For more than half a century, we鈥檝e been led to believe that fat is the root of all dietary evil. Recently, though, increasing numbers of public-health officials and researchers are contending that , causing numerous chronic diseases including gout, cancer, and Alzheimer鈥檚.
The reason it has taken so long to swing popular and scientific opinion is largely because the sugar industry鈥攃omposed of both trade groups and major corporations like General Mills, the Coca-Cola Company, and PepsiCo鈥攈as聽manipulated or subverted science, paid and pressured researchers, academics, and politicians to ignore the risks, and .
Compare and contrast the different types of聽sugar in your goos.聽Last September, a revealed that in the 1960s, two influential scientists鈥擬ark Hegsted, administrator of human nutrition for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Fredrick Stare, chairman of Harvard鈥檚 nutrition department鈥, a trade group,聽to place the blame for things like heart disease on high-fat diets rather than high-sugar ones. Hegsted and Stare, both now deceased, helped shape our fundamental under颅standing about food and influenced the first federal nutrition guidelines, many聽of which are still in place today. More recently, that a December 2016 , was funded by Coca-Cola and Hershey, among others.
As the deceit comes to light, two recent books attempt to put the final nail in sugar鈥檚 coffin: by science writer , and , by New York University nutrition professor . Even if the nefarious nature of sugar comes as no surprise to you, these books should be required reading if only to understand the scope, power, and impact that Big Sugar has had on America鈥檚 health鈥攐r, perhaps more accurately, sickness.聽
Both books draw apt parallels between the sugar and tobacco industries. , given its wide use among people of all ages and its largely benign reputation.聽
These books should be required reading if only to understand the scope, power, and impact that Big Sugar has had on America鈥檚 health鈥攐r, perhaps more accurately, sickness.
But unlike cigarettes, the evidence against sugar, while convincing, isn鈥檛 quite conclusive. While it鈥檚 easy to show smoking鈥檚 short-term carcinogenic effects at the cellular 颅level, irrefutable evidence against sugar would require lengthy and prohibitively expensive studies, since its deleterious effects can take years or decades to manifest. Though an increasing number of smaller trials point to the fact that our sweets addiction is killing us, Big Sugar has relentlessly exploited the uncertainty, spending millions on marketing and pushing the idea that total calories are the issue, not where those calories come from.聽
Taubes has already fought that battle. His 2007 book, , went to great lengths to point out that easily digestible carbohydrates鈥攁nd sugar in particular鈥攁ffect our metabolism differently and more harmfully than calories from fat and protein.
That鈥檚 because sugar can be a powerful hormone disrupter, spiking insulin and facili颅tating weight gain, the prelude to a host of diseases. Add to that its addictive nature鈥攕ugar boosts dopamine, giving rise to cravings鈥攁nd it presents a double threat.
In The Case Against Sugar, Taubes argues that the proliferation of sweeteners entering the food supply during the middle of the 20th century overwhelmed us physiologically鈥攚e simply aren鈥檛 adapted to manage the quantity we鈥檝e been ingesting. Look closely and you will find some form of added sugar in almost all processed foods, including 鈥渉ealthy鈥 ones like yogurt and muesli. While Taubes concedes the limitations of the science, he maintains that there is 鈥渆nough evidence to indict, if not ultimately convict.鈥
Nestle aims her antisugar efforts more directly at the , primarily Coke and Pepsi. Half of our sugar calories come from sweetened beverages, and a third of those come from soda,聽. Fructose is metabolized in the liver and can make cells insulin-resistant. What鈥檚 more, sugar in beverages is absorbed into the bloodstream much more quickly than sugar in solid foods.
The dangers of sugar may even outweigh those of smoking, given its wide use among people of all ages and its largely benign reputation.
And yet some questions remain. What, if anything, does exercise do to offset sugar鈥檚 impact? What amount is optimal for athletes? Some? None at all?聽There is evidence suggesting that sugar boosts performance: a in a time trial than those drinking only water. It鈥檚 also well established that athletes have improved glucose metabolism, requiring less insulin to metabolize sugar.聽
Athlete or not, some new guidelines are emerging. Nestle is less hard-line than Taubes; she recognizes, probably rightly, that Americans are unlikely to wean themselves off sugar entirely, as Taubes urges, and should instead work at moderation. , an endocrinologist from the University of California at San Francisco and perhaps the most notable sugar researcher working today, suggests that . (The FDA sets a target of 50 grams.)
That number may be flexible鈥攕ome individuals are more sensitive to sugar than others鈥攂ut not by much. Lustig鈥檚 research indicates that 100 grams per day is toxic for most of us. Our current average per capita daily intake ranges from 120 to 164 grams. For context, a 20-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew contains 77 grams, and a 15.2-ounce bottle of Minute Maid apple juice contains 49 grams. Supporters of a soda tax, like Nestle, delight in touting such figures.聽
During the last election, five cities across the country passed . As that momen颅tum builds and public opinion shifts, there may come a time, not too long from now, when sugar finds a place alongside nicotine and booze as an easily abused substance with life-threatening consequences.