The Sugar Debate

"Is Sugar Toxic?" asks journalist and author Gary Taubes in a recent article in the New York Times magazine.

Usually the problem with sugar is thought of simply as one of over-consumption of "empty" calories. Source of problem: personal discipline. Solution: Cut back.

However, Taubes' reading of the medical research suggests much more than that. The problem, he argues, is with sugar itself, not our personal will power. In fact, there are those suggesting that sugar should be thought of like tobacco, as something that is actively toxic.

The issue is the way in which sugar is metabolized by the body.  Sugar (really no different than high fructrose corn syrup) is chemically half glucose and half fructose. The glucose part is a normal byproduct of carbohydrate digestion. That is the part to be handled with moderation.

The piece that concerns him -- and many researchers -- is the fructose. It is digested primarily in the liver, where it rapidly deposits fat.

"In animals, or at least in laboratory rats and mice, it’s clear that if the fructose hits the liver in sufficient quantity and with sufficient speed, the liver will convert much of it to fat. This apparently induces a condition known as insulin resistance, which is now considered the fundamental problem in obesity, and the underlying defect in heart disease and in the type of diabetes, type 2, that is common to obese and overweight individuals. It might also be the underlying defect in many cancers."

Excessive fat in the liver has been linked to metabolic syndrome (also know as insulin resistance), a condition in which your body ignores the action of the hormone insulin. In response, your pancreas produces more and more insulin - until it reaches a state of exhaustion.

There are two results from this. One is either a pre-diabetic condition or full blown type II diabetes. The other is a state of chronic insulin elevation. This second condition may be as dangerous as diabetes, perhaps more so.

"The connection between obesity, diabetes and cancer was first reported in 2004 in large population studies by researchers from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer. It is not controversial. What it means is that you are more likely to get cancer if you’re obese or diabetic than if you’re not, and you’re more likely to get cancer if you have metabolic syndrome than if you don’t.

So how does it work? Cancer researchers now consider that the problem with insulin resistance is that it leads us to secrete more insulin, and insulin (as well as a related hormone known as insulin-like growth factor) actually promotes tumor growth."

In other words, chronic over-supply of insulin may foster the growth of cancerous cells.

This is a short version of a very long article. You can read more yourself.

For an expert, but admittedly negative, look at the sugar, take a look at the YouTube lecture by Dr. Robert H. Lustig, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology.  An hour and a half long, this video has been viewed more than 1.4 million times. A great many people must think it is important.