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BMJ: 'What if sugar is worse than just empty calories? An essay by Gary Taubes'

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Biggles2

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A good read published today in the BMJ:

What if sugar is worse than just empty calories? An essay by Gary Taubes

Here is a snippet:
'With such influential authorities arguing that sugar was benign, it took on the aura of undisputed truth. Just as other physicians and nutritionists in the 1960s, led by the British researchers Peter Cleave and John Yudkin,16 began to suggest that sugar was indeed a likely cause of obesity, diabetes, and now heart disease as well, diabetes specialists would assume that the possibility was unworthy of their attention.’​

http://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.j5808
 
There is not a lot to say in response to this essay except that it saddens me that it has had to be written and aimed at HCPs. I sometimes feel that with so few, albeit a growing number, of those enlightened enough to give a voice to the argument in the essay that our only hope is the wisdom of crowds backed up by the science and research of smaller studies. This problem of changing peoples attitudes toward sugar is going to take a very long time and that time will certainly be lengthened by the food industry.
 
Good read, thanks for sharing
Another snippet
“Evidence suggests that when people severely restrict carbohydrate intake–not just sugars, but also grains and starchy vegetables–diabetes can be reversed or disappears.12 This is consistent with the hypothesis that sugar is a cause of diabetes. However, the studies are incapable of determining whether this beneficial effect is due to the carbohydrate restriction or the calorie restriction that might go with it.”
 
Trying to look at this as a non-diabetic and how I may react to it, the tenet seems to be that excess sugar is linked with obesity which in turn can lead to health problems. But direct links between sugar and T2 / heart disease are hypothesized (widely) but unproven.
In other words excess sugar it's bad for your waistline but don't worry too much about developing nasty conditions.
Perhaps it's fair to say that it's only WHEN we get ill we start to take things seriously.
From the 'key points'.

1 Recent recommendations on consumption target sugar only for its calories rather than as a potential causal agent of disease
2 The evidence that sugar has harmful qualities independent of its calories is ambiguous
 
Guzzler said:
There is not a lot to say in response to this essay except that it saddens me that it has had to be written and aimed at HCPs. I sometimes feel that with so few, albeit a growing number, of those enlightened enough to give a voice to the argument in the essay that our only hope is the wisdom of crowds backed up by the science and research of smaller studies. This problem of changing peoples attitudes toward sugar is going to take a very long time and that time will certainly be lengthened by the food industry.
Click to expand...
And retailers: visited M&S this morning and by the checkout there were three-pack packs of lime and something dark choc jaffas. £1.50. They looked delicious (grrrr!). But just £1.50 for all three when the small healthy snacks (useful for work) are the same price or more expensive. Quite a few supermarkets have removed the sweet/choc displays from the checkouts which is good, but an awful lot more needs to be done to 'sell' the healthy stuff. As @Guzzler says, that's also going to take a very long time and fruit/veg etc certainly won't sell as easily as that pack of jaffas.....
 
We also know that when people have sweat tasting drinks, they eat more calories in other food. Likewise, we know that sugar and simple carbs result in people wanting to eat a sack a few hours after the meal. Hence it is not just the calories in the sugar, we have to consider the effect the sugar has on our bodies regulation systems, and hence, on our bodies ability to limit the calories from all sourced.

But nearly all research will miss the above, as the researchers will just see it as people eating more, and blame it on them eating more, without discovering it is the sugar (and other sweeteners) that are making them eat more. There has been very little into how eating one food, changes the food chooses of “fee eating” people. All researchers wish to control everything, you can’t do that with “fee eating” people.

The best research we have is comparing results between GPs and looking at what advice each GP had given people. Yet even the same words said in different way results in a different level of action being taken.
 
Sue192 said:
Quite a few supermarkets have removed the sweet/choc displays from the checkouts
Click to expand...

Some supermarkets found that they were losing parents shopping, as the parents had a bad experience due to their children demanding the sweets. It was not done for health reasons, rather because the few additional profits from the increased sweat sales, was not worth it if they resulted in fewer customer visits.

(Only supermarkets with a "club card" like system have the data to see things like this.)
 
Boo1979 said:
Good read, thanks for sharing
Another snippet
“Evidence suggests that when people severely restrict carbohydrate intake–not just sugars, but also grains and starchy vegetables–diabetes can be reversed or disappears.12 This is consistent with the hypothesis that sugar is a cause of diabetes. However, the studies are incapable of determining whether this beneficial effect is due to the carbohydrate restriction or the calorie restriction that might go with it.”
Click to expand...

But.. But.. correlation doesn't equal causation. Which is why trials like Prof Taylor's are important. But then there's a large and wealthy lobby which faces losing billions in revenues if sugar's declared bad. We can already see that in the approved food labels showing 'Low Sugar', but with high carbs hidden in the small print. And it may be the types of sugars, so there's a fair sized movement against 'high fructose corn syrup' as an ingredient in the US countered by the corn growers. Especially as other corn markets like ethanol might be losing subsidies.

