Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, argue that sugar is toxic and needs to be taxed and controlled. Why it's so hard to break our addiction
Sugar poses enough health risks that it should be considered a controlled substance just like alcohol and tobacco, contend a team of researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

In an opinion piece called “The Toxic Truth About Sugar” that was published Feb. 1 in the journal Nature, Robert Lustig, Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis argue that it’s a misnomer to consider sugar just “empty calories.” They write: “There is nothing empty about these calories. A growing body of scientific evidence is showing that fructose can trigger processes that lead to liver toxicity and a host of other chronic diseases. A little is not a problem, but a lot kills — slowly.”

Almost everyone’s heard of — or personally experienced — the proverbial sugar high, so perhaps the comparison between sugar and alcohol or tobacco shouldn’t come as a surprise. But it’s doubtful that Americans will look favorably upon regulating their favorite vice. We’re a nation that’s sweet on sugar: the average U.S. adult downs 22 teaspoons of sugar a day, according to the American Heart Association, and surveys have found that teens swallow 34 teaspoons.

To counter our consumption, the authors advocate taxing sugary foods and controlling sales to kids under 17. Already, 17% of U.S. children and teens are obese, and across the world the sugar intake has tripled in the past 50 years. The increase has helped create a global obesity pandemic that contributes to 35 million annual deaths worldwide from noninfectious diseases including diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

“There are good calories and bad calories, just as there are good fats and bad fats, good amino acids and bad amino acids, good carbohydrates and bad carbohydrates,” Lustig, a professor of pediatrics and director of the Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health (WATCH) program at UCSF, said in a statement. “But sugar is toxic beyond its calories.”

The food industry tries to imply that “a calorie is a calorie,” says Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. “But this and other research suggests there is something different about sugar,” says Brownell.

The UCSF report emphasizes the metabolic effects of sugar. Excess sugar can alter metabolism, raise blood pressure, skew the signaling of hormones and damage the liver — outcomes that sound suspiciously similar to what can happen after a person drinks too much alcohol. Schmidt, co-chair of UCSF’s Community Engagement and Health Policy program, noted on CNN: “When you think about it, this actually makes a lot of sense. Alcohol, after all, is simply the distillation of sugar. Where does vodka come from? Sugar.”

But there are also other areas of impact that researchers have investigated: the effect of sugar on the brain and how liquid calories are interpreted differently by the body than solids. Research has suggested that sugar activates the same reward pathways in the brain as traditional drugs of abuse like morphine or heroin. No one is claiming the effect of sugar is quite that potent, but, says Brownell, “it helps confirm what people tell you anecdotally, that they crave sugar and have withdrawal symptoms when they stop eating it.”

There’s also something particularly insidious about sugary beverages. “When calories come in liquids, the body doesn’t feel as full,” says Brownell. “People are getting more of their calories than ever before from sugared beverages.”

Other countries, including France, Greece and Denmark, levy soda taxes, and the concept is being considered in at least 20 U.S. cities and states. Last summer, Philadelphia came close to passing a 2-cents-per-ounce soda tax. The Rudd Center has been a vocal proponent of a more modest 1-cent-per-ounce tax. But at least one study, from 2010, has raised doubts that soda taxes would result in significant weight loss: apparently people who are determined to eat — and drink — unhealthily will find ways to do it.

Ultimately, regulating sugar will prove particularly tricky because it transcends health concerns; sugar, for so many people, is love. A plate of cut-up celery just doesn’t pack the same emotional punch as a tin of homemade chocolate chip cookies, which is why I took my daughter for a cake pop and not an apple as an after-school treat today. We don’t do that regularly — it’s the first time this school year, actually — and that’s what made it special. As a society, could we ever reach the point where we’d think apples — not cake on a stick — are something to get excited over? Says Brindis, one of the report’s authors and director of UCSF’s Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies: “We recognize that there are cultural and celebratory aspects of sugar. Changing these patterns is very complicated.”

For inroads to be made, say the authors in their statement, people have to be better educated about the hazards of sugar and agree that something’s got to change:

Many of the interventions that have reduced alcohol and tobacco consumption can be models for addressing the sugar problem, such as levying special sales taxes, controlling access, and tightening licensing requirements on vending machines and snack bars that sell high sugar products in schools and workplaces.
“We’re not talking prohibition,” Schmidt said. “We’re not advocating a major imposition of the government into people’s lives. We’re talking about gentle ways to make sugar consumption slightly less convenient, thereby moving people away from the concentrated dose. What we want is to actually increase people’s choices by making foods that aren’t loaded with sugar comparatively easier and cheaper to get.”

http://healthland.time.com/2012/02/02/sh...d-tobacco/

Psst!  Wanna buy a sachet of honey?  
Alison

Psst! Over here

Ridunculous!

Those of us of a certain vintage will remember when fat was demonised as an invariably unhealthy food that makes people fat. People who wanted to lose weight went on low-fat diets, and carbohydrates were the wonder food because they were "metabolically active". Food was marketed according to fat content, low-fat versions of everything started coming out, and people carried around "fat counters" which listed how much fat was in each food.

Funny how the obesity epidemic actually only began when health authorities started telling us that fat = bad, carb = good.

I think the world needs to be careful not to go down the same path with sugar. A balanced and sensible approach, backed by as much real evidence and research as possible, needs to be taken. Sure, sugar is probably the #1 dietary villain in the world today.... but history should tell us to be cautious here.

