“I had tons of sinus infections. Not only that, the inside of my ears would itch and my hair started to fall out,” she says. “I would also get this yucky stuff at the back of my throat. I was always clearing my throat.”           

Doctor after doctor, pill after pill, but nothing worked. Finally, after bouncing from one medical practitioner to another, one of her doctors suggested sinus surgery. For Smith, it sounded like the chance for relief at last. “The main goal of the surgery was to clear out the chronic infection since the antibiotics would never do the trick,” says Smith, who also learned she had a deviated nasal septum. “That was fixed, as well.”

After the surgery, Smith felt great. But before she knew it, the infections returned. Always a high achiever, Smith continued to attend classes and was able to keep her grades up despite relentless discomfort. She admits, however, that it was an uphill struggle.

“I was always tired and it seemed like I was always trying to fight an infection,” she recalls. And now there were other problems. “I had polyps in my nose which developed due to the tissue membranes being constantly infected,” she says. “The polyps had to be removed.” Another sinus operation was ordered -- but again, the results proved disappointing.

Frustrated and growing desperate, Smith consulted with practitioners from the University of Wisconsin Madison and also traveled to Rochester, Minnesota, where she was examined by medical experts at the Mayo Clinic. After all the consultations and examinations, she was left with nothing but unanswered questions.

The Sugarcoated Truth
Eventually, Smith moved to Colorado. Her health remained problematic and she was referred to The Life Center in Englewood. It was there that she consulted with Peter Petropulos, a holistic chiropractor. After he examined her and listened carefully to her list of ailments, he concluded that her medical problems stemmed from food sensitivity.

“He told me, ‘I bet you any money it’s sugar,’” Smith says. “I was stunned.” When Smith was a little girl, she and her siblings had unlimited and unregulated access to a wide variety of sweets. Sugar was an important and ubiquitous part of the family diet, almost a separate food group.

“I grew up with sugar. We always had tons of treats around the house,” says Smith, who recalls generously sprinkling sugar on everything from cereal to salads. “We actually had a ‘candy cupboard’ in our kitchen and my mother always kept it well stocked with chocolate bars and sugary snacks. We helped ourselves to whatever we wanted whenever we wanted.” Smith carried her sweet tooth with her to college.

“While studying, I’d eat a ton of treats. I’d study with my boyfriend and bring a bag full of hard candy, cookies, M&Ms, you name it -- and just pop them for hours,” she says. “I could regularly put away three big candy bars in one sitting. It was nothing.”

Despite her sugar habit, Smith didn’t struggle with her weight. “I have a good metabolism.” She tried to be conscientious about her food choices, except for the sugar.   “I was always thinking about what I would eat. I enjoyed salads but then I would have my sugar. I would try to eat well but I just couldn’t resist sugar in whatever form -- candy, chocolate, Jolly Ranchers, Reese’s. I liked sugar in general but I really liked chocolate, especially Dove milk chocolate.”

After graduation, Smith’s sugar habit continued in her new workplace.  “I’d have coffee all day and drink that French vanilla creamer right along with it, which was loaded with sugar. I had it down, which snacks were best, and I can tell you, those English toffee ruffles were the best,” she laughs. 

Life in Candyland
Smith isn’t alone with her sugarholic habits. Americans love their sweets, consuming over 70 pounds of sugar per person each year. The health implications are obvious – growing numbers of Americans now struggle with obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. According to the American Diabetes Association, 20.8 million Americans had diabetes in 2005 and the incidence continues to rise. High sugar intake is linked to a long list of ailments, including tooth decay and periodontal disease, autoimmune diseases such as arthritis and asthma, emotional instability (including depression and anxiety), hyperactivity in children, and a suppressed immune system that leaves you susceptible to infectious diseases. Excessive sugar ingestion is also related to candidiasis, an overgrowth of yeast in the body. Smith says she used to suffer from yeast infections “all the time.”

"Yeasts, such as candida, feed on sugar. It’s particularly challenging for someone with a heavy candida load to eliminate sugar from their diet, since the candida in the body is screaming for it,” says Colleen Huber, N.M.D., a naturopathic physician practicing in Tempe, Arizona.

“Sugar is an entrenched, widespread and relentless public health problem. The showering of sugar on our children and our almost universal addiction to sugar blinds us to the growing problems accumulating in our arteries, heart, nervous system, kidneys and other internal organs,” Huber says.