The average American woman eats 70 percent of her body weight in added sugar each year. How much is too much and what effect does it have on your body?

Sugar is the James Bond of food: It has code names, appears where you least expect it and leaves a trail of destruction in its wake. Oh, and we kind of have a thing for it. “It tastes good, and the more that’s produced, the more we eat,” says George Bray, M.D., chief of the clinical obesity and metabolism division at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Since 1970, the amount of sugar in processed foods has nearly doubled, largely because sugar is cheap and readily available. Today it’s pumped into pretty much everything to make food products more enticing—even ones that are already sweet, such as fruit juice. As a result, the average American gobbles up 43,800 more calories from added sugar (meaning sweeteners, like high fructose corn syrup and honey, that are added to packaged foods) per year than we did in 1977.

Trouble is, our body isn’t equipped to handle this amount. If a woman’s intake of added sugars increases by more than 20 percent, her body-mass index rises 2 to 3 points, which is enough to shift from the normal weight to the overweight category or from overweight to obese, a 27-year study from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities has found. Research has also linked increased sugar consumption to higher rates of diabetes, heart disease and metabolic syndrome.

But before you envision a sad existence devoid of chocolate, know that we would never suggest such a thing. (We love chocolate, too!) Besides, “cutting out sugar completely isn’t necessary or even possible,” says Suzanne Farrell, R.D., of Denver. What is: indulging wisely, by curbing cravings and eliminating hidden sources. On these pages, we make eating a lot less sugar a cakewalk.

How Much Sugar Is Too Much?

Our bodies rely on natural sugars to function, yet eating too much can lead to serious health issues.

It’s complicated. To function, our body relies on natural sugar in vegetables and carbs (glucose) and dairy products (lactose, which converts to glucose as it’s digested). Glucose is the body’s main fuel source and the brain’s only one. As for the sugar in fruit, “the body uses fructose only in energy crises—like running a marathon,” says Robert Lustig, M.D., a spokesman for the Endocrine Society. “It’s really nature’s way of tempting you to eat fruit to get the nutrients.” The liver can easily dispose of such a small amount. (An apple has 11 grams.)

Added Sugars Are the Issue

Most consist of about half glucose, half fructose: Table sugar is 50-50; high fructose corn syrup is 45-55. Both glucose and fructose get turned into fat when we eat too much of them. (This is also true of natural sugars in healthful foods like fruit, but would you ever scarf five apples in one sitting?) Excess glucose can up your risk for hypertension and metabolic syndrome; and when the liver can’t handle more fructose, the remainder converts to triglycerides, a type of fat that can build up around organs. “This prevents the liver from processing insulin, a hormone that regulates blood sugar, so your pancreas makes more,” Dr. Lustig says. “High levels can lead to insulin resistance and diabetes.”

Where to Draw the Line?

The USDA groups together added sugar and solid fats such as butter (both have empty calories) and advises you to get less than 15 percent of your daily calories from them. The experts polled say to aim for less than 10 percent of calories from added sugar. If you’re eating 1,800 calories, that’s 180 calories, or a can of soda and four Life Savers. Be cautious with what you are consuming daily and be aware of the amounts of sugars your body is intaking daily. You don’t want to exceed and you want to be smart to ensure you don’t have low sugar as well. Eat healthy and your sugar intake will remain healthy as well.

Oh delicious sugar, how do I love thee?  Let me count the ways… If we’re counting the ways, we may need to make a separate list for the health evils that sugar consumption induces.  The latest?  Sugar has been linked to increased cholesterol levels.  A new study analyzed data from 6,113 respondents in the long-term National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1999 to 2006) and found that people who reported eating lots of “processed foods with added sugar” were 200% more likely to have high LDL (bad) cholesterol levels, 20% more likely to have high triglycerides and 60% more likely to have a high ratio of triglycerides to HDL (good) cholesterol, which is believed to be a key indicator of cardiac risk. That’s quite an ugly list.

Miriam Vos, MD, who conducted the study with her colleagues at Emory University (Atlanta), stated that this was the first one to look specifically at the effect of added sugars on cholesterol. Their reason for focusing specifically on processed foods and drinks is that these products contain substantially more sugar than the few teaspoons that most people sprinkle into their coffee.  And, it appears, the amounts are enough to substantially raise cholesterol levels.

It’s important to point out that there are some limitations to the study. For instance, Dr. Vos says researchers did not evaluate any particular types of sugar separately (most in the study were beet or cane sugar or high-fructose corn syrup) but simply counted all caloric sweeteners added to packaged/processed foods. Also, processed foods may have other additives that weren’t accounted for and may play a role in raising cholesterol and blood fats.

