Why is Sugar Bad For You?

 Why is Sugar Bad For You?

The statistical argument is made in Paul Check's "How to Eat, Move and be Healthy" 

"As recently as 400 years ago, refined or simple sugars, with the exception of small amounts of honey, were not available to man.  We ate only naturally occurring, whole foods that provide complex carbohydrates, which convert to energy relatively slowly when consumed as natural food sources (this is because they get tied up with simultaneously occurring fats, proteins and fibre).  Producing simple or refined sugars such as packaged white or brown sugar from sugar cane or sugar beets required so much work to manufacture that only the rich could afford to buy them,  About100 years ago, the average yearly intake of simple sugars was only about 4 pounds per person.  Today, the average North American consumes 150-170 ponds of sugar per year, and those in the most industrialized nations are not far behind.  It's said that for every American who only eats five pounds of sugar each year, there's one who eats 295 pounds per year.  This statistic is hard to deny wince about 60% of the US population  is now overweight or obese."

These numbers are shocking and disgusting. It was recently reported on CBS's "60 Minutes" that the initial reaction by food producers to the sky rocketing figures of obesity was to begin reducing the amount of fat in their food products. When these "healthy" alternatives became available the overweight and obese population continued to climb. Why? Because removing fat from products effects taste, and the only way to continue to provide a "great tasting alternative" is to add sugar.

How Does Sugar Become Fat?

How does a sugar get stored as a fat? From what I recall from my physiology class the liver processes the glucose molecule and turns it into a triglyceride, or fat molecule.The only real way the sugar may be more readily stored as fat is if it impacts blood sugar or creates some environment that would promote the conversion of glucose to triglycerides. Theoretically, a huge surge in blood sugar due to a rapidly ingested carbohydrate would cause the liver to convert most of that sugar to fat.

Does Sugar Promote Cancer?

In the full news report, CBS News states "And other scientific work shows that sugar could also be helping some cancer tumors to grow because sugar stimulates the production of the hormone insulin. Nearly a third of common cancers such as some breast and colon cancers, contain insulin receptors that eventually signal the tumor to consume glucose. Lewis Cantley, a Harvard professor and head of the Beth Israel Deaconess Cancer Center, says some of those cancers have learned to adapt to an insulin-rich environment. 'They have evolved the ability to hijack that flow of glucose that's going by in the bloodstream into the tumor itself.' "

I believe these facts should be wide spread news and I am happy to see the story is being reported on mainstream media. The impacts that sugar is having on our population's biology is out of control and people need to be made aware. 

To see the full CBS News report click here.