All that 'sweet poison'

| Friday April 5, 2013 00:00

Is sugar perhaps a 'sweet old friend' that is secretly plotting your demise? In a shocking revelation, researchers at the University of California have found that sugar contributes to 35 million deaths a year worldwide!

Science has now shown us, beyond any shadow of doubt, that sugar in your food in all its myriad of forms has a devastating toll on your health. The main culprit here is refined sugar. Evolutionarily speaking, we were given a taste for the substance as way of encouraging consumption of highly nutritious fruits.

However, sugars found in fruits are naturally occurring, unlike in refined sugars. Furthermore, our bodies are not designed to effectively process refined sugar, its presence being a relatively recent development.  A few days ago, a friend recommended I view a video on You Tube which had gone viral three years ago. This wasn't a music video with rappers and gyrating bimbos or some zeitgeist political conspiracy.  The video features a paediatric endocrinologist giving a biology lesson on high-sugar diets. The lecture, 'The bitter truth' by Robert Lustig, director of the University of California's Health Programme and Professor of Paediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, received a whopping 2.9 million views.

Lustig followed it up with a book, Fat Chance; Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Foods and Disease. The book details his vehement charge against our biggest delight but also worst seemingly dietary enemy - sugar. Is this just another alarmist stunt perhaps? Maybe not. According to Lustig, processed food is detrimental in that in its simple element as fructose, it gets converted into liver fat which can prevent the liver from processing insulin, and this may lead to insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome that puts you at a higher risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke.

'Studies indicate that when we produce excess insulin as a result of high sugar diets, the insulin prevents leptin (a hormone that helps control appetite) from telling our brain that we have taken enough energy. We then have cravings, but crave the tasty food which creates a vicious cycle,' he states. Sugar is loaded into many foods - from soft and energy drinks and juices to condiments like sauces, salad dressings, spreads to fast foods and even your old favourite white bread and flour.  The health effects of too much sugar in the diet have been well established and well known for many years now. However, back then, it seemed the only worry was about sugar rotting your teeth, getting diabetes and gaining weight. Although the dentistry and obesity risk aspects are just as serious, they pale in comparison to the long-term impact on mental health (depression and schizophrenia) which have been linked more comparatively recently.

Among all the negative physical effects of sugar, we also now know that sugar is actually addictive and ages you as it breaks down collagen in the skin. The addiction is just as bad as that of someone who is hooked on narcotics, alcohol or hard drugs - you always need a fix! Try to entirely steer clear of sugar for two weeks - will you manage?

Effects on mental health?Well-known British psychiatric researcher, Malcolm Peet, has reported results of a cross-cultural analysis of the links between diet (and sugar intake) and the presence of mental illness. Chief among his findings was that there is a strong association between the amount of sugar that is consumed and the risk of both depression and schizophrenia. His finding claims point to at least two ways in which consumption of refined sugar can have a negative effect on mental health: inflammation and suppression of a key hormone.

Sugar consumption promotes inflammation throughout the body. Over the long run, chronic inflammation degrades the body's immune system, which can have numerous negative effects on the brain, some of which are connected with a heightened risk of depression and schizophrenia. The growth hormone in question is brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Sugar consumption suppresses the activity of this hormone that promotes the health and maintenance of neurons in the brain and plays a vital role in memory function by triggering the growth of new connections between neurons. There's also evidence from animal models that low BDNF can trigger depression.

Secondly, sugar consumption triggers a cascade of chemical reactions in the body that promote chronic inflammation. Under certain circumstances (like when your body needs to heal a bug bite), a little inflammation can be a good thing since it can increase immune activity and blood flow to a wound. But in the long-term, inflammation is a problem as it disrupts the normal functioning of the immune system and wreaks havoc on the brain. Apart from depression and schizophrenia, inflammation is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and even some forms of cancer.

However, according to Dr Davu of Sbrana Mental Hospital in Lobatse, a psychiatrist, sugar is fine if taken in moderation.'Carbohydrates, and sugar is one, are good for you as they increase energy level,' he says.'However, higher intakes require an active person. If you are sedentary, it becomes a problem because it will be stored as fat - high quantity hypoglycemeria, which leads to obesity.'

Dr Dawu disputes that mental disease can be attributable to sugar. 'Sugar can influence metabolic disorders, not mental illness,' he argues. 'What could possibly happen is that when someone has low blood haemoglobin or bica, they crave all sorts of substances, which explains why some people eat soil. In such cases, we recommend establishing the cause of the low blood sugar. It's imperative to rule out compulsive disorders, which may have led to the person craving or desiring high intakes of sugar. However, from my studies and research, sugar does not have a direct effect of causing mental illness. So this is relatively new research I am not familiar with.'

But how much is moderate sugar intake? Dr Davu noted that two to three teaspoons of sugar per cup of tea is fine if the beverage is taken moderately. 'As with all things, too much of anything is bad for you.'Indeed, lest you rue your days of unconscious sugar indulgence, this 'sweet devil' is also an essential fuel for cells and energy metabolism and can be critical to survival. But this is when sugar is taken in its unrefined state. It seems limiting intake is the best bet because the more sugar you eat, the more effective your body is in absorbing it; and the more you absorb it, the more damage you'll do as you become 'sensitised' to sugar and sensitive to its toxic effects as well.

According to Dr Lustig, the flip side is that when people are given a brief 'sugar holiday,' sugar sensitsation rapidly decreases and metabolic pathways become 'down regulated'. Dr Lustig emphasises that the solution is to eat more fibre and less sugar because for every molecule of sugar you absorb, you can either burn it or store it. But because of increasingly sedentary lifestyles, nowadays, it often gets stored.

Still, even two weeks without consuming sugar will cause your body to be less reactive to it, Dr Lustig says. So perhaps take a month-long sugar sabbatical and watch how you feel!