by Marion Nestle, PhD, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University.
Nature, the prestigious science magazine from Great Britain, has just published a commentary with a provocative title–The toxic truth about sugar—and an even more provocative subtitle: Added sweeteners pose dangers to health that justify controlling them like alcohol.
The authors, Robert Lustig, Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis, are researchers at the University of California medical center in San Francisco (UCSF).
They argue that although tobacco, alcohol and diet are critically important behavioral risk factors in chronic disease, only two of them—tobacco and alcohol—are regulated by governments to protect public health.
Now, they say, it’s time to regulate sugar. By sugar, they mean sugars plural: sucrose as well as high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Both are about half fructose.
Their rationale?
- -Consumption of sugars has tripled over the last 50 years.
- -Many people consume as much as 500 calories a day from sugars (average per capita availability in the U.S. is about 400 calories a day)
- -High intake of fructose-containing sugars induce metabolic syndrome (high blood pressure, insulin resistance), diabetes, and liver damage.
- -Sugars have the potential for abuse.
- -Sugars have negative effects on society (mediated via obesity).
- -Too much of a good thing can be toxic.
Therefore, they argue, societies should intervene and consider the kinds of policies that have proven effective for control of tobacco and alcohol:
- -Taxes
- -Distribution controls
- -Age limits
- -Bans from schools
- -Licensing requirements
- -Zoning ordinances
- -Bans on TV commercials
- -Labeling added sugars
- -Removal of fructose from GRAS status
In a statement that greatly underestimates the situation, they say:
We recognize that societal intervention to reduce the supply and demand for sugar faces an uphill political battle against a powerful sugar lobby, and will require active engagement from all stakeholders.
But, they conclude:
These simple measures — which have all been on the battleground of American politics — are now taken for granted as essential tools for our public health and well-being. It’s time to turn our attention to sugar.
What is one to make of this? Sugar is a delight, nobody is worried about the fructose in fruit or carrots, and diets can be plenty healthy with a little sugar sprinkled here and there.
The issue is quantity. Sugars are not a problem, or not nearly as much of a problem, for people who balance calorie intake with expenditure.
Scientists can argue endlessly about whether obesity is a cause or an effect of metabolic dysfunction, but most people would be healthier if they ate less sugar.
The bottom line? As Corinna Hawkes, the author of numerous reports on worldwide food marketing, wrote me this morning, “there are plenty of reasons for people to consume less sugar without having to worry about whether it’s toxic or not!”
Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, which she chaired from 1988-2003. Her degrees include a Ph.D. in molecular biology and an M.P.H. in public health nutrition, both from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of three prize-winning books: Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health (2002, revised edition, 2007), Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety (2003, revised edition, 2010), and What to Eat (2006). She blogs daily (almost) at Food Politics, where this post originally appeared.
Shouldn’t we focus our attentions on banning the use of chemical farming pesticides and fertilizers? We can choose not to eat sugar, but many people do not have access to organic fruits and vegetables, ergo they have no choice but to consume foods that are laced with chemical components that are neurotoxic and hormone-disrupting. Sugar is not the problem. Lack of nourishing food is the problem.
^ makes me wonder what banning chemical pesticides and fertilizers would do to HFCS production…
Is anyone else as tired as I am of being told what is, or is not good for us ? The Government needs to focus on not running our country into the ground, not telling me or anyone else what I can and can not eat or drink. I was born in this country, and I will die in this country. Please stop telling us what we are doing wrong, sometimes all that it takes is being told we are doing something right !!!!!!!
i eat friut frotose sugar & stevia.But stevia costs alot more in Canada then it does in U.S, But it is better than sugar.
People are not stupid! Give them a choice and they will eat healthy naturally raised foods. I agree sugare is not the issue. The getting a third party to controle how much suger we are allowed is not needed. Controling what is put into our foods should be more closely controlled. GMO enginered, Chemicaly treated, Hormone and/or antibiotic filled foods should be.
Just take a good look at what is in your drinking water!
What about the fruits, vegitables, grains, dairy or meats that are on your table. Has any one of you ever thought about the geneticly modofications made to your food? What about the cemicals natural or otherwise you are consuming every day that you have no idea is in or on your foods. Then there are the hormones to grow larger heavier animals for market pumped full of antibiotics so they don’t become ill. Did you know that these stay in your food? And what isn’t in the food we are consuming has run off to collect in our ground water we are drinking. Yes the water that every day is the giver of life to this earth and all living on it. No I am not one of those that needs to put my nose in others business. I believe in live and let live. But what I see being done to our food and water because it give an extra $ to some ones pocket grinds my sence of right and wrong. Is it right to poison our future our children our land? Think of DDT. Have we forgotten that we almost lost the Bald Eagle to this chemical. What of so many others that cause birth defects and so on it goes.
When do we stop!!
It is not difficult to raise food naturaly with out all the chemicals.
Just think of what it would mean to go to your grocery store and not have to try and decide if organinc is realy the best for you child because it costs $ more. Or do you by less costly and pay the rent to keep them warm and safe. But fill them full of poisons to do so.
So now I come to the end. Government should not control our sugar because we consume more than 50 years ago. The population has grown since then. What they should get involved with is the controle of the poisons that they continue to allow into our foods from beginning to end.
Keep the chemicals out of the food sorce from the begining.
What a great idea! The government would have another source of income, too–just tax it to the limits so nobody can afford it. We could wait in lines to get our sugar with ration cards stamped that we have paid our tax. Of course, most of that revenue will go to farmers to pay them not to grow cane and beets. Then what is next? Do some people have too much protein in their diet? Well, let the food police regulate this problem, too. And on and on! What a simply ludicrous idea! I can decide myself what to cook and what to eat without the government stepping in to regulate yet another part of my life.
The government already makes more than enough from cigarettes. Also, I don’t think the sugar lobby will every let it go the way of cigarettes. Much too much money to be made.
They would put me in the slammer for all the sugar I consume!! However, I happily eat the healthier forms of sugar instead of just the most plentiful sugars.