Why Sugar Hacked Science (And Your Health!) by Joan Kent, PhD

Why Sugar Hacked Science (And Your Health!)
By Joan Kent, PhD

The current nutrition buzz is that sugar is bad news.

And it is. The fact that admitting this is seen as a new direction by nutritionists, dietitians and the general public shows how off-base the nutrition field was for such a long time. It even makes the nutrition field appear somewhat ridiculous.

To me, at least. I’ve been blasting sugar for over 20 years, at times getting blasted back for doing it.

But it’s worth tracking the events as they unfolded – you know, so we can blame the culprits who deserve it!

Once Upon a Time, There Was Sugar

If we go back to science journals in the 1970s, sugar was being investigated as a primary health issue. Sugar’s negative effects on health were getting lots of attention. Films were available – and some of them were good. A popular book was written on problems linked with sugar consumption. You might remember it. It was called Sugar Blues, by William Dufty.

Interestingly, Sugar Blues was written before much (if anything) was known about the primary brain chemicals that are triggered by sugar. And way before any connection was made between sugar and appetite, cravings, health, moods, and more.

In fact, it wasn’t till 1975 that endorphin (beta-endorphin) was “discovered.” So the 1974 book was a little ahead of its time. And yet it was quite timely because scientists were occupied with researching the evils of sugar.

That wasn’t good news for the sugar industry. What if their sales dropped? How would they continue to destroy everyone’s health? That did, after all, seem to be their main goal.

It turns out that the sugar industry is a powerful lobby in Washington, D.C.

If you don’t think that food industry lobbyists influence the federal government, an eye-opening book would be Food Politics by Marion Nestle. In the book, Nestle describes the laborious and often frustrating process of developing the original Food Guide Pyramid.

Nestle was working for the USDA at that time and had to deal with daily visits from representatives of the beef and the dairy industries. Their complaints – and the pressure they applied – were a significant factor in the final Food Guide Pyramid that was released in 1991.

Those complaints were the main reason that the original Pyramid was vague and confusing for consumers in several ways. Some years later, it had to be revised for clarification. This is something of a side-issue, but stay with me.

The take-home point here is that the various food industries are the real constituents of the USDA. We, the consumers, are absolutely not. Our health is of far less concern to that government agency than placating its constituents.

Which brings us back to sugar in the late 1970s.

Sugar Devil Spins Fat As the Enemy

As anyone could imagine, the sugar industry didn’t care for the scientific emphasis on the health problems linked with sugar, and it began working its evil.

By 1984, fats had been designated the new Dietary Demon.

From that point until the end of the 1990s – and even beyond – we saw and suffered through the low-fat craze. And a craze is what it was, although it was cleverly disguised as the Right Way to eat.

During that time, several things happened, none of them good – except, of course, for the sugar industry.

First, scientists turned their attention away from sugar and began looking at fats.

They started investigating health problems associated with high-fat diets, saturated fats, red meats, cheeses, and other foods in the Bad Fat category. A new collection of scientific articles was born. The new findings found their way into mainstream media – newspapers, magazines, newscasts.

In 1995, an entire supplement of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN) was devoted to the papers presented at a conference on dietary sugar.

The presenters were hand-selected from a list of researchers whose names I immediately recognized. Those researchers consistently found that sugar had absolutely no negative consequences on health, weight, or anything else – not even cavities.

Do I have to tell you that most of these scientists did research that was funded by companies that make sugary food products?

Here’s the take-away regarding this AJCN supplement issue: After the conference, all companies in attendance (General Mills, Kraft, and other big sugar-users you know) could “legitimately” claim that their reps had attended a scientific conference. A conference where it was conclusively shown that sugar is not a bad ingredient – for any reason whatsoever.

Around the same time, the food industry started creating low-fat and nonfat versions of their products. Conveniently for the sugar industry – but not coincidentally – the product developers used sugar to replace the flavor their products lost when the fat was removed.

One example is cream cheese. The full-fat product contains no sugar, but the nonfat version did and does. I also recall a line of low-fat frozen foods – ironically named Healthy Choice – that added sugar to every product, including soup. Who puts sugar in soup?

Product developers even created artificial fats. Remember Olean and Olestra? (How about the side effects, such as anal leakage? Another side-issue for a different article.)

With all of these low- and nonfat foods becoming popular, dietary fat fell well below the original recommendation of 30%.

That 30% had been endorsed by the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society – until the low-fat craze hit us.

My clinical observation was that protein intake fell, too, especially among women. Protein contains fat – sometimes a lot – so women who were concerned with weight loss just let that go. They started eating carbs, and lots of them.

