Move over salt and alcohol. There’s a new enemy in your kitchen — sugar.
Scientists now argue that the excessive use of sugar, which is anyway a primary ingredient in many of our favourite foods, makes it a prime suspect in the worldwide health crisis.
A consortium of scientists are of the view that an open war needs to be launched against sugar because it is fuelling a global obesity pandemic, contributing to 35 million deaths annually worldwide from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like diabetes, heart disease and cancer. These experts say that sugar content in our food needs to be controlled just like alcohol and tobacco.
Sugar, they argue, is far from just “empty calories” that make people fat. Given the amount of sugar most people consume, sugar changes metabolism, raises blood pressure, critically alters the signaling of hormones and causes significant damage to the liver. This largely mirrors the effects of drinking too much alcohol. The consortium that includes doctors like Robert Lustig, Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) took a detailed look at the scientific evidence on sugar and found that its consumption has tripled during the past 50 years. The review was published in last week’s issue of the medical journal Nature. The experts pointed to sugar as the key cause of the obesity epidemic. “As long as the public thinks that sugar is just empty calories, we have no chance in solving this,” says Lustig, director of the Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health Program at UCSF. “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. But sugar is toxic beyond its calories.”
The demand has found widespread support from experts in India. “Indians have become more affluent, urbanised and mechanised. The easy availability of convenience foods have led to irregular meals and frequent snacking on energy dense fast foods which typically have low nutritional value and are packed with sugar. This has led to an increase in obesity and diet-related NCDs predominantly in urban, but also in rural areas ,” says Dr Anoop Misra, chairman of Fortis-CDOC Center who recently chaired a consortium of Indian experts to create the ‘Consensus Dietary Guidelines for Healthy Living and Prevention of Obesity, the Metabolic Syndrome, Diabetes and Related Disorders in Asian Indians’.
According to the consortium, simple sugars promote a positive energy balance. Total energy increases when the energy density of the diet is increased by sugars or fat. Common traditional beverages consumed in Indian households including nimbu paani, tea and lassi are packed with sugar. There has been a significant increase in the consumption of sweetened carbonated beverages among adolescents. On an average, urban adolescents consume about 1.8 cans of cola per week. One can contains 33-40 gm of sugar, according to a study.
“Free sugars should comprise less than 10 per cent of total calories/day, which includes all added sugars and sugars present in honey, syrups and fruit juices,” says the expert report. The doctors recommend that water, skimmed buttermilk, coconut water and low fat milk replace sweetened beverages and suggest restricted intake of ice creams, sweetened biscuits, cakes, pastries and baked goods as well as Indian sweets like halwa and kheer. The group says consumers should be encouraged to read food labels to determine sugar content. “Brown sugar, corn syrup, dextrose, honey, malt syrup, sugar, molasses and sucrose in the ingredients list indicate the presence of added sugars,” says Dr Rekha Sharma, advisor NutritionistRepublic.com. She adds that while artificial sweeteners can be used in moderation, they do not contain any nutrients. “The long-term health benefit, if any, is not clear in individuals without diabetes,” she says. Schmidt clarifies that they are not looking for prohibition of sugar or 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. We should make foods that aren’t loaded with sugar comparatively easier and cheaper to get,” he says. Experts say that interventions that have reduced alcohol and tobacco consumption can be models for addressing the sugar problem. Special sales taxes, controlled access and tightening of licensing requirements on vends that sell high sugar products in schools and workplaces.
SKIP THE SUGAR JAR
Cutting back slowly is a wise way. If not, your bosy will probably go into shock and you’ll end up consuming every kind of sugary treat
Choose your sugar vice for the day. If you can't live without sugar in your coffee, or an after-dinner bowl of ice cream, then at least make sure that you limit your sugar intake the rest of your day
Avoid liquid sugars. You'd be better off drinking plain water with lemon or lime, water, 100 per cent fruit juice, milk or tea instead
Buy plain yogurt instead of flavoured yoghurt
Get fruity to satisfy your sweet tooth. Check labels on fruit juices, fruit-based sweets and canned fruits. Fruit is naturally sweet, but some companies choose to make products sweeter by adding sugar
Choose jams that are sweetened with nothing but fruit
(Source: American Heart Association)
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