Sugar and Your Health

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to food Stuff. I'm Lauren Vogelum and
I'm any Ries, and we are your hosts. And uh,
today we're talking about something that is completely horrifying, historically
and modernly. Sugar. Yea, yea if I'm ruined that cupcake
you were just about to shove into your mouth. I

(00:29):
definitely started researching this while eating a cupcake and then
felt really bad about my entire life. I was eating
a piece of cake, which I think you guys probably
have seen. It's a little short promo we did. Yeah,
we definitely we didn't explode a piece of cake, but
we exploded some things on top of a piece of cake. Yes,

(00:51):
we may or may not have disconnected the fire alarm.
Maybe maybe it's certainly if there's anyone from any federal
agencies involved listening to this, we can neither confirm nor
deny any kind of action to that extent. And the way,
how dare you? And the flames were really only like
a foot high, so it was fine. Um, But yes, sugar,

(01:13):
in addition to being horrifying, it's also like biologically an
essential substance in our diets. I mean, cupcakes aren't really,
but sugar itself. Um, because because our selves breakdown sugars
and other carbohydrates to generate chemical energy, which is probably
why UM. A lot of animals, like like humans and
rats and dogs and other living things are are primed

(01:35):
to detect and to enjoy sweet foods. Yes, and boy
do we enjoy them. We do. They're delicious. Do you
have a sweet tooth? Any? Are you more of a
you know? The funny thing is I used to not.
I was when I was a kid on Halloween, I
would go around and get the best Halloween candy and
I would sell it over the next couple of weeks
and I'd make a nice profit off. That's amazing, young entrepreneur. Yeah,

(01:59):
but when I got a college, something kicked in and
now it's baked good. So those are like, oh yeah,
number one downfall. I've I've always had a sweet tooth
for like everything, it's it's great, is it? Nope? Let's
let's get the like the like basic definition and science

(02:19):
out of the way here. So when when we say sugar,
what are we talking about? We're generally referring to refined
white granulated sugar also called sucros or table should not
fruit sugar. The kind that naturally occurs and foods. Sucros
is a soluble carbohydrate, and like all carbohydrates, is composed

(02:42):
of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, and it's a dice accharide,
or the product of two monosaccharide sugars. Fructose and glucose
clump together, which for practical purposes means that when your
body deals with sucros, it has to break those compone
it's apart before it can use it. There are lots

(03:02):
of naturally occurring sugars other than sucros um lactose and galactose,
which are milk sugars UM, the aforementioned fructos found in
honey and some plants, maltos from barley, et cetera, UM,
and they all have slightly different chemical properties like that
the number of carbon and hydrogen and oxygen atoms and
differences in the way that those atoms bond. But but

(03:23):
basically chemically speaking UM in chemistry speak, as Annie I
think wrote in the notes, um sugars come with the
suffix ose. So if you're looking on those food labels
and you see an oase, it's a sugar. Yeah, Yeah,
it's likely UM. As far as the etymology goes. The
first written use of sucros comes to us from an

(03:43):
English chemist, William Alan Miller in eighteen fifty seven Elements
of Chemistry Party, and is derived from the French word sucra. Yes, um,
sugar is mainly used for flavor, pretty obvious, but it's
also you in preserving foods and fermentation um, and for
its chemical properties and like candy making and baking and

(04:05):
stuff like that. And like we said earlier, we love
this stuff. The USDA forecast that one seventy four million
tons where we produced in seventeen, with Brazil being the
largest producer, and BCC Research a which which is a
market research company, projected that the value of the industry
will be worth about eighty two billion dollars this year.

