Should overweight people drop sugar or should they focus instead on eating less fatty food? by Tanya Zilberter, PhD Thanks to the low carbohydrate-dieting trend, sugar consumption is on the decline in developed countries, while world sugar production has risen steadily creating huge marketing problems. Can a study conducted by biased organisations be unbiased? Thanks to the low carbohydrate-dieting trend, sugar consumption is on the decline in developed countries, while world sugar production has risen steadily creating huge marketing problems. There is the International Sugar Organisation is an international studying the $8 billion a year world sugar market. Its represents 56 countries and 55 percent of world sugar consumption. Another international organisation, the Carbohydrate Management in European Nationals, showed that "[E]ating sugar is not just a vital part of an active lifestyle but also a way to control body weight and cure obesity," the International Sugar Organisation said. Yet another sugar organisation, the Sugar Bureau, (Dolphin Square, London) in the article " Guidelines for sugar consumption in Europe: Is a quantitative approach justified?" concluded: "Evidence showed that higher intakes of sugar were related to leanness, not obesity." An unbiased researchers (Medical Statistics, University of Leeds, UK) investigated individuals participated in the 1986ñ1987 Dietary and Nutrition Survey of British Adults. They excluded from the results those participants who were on calorie-restricted diets. Their conclusion was quite different: "The results suggest that among women the consumption of high fat sweet products may be a factor in understanding obesity. Furthermore, the observation of high consumption of these foods among obese women is consistent with measured preferences for these high fat sweet foods." The whole truth is that high availability of glucose results in fat sparing! Glucose is absolutely preferable fuel and as long as it is there for energy needs, the body doesn't bother looking for anything else, fat including, be it food fat or body fat. This explains well why high fat diets are so infamous for their detrimental health effects. An excess fat intake combined with even not necessarily high, but just sufficient carb intake makes the body fat stay where is has always been - in fat depots, plus some new from food. As it actually happens in vast majority of epidemiological studies. Epidemiological studies deal with large massifs of data when there's no control upon the data. For example, the famous Nurse Study where hundreds of thousands of nurses were surveyed through decades. The researchers make all kind of slices across the data, e.g., comparing reports on fat intake with heart disease risks and coming to the absolutely correct conclusion that these two positively correspond. What is missing is the carbohydrate intake factor. Maybe there are data on carb intake in those surveys, but the researchers don't expect them to be relevant and therefore don't look at them. That simple. Meanwhile, this sad picture is not observed when high fat intake is combined with low carbohydrate intake. This time, low availability of glucose forces the body to pursue alternative fuel and this time this fuel is fat. Including body fat. Sources: European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, July 1999, vol. 53, no. 7 pp. 503-513 International Journal of Obesity, November 1998, vol. 22, no. 11 pp. 1053-1061 People who read this article also read: ADA Position: 'Sweetness can add pleasure to eating' Total intake of sugars in the US is up to 22% of total energy intake ARE YOU EATING ENOUGH CARBOHYDRATE? See the full list of articles on this site.