Sugar has always been toxic to our bodies: Changing your lifestyle
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Is there sugar in that drink? We as coachas can tell when kids have been drinking or eating sugar. My godfather worked for U.N's W.H.O. and 30 years ago used to fight against sugar, as sugar, he said, was "a poison to the body". The sugar industry won and not much was done against it, causing a well-known health crisis in the western world.
Now some U.S. researchers have started arguing again that sugar is so toxic that it should be taxed and slapped with regulations like alcohol.
In a commentary published in Wednesday's issue of the prestigious journal Nature, doctors from the University of California, say that rising global rates of major killers such as heart disease and Type 2 diabetes aren’t caused by obesity as commonly thought. Instead, obesity is a marker for those health problems, and sugar is the true culprit.
Dr. Robert Lustig, Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis: "We recognize that societal intervention to reduce the supply and demand for sugar faces an uphill political battle against a powerful sugar lobby,"
Measures such as smoking bans in public places, the use of designated drivers and the addition of condom dispensers in public washrooms were also battlegrounds that are now taken for granted for public health, the authors said in calling for sugar regulations.
They suggested:
Dr. Arya Sharma, scientific director of the Canadian Obesity Network says "I don't think we can bring the whole question about obesity down to a simple substance like people eating too much sugar," The discussion is valuable, but no one knows what the unintended consequences of regulating sugar might be..
"Changing lifestyle is more about changing your life than your style," "We have to ask ourselves, are we prepared to change our lives?"
Is there sugar in that drink? We as coachas can tell when kids have been drinking or eating sugar. My godfather worked for U.N's W.H.O. and 30 years ago used to fight against sugar, as sugar, he said, was "a poison to the body". The sugar industry won and not much was done against it, causing a well-known health crisis in the western world.
Now some U.S. researchers have started arguing again that sugar is so toxic that it should be taxed and slapped with regulations like alcohol.
In a commentary published in Wednesday's issue of the prestigious journal Nature, doctors from the University of California, say that rising global rates of major killers such as heart disease and Type 2 diabetes aren’t caused by obesity as commonly thought. Instead, obesity is a marker for those health problems, and sugar is the true culprit.
Dr. Robert Lustig, Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis: "We recognize that societal intervention to reduce the supply and demand for sugar faces an uphill political battle against a powerful sugar lobby,"
Measures such as smoking bans in public places, the use of designated drivers and the addition of condom dispensers in public washrooms were also battlegrounds that are now taken for granted for public health, the authors said in calling for sugar regulations.
They suggested:
- Taxing "added sugar" — any sweetener containing fructose that is added to food in processing, including sugar-sweetened beverages and sugared cereal.
- Controlling the location and density of fast-food outlets and convenience stores around schools and offering incentives to open grocery stores and farmers' markets.
- Limiting sales during the school day or designating an age limit to buy drinks with added sugar.
Dr. Arya Sharma, scientific director of the Canadian Obesity Network says "I don't think we can bring the whole question about obesity down to a simple substance like people eating too much sugar," The discussion is valuable, but no one knows what the unintended consequences of regulating sugar might be..
"Changing lifestyle is more about changing your life than your style," "We have to ask ourselves, are we prepared to change our lives?"
