Hello everyone.
Dr Chuma here. Today’s topic is another listener request, but this time, the listener was not my mother! I was asked to talk about sugar. Is sugar bad for us? Which kinds are the safest? Are zero-calorie sweeteners better? All good questions and hopefully I can shed some light.
Traditional table sugar comes from processing sugarcane or sugar beets. It’s an ancient commodity, one of the world’s oldest, and continues to be traded worldwide.
Table sugar is white because the refining process removes impurities and a brown syrup called molasses, leaving behind pure sucrose. Brown sugar is simply not completely refined sugar with some molasses left behind. Sucrose is a double sugar molecule, a di-saccharide and is made up of 2 simple sugars bound together, the mono-saccharides glucose and fructose.
Consuming some sugar is not inherently bad. There is no question that primates, including humans, evolved craving sugar and fat since these macro-nutrients, primarily sugar, are our sources of energy. Only in recent centuries has the availability of food become more predictable but for 99% of our evolution, we were trying to eat and gather food just in case the supply disappears. Sweet foods were traditionally very healthy since they came from fruits and vegetables, which were also loaded with water, fiber and various micro-nutrients like vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals. But most sweet things we eat today are far from healthy, and we consume way too much.
Processed sugar consumption has been stable throughout history, but consumption has increased dramatically in the last few centuries with a massive jump just in the last few decades. In the 1700’s, people consumed around 4 lbs a year. By 1800, it jumped to 22 lbs. Today, we consume on average 17 teaspoons of added sugar every day, approximately 60 lbs annually. This is more than 3 times the recommended daily allowance, which is an unhealthy level to begin with. And if you include all the modern industrialized processed foods which account for 60% of most peoples diet, the average American consumes a whopping 180 lbs of sugar every year.
Sugar-sweetened beverages are the most responsible for today’s sugar consumption, accounting for 35% of it. The bulk of this is from soft drinks, with the average American drinking about 40 gallons annually. Other sources include fruit drinks like orange or apple juice which are just as unhealthy as sodas, sport or energy drinks and other other beverages like coffee, tea, Kombucha and iced tea. Even a glass of milk has half the sugar of a Coke or Pepsi.
Desserts and snacks like cookies, pastries and ice cream account for 20%.
Candy supplies 10% followed by sandwiches and breakfast cereals at 7% each.
Other hidden sources like tomato sauces and salad dressings account for the last 20%.
You must read labels. Sugar has 50 different names and aliases. Most manufactured foods contain multiple types of sugar. This is done intentionally so that less of each individual sugar type can be added and be listed lower on the ingredients label. But if you added all these up, sugar as a whole would often be the #1 ingredient.
Today, humans’ perception of what is naturally sweet has been distorted by the massive amount of sugar we consume. It has been further distorted by the artificial sweeteners which can be as much as 17,000x sweetener than plain table sugar. This distortion affects our brains and how we perceive sweetness.
Common artificial sweeteners include:
- Aspartame, which is Equal or NutraSweet, is still the most popular artificial sweetener, despite the clear links to cancer and neurodegenerative diseases and is 200x sweeter than sugar
- Saccharin and Sucralose, which are Sweet’N Low and Splenda, and are 600-700 x sweeter than table sugar
- Stevia, the most popular natural sweetener processed from the leaves of the stevia plant, is also 200x sweeter than table sugar.
When you consume less sugar, your perception of sweetness changes over the course of a few weeks. First, your taste buds on your tongue and mouth lining are replaced every 7-10 days. Secondly, there is a process called sensory modulation, which leads to an adjustment to the perception of sweetness which takes about 2 weeks. The same apple, for example, tastes sweeter after a few weeks of reducing sugar intake.
The most common reason people need liver transplants today is not alcoholic hepatitis as it used to be, but fatty liver disease which is primarily driven by the consumption of sugar and fat. It’s estimated that at least 25% of Americans have this condition, not too surprising since 75% of Americans are overweight or obese. Fructose is particularly impactful on fatty liver disease. It is twice as hard for the liver to metabolize than glucose.
Most people are aware of the dangers of industrially produced high fructose corn syrup, but it is only 45% fructose, essentially the same as table sugar. Natural forms of sugar like honey and agave from cactus are not much better. Honey is 40% fructose and agave is 85%.
Sugar stimulates the brain and creates addictive cravings, the same way heroin, gambling, shopping and tobacco do! It acts on the same dopamine receptors, the reward receptors in the brain. In fact, if you give someone who craves sugar a shot of Narcan, the drug used to reverse a drug overdose, their drive for sugar goes away. When someone says they have a “sweet tooth”, they are basically saying they are addicted to sugar.
Sugar is 8-10x more addictive than cocaine and tobacco. Famous musician and known heavy heroin user Eric Clapton attributed his drug addiction to his childhood addiction to sugar. Sugar was his gateway drug. Sadly, baby food formula has had a doubling of added sugar in the last decade. Why? Simply put, to addict babies to sugar as soon as possible.
Switching to 0 calorie sweeteners does not help. There is no study that shows any weight loss or fatty liver reduction when people are switched to them. In fact, the opposite is true. They gain weight and liver disease continues.
Artificial sweeteners fool the brain into thinking that you actually ate something caloric resulting in more insulin being secreted. Insulin, which is secreted when you eat, is not just a sugar storage hormone, it also triggers fat storage and it’s also a growth hormone.
Lastly, all sweeteners, be they natural or artificial, impact negatively on the gut microbiome and our gut represents 70% of our immune system. Artificial sweeteners cause leaky gut, breaking down the connections between the cells lining the intestines, allowing undigested foods to enter the bloodstream leading to allergic and inflammatory reactions.
The safest, natural processed sugars are date powder, maple syrup, which is concentrated maple tree sap, and molasses, which is boiled down sugar cane or beet juice.
But overall, you should try to get away from added sugars. Enjoy whole, unprocessed foods and the natural sweetness they provide.
Until next time.
Stay safe and be well.