Umm....hi! Just, y'know, eating a bowl of Nesquick with a spoon over here....

We saw the same things happen when the low-carb diet thing started. What we really need is a good balance of everything, not to deprive ourselves of one thing and make up for it with other things.

About the only thing sugar-related that I think we really need to focus on removing from our diet as much as possible is high-fructose corn syrup. The human body doesn't even recognize it as food. We should probably cut down on sugar in general, but that one needs to be replaced with natural sugar.

Haha, yeah, I remember that!  My mother is now in her 70's, and she used to tell me how, when she was a kid, thick sliced white bread and "dripping" (animal fat) was the daily lunch.  Washed down with tea, usually with four teaspoons of sugar in it.  My mum is a tiny little lady who has never been overweight in her life and had no serious health issues.  
Alison

Its like saying Joan Rivers should be regulated from Plastic Surgery... (which is true)

I don't think its practical. And really, it is none of the governments business, to tax the crap out of things for those reasons. I disagree in principle with what are called 'sin taxes', its not like the proceeds get ring fenced for dealing with the results of people who abuse whatever it is thats subjected to these taxes.

I do think that high-fructose corn syrup is bad news though. From what I read, in the US, they actually sell the stuff in bottles to be poured all over food. Is this true? Don't know how people could do that personally. I love honey though myself. Real, good, honest bee-spit, or proper golden syrup, as is a byproduct of sugar refining, with taste to it, not just gloopy, synthetic tasteless muck.

For all the same reasons I don't pour glucose syrup over my bowl of porridge, or cornflakes, or spread it on bread instead of a honey sandwich (try it if you haven't...delicious)

Speaking of food...I am starving. Been asleep 2 days and the nights they come with. Need to be up today. Have to phone my lawyer about contesting the search warrant, tidy some of the crap they left behind up, and patch up the insulation they ripped to pieces from over the air vent in my room. The paper warned that this weekend, its actually going to be colder than what has been recorded in antarctica of late, and if I don't sort that insulation out its going to get piped right into my room. Its noticeably quite cold already.

Now...what to have for breakfast, before I go and curl up under the covers to read some more of my book, and then get a bit more rest. Uncdecided between a bowl of coco pops, or some of the stilton cheese in the fridge along with crackers and a can or two of the strong (albeit not great) cider I have.

What's cake pop? I'm surprised no-one's mentioned tooth decay. The world's most common (and most preventable) disease. I'm sure I recall hearing as long ago as the 80s that the Dutch had introduced mandatory "always brush your teeth" reminders in TV commercials for confectionary. I wonder why that hasn't caught on over on this side of the Channel.

LOL---

We (older people?) I remember when milk was bad all of a sudden... and margarine was good, then bad... People eat LESS sugar now than ever - based on the replacement of sugar/s with every other possible variety, aspertame, asceluslfame, fructose, high fructose, crystaline fruchtose, phenylanine  etc., etc., etc., TRY to find sugar.

There is a good reason for warnings about food containing phenylalanine. Its for phenylketonurics, phenylketonuria is a disease caused by a mutation in an enzyme that converts phenylalanine to tyrosine (essential for noradrenaline synthesis)

Part of the treatment consists of a low phenylalanine diet. Which means avoiding aspartame, as its a phenylalanine derivative that breaks down into Phe, aspartate and methanol.

You are definitely right about the demonizing of foods. Eggs, are another one. There used to be a campaign of sorts to get people to eat them, 'go to work on an egg', then the health scare department did their thing and started screaming about cholesterol. Now we are told they are healthy again.

Personally, I make my own decisions about what to eat, and not to eat, and if something I eat gets called out as a nutritional evil, I'll go and read some research, rather than take the newspapers and the national health scare dept at their word. I want to see the results for myself, and evaluate the methodology used to come to a conclusion.

For example the FDA tested aspartame and approved it for use. It releases MeOH after metabolization, as well as aspartate, a potentially excitotoxic amino acid, so I am not so sure. I don't make a special effort to avoid everything containing it, but I do wish it wasn't added to so many products and I certainly do not add it to my food/drinks.

With what I have heard about food in the US it is no wonder there is an obesity epidemic and people are so unhealthy, not surprising with all that shite they eat, when The B1tch was here, it commented that UK 'sodas' were a lot less sweet than US ones. I'd like to try coke from the US, to compare with the stuff from over here in he UK. Wouldn't surprise me if I really disliked the US variety though. One of the reasons I like coke more than the otherwise pretty similar pepsi, is that pepsi is a lot sweeter. And I HATE 'sprite' or 7-up, especially sprite. Sprite is ridiculously, obscenely, almost nauseatingly sickly. Revolting.

Never seen high fructose corn syrup sold here, which is a good thing for sure. Although I have seen pure fructose in liquid syrup form sold, but its not intended to be poured over food, but rather, its sold as a baking ingredient, for what purpose I don't know, but something to do with baking.

*takes a long gulp of cold special brew cider*

Believe it or not....there is sugar and sweetner in this stuff! I was surprised when I read that on the label. Not something I've seen before in cider. This is cheap stuff though, 85p a can rocket fuel brew.

Seriously...what the blazes is the point. Cider should not have this sort of crap added in. Doesn't need sugar added either, other than what remains after fermentation.