More About Sugar

Waaaaay back in the 1950s, when an increasing number of heart attacks became a big issue, it was postulated that heart disease was caused by too much fat in the diet. This led to the eventual publication of the 1980 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. An entire generation of people grew up believing that fat was evil and was to be avoided as much as possible.  As history would show, this theory was not grounded in solid research, and has since been quietly dropped as the leading cause of heart disease. And yet the bad reputation of dietary fat continues to live on in our beliefs and our practices when it comes to fashioning our eating protocols.

An unintended consequence of the advice to decrease fat in the diet, was a huge increase in added sugars in the diet. Butter and meat were out - gummy worms and rice cakes were in! This increase in sugar resulted in an epidemic of obesity and type 2 diabetes. In the 1950s, most people were relatively slim and type 2 diabetes was a rare condition. Today, in the United States, over three-fourths of adults are overweight - over 39 percent of whom are classified as obese. Why? If calories in vs calories out is a legitimate predictor of weight gain, why can't sugar calories just be substituted for fat calories. Why does the Move More - Eat Less advice of most medical professionals not work?

A short version of the explanation of why we are an obese nation is that obesity is a hormonal imbalance, not a caloric one. Dr. Jason Fung writes, "The hormonal problem in undesired weight gain is mainly excessive insulin." How does excessive insulin enter the scene? Excessive insulin is the result of too much sugar in the diet. 

In my next blog post, I will describe the science behind how eating too much added sugar leads to too much insulin, which leads to weight gain, and a lot of related chronic illness. Until then, you might want to join my 5-Day Sugar-Free Challenge to help you remove the added sugars from your own diet.