Eating too much ‘free sugar’ has 45 negative health effects
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High consumption of added sugar is associated with significantly higher risks of 45 negative health outcomes, including diabetes, gout, obesity, high blood pressure, and more.
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This Oct. 12, 2015, photo, shows peanut butter chocolate chip cookies in Concord, N.H. (AP)
There are at least 45 compelling reasons to limit your intake of added sugar, according to a recent study.
Numerous studies have demonstrated the negative effects of excessive sugar consumption on health, prompting suggestions to limit "free" or added sugar consumption to less than 10% of a person's daily caloric intake.
Nonetheless, according to the study released Wednesday in the journal The BMJ, researchers in China and the United States believed that before developing detailed policies for sugar restriction, the "quality of existing evidence needs to be comprehensively evaluated."
High consumption of added sugar was associated with significantly higher risks of 45 negative health outcomes, including diabetes, gout, obesity, high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, cancer, asthma, tooth decay, depression, and premature death, according to a large review of 73 meta-analyses that included 8,601 studies.
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According to the US Food and Drug Administration, free sugars are those added during food processing, packaged as table sugar and other sweeteners, and naturally occurring in syrups, honey, fruit juice, vegetable juice, purees, pastes, and similar products in which the cellular structure of the food has been broken down.
This group excludes sugars found naturally in dairy products as well as structurally whole fruits and vegetables.
The study “provides a useful overview of the current state of the science on sugar consumption and our health … and confirms that eating too much sugar is likely to cause problems,” according to Dr. Maya Adam, the director of Health Media Innovation and clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine. Adam wasn’t involved in the study.
What is the connection between sugar and disease?
Evidence of a connection between free sugar and cancer is limited and controversial, and more research is needed, according to the study's authors.
The findings could be explained by the known effects of sugar on weight, according to the study: Obesity, which is a major risk factor for many cancers, has been linked to excessive sugar intake. The same is true of cardiovascular illness.
“Added sugar intake can promote inflammation in the body, and this can cause stress on the heart and blood vessels, which can lead to increased blood pressure,” behavioral scientist Brooke Aggarwal told CNN in February.
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Highly processed foods, which can be high in free sugar, have been linked to a rise in inflammation, which is a risk factor for depression. “Whole food carbohydrates take longer to break down into simple sugars, and a part of them — the fiber — can’t be broken down at all,” Adam told CNN in February.
“This means that whole, intact grains don’t cause the same spikes in blood sugar that we experience when we eat simple sugars. Blood sugar spikes trigger insulin spikes, which can destabilize our blood glucose and … be the underlying cause of health problems in the long run.”