Low Fat Push Makes Us Sugar Junkies

Recommendations for increased carb intake came from everywhere — including the original Food Guide Pyramid. The bottom tier called for 6 to 11 servings of grains. (The wheat industry pushed to prevent distinguishing whole grains from processed white flour, but again that’s a story for another time.)

The Pritikin Wellness Center suggested diets of 7% protein and under 10% fat, calling for 83% or more in carbs.

My clients’ food logs showed that the carbs they ate instead of fats and proteins were not vegetables, legumes, or root vegetables, but sugars and refined-flour products.

During the low-fat craze, consumption of sugar soared. From 1984 to 1997, the increase in sugar consumption – not total consumption, just the increase during those 13 years – was 25 pounds per person per year.

In part, this increase may have been due to a phenomenon known as the sugar/fat seesaw. The name describes what happens: as one goes down in the diet, the other goes up. When everyone went low-fat, the decrease in fat intake was met by a huge increase in sugar.

The sugar/fat seesaw is acknowledged in science journals but not explained. In my dissertation, I offered a hormonal and neurochemical explanation for it.

During the same time period, consumption of artificial sweeteners and high-fructose corn syrup rose, based on 1991 USDA figures. The Nutrition Action Healthletter reported that in 1996, US sugar consumption had risen again for the 10th consecutive year.

In addition – and it didn’t surprise me – obesity in the US became epidemic. The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention reported that, after 20 years of holding steady at 25% of the population, the number of overweight Americans increased to 33% in the 1980s. Investigators from the Minnesota Heart Health Program couldn’t explain the increase with data on dietary fat.

But they hadn’t yet realized that they should investigate sugar. (As in the 1970s.)

Clearly, the increase in sugar consumption benefited the sugar industry. The obesity epidemic was an unfortunate consequence of their profit-grabbing strategies.

Low Fat Fitness Pros See the Light

At first, the fitness industry jumped on the low-fat train, and I got trapped on it. Throughout the industry, weight-loss guidelines for clients reflected the low-fat dogma. At fitness conferences, attendee goody bags were filled with low-fat, high-sugar “energy bars” and more.

In the early 1990s, I made a presentation to fitness professionals on health problems associated with sugar intake. An angry woman stood up and shouted, “I have the same degree you do” – we both had master’s degrees in exercise physiology – “and you don’t know what you’re talking about!”

In 1995, I was invited to a fitness conference to participate in a panel discussion called “To Eat Carbs or Not To Eat Carbs”. The ‘panel’ included two people: a Pritikin Center researcher and me. It was structured as a debate – and someone definitely wanted me to lose.

I was kept in the dark about it, but the Pritikin guy was in on the plot. He was also positioned to speak second so he could challenge my words with his low-fat Pritikin rhetoric.

Toward the end of the 1990s, a controversy raged. The fitness industry began to reflect some of the controversy. We saw fitness industry publications that warned against carb intake, followed closely by articles promoting “carb loading” prior to athletic events.

Only 3 years after its 1995 pro-sugar supplement, the AJCN devoted an entire supplement to the role of fats and oils in the fight against obesity and metabolic complications. Several articles in it addressed the failure of low-fat diets to effect long-term weight reduction.

Now we’ve come full circle. People are finally realizing the dangers of sugar and high-sugar foods.

Bonus Tip: Stay Aware, Cautious and Skeptical

Because more people know more about nutrition now than at any other time I can remember, I don’t think the sugar industry will be able to bamboozle us with talk of the dangers of fats. Too much research has shown the benefits of certain fats – and the relative harmlessness of the ones we were always told were bad.

Will the sugar industry give up? I doubt it. I fully expect to see a push for the benefits of “sneaky sugars”, the ones that people want to believe are good for them because they offer an excuse to eat sugar.

Those sneaky sugars will include products sweetened with “natural” fruit juice. Or the agave syrup we see everywhere these days. And probably new ones we haven’t seen yet. Are they, will they be, good for you? Please believe me when I say “No!”

What we’re told about nutrition in the US is often not what we should know or do.

Sugar sneaks into our foods and our meals in many ways. It can affect health, inflammation, metabolism, appetite, and moods.

Fructose is arguably the worst form of sugar – there are serious issues with it! Yet people are more reluctant to give up fruit than ever before – it’s the preferred form of sugar for people who want to believe their diets are healthy.

I’ve written book chapters on fruit as the Final Frontier in nutrition health.

I’m passionate about helping you conquer sugar so you can transform your health, stop mood swings, end cravings, and feel better. Get started now by accessing your copy of my #1 international best-selling book Stronger Than Sugar right here.