How Sugar Affects Our Health
IRN
Talking points of the presentation:
Slide 2
The Institute for Responsible Nutrition was founded in 2013 by Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric neuroendocrinologist, out of concern for what he was seeing in his practice: an epidemic of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and type 2 diabetes in children—diseases that didn’t exist in children prior to 1980.
The IRN’s this year merged with the United States Healthful Food Council and its mission is to change the way the food is produced, marketed and distributed with the goal of ending food-related illness and promoting good health. The IRN’s approach is to provide the public with relevant, science-based nutrition information, to inform and equip consumers to demand change from the food industry.
Parents (as consumers) have the power to influence the food industry through how they choose to spend their dollars and by joining initiatives to effect policy change.
At home, parents are role models for healthy eating, but it can be difficult to define good nutrition due to marketing practices by the food industry, nutritional information changing overtime, and conflicting information about good nutrition.
Parents and the PTA are part of the solution to promote healthy eating habits in schools.
Slide 3
Why do we focus on sugar?
In this presentation you will learn about the following:
● Some history about the use of sugar by the food industry- how it all started?
● Where is the sugar in the food we eat?
● How much sugar do we consume?
● What happens when we eat sugar?
● How sugar affects our health?
● What can we do about it?
Slide 4
Lets start with some history:
● In the 1970s, a low-fat trend started after the USDA made recommendations to lower fat in our diet, because fat was thought to contribute to cardiovascular diseases and obesity.
● Food manufacturers responded by removing fat, especially saturated fat, from processed food, but doing so resulted in unappetizing products.
● Manufacturers then added sugar to their recipes to make products more palatable and to prolong shelf life.
● There were other advantages too: Sugar is cheap and profits increased for processed food manufacturers.
Slide 5
What is processed food?
If you walk in a supermarket most of what you see is processed food, in particular a store like a 7-11 that has mostly processed food.
Processed food is anything that comes in a bottle, or a bag, or a jar, or a can, or a box, or a wrapper, and it includes fast food and junk food. Processed food is any food that has been processed and has ingredients that have been added or removed.
Slide 6
Where is the sugar in the food we eat?
We can divide dietary sources of sugars into three categories:
A. Unprocessed, whole foods. Real, natural food is food that has not gone through any processing. Nothing has been added or removed from it. Unprocessed foods that naturally contain sugar are: dairy products and plants (fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts and seeds). Naturally occurring sugars in whole, unprocessed foods are not concerning, because they are bound to fiber, which is the anti-dote to sugar.
B. Natural sweeteners. There are some unprocessed foods that are concerning, and those are natural sweeteners, like honey and maple syrup. Their sugars, while not added by man, are free sugars, meaning unbound to fiber. Free sugars in honey and maple syrup are concerning, because without fiber, they have the same effects in the body as added sugar.
C. Processed food. Processed food is food that has passed through some process to add or take away something from it with the purpose to preserve it, make it last longer, or improve flavor and appeal. At least 74 percent of all processed foods contain added sugar for the reasons mentioned above. Additionally, processing commonly removes fiber from a food. Many processed foods have both their fiber removed (remember: fiber the anti-dote to sugar) and sugar added. Others have added sugar, but the fiber isn't removed. Still others have no added sugar, but their fiber is removed, producing free sugars. The classic example is 100 percent juice. Manufacturers do not add sugar to 100 percent juice, but they remove all fiber from fruit to make juice. The result is free sugar, which again, has the same effects in the body as added sugar.
Slide 7
How much sugar is added?
Naturally occurring sugars in whole, unprocessed foods are not concerning, because they are bound to fiber, which is the anti-dote to sugar.
In plain sight: High content – 40 percent or more
Beverages: sodas, sports drinks, fruit juices, energy drinks, coffee and tea drinks, and alcohol; Desserts: ice cream, cake, pastries, cookies, popsicles, Jell-O, etc.
Masquerading as “health foods”: smoothies, preserves, and flavored yogurt.
In hiding: Lower content ~10 percent
Processed foods you might not suspect: canned foods (soups, beans, etc.), salad dressing, pasta sauces, ketchup, cereals, granola, pizza, cured meats, packaged bread, peanut butter, macaroni & cheese, etc.
Slide 8
It gets difficult to find added sugar in processed food, because the food industry disguises it as many different names—up to 56 names! Here are some of them.
Slide 9
How much sugar are we eating?
The average consumption of sugar per person per year has increased form ~40 pounds a year in 1950 to 90 pounds per year presently!!
Slide 10
How did we get to 90 pounds of sugar per person per year?
One of the major contributors to this increase has been the increase in portion sizes of sugary drinks and foods.
Before 1960 the available soda size was only 6 to 8 ounces. Presently we have soda size up to 44 ounces!! Per drink went from~5 teaspoons to 32 teaspoons!!
The hamburger went from 333 calories to 590 calories but you might be thinking where is the sugar there? In the bun, the ketchup and the cheese.
Slide 11
In addition to the increase in portion size there is added sugar in most processed foods even in some that you would not expect like spaghetti sauce!
Lets look at these examples. Just for reference since this graphic shows grams of sugar, a teaspoon of granulated sugar is equivalent to 4 grams of sugar. Also the serving sizes shown here may be less than the serving sizes most people eat. You can see how easy is to consume large amounts of sugar without noticing.
Let’s try something. Think of a meal you had yesterday either lunch or dinner and think about if there was anything that you ate that had or might had added sugars.
Slide 12
Hello I am Dr Sweetstuff
C’mon, lighten up! Sugar is your friend
Translation: sugar is good for business!
Don’t blame sugar – just eat less and exercise more
This is a myth, it is not that simple.
A calorie is a calorie folks – get over it!
