New study on added sugar has implications on the food industry

A STUDY conducted in obese children shows that cutting sugar in the diet has a positive effect in preventing high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and other metabolic changes. To prove so, the study did not change caloric intake or even induce weight loss in the test subjects. It simply replaced sugars with starch to provide the children with the same feeling of satiety.

Fructose reduction in just nine days showed dramatic changes in the children, according to lead study author Robert Lustig, MD, MSL, pediatric endocrinologist at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco. “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,” he said.

The study involved 43 participants with ages between 9 and 18, and of Latino and African-American descent. Their health profile: obese and with at least one other chronic metabolic disorder.

From the children’s diets, sugar was reduced from 28% to 10%, and fructose from 12% to 4%. Starch was substituted to maintain the same fat, protein, carbohydrate, and calorie levels as children’s home diets. For carbohydrates, they were given bagels, cereal and pasta so that they still consumed the same number of calories. They were given store-bought turkey hot dogs, potato chips, and pizza, but they were not given high-sugar cereal, pastries and sweetened yoghurt.

After nine days of this diet, the children felt they were receiving more food although they were consuming the same amount of calories. Their metabolic health 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 Dr 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.”

Dr Lustig was joined by Susan Noworolski, PhD, Viva Tai, RD, MPH, Michael Wen, MS and Ayca Erkin-Cakmak, MD, MPH of UCSF, Alejandro Gugliucci MD, PhD of Touro University and Kathleen Mulligan, PhD of UCSF and Touro University. Their study received funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), UCSF Clinical Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and Touro University.

The research is now online and will be published in the February 2016 issue of Obesity.

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