And there's the question of 'thin but T2' people. My funky scales tell me I should weigh 72kg, not 90. But also that I'm currently 66kg muscle and 4kg bone. So according to the BMI deity, I'm overweight, but can't get to a 'healthy' weight without losing a fair bit of muscle. But that's the problem with jumping for the simple causation. We're also generally less active than we used to be, so a combination of excess sugars, limited exercise and weight gain are the problem.. especially as that tends to get worse, ie exercising gets harder with weight gain and then leads to more problems.

Personally I suspect ingredients are part of the problem, ie we've evolved to eat & metabolise natural sugars, not chemically burgered about ones.
 
I was in hospital for a few days before Christmas and was shocked about the availability of sugar.

Sachets of sugar were provided with all the various breakfast cereals, yet they all came with skimmed milk - not even semi-skimmed.

Sachets of sugar were also offered when the tea/coffee trolley came round, but the milk was skimmed. No choice.

Butter was completely off the menu and never offered, but sugar was! Amazing.
 
ringi said:
But only for a short part of the year so as to fatten up for winter.
Click to expand...

heh, I'm.. not convinced. That would require a more sophisticated body clock linked to homeostasis that can know that winter is coming. I suspect it's more a case that we knew, and actively tried to fatten up a bit. But if we are temperature dependent, we've also burgered up that process via central heating and/or spending much of our lives in temperature regulated buildings.
 
Think about when foods with high sugar could be eaten before the age of large scaling framing and food processing.....
 
You mean things like :
Tostee (toast topped with candied ginger and spiced honeyed wine)
Short Paest for Tarte (tart crust recipe)
A Tarte of Strawberries
Tart de Bry (gingered brie tart)
Cheesecake
Cuskynoles (fruit filled ravioli)
Strawberye (strawberry pudding with currants)
Gaylede (sweet almondy figs)
Cakes and cookies (small cakes)
Gingerbrede
Prince-Bisket (caraway seed cookies)
Iumbolls (iced almond/caraway shortbread knots)
Excellent Small Cakes (iced currant cookies)
Excellent Cake (iced currant and spice cake)
Rastons (buttery bread)
Custards
A Flaune of Almayne (spiced creamy apple/pear pie)
Flathonys (ale custard in a pie shell)
Darioles (green, red, and yellow custard in a pie shell)
Custarde (raisin/date custard)
Creme Boylede (a thick creamy custard)
Papyns (a custard)
Fritters
Frytour Blaunched (honey covered fritters stuffed with gingered almonds)
A Fritur + at Hatte Emeles (sugared almond fritters)
Frytour of Erbes (honeyed herbed fritters)
Ryschewys (fried fig pastry)
Lente Frytoures (fried battered apple rings)
Losenges Fryes (diamond shaped fried dough)
Cryspes (sugar coated funnel cakes)
Fritter of Milk (fried sweet cottage cheese)

Some sweet foods from the middle ages.
 
Hmm.. Flathonys (ale custard in a pie shell). Beer pie! Our ancestors were wise!
 
JohnEGreen said:
You mean things like :
Tostee (toast topped with candied ginger and spiced honeyed wine)
Short Paest for Tarte (tart crust recipe)
A Tarte of Strawberries
Tart de Bry (gingered brie tart)
Cheesecake
Cuskynoles (fruit filled ravioli)
Strawberye (strawberry pudding with currants)
Gaylede (sweet almondy figs)
Cakes and cookies (small cakes)
Gingerbrede
Prince-Bisket (caraway seed cookies)
Iumbolls (iced almond/caraway shortbread knots)
Excellent Small Cakes (iced currant cookies)
Excellent Cake (iced currant and spice cake)
Rastons (buttery bread)
Custards
A Flaune of Almayne (spiced creamy apple/pear pie)
Flathonys (ale custard in a pie shell)
Darioles (green, red, and yellow custard in a pie shell)
Custarde (raisin/date custard)
Creme Boylede (a thick creamy custard)
Papyns (a custard)
Fritters
Frytour Blaunched (honey covered fritters stuffed with gingered almonds)
A Fritur + at Hatte Emeles (sugared almond fritters)
Frytour of Erbes (honeyed herbed fritters)
Ryschewys (fried fig pastry)
Lente Frytoures (fried battered apple rings)
Losenges Fryes (diamond shaped fried dough)
Cryspes (sugar coated funnel cakes)
Fritter of Milk (fried sweet cottage cheese)

Some sweet foods from the middle ages.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I could now really murder a Frytour Blaunched and Flaune of Almayne, or perhaps some Cuskynoles. An interesting list, @johngreen!
 
Lovely list of medieval delights there - but the number of fasting days, poverty, lack of sugar, honey and many of the ingredients meant that those foods were for the rich, or just for very special occasions.

Sugar was a very special import, from the furthest reaches of trade. Likewise most spices. People had beehives, of course, but all that sugar was usually used as a precious preservative, not to be drizzled on everyday foods the way we do now.
 
Lovely list of medieval delights there - but the number of fasting days, poverty, lack of sugar, honey and many of the ingredients meant that those foods were for the rich, or just for very special occasions.

Sugar was a very special import, from the furthest reaches of trade. Likewise most spices. People had beehives, of course, but all that sugar was usually used as a precious preservative, not to be drizzled on everyday foods the way we do now.
 
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