Trading One Evil for Another…

Ironically, the public’s anxiety about fat is one reason that sugar levels are now so high, manufacturers of many processed foods reduced their fat content and made up for the lost flavor by dumping in more sugar.  If you’re thinking, “Oh, I don’t eat all that much sugar” because you don’t eat many sweets, do try this at home: For several days, keep track of the sugar content in all of the foods you eat. You may be in for a surprise. Many of the cholesterol increasing foods are ones in which you wouldn’t anticipate finding sugar.  They include bread, spaghetti sauce, soups, low-fat salad dressings, restaurant Chinese food, lunch meats and hot dogs. Americans eat an astonishing amount of these sugared-up items; would you believe nearly 16% of our total caloric intake? This percentage translates to almost 22 teaspoons of sugar a day from processed foods, with the biggest consumers of sugar ingesting a ridiculous 46 teaspoons a day! It’s incredibly easy to surpass the American Heart Association’s recommended daily maximum of 100 sugar calories (six teaspoons) for women and 150 (nine teaspoons) for men.

Acknowledging that many people find it difficult to make sweeping alterations to their diets, Dr. Vos suggests starting with easy changes that she calls “high-yield.” First on her list is to drink more water and put aside the soft drinks and sweetened ready-made teas.  She also encourages noshing on fruit when you want something sweet. Best of all is to choose whole, fresh foods that have nothing added to them. “One-ingredient food is the way to go,” says Dr. Vos, and that, of course, describes food the way nature makes it. More processing means more additives and far less nutritional value.

Source(s):

Miriam Vos, MD, pediatric gastroenterologist and assistant professor of pediatrics, Emory University, Atlanta, and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. She is author of The No-Diet Obesity Solution for Kids (AGA Institute).

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This century’s version of “real men don’t eat quiche” might turn out to be “real men don’t eat sugar”… based on a recent study in which testosterone levels were found to plunge after men consumed sugar.

Researchers at the Harvard Reproductive Endocrine Sciences Center and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston gave a glucose tolerance test to 74 men, average age 51. This is a standard test in which subjects drink a 75-gram dose of pure glucose, after which their blood levels of sugar and insulin are measured at 30, 60, 90 and 120 minutes. Researchers also measured testosterone levels and found that for 73 of the 74 subjects, testosterone was significantly reduced after drinking the glucose.

Aside from the fact that few men feel comfortable messing with their testosterone levels, another reason this is important is that it demonstrates how eating sugar could have a profound effect on the results of medical tests for hormones. Where men had previously been told that they didn’t need to fast prior to having blood drawn for such a test, it appears that the results are skewed by blood sugar levels — so fasting may be necessary.

Testosterone, the major male sex hormone, affects energy, well-being and libido and helps maintain bone density, muscle mass and even red blood cell production. Testosterone production peaks in adolescence for males, and though there are considerable individual variations, it generally begins to wane around age 40 as men experience andropause (see Daily Health News, April 22, 2008, for more information on this male hormonal shift). So it is no wonder that testosterone replacement therapy has become big business and is frequently prescribed by doctors who advertise themselves as specialists in “antiaging medicine.”

When I asked our medical editor, Andrew L. Rubman, ND, about these findings, he said they make perfect sense. “Men are becoming aware of the fact that stressful lives, poor diet and poor lifestyle can depress testosterone levels,” he said, “so it’s wise to now look at yet another factor — sugar — that influences this important hormone.” He notes that not only is this a significant finding that will likely impact how hormone level testing is done going forward, it also raises questions about how reliable results are for men whose testosterone levels were checked with a nonfasting test. “It may be that not only do certain men not need it, but they may be doing themselves harm by taking unnecessary testosterone or by taking the wrong dosage.”

Interestingly, the men who were the most “normal” in their response to the glucose test had the greatest drop in their testosterone levels, though Dr. Rubman said this isn’t as surprising as it might seem. He pointed out that people who focus on eating pure and organic foods and who don’t take many medications often can feel the effect of a single aspirin, whereas a drug abuser could take several codeine tablets and hardly notice. The effect with sugar is similar — a little bit has a greater impact in people who don’t eat much of it.

His advice is to consider sugar a “recreational substance, to be enjoyed as a condiment and in close proximity to meals.” He suggests that men taking testosterone replacement ask their doctor for a retest of their levels after three days of simple sugar avoidance with a 24-hour urine catch and an overnight fast. (Your last meal before fasting should be light protein, such as chicken or fish, and a salad.) “The results will be much more clinically significant and will help keep your doctor from giving you an unintentional overdose of testosterone,” said Dr. Rubman, adding that “sugar is like cheap wine — the pleasurable effect is short-lived and the payback may not be worth it.”

Source(s):

Andrew L. Rubman, ND, medical director, Southbury Clinic for Traditional Medicines, Southbury, Connecticut. www.naturopath.org.

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There’s just nothing to be gained from drinking soda. Think about it — people don’t hesitate to drink what is basically a bubbly brew of water, sugar (mainly high fructose corn syrup or HFCS), food coloring and assorted chemicals, packed with calories and lacking in nutritional value. Carbonated soft drinks are the single largest source of calories in the American diet, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, providing about 7% of our total calorie intake. In addition to staining, eroding and decaying our teeth, soft drinks are associated with an increased risk of obesity, a risk factor for type 2 diabetes and possibly osteoporosis. Now there is a new health problem to add to that list — kidney damage.

Soda: the kidney killer

More Soda = More Sugar = More Risk

In a study of 9,358 adults (mean age 45), women who reported drinking two or more sugary sodas within the last 24 hours were nearly twice as likely to have albuminuria — excess levels of a protein in the urine that is a possible sign of kidney damage. More research is needed to determine if the association with kidney damage is due to sugar in general, HFCS in particular, or some shared lifestyle characteristics of soda drinkers.

Here’s what we know so far:

-The widespread use of high fructose corn syrup — popular with manufacturers because it is cheap, sweet and extends shelf life — has been prevalent over the same time period that there have been significant rises in diabetic end-stage renal or kidney disease. The body processes HFCS differently than regular table sugar, and in so doing may cause harm to the kidneys.

-Mercury has been detected in many products containing HFCS. (For more on this newly identified hazard, see Daily Health News, April 27, 2009.) Mercury is involved in the manufacturing process for most commercial HFCS — and mercury is a risk for kidney disease.

-Other ingredients in soda, such as phosphorus in colas, may contribute to kidney stones, which are a risk factor for chronic kidney disease.

-Men did not have this problem (more research is needed to learn why). Neither did people of either gender who drank diet soda, which is one reason why investigators believe HFCS may be responsible. Results of this research were published in the October 2008 issue of PLoS ONE.

Drink Water

To protect your kidneys, your best bet is to simply drink water instead of soda, advises lead researcher David Shoham, PhD, MSPH, of the Loyola University Health System in Illinois. Soda just isn’t worth it.

Source(s):

David Shoham, PhD, MSPH, assistant professor, department of preventive medicine and epidemiology, Loyola University Health System, Maywood, Illinois.

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Sugar or HFCS? Which is worse...

Pick your poison, as they say. Whether you eat sweet treats made with sugar or with cheap and ever-present high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), the result remains the same — it’s unhealthy. This was confirmed for me when I asked for expert guidance on the relative merits of “natural” sugar versus “unnatural” HFCS, having noticed the barrage of ads and commercials that now position real sugar as a health food.

I called Patricia Crawford, DrPH, RD, director of the Dr. Robert C. and Veronica Atkins Center for Weight and Health at the University of California, Berkeley, to discuss the issue. She said flat out that there is no redeeming quality to sugar — and there is even less to like in HFCS.

HFCS is Everywhere

The problem with HFCS is that it is in many, if not most, processed foods — you can quickly verify this by checking the label of frozen foods, packaged foods, condiments such as ketchup, and many other seemingly unsweetened foods. Crawford told me that HFCS is ubiquitous because it is so inexpensive, and its development coincided with the introduction of new kinds of processed foods.

A particular concern with HFCS is that research has established that it is not only high in calories, but it doesn’t make you feel full or satisfied — for instance, when it is added to beverages. It’s why you can load up on a 64-ounce HFCS-sweetened regular cola and still feel hungry. The HFCS does not signal the body that it just drank a bucketful of calories, so you still feel like you need a full dinner, too. Unfortunately, the calories do matter — too many calories mean obesity is on the way. Interestingly, the increase in HFCS in our food supply parallels the alarming increase in obesity and type 2 diabetes in the population.

Smart food scientists and marketers are catching on to the bad press about HFCS, which is why careful label-readers may have noticed that cane sugar (in cereals, for instance) is making a comeback. Don’t be fooled. Though this form of sugar may satisfy a sweet tooth, it doesn’t make foods better for you… even when they’re found in health-promoting supermarkets, such as Whole Foods. In the end, according to Dr. Crawford, all simple sugars (even the raw ones) send blood sugar on a roller-coaster ride. These sugar calories add no nutrients and all too often end up replacing healthier foods.

Sweet Solution

Many scientists believe our sweet tooth is innate. In fact, our first food — breast milk — has a sweet taste. Also, sugar seems to enhance mood, and there is some evidence that low serotonin levels even trigger cravings for sweets. Nonetheless, eating too much sugar or HFCS — or worse, both — will take a toll on your health. Limit yourself to a nibble here and there, and balance it with plenty of healthful food and exercise.

Source(s):

Patricia Crawford, DrPH, RD, codirector of the Center for Weight and Health at the University of California, Berkeley.

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Reprinted with the permission of:
Bottom Line Publications/Daily Health News
Boardroom Inc.
281 Tresser Blvd., 8th Floor
Stamford, CT 06901
www.BottomLineSecrets.com