More proof that eating sugar is bad for your health

Many studies in the past 10 years have shown how eating less sugar will lead to weight loss in people who are obese. This Forbes story regards new research by Dr. Robert Lustig of UCSF:

A new (study) in the journal Obesity goes a little further by trying to tease apart the difference between cutting out sugar and losing weight. It argues that sugar isn’t bad because it makes you gain weight. It’s bad because it brings about other, more sinister changes to the body – metabolic changes that are distinct from weight. ...“This study definitively shows that sugar is metabolically harmful not because of its calories or its effects on weight; rather sugar is metabolically harmful because it’s sugar,” said study author Robert Lustig. “This internally controlled intervention study is a solid indication that sugar contributes to metabolic syndrome, and is the strongest evidence to date that the negative effects of sugar are not because of calories or obesity.”

Dr. Lustig showed this by examining what the effects of a sugar-free diet would be over nine days without having his obese test-subjects lose weight. The only control variable was the absence of sugar. They did not go on a calorie restrictive diet or increase their levels of exercise:

At the end of the nine days, the kids’ metabolic parameters did shift significantly: Their average diastolic blood pressure decreased by 5 mmHg; their triglycerides were lowered by 33 points; their LDL (“bad”) cholesterol went down 10 points; insulin levels were reduced by a third, and fasting glucose and liver function tests improved. “All of the surrogate measures of metabolic health got better, just by substituting starch for sugar in their processed food – all without changing calories or weight or exercise,” said Lustig. “This study demonstrates that ‘a calorie is not a calorie.’ Where those calories come from determines where in the body they go. Sugar calories are the worst, because they turn to fat in the liver, driving insulin resistance, and driving risk for diabetes, heart, and liver disease. This has enormous implications for the food industry, chronic disease, and health care costs.”