(04:26):
So yeah, so we'd so we dig sugar. Yeah, let's
ruin it for you. Yeah, sugar does not dig us
is kind of the problem. Nope, And you've probably heard
a lot about this lately. It's kind of a popular
topic of discussion and science right now. Yeah, especially surrounding
I think that there's a lot more public discussion of

(04:47):
high fructose corn syrup than of actual like sugar. Sucrose
table sugar sugar, But but both are pretty chemically similar. Um,
the differences between the two and how our bodies handle
them is kind of complicated, but but basically both are
made up of fructose and glucose. It's it's about a
fifty mix in sugar and about a fifty mix and

(05:11):
high fructose corn syrup. Hence the high fructose part, and
our bodies processed fructose and glucose differently based on a
whole bunch of complicated factors, some of which we'll get
into a bit here, But most of the health concerns
revolve around around added sugars. Yeah, adding sugar to food
hand significantly raise the calories and doesn't have much in

(05:33):
the way of nutritional value, and it doesn't make you
feel any fuller. Okay, sure, but really, how much of
the food that we eat can possibly contain added sugars?
Of the products in the United States food supply contain
added sweeteners, so so a bunch a bunch of them
can According to the World Health Organization, you should be

(05:56):
getting less than ten percent of your daily color take
from added sugars, and ideally less than five percent five percent.
According to the American Heart Association, equals about six teaspoons
grams are less a day for women, and nine teaspoons

(06:16):
are thirty six grams a day for men. Okay, can
you put that into perspective for us? Absolutely? I can
came with an example just for such a question. Um,
to put that in perspective, Lauren, A single can of
Coca Cola has thirty nine grams of sugar, so you've
already surpassed the repmmended amount in one drink. Most Americans

(06:37):
consume about twenty two teaspoons of added sugar a day,
and that on averages sixty pounds per year when specifically
in two thousan eight. But that's that's a pretty good
average ish number. It's been going down slightly in recent
years due to some new regulations and new awareness of
this kind of added sugar. But but yeah, it's it's

(06:59):
almost four times him the World Health Association slash American
Heart Association recommended amount. And and that's that's in America.
And just kind of side note, we will be talking
about America through most of this episode because that's where
we live. Um, but we should mention that this problem
is not confined to America. According to the World Health organization.

(07:22):
Few populations around the world fall under the ideal five
percent of daily calories being from added sugar, and lots
of populations range from the ten to twenty that we
are hovering at the top end of. Right, we like
to win team we're the best. Actually, I think I
think Portugal is narrowly beating us out. Good good job, guys,

(07:46):
I would have guessed the United Kingdom. No offense. But
it's just just processed foods places where processed foods are
pretty common. For a while. If we look at the
main health concerns that we had about sugar an excessive
sugar in take, mostly what you heard was tooth decake
and hyperactivity. Tooth tooth decay still pretty solid. Yes, there's

(08:11):
there's some size to back that up, for sure, Brush
you teeth kids. But about hyperactivity, yes, I remember reading
an article about this a couple of years ago, and
it seems like there's been more research on it since then.
The hyperactivity aspect, or the so called sugar high sugar
buzz uh, it's probably not because of sugar. It's the

(08:34):
sugar might enhance something that's already there. But when we
think of kids going wild because of sugar at parties,
it's probably more the party and the excitement of the
atmosphere that's causing the perceived hyperactivity, or or possibly the
fact that, like chocolate and sodas are caffeinated. Right, sometimes

(08:54):
halfine will totally give you a buzz, But the sugar
itself it While it might help in aunts something that
already exists, it's probably not for the average kid actually
making them hyper, So that a side side. We now
know that sugar can lead to more serious health complications,
potentially including cancer, but for sure obesity and the plethora

(09:18):
of health stuff that can come from obesity, like heart disease,
non alcoholic fatty liver disease, and type two diabetes, none
of which is good. Sugar is a leading cause of
obesity and both children and adults, because, like we said earlier,
it doesn't make you feel full, so you're gonna keep

(09:40):
eating it. Plus you probably really enjoyed it, so you're
gonna keep eating it. Uh. And while you keep eating it,
there's a massive release of dopamine in the brain's reward center,
way more than most food that we can find in nature,
and that means that it can be in quotes a

(10:01):
more more on that later. It's it's a complicated issue,
and we've got some some actually really interesting science to
share with you about it. It's much easier and I
can attest to this to lose control and over eat
with sugar because you aren't getting fuller and your brain
is getting stimulated with that sweet sweet though for me,
that's the way to go. Body not doing us any favors.

(10:25):
And two thousand paper I've found in the Lancet looking
at the relationship of sugar, sweet and drinks and childhood obesity.
Of the eight children who drank a daily serving of
a sweetened beverage beverage excuse me, the link between increased
risk of obesity and sugar was sixty percent. Recent studies
indicate that heart disease, the leading cause of death in

(10:48):
the US, and long blame nonsaturated fats, may actually be
caused by sugar and the havoc at reads, not metabolism.
Some other studies show consuming copious amounts of fruit toast,
which is part of makeup of sucrose exiode earlier, can
spike up the levels of triglycerides, which are fats in
the blood. Right blood glucose and insulin, as well as
increasing abdominable abdominable abdominable obesity, obdominal obesity and only ten

(11:16):
weeks UM and and these are all symptoms of something
called metabolic syndrome, which is a set of bodily happenings
that are a major risk factor for heart disease and
diabetes UM. In a in a normally functioning body, what
happens is you eat food and then your body breaks
down some of that into glucose. When the glucose enters

(11:38):
the blood stream, your body secretes insulin, which carries glucose
to cells to make energy happen. But when there's a
lot of glucose in the blood for a long time,
your cells start ignoring insulin. It's it's like ignoring a
delivery driver, like we've got enough, No thanks, were chill here. Um.
So your dumb body then goes like, oh, there's still
all this glucose in the blood stream, better release some

(11:59):
more in lenn delivery drivers, which exacerbates the problem and
the cells ignore the insulin even harder. UM. This this
is called insulin resistance, and it can lead to a
few things that you do not want. It can overload
your pancreas, which is your insulin producer, that the cell
is responsible for producing insulin get worn down and start
dying off, which leads to type two diabetes UM, in

(12:23):
which case you need to start taking doses of insulin
in order to get glucose into your cells so that you,
you know, continue living. That's kind of like Firstly, Secondly,
when there's spare glucose in the blood, your cells converted
to fat, which leads to to like bad fat accumulations.
The that the LDL stuff, which can in turn contribute
to heart attack and stroke. Interesting interesting side note UM

(12:46):
fascinating morbidity. UH. A study that was recently published in
the Journal of Clinical Investigation found a single protein that
they think regulates both fat synthesis and insulin signals, and
the over activity of that protein they think is what
causes insulin resistance in the first place. So so I mean,

(13:09):
I mean, it's it's good. It's good to find things out.
Maybe they can help that protein out in the future
and do stuff with it. UM science marches forward. Indeed,
UM other things that are bad. Having too much glucose
in your blood is bad news over the long term.
It can cause damage to organs like your kidneys or
your eyes. It can cause nerve damage and even at
a certain point necessitate amputation, because like if you've got

(13:34):
nerve damage and poor blood circulation going on at the
same time, you know, like like if you're if you're diabetic,
you might develop a sore on your foot not notice
it due to nerve damage that leads to complications, complications
and you wind up needing to amputate bad times. And
that is just glucose another factor in the development of

(13:54):
insulin resistance. Maybe the consumption of fructose, which you'll remember
is half of refined sugar in a little bit more
than half of high fructose corn syrup. Unlike glucose, which
is broken down by every cell in your body mostly
just your liver processes fructose in in lab rats, taking
in a whole bunch of fructoes from added sugars prompts
the liver to turn the fructose into fat in the liver,

(14:17):
that the same way that the rest of the cells
in your body would do with with glucose, which in
the liver helps lead to insulin resistance. And even if
it does not, I mean, we we don't have studies
that say that it does that for sharing humans yet.
But even if it doesn't, it definitely stresses your liver out,
which is bad times. Yeah, your liver's got enough problems,

(14:39):
it really does. Um. The link between sugar and cancer
is more tenuous, but having obesity, diabetes, or metabolic syndrome
are all associated with an increased risk of cancer. Um.
Of course, there are a lot of factors at play
with developing cancer, but one of them is that insulin

(15:00):
us promote tumor growth. Cancer cells get their growth fuel
from insulin, just like your body cells do. So the
more insulin you've got floating around, the better tumor could grow.
And that concludes our bad news section on the health
of your body. Uh. Coming up, we've got more bad news. Uh.

(15:27):
But but this is this is partially psychological bad news.
So so that's nice um and silver lining it you guys,
this is this is a fascinating and deeply disturbing episode
that I hope you're enjoying. Also, hey, speaking of fabulous transitions,
let's uh, let's pause for a moment for a word

(15:49):
from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,
thank you sponsor. Now back to that addiction thing we
were talking about earlier. Yes, yeah, I remember reading recently
ish that headline said sugar and cereals was just as addictive. Ask, okay,

(16:16):
what does the science say about sugar and addiction? Well, well,
a two thousand seven review of the literature called Evidence
for Sugar Addiction, Behavior and Neurochemical effects of intermitted excessive
sugar intake. That's quite a title. Guest tested this by
looking at studies involving four addictive behaviors and rats binging, craving, withdrawal,

(16:42):
and cross sensicitation. That was not correct. Cross sensitization yes,
I can't even speak English, I try, uh, And this
is becoming sensitized to a simil or substance a K gateway,
TRU gateway drugs. And they found that in specific scenarios,

(17:08):
mainly binge like scenarios mixed with periods of deprivation, some
of the rats became dependent on sugar, and that they
were able to demonstrate all four of these addictive behaviors
in the rats. The adaptations and neurochemistry resemble that of
psychostimulants and opiates, but on a bit much smaller scale.

(17:28):
The review did point out that addiction is a term
around which there is still allowed debate uh, and that
this is often used synonymously with dependence, which they're not
necessarily the same thing. It's worth checking out. Something that
stood out to me is that in one study they
mentioned rats who were given intermittent access to sugar and

(17:50):
then they had that access cut off, they consumed nine
more alcohol and average, And in the back of my
brainers like, so they're giving the rats alcohol and sugar.
It's a great weekend for the rats. Probably it probably
isn't um that that study in particular was testing that
gateway drug factor with sugar and alcohol. UM. The idea

(18:12):
of being that if you give an animal one addictive
drug for a while and then deny them it, they'll
react more strongly to a newly introduced addictive drug, like
like a like a dose of sugar or amphetamine, for example,
that wouldn't affect a rat that had been given no sugar,
would make a sugar deprived rat hyperactive and also make

(18:33):
it consume more of of the new drug. UM. So
it's it's really interesting and kind of scary that this
plays out with sugar as the base drug, even if
even if the effect wasn't as strong as would be
for something like cocaine. Right review titled eating addiction rather
than food addiction better captures addictive like eating Pavier, that's

(18:56):
the whole title. Um As the name suggests proposed that
the name food addiction and sugar addiction falls under that umbrella.
Was misleading because the data we're working off of is
so new and more accurately refers to addictive eating behavior
um As Opposed to the last review paper we were
talking about, which only covered animal studies, this one covered

(19:16):
both animal and human studies, so ups for it. Right,
And part of the argument here is that the brain
is complicated, y'all, and the reward system gets triggered whenever
you eat anything thanks to the drive to survive and
all that sugar was singled out in the study as
something that comes with a set of pleasing environmental factors

(19:37):
those birthday parties we talked about, and that the pleasurable
association with sweets in your brain can lead you to
seek out these empty calories even when you're not hungry.
The more you eat a food, the less dopamine response
you get to it, unless you're going to have to
up your intake to get that same feeling, which sounds

(19:58):
a lot like building a tolerance. Me high fat and
high sugar foods are like a party in our brains.
You're right, the reward center is going wild, shooting off fireworks.
And these used to be difficult to find, if not
pretty much non existent in nature, but now they're everywhere
that like pretty much the whole center of the grocery

(20:21):
store essentially, and so they're easy for us to get
our hands on, and they're super rewarding, which does lead
us to seek them out more, or at least to
want to seek them out more, and does increase our tolerance.
But that isn't quite addiction. One of the main problems
this review had with previous studies is that the use

(20:42):
of a single food provided to the rats is a
bit of a stretch to extrapolate to human eating habits
and choices, which frequently those those studies are dealing with.
So eat these brownies rats. Yeah. Also, since I enjoyed
from this study quote, compared to cocaine, rats are less

(21:03):
motivated to work for a chocolate drink. Deep Insight Science
inter rats um. The review um talks um about the
potentially addictive properties of other foods than sweet foods, but
it does specifically point out that more research is needed

(21:25):
to determine whether the withdrawal behaviors seen in studies with
rats and sugar could indicate behavioral addiction rather than substance addiction. Right. Um,
And it points out that studies with rats and sugar
in which some rats were kept bored and others were
given enriched environments, the entertained rats didn't hit the sugar

(21:46):
is hard, which suggests that it's a It's a more
psychological addiction than a physical addiction, since another behavior can
provide similar similar stimulation to eating. Right. I think we've
all heard that before that um, a lot of eat
when they're bored. Totally. I do that all the time.
I try to do it less than I want to. Right.

(22:07):
It's always in the back of my mind. I could
be eating, Do I need to be? Should I be?
Probably not. We've also I'll probably heard that people, Um,
you can get addicted to the behavior around a thing,
like I hear this from people who smoke that almost
just the act of like the lighter, like after coffee

(22:28):
or after a meal or even coffee. I'm like a
complete almost like addicted to the ritual around it just
as much. So there's definitely something there, I think. Yeah,
there's there's no huge consensus on the addictive properties of sugar,
is what we're saying. But but it's it's probably both
physical and psychological at least a little, right, Yeah, kind of.

(22:53):
It's not cocaine. You're you're cereal is not Your cereal
is not cocaine. Don't don't worry, So don't dont don't
worry unless you're unless you're putting cocaine in your cereal, which, yeah,
I don't know why you're doing that. Yeah, Well, when
you're when you're looking into to all of the science
behind sugar and behavior and addiction and stuff like that,

(23:14):
there's a name that you will probably run into a
whole lot, right, That of Dr Robert Listick, who works
in San Francisco's University of California's Pediatrics department. He and
his colleagues have written books and papers claiming that sugar
is not just bad for you, but toxic. Yeah. He
also has a YouTube video of a lecture he gave

(23:38):
that's over an hour long and has millions of views,
which is pretty impressive. He conducted a study on forty
three African, American and Latino youth from ages eight to eighteen,
and he gathered information about their dietary habits and designed
individual nine day menus for each to match the average
amount of calories they consumed on a daily basis. And

(23:58):
then he switched the sugars in their diets for starch
without sugar eat equal calories. Though yes, equal calories, the
calories remained the same, they just got rid of the sugars. Uh.
And over the nine days, the participants weighed themselves and
if they were losing weight, they were instructed to eat
more of the provided food to maintain weight. Okay, okay.

(24:20):
The study found that when sugar was reduced to less
than ten percent of daily caloric intake, fasting blood sugar
fell by the fat and the liver decreased, production of
insulin decreased, tried and glycerized declined. So the point of
this study, um, and what it seems to suggest is
that the high number of calories alone in sugar and

(24:44):
all the health implications that come with that don't account
for the impact sugar has on our bodies, and that
sugar itself and not obesity, which is the main point
is the cause of some of these health problems, and
and they really did sifi sugar that the diets included
like and he said, lots of starches and also processed

(25:05):
foods like um. Examples that listed gave where things like
um exchanging turkey hot dogs in for a kid's usual
chicken tarayaki, or or a bagel instead of a pastry.
And he argues that because these diets were far from
ideal and the participants measures still got better in such
a short time, that we really should be concentrating on
the sugar factor here. Some experts argue that since this

(25:28):
study relied on self reporting, there's always a little bit
of doubt. Sure, there's some wiggle room in there. Yeah,
it's also a relatively low number of participants in the
cut Horns true that the results aren't necessