Imagine having to show ID to buy a doughnut.
According to a team of San Francisco researchers, sugar is an addictive toxic menace that should be regulated in the same way tobacco and alcohol are controlled.
“Authorities consider sugar as ‘empty calories’ — but there is nothing empty about these calories. A growing body of scientific evidence shows that fructose can trigger processes that lead to liver toxicity and a host of other chronic diseases,” Dr. Robert Lustig and public health experts Laura Schmidt and Clair Brindis wrote in the paper published this week in the journal Nature. “A little is not a problem, but a lot kills — slowly.”
The researchers say that abundance of sugar — often in the form of high fructose corn syrup — now found in the processed foods that make up a growing part of the global diet leads directly to a host of chronic health disorders such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity.
“We are in the midst of the biggest public health crisis in the history of the world and nobody even gets it,” Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California at San Francisco, said in an interview.
Americans now eat and drink 22 teaspoons of sugar every day on average, three times what they consumed 30 years ago, according to the researchers. And they say that excess amount is altering human biochemistry, essentially making people addicted to what the research team regards as a toxic substance.
In order to kick the sugar habit, the paper offers a number of suggestions, including the implementation of age restrictions for the purchase of sugary drinks, and laws limiting children from buying candy and the like from convenience stores during after-school hours.
The researchers also want the Food and Drug Administration to strip sugar of its current designation of “generally regarded as safe,” and lay down limits for how much sugar can be added to a given product.
But many experts aren’t buying it.
“This is social engineering at its absolute worst,” Justin Wilson of the Center for Consumer Freedom said. “To suggest that Americans should be carded when they try to buy a soda or a snack is not only outrageously absurd, but an ineffective solution to slimming Americans’ waistlines.”
Industry groups were also quick to slam the paper.
“We are confident that the American people are perfectly capable of choosing what foods to eat without stark regulations and unreasonable bans imposed upon them,” the Sugar Association said in a prepared statement.
Aware their proposals will be viewed by critics as a “nanny state” overreach of government, the study authors were quick to point out their goal is to try to dial back the dangerous amount of sugar that has become the norm thanks to processed food.
“We’re not talking prohibition. We’re not advocating a major imposition of the government into people’s lives,” Schmidt told the San Francisco Chronicle. “We’re talking about gentle ways to make sugar consumption slightly less convenient, thereby moving people away from the concentrated dose. What we want is to actually increase people’s choices by making foods that aren’t loaded with sugar comparatively easier and cheaper to get.”
“Everyone talks about personal responsibility,” Lustig told the Chronicle, “and that won’t work here, as it won’t for any addictive substance. These are things that have to be done at a governmental level, and government has to get off its ass.”
According to a team of San Francisco researchers, sugar is an addictive toxic menace that should be regulated in the same way tobacco and alcohol are controlled.
“Authorities consider sugar as ‘empty calories’ — but there is nothing empty about these calories. A growing body of scientific evidence shows that fructose can trigger processes that lead to liver toxicity and a host of other chronic diseases,” Dr. Robert Lustig and public health experts Laura Schmidt and Clair Brindis wrote in the paper published this week in the journal Nature. “A little is not a problem, but a lot kills — slowly.”
The researchers say that abundance of sugar — often in the form of high fructose corn syrup — now found in the processed foods that make up a growing part of the global diet leads directly to a host of chronic health disorders such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity.
“We are in the midst of the biggest public health crisis in the history of the world and nobody even gets it,” Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California at San Francisco, said in an interview.
Americans now eat and drink 22 teaspoons of sugar every day on average, three times what they consumed 30 years ago, according to the researchers. And they say that excess amount is altering human biochemistry, essentially making people addicted to what the research team regards as a toxic substance.
In order to kick the sugar habit, the paper offers a number of suggestions, including the implementation of age restrictions for the purchase of sugary drinks, and laws limiting children from buying candy and the like from convenience stores during after-school hours.
The researchers also want the Food and Drug Administration to strip sugar of its current designation of “generally regarded as safe,” and lay down limits for how much sugar can be added to a given product.
But many experts aren’t buying it.
“This is social engineering at its absolute worst,” Justin Wilson of the Center for Consumer Freedom said. “To suggest that Americans should be carded when they try to buy a soda or a snack is not only outrageously absurd, but an ineffective solution to slimming Americans’ waistlines.”
Industry groups were also quick to slam the paper.
“We are confident that the American people are perfectly capable of choosing what foods to eat without stark regulations and unreasonable bans imposed upon them,” the Sugar Association said in a prepared statement.
Aware their proposals will be viewed by critics as a “nanny state” overreach of government, the study authors were quick to point out their goal is to try to dial back the dangerous amount of sugar that has become the norm thanks to processed food.
“We’re not talking prohibition. We’re not advocating a major imposition of the government into people’s lives,” Schmidt told the San Francisco Chronicle. “We’re talking about gentle ways to make sugar consumption slightly less convenient, thereby moving people away from the concentrated dose. What we want is to actually increase people’s choices by making foods that aren’t loaded with sugar comparatively easier and cheaper to get.”
“Everyone talks about personal responsibility,” Lustig told the Chronicle, “and that won’t work here, as it won’t for any addictive substance. These are things that have to be done at a governmental level, and government has to get off its ass.”