Another myth, our body needs a balanced good nutrition to be healthy and not just 2000 calories a day regardless of where they come from.
Imagine life without sugar! It’s no fun.
There was a time when dessert was special. That was fun! Today we can eat dessert many times a day and that is not fun anymore.
Sugar is a nutrient you know!
Myth you can survive without eating any added sugar.
Sugar comes from plants. It should be part of a healthy plant-based diet!
Not all products from plants are healthy: Nicotine for example
Slide 13
How about fruit juice? It is healthy, right?
If you eat one medium orange, you would be consuming 3 tsp. of sugar and 3.1 grams of fiber.
On the other hand, if you drank an 8 ounces glass of orange juice, you would be consuming about 10 teaspoons of sugar and no fiber!
Why is fiber important? Remember: fiber is the anti-dote to sugar. FIBER is our “health ally.” Fiber slows the adsorption of sugars and helps us feel full therefore we eat less.
Would you eat 3-4 oranges at once? Probably you would not.
Additionally, large container sizes of juice promote consumption of more than just 8 ounces.
Slide 14
All cells in our bodies use a sugar called glucose for energy. We commonly get glucose from food, but glucose is so important our body will make it if we don't eat it.
All natural sugars and starchy foods are natural sources of glucose. Processed food is an adulterated and major source of glucose, with its added sugars and free sugars.
When we eat added sugar or free sugar it gets broken down by digestion into glucose and fructose. Both of these sugars are absorbed into the bloodstream.
Glucose acts as a signal to the pancreas to produce insulin. Insulin is a hormone that transports glucose into cells for use as energy. When we eat too much sugar, there is an excess of glucose in the blood and insulin has to be produced in large amounts. When that happens, insulin escorts glucose into fat cells. If this happens chronically, obesity develops.
In addition, a high insulin level prevents another hormone, leptin, from doing its job. Leptin normally tells our brain that we are full and should stop eating, thus producing satiety. When insulin is high, the brain doesn't get leptin's message, and so the eater doesn't feel full or satisfied by the meal and eats more than they normally would.
Another consequence of high insulin is that cells of the body that normally respond to it start ignoring it (much like the villagers ignored the boy who cried wolf). This state of high insulin with cells that aren't receptive to it is called insulin resistance, a major contributor to metabolic disease.
Producing excess insulin is exhausting to the pancreas. Eventually, the pancreas can't keep up with the amount of insulin that needs to be produced to manage the amount of glucose in the blood and compensate for insulin resistance. Glucose, therefore, remains too high. Chronically high blood glucose then results in type 2 diabetes.
Fructose, the other half of sugar, goes to the liver to be metabolized. The liver is the only organ in the body that can metabolize fructose. When fructose is absorbed in large quantities (after consuming added sugar or free sugar), the liver gets overwhelmed and converts fructose to fat. This fat makes the liver fatty (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease), makes the liver insulin resistant (further contributing to the development of diabetes), and contributes to the development of cardiovascular disease by increasing cholesterol and triglyceride levels and producing uric acid, which causes hypertension.
Slide 15
What is metabolic disease?
● Diseases that develop when the body metabolizes food to fat. Processed food with excessive amounts of sugar is a major contributor to metabolic disease.
● Diseases include: type 2 Diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, cardiovascular disease, polycystic ovary disease, some cancers, and some dementias. There are also risk factors for diseases that are metabolic in nature, including insulin resistance, high cholesterol, high triglycerides, high blood pressure, and obesity.
● Metabolic diseases account for 75 percent of all diseases.
● Up to 40 percent of normal weight people have the same diseases of obesity.
● Obesity is a type of malnutrition.
● These diseases could be prevented and reversed when eating properly.
Slide 16
How can we avoid the sugar overload? Yes, there are strategies that we can use:
● Eat whole, natural foods, not processed foods.
● Eating whole fruits limits the intake of sugar naturally, because whole foods contain fiber that fills us up and slows down de absorption of sugars.
● Whole, natural foods are high in fiber and low in sugar - vegetables, legumes, grains, and nuts.
● Processed foods are low in fiber and high in sugar. Read the label if sugar is the first or second ingredient think of your liver and pancreas!
● Avoid sugary beverages including fruit juices and sweetened milk!
● Limit desserts to a special treat once a week.
● Eat regularly and eat fruits or nuts as snack.
● Join the 10 Day Real Food Challenge!
Slide 17
Here is a graphic that might help you start.
Here we have 18 packages of 5 pounds of sugar (90 pounds) per person per year.
Approximately 7 of those packages of sugar come from sugary beverages – Eliminate them!
Cutting sugary pastries and sugary cereals in half will count for 4 packages.
Eliminate non-fat salad dressing and fruit-flavored yogurt, and that will count for 3 more packages
18 - 7 - 4 - 3 = 4 packages or 20 pounds of sugar or a reduction of 70 pounds of sugar per person per year.
Slide 18
Let’s not be sugar donkey’s!
Slide 19
But, can we eat any sugar at all?
● According to the American Heart Association the maximum daily amount of added sugar we should eat is:
● Man - 9 teaspoons or 36 grams per day - ~30 pounds per year
● Women - 6 teaspoons or 24 grams per day - ~20 pounds per year
● Children - 3 teaspoons or 12 grams per day - ~ 10 pounds per year
Which is difficult to achieve with the foods we have available.
For example, one cup of low-fat vanilla yogurt has 34 grams of total sugar. Of the total sugar, 19 grams have been added while 15 grams are naturally-occurring in milk (derived by comparing total sugar of sweetened yogurt to total sugar of unsweetened yogurt). That's nearly 5 teaspoons of added sugar, which exceeds the AHA’s daily limit for children and nearly exceeds the recommendation for women!