com. Please take it to heart:
Sugar-Harm
To really see the harm that sugar does, all we have to do is look at people who have a ton of sugar running around in their veins. Diabetics cannot control their blood sugar and, as a result, have a high amount of blood sugar. This high amount of blood sugar causes harm.
The diseases that diabetics tend to have as a result of high sugar are these:
· Retinopathy: eye disease that may leads to blindness
· Peripheral vascular disease: clogged arteries in the legs and sometimes arms
· Nephropathy: kidney damage that may lead to kidney failure
· Cardiomyopathy: heart damage, that can lead to heart failure
· Neuropathy: loss of sensation in nerves, tingling and numbness
· Coronary Artery Disease: clogged arteries, can lead to heart attack
· Stroke
When you look at these diseases, they all seem very different and have nothing in common, but they all share a common means of destruction.
Blood vessel damage is what ties all these diseases together. Sugar harms blood vessels in the same way smoke harms lungs: slowly over time. Blood vessel damage is much more obvious in diabetics in the way damage from cigarettes would be more obvious in someone who smokes three packs a day compared to someone smoking one pack a day.
The Million-Dollar Question
Here is the question that you and scientists should be asking: does sugar also harm people who have normal blood sugar? The answer is yes, but first consider how likely it is that you will become diabetic.
In the United States, your chances for getting diabetes are about one in three, or about thirty percent. If you don’t get diabetes, you may get a condition called metabolic syndrome, which is a pre-diabetic condition that also carries risk for blood vessel damage. Your combined risk for having either metabolic syndrome or diabetes is about 50 percent, so you chances that sugar will cause destruction to your blood vessels are high.
But let’s assume that you are lucky enough to avoid either of those conditions. Should you avoid sugar because sugar can cause you harm even if you have normal blood sugar? The answer is yes. New research shows that sugar also harms the blood vessels of people with so-called normal blood sugar.
In order to stay healthy, you need to learn to avoid sugar and foods that act like sugar in your body. While it is difficult to avoid sugar, your long-term health is dependent on it.
