Sugar, sweet suicide—part I

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, July, 2003 by Gary Null

Loss of Health

We think of sugar as food, and don't usually believe it is harmful. But the white crystalline substance is an unnatural substance with no nutritive value. Sugar cane or sugar beets are refined to pure sucrose after all the vitamins, minerals, proteins, enzymes, and other beneficial nutrients are stripped away. All we get is a concentrated sweet that the human body is not able to handle, at least not in the massive quantity that is now ingested.

Damage from sugar is slow and insidious, taking years to ruin health. Over time, the cost is huge, as sugar harms us in many ways. This is what research into sugar's side effects reveals:

Overweight and Obesity

Despite billions of dollars spent on diets each year, our nation is growing fatter and fatter. These days, more than half of all Americans are overweight or obese and, as a result, increasingly susceptible to disease. Among other illnesses, complications from being overweight include diabetes, gallbladder disease, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, sleep apnea, coronary artery disease, osteoarthritis, gout, breast, endometrial, pancreatic, or colon cancer, and low back pain. With an estimated 1,200 people dying daily from weight-related illnesses, the crisis has reached epidemic proportions. (14)

A radical decline in our nation's health starts with its youngest members. Compared to the 1980's, we have twice the number of overweight and obese children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A recent study of weight trends among US children reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that from 1986 to 1998 the number of overweight white children doubled from 6 percent to 12 percent. For African American and Hispanic children, that amount increased by 120 percent in 12 years. (15) Consequently, hundreds of thousands of children are suffering from gallbladder disease and sleep-related breathing disorders. Adult onset diabetes used to strike people an average of 60 years old. Nowadays, the disease afflicts 300,000 American children, increasing their risk for serious complications, such as blindness, kidney failure, and stroke.

According to government sources, soft drinks are the leading source of added sugars in the diet of youngsters. Recently, studies have correlated obesity in children and adolescents to how much soda and sugar-sweetened beverages they consume. One study by Ludwig et al. determined that about 65% of adolescent girls and 74% of adolescent boys consume soft drinks daily and that one soda per day increases the risk of obesity by 60%. (16)

Grave health risks associated with excess weight are universally acknowledged by government health agencies, including the World Health Organization, the American Heart Association, the National Institutes of Health, the US Surgeon General, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Still, disturbing statistics on obesity show that we continue to ignore the dangers. The problem is complex, note Hall and Jones in their American Journal of Hypertension editorial, "What can we do about the 'epidemic' of obesity?" One problem is the limited range of healthy food options found in many American restaurants. They believe that government industry regulations for the food industry might have a public health impact similar to that of laws governing seat belt and tobacco use. Another recommendation is for doctors to take a less passive approach by initiating discussions on nutrition and weight control rather than immediately recommending drug management of high blood pressure and other disorders. They state , "An urgent 'plan of action' is required to help people combat obesity, based on cooperation among scientists, insurance companies, healthcare professionals and the government." (17)