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It’s Sugar, Stupid: How Sugar and Other Caloric Sweeteners Went Under the National Radar

For the past 60 years, the nutritional emphasis has been wrongly placed on dietary fats. Little by little, new research is showing that caloric sweeteners and starches are the real diet culprits. What’s more, it has just been revealed that important research information on the link between sugar and coronary heart disease was deliberately withheld from the public.

On September 12, 2016, the results of a study by Kearns, et al. [Journal of the American Medical Association] that points to the sugar industry as manipulator of information from dietary research. The subterfuge happened in the 1950s and 1960s, but was not noticed or recognized until now. The public outrage has been so great that the sugar association has just posted an apology (of some kind) on its website. Here it is:

We recognize that the Sugar Research Foundation should have exercised greater transparency in all of its research activities, however, when the studies in question were published, funding disclosures and transparency standards were not the norm that they are today. Beyond this, it is a challenge for us to comment on events that supposedly occurred 60 years ago and on documents that we have never seen.

Bottom line: sugar went under the national and global radar and stayed there for half a century. Meanwhile, as a nation, we get fat. In the 1970s, before the dietary guidelines were introduced, the national rate of obesity in adults was around 12% and the national fat consumption was estimated at around 40% of total daily calories. Today, the national obesity rate is around 36% and the national fat consumption rate is around 34% of daily calories, a statistically significant achievement that did not happen by accident. What went wrong?

Here are some milestones to keep in mind:

1. In 1978, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) was introduced into our food supply. It was designed to taste just like sugar, and it does. Most people cannot tell the difference. HFCS is cheaper to make, easier to store, and easier to incorporate into recipes. Consequently, it quickly became the dominant sweetening agent in the world.

People used to think that it was a smarter and healthier choice than sugar because it has a lower glycemic index. Obviously, it is not healthier or smarter. In fact, many food and beverage manufacturers now manufacture and advertise products made with “real sugar.”

2. In 1980 the “lipid theory” of disease was officially introduced, and the message that “fat is bad” was forever entrenched in our culture. The USDA published Dietary Guidelines for America that told us to eat less fat, less saturated fat, and less cholesterol. Sugar and other caloric sweeteners were not mentioned.

3. In 1986, the FDA issued a statement saying “there is no conclusive evidence” that sugar causes chronic disease.

4. In 2005, the FDA published Dietary Guidelines that allowed up to 25% of daily calories to be consumed as sugar.

Did these milestones turn us into a nation of the sick and the fat? It is impossible to say for sure, but they are heavily involved. It is time, at last, to consider that the much-maligned Robert Atkins might have been right when he said that “sugar is a metabolic poison.” The smartest way to get out of this pickle is to recognize the sweetening agents in our food supply and handle them more carefully.

The term “sugar” is used generically herein to include all compounds made from glucose and fructose. Most people don’t realize that common table sugar is 50% glucose and 50% fructose, and in fact all caloric sweeteners are a variation on the glucose / fructose composition theme. The only difference is the ratio. HFCS has between 55% and 65% fructose and between 45% and 35% glucose. Agave syrup can be up to 90% fructose and 10% glucose. Honey is about 38% fructose and 62% glucose. Maple syrup contains approximately 33% fructose and 66% sucrose.

People think glucose is bad and fructose is good. Glucose gets a bad press because it is associated with type 2 diabetes and weight gain. He is also recognized as the villain on the glycemic index. Fructose, on the other hand, seems like it should be healthier due to its association with fruit.

The truth is that glucose and fructose are equally problematic for health and weight. The glucose portion of the caloric sweetening compound ends up in your bloodstream, increasing your blood sugar, increasing insulin production, making you fat and sick. The fructose portion goes directly to the liver and is converted into triglycerides, making you fat and sick. (Don’t worry about the small amount of fructose in fresh fruit.)

High blood sugar and triglyceride levels are undesirable metabolic conditions that are implicated in all chronic diseases, as well as increased body weight and body fat. Unfortunately, there is no tool to assess the impact of glucose and fructose. All we have is the glycemic index (GI), which measures just glucose. As you already know, glucose is only half the sweetener.

A glucose measurement can also be very misleading. Agave syrup, for example, is very high in fructose, and anything that is high in fructose will have a low glycemic index. This is how agave syrup was falsely labeled as a supposedly healthy alternative to sugar. It’s not.

With that said, the glycemic index can still be used as one of many benchmarks. Any value greater than 59 is considered high. Table sugar has a glycemic index of around 60.

Calories are another benchmark. One teaspoon of table sugar has 16 calories. Syrups and honey have slightly higher caloric values ​​because they are more dense. You will quickly discover that all caloric sweetening agents have similar amounts of calories. It doesn’t matter if the product is organic, raw, or looks less processed. A caloric sweetener is a caloric sweetener.

The grams are another. When you buy a ready-to-use product, 3 grams of added sugar per serving is a reasonable goal. One gram has 4 calories, so three grams is only 12 calories. The maximum recommended amount of added sugar per day for women is 25 grams (about 2 tablespoons), for men 40 grams (about 3 tablespoons), and for dieters 15 grams (about 1 tablespoon).

Good luck.

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