According to the esteemed medical journal “The Daily Telegraph”, sugar has been exposed as a poison which is slowly killing us[1].

“FORGET fat, salt and carbohydrates – sugar has been branded more addictive than heroin. It is slowly killing us. // While foods high in fat were once accused of increasing our waistlines, experts said it was foods high in sugar, such as cereals and yoghurts, that are making us fatter and more prone to long-term illness.”

The article is right.  Fat was once touted as foods hidden assassin.  Then it became carbs when the Atkins craze hit.  Now its sugar.

Then pretty soon, people will get bored with this fad, and some other “expert” will publish some book that find a new health demon to exorcise.

The problem is that these fads are narrow minded and overly sensationalist.  Everything is bad for us in some degree.  Change the article slightly and you see how ridiculous this fad reporting becomes.

Oxygen is exposed as a deadly addiction that turns us to rust. // Forget fat, salt and carbohydrates – oxygen has been branded more addictive than sugar. It is slowly killing us.

While foods high in fat were once accused of increasing our waistlines, experts said it was breathing oxygen in the air that is causing free radicals to form in our cells.  Free radicals cause oxidative damage, just like rust on iron.

Oxidative damage leads to increased rates of aging of our cells, experts say.  The faster we age, the sooner we die.  Experts say that reducing oxygen intake can add years to our lives, if we can just break our oxygen addiction.

Ahbig Stoog said breaking the oxygen addiction wasn’t easy, but it was worth it.  “I’ve never felt healthier”, said Mr Stoog.

Sorry, but sugar is just one of a long line of fads to come and go.  The Sweet Poison book was written by a lawyer, David Gillespie.  I like lawyers, but understanding law doesn’t give you a degree in biochemistry.  I was at a conference where Professor Rosemary Stanton (nutritionist and biochemist) and Mr Gillespie both spoke.  Stanton tore him apart.

But it’s not just my opinion.  This has been tested scientifically by a group in Adelaide, their work published in 2009[2].  They compared the weight loss effects of two diets over a year, an extremely low carbohydrate diet (like that espoused in the Sweet Poison Quit Plan) and a standard low-fat diet.  The extreme low carbs diet contained 4% of the energy intake as carbs compared to 46% as carbs for the low fat diet.  Importantly, both diets were equal in the calories consumed.

If the sweet poison hypothesis is correct, and sugar alone is responsible for weight gain/loss then the extreme low carbs diet would show significant weight loss to the low fat diet.  If, on the other hand, weight loss is moderated by total calories consumed, no matter what the make up of the diet, then the weight loss for the two diets would be about the same.

The result of the study is bad for Mr Gillespie’s credibility, because both groups lost approximately the same amount of weight (Low Carbs: 14.5 +/- 1.7 kg; Low Fat: 11.5 +/-1.2 kg; P = 0.14).**  The results mirror those of an earlier study by the same authors, using slightly different diets, but again showing that diets of a similar calorie intake result in the same amount of weight loss[3].

The point is, fad diets come and go.  The diet that works is one that is calorie controlled.  People on zero-sugar diets lose weight because they consume less calories.  Any diet that works is because people consume less calories.

A balanced, low calorie diet has been pushed by nutritionists and doctors ad nauseum for decades, but consistently neglecting words like “poison”, “toxin” or “death” has meant that the message is nowhere near as stimulating as the current whim.

If you feel compelled to cut every ounce of sugar from your diet then fantastic.  You will lose lots of weight, and I commend that.  But don’t kid yourself.  Sugar isn’t a poison.  It’s just another fad.

References:

1. http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/sugar-is-exposed-as-a-deadly-addiction-that-turns-sweet-life-sour/story-fni0cx12-1226686558161
2. Brinkworth, G.D., et al., Long-term effects of a very-low-carbohydrate weight loss diet compared with an isocaloric low-fat diet after 12 mo. Am J Clin Nutr, 2009. 90(1): 23-32.
3. Noakes, M., et al., Effect of an energy-restricted, high-protein, low-fat diet relative to a conventional high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet on weight loss, body composition, nutritional status, and markers of cardiovascular health in obese women. Am J Clin Nutr, 2005. 81(6): 1298-306.

** Some people may wonder why I stated that the results of the study showed a similar weight loss, yet the numbers I quoted showed that the low carb diet had a weight loss of 14.5kg compared to 11.5kg for the low fat group.  How can weight loss of 3kg be “the same”?  The answer lies in the P value, a statistical measure of the strength of the evidence.  A p-value of greater than 0.05 shows that the difference in the groups could have been the result of chance.  For more explanation on the P value: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/what-a-pvalue-tells-you-about-statistical-data.html