A striking new study published in the journal Obesity suggests that snipping sugar from a person’s diet for just nine days can drastically improve their health.
This study involved swapping the sugar intake of 43 obese children between the ages of eight and 18 with starch.
After a brief nine day period of ‘fructose restriction’, the children’s cholesterol quickly showed improvements, with a significant drop in their insulin levels.
Findings were consistent with all of the participating kids, with great improvements being made according to esteemed Paediatric endocrinologist Dr Robert Lustig:
Everything got better,
These findings support the idea that it is essential for parents to evaluate sugar intake and to be mindful of the health effects of what their children are consuming.
Lustig explains that although findings do not definitively prove that sugar is the only cause for metabolic disease, ‘it clearly demonstrates it is a modifiable one’.
For years, the consensus among many multi-national organisations is that obesity and related diseases are caused by a high calorie intake diet.
However, this significant new study shows that it is not the calories that are particularly dangerous, but rather the unnecessary strain that the sugar puts on the body’s metabolism.
Dr Lustig and his research team ensured that calorie intake was maintained in order to maintain a controlled experiment.
Youngsters taking part in the study stayed the same weight and were even encouraged to eat more if their weight was seen to be dropping.
Sugar has become a pressing policy issue in recent years, with a sugary drinks tax set to be introduced in 2018 with the core aim of tackling rising childhood obesity.
Health campaigners are now pushing for this tax to be extended to confectionary and sweets.
However, Dr Lustig believes that taxing sugar is more about tackling type 2 diabetes than it is about curtailing obesity, making the following statement:
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,
With 5.4% of people in the UK currently suffering from diabetes, more studies are needed to shed further light on the harmful and long-term effects of a sugary sweet diet…
Jules studied English Literature with Creative Writing at Lancaster University before earning her masters in International Relations at Leiden University in The Netherlands (Hoi!). She then trained as a journalist through News Associates in Manchester. Jules has previously worked as a mental health blogger, copywriter and freelancer for various publications.