Sugar is Toxic?

Gary Taubes, the science writer and author of “Why We Get Fat,” had a thought-provoking article in the New York Times magazine on Sunday about the potential toxicity of sugar.

Here's what I took away from the article:  

• Sugar has only empty calories; it contains no nutrients. 
• Sugar is often combined with high calorie foods (butter, shortening, oil, cream, nuts) to create products that have little nutritional value (cakes, cookies, ice cream).
• Sugary foods either displace more healthful foods in the diet, or are consumed in addition to other foods that we already eat. Neither of these options will lead to optimal health and in most people will lead to weight gain. 
• When populations who do not eat a Western diet (aka American diet) begin to do so, their rate of cancer and diabetes increases. 
• Lewis Cantley, a researcher from Harvard Medical School, says that “up to 80 percent of all human cancers are driven by either mutations or environmental factors that work to enhance or mimic the effect of insulin on the incipient tumor cells.” Because of this, Cantley will not eat sugar or high fructose corn syrup. 
• Consuming sugar makes your liver works harder and in animal studies, when the liver gets a big dose of sugar, it is converted to fat. This results in insulin resistance, which causes obesity, heart disease, certain cancers, and type 2 diabetes. We know this happens in laboratory animals; not enough studies have been done to prove it also happens in humans. 
• Saturated fat consumption and sugar consumption are both predictors of heart disease. Some researchers believe that saturated fat is the culprit; some believe it’s the sugar.

What does it all mean? Here’s what I think: No matter what researchers finally conclude that a healthy amount of sugar might be, it is no doubt way less than most of us are consuming. With the shocking numbers of Americans who are overweight and have diabetes or are at risk for developing diabetes, it’s safe to say the vast majority of us eat too much sugar.

Am I going to stop eating sugar? No, but I eat very little now and am going to try to start eating even less. How about you? Does reading this article change your mind about sugar?

Photo: milosluz