Tag Archives: sugar

Recent Study Finds Kids Are Eating Too Much Sugar

July 25, 2018

In June of 2018, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study with chilling results regarding children’s nutrition & sugar consumption. The study, presented at the American Society for Nutrition’s annual meeting during Nutrition 2018 in Boston, assessed sugar consumption among children less than 2 years old: the first time that a study had analyzed “added sugar” consumption among children in such a young cohort.

While the American Heart Association already recommends that very young children, under the age of 2, always avoid food with added sugars—including baked goods, candy, sugary drinks, etc.—researchers at the CDC have found that many parents do not follow these guidelines.

Lead study author Kirsten Herrick, a nutritional epidemiologist from the CDC, and her team found that the amount of added sugar increased along with a child’s age: for the children between 6 and 11 months, 61 percent of the sugar in their diet was added sugar; yet by the time children reached between 1 and 2 years old, that amount was even higher. Almost 99 percent of the sugar consumed by those children was added: i.e., not naturally occurring in the food items, and equaled an approximate average of 5.5 teaspoons each day.

The 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for America do not include recommendations regarding “added sugar” for any children under 2 years of age; for children between 2 and 19, the recommendation is a daily limit of 6 teaspoons. Nevertheless, a CDC report confirms that on average, adult Americans consume 19.5 teaspoons of sugar each day—far exceeding the recommended limits.

Excessive sugar consumption is unhealthy for many reasons; while many problems can manifest during childhood, including obesity, cavities asthma, other major health issues such as cardiovascular disease and cancer can occur later in life. Moreover, statistics demonstrate that added sugar is particularly damaging for children, as it sets diet preferences that can ultimately lead them to make poor nutritional choices later in life. And until recently, young children and teens were not diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, yet given the large percentage of American youth that are overweight, children as young as 10 years old are now developing diabetes.

SOURCES
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/toddlers-consuming-added-sugar-study-finds/story?id=55719076
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2018/06/11/toddlers-you-are-eating-too-much-added-sugar-study-suggests/#46c8b82f9508
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db122.pdf
https://www.cdc.gov/features/prevent-diabetes-kids/index.html

Link Between Ultra-Processed Foods & Cancer

February 15, 2018

While ultra-processed foods are not known for their health qualities, new research published Wednesday in the BMJ further confirms the health risks involved in processed products.

Researchers discovered that people who consume more ultra-processed foods–including those with unrecognizable and unpronounceable words on the list of ingredients–demonstrate a higher risk of cancer. While most food is processed to some degree, ultra-processed foods are typically packed with higher calories, increased amounts of sodium, and an abundance of sugar.

Data and findings have long indicated that people who live on ultra-processed food tend to be more obese and overweight, with more cardiovascular problems and difficulties concerning diabetes. Studies have also found a correlation between consumption of processed meat and colorectal cancer.

Researchers located this new cancer link through an analysis of 24-hour dietary records of nearly 105,000 adults in the NutriNet-Sante cohort, a general population group in France. The individuals recorded what they ate from a list of 3,300 food items, which were then categorized by how processed they were–using a system called NOVA.

The scientists found that a 10% increase in the proportion of ultra-processed foods in the diet was associated with a significant increase of greater than 10% in terms of risks for overall cancer and breast cancer. The published study states: “Ultra-processed fats and sauces, sugary products and drinks were associated with an increased risk of overall cancer. Ultra-processed sugary products were associated with an increased risk of breast cancer.”

People who consumed more ultra-processed food also tended to smoke more and exercise less than the others, yet the study’s authors controlled these factors and still found the elevated cancer risk. “It was quite surprising, the strength of the results. They were really strongly associated, and we did many sensitive analysis and adjusted the findings for many co-factors, and still, the results here were quite concerning,” study co-author Mathilde Touvier said.

Unfortunately, ultra-processed occupy a growing part of the globe’s diet. A 2016 study found that 60% of the calories in an average American’s diet come from these types of foods, while a 2017 study confirmed that they make up 50% of the Canadian and U.K. diets. While more of the developing world is starting to eat this way, the authors advise a balanced and diversified diet as one of the most critically important public health priorities.

A balanced and diversified diet should be considered one of the most important public health priorities, the authors advise, by eating real, whole foods and trying to limit ultra-processed items.

Artificial Sweeteners: Tied to Stroke & Dementia

May 16, 2017

A new study published in the American Heart Association’s journal Stroke suggests that artificial sweeteners, found in diet sodas, have considerable health risks for both the body and the brain.

The data was collected from the Framingham Heart Study, a project of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and Boston University, and involved data on 2,888 adults older than 45 and 1,484 adults older than 60 from Framingham, Massachusetts. In the group aged 45-and-older, researchers measured for increased risk of stroke; in the group aged 60-and-older, researchers measured for dementia.

The statistics analyzed how many sugary beverages and artificially sweetened soft drinks each person in the two different age groups drank, between the years 1991 and 2001. That data was than compared against the number of people who suffered from stroke or dementia in the next decade.

Researchers found that—juxtaposed against people who never drank artificially sweetened soft drinks—those who drank one per day were almost three times as likely to have an ischemic stroke. Those who drank one per day were also almost three times as likely to be diagnosed with dementia.

Previous studies have shown a strong association between the intake of sugar-sweetened beverages and a host of adverse health effects, including type 2 diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease. Professor and chair of neurology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine Dr. Ralph Sacco confirms that this article “provides further evidence on artificially sweetened beverages and their possibly effects on vascular health…we believe the pathways of which artificially sweetened beverages would affect the brain are probably through vascular mechanisms.”

Moreover, artificial sweeteners have been shown to cause glucose intolerance in mice by altering gut microbiota, and have been associated with dysbiosis and glucose intolerance in humans. The cumulative research strongly indicates that there is no benefit to using artificial sweeteners, or drinking diet soda, compared to regular sucrose or sugary drinks.

To learn more about the gut-immune-brain connection, and the different ways in which various types of inflammation can affect the body and brain, register for Module VII: Autoimmune Disease & Inflammation, from August 10-12.