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The Truth About Sugar

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

White death, or fundamental fuel? Here are facts you need to know.

SAY ANYTHING NASTY ABOUT SUGAR AND FOLKS WILL SWALLOW IT.
Sugar caused the recession. Sugar makes your nipples grow. Sugar keyed your car. Sugar's crazy-it knifed my cousin down at the corner bar last Saturday night. Somebody should drop a safe on sugar. Well, maybe. It's true that sugar is insidious-diabolical, even-and hidden in countless processed foods. It certainly contributes to the obesity crisis. It makes people fat and diabetic. These claims are correct - to a limited and oversimplified extent. But sugar doesn't point a gun to our heads and force us to eat it. It's only as big a bogeyman as we make it out to be. We need some truth about sugar. It's too important. The sugar in our bodies; glucose, is a fundamental fuel for our body and brain, says David Levitsky, Ph.D., a professor of psychology and nutritional sciences at Cornell University. The health threat to the vast American public arises from a very personal level, Levitsky says: "It's sugar that tastes good. Sweetened foods tend to make us overeat. And that threatens the energy balance in our bodies." Read this and learn a few facts about the sweet stuff hiding in some of your favourite meals and drinks. Then, the next time some uniformed punk says sugar's out of line, you won't be tempted to drag sugar behind a dumpster and kick the crap out of it. The fact is, you may be the one who's out of line.

TRUTH #1

Sugar doesn't cause diabetes
Too much sugar does. Diabetes means your body can't clear glucose from your blood. When glucose isn't processed quickly enough, it destroys tissue, Levitsky says. People with type 1 diabetes were born that way-sugar didn't cause their diabetes. But weight gain in children and adults can cause metabolic syndrome, which leads to type 2 diabetes.

"That's what diabetes is all about-being unable to eliminate glucose," says Levitsky. "The negative effect of eating a lot of sugar is a rise in glucose. A normal pancreas and normal insulin receptors can handle it, clear it out, or store it in some packaged form, like fat."

WHAT MATTERS That "normal" pancreas. Overeating forces your pancreas to work overtime cranking out insulin to clear glucose. Eric Westman, M.D., an obesity researcher at the Duke University medical center, says that in today's world, "it's certainly possible that the unprecedented increase in sugar and starch consumption leads to pancreatic burnout." But researchers can't be sure; everyone's body and diet are different, so generalization is iffy. One thing that is sure, Dr. Westman says, is that the rise in sugar consumption over the past 100 years is unprecedented.

Your job: Drop the pounds if you're overweight, and watch your sugar intake. Research has shown for years that dropping 5 percent to 7 percent of your body weight can reduce your odds of developing diabetes.

TRUTH #2

Simply avoiding high-fructose corn syrup won't save you from obesity
In the 1970s and 1980s, the average American's body weight increased in tandem with the food industry's use of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a staple because it's cheap. But it's not a smoking gun. "This is a correlation, not a causation," says Levitsky.

"Obesity is about consuming too many calories," says Lillian Lien, M.D., the medical director of inpatient diabetes management at the Duke University medical center. "It just so happens that a lot of overweight people have been drinking HFCS in sodas and eating foods that are high on the glycemic index- sweet snacks, white bread, and so forth. The calorie totals are huge, and the source just happens to be sugar-based."

Dr. Westman notes that the effect of a high glycemic food can be lessened by adding fat and protein. Spreading peanut butter (protein and fat) on a bagel (starch, which becomes glucose in your body), for example, slows your body's absorption of the sugar.

WHAT MATTERS We can demonize food manufacturers because they produce crap with enough salt and sugar to make us eat more of it than we should - or even want to. But it comes down to how much we allow down our throats. "A practical guide for anyone is weight," says Dr. Lien. "If your weight is under control, then your calorie intake across the board is reasonable. If your weight rises, it's not. That's more important than paying attention to any specific macronutrient." Still, skinny isn't always safe. (Keep reading.)

Labels: Nutrition

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