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It’s Official! A New Study Shows: *EATING SUGAR = GAINING WEIGHT*

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Skinny Lesley

Eating more sugar – be it of the table variety, in sodas, or as syrup – makes you fat!

Okay, so the researchers presenting their findings at the recent American Heart Association’s Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism / Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention 2011 Scientific Sessions couched it a bit more formally, noting that “the increased consumption of added sugars – sugars and syrups added to foods during processing, preparation, or at the table – coincided with weight gain in adults.”  The adults studied were ages 25 to 74 and living in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. They reported what they ate and drank (based on their recall of the prior 24 hours) as part of six surveys of their diet, height & weight which were conducted during six different two-year time periods spanning almost three decades:

• 1980-82 (During this period, the women consumed 9.9% of their total daily calories as added-sugars.)
• 1985-87
• 1990-92
• 1995-97
• 2000-02 (Intake of added sugars leveled off during this period.)
• 2007-09 (Compared with 2000-02, calories from added sugars fell by 10.5 percent, but the overall trend in added-sugars is still up-up-up. Compared with 1980-82, the womens’ added-sugar intake rose from 9.9% to 13.4% of their total daily calories. For the men, added-sugars jumped 37.8% over 1980-82, now comprising a whopping 15.3% of their daily calories. During both time periods, the women’s BMI leveled off, but the mens’ continued to rise.)

Analyzing the results by gender & age group, the researchers found that younger adults downed more sugar than their elders, and the men consumed more added-sugars than the women. Overall, though, for the 27 years that they were studied, all age groups steadily consumed more added-sugars; when their intake of added-sugars trended upward, so did their weight.

“With the information provided, we examined the trends for body mass index [BMI - which measures body weight in relation to height] and dietary intake of foods and beverages with added sugars across the six surveys,” explains Huifen Wang, M.S., a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis & lead author of the Minnesota Heart Survey. “Added sugars consumption increased over 20 years. Although it declined slightly after 2000-02, the consumption of added sugars remained high among the Minnesota residents studied.”

One of the best things about this study – which was funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute – is that, until now, there has been limited hard scientific data available on how BMI is related to sugar. Currently, the American Heart Association advises people to limit their sugar as follows:

• for women: no more than 100 calories of added-sugars/day = 25g sugar (= 5 tsp. of sugar, or about 2 Tablespoons)
• for men: no more than 150 calories of added sugars = 38g sugar (7 tsp. sugar or about 3 Tablespoons)

“It is also not yet clear whether the relationship between BMI and added sugar intake is due to additional calories or the added sugars, per se,” adds Wang [Note: I totally disagree with this conclusion. Why? The amount of calories you consume doesn't really matter, it's how your body processes them that determines if they get burned as metabolic fuel, or stored as fat....In the case of sugar, it's fairly straightforward: sugar = a spike in blood sugar = Insulin = bodyfat.] “Strong scientific evidence is needed to determine whether added sugars intake is related to or promotes weight gain and other cardiovascular disease risk factors. Although other lifestyle factors should be considered as an explanation for the upward trend of BMI, public health efforts should advise limiting added sugar intake.”

Ya think?

(source: American Heart Association; image of sugar encrusted lips – source)

that is confirming everything my mom said in the seventies.

One of the main culprits is Corn Syrup- people drinking two liters of soda a day and eating an entire box of ice cream has serious side effects. One can of soda has fifteen teaspoons of sugar (corn syrup)

People who eat healthy balanced diets have less health problems. But eating healthy is hard in a fast food world where corn syrup is added to everything from hamburgers, bread, pizzas, chips, almost anything processed almost always has corn syrup.  Even things you wouldnt think about like ketchup BBQ and spaghetti sauce.

And as the commercial says sugar is sugar- it's that Corn syrup (high fructise) packs alot more sweetness power per oz than does sugar and it is far cheaper and better suited to mass production.  real sugar has some mechanical problems for food productions- it explodes.  Some of the worst industrial accidents in the Southern USA was from sugar- the sugar can create highly volitile dusts that can be ignited via staic sparks.  So manufatuers would prefer to use the cheaper safer corn syrup.

As far as artificial sweetners go- for every one hundred there is one person who is really sensitive to them like me.  Artificial sweetners cause me to get rashes, itchy throats, and headaches.

So for me- when I want sweet I go for the real thing.  But on the other hand sugar was never my downfall.  Mine was huge quantities of meat and potatoes.

JB

Well I've lost 7 lbs. during my 1st 3 weeks of supervised diet simply by cutting out Coke and candy. It seems like common sense but I guess they have to do studies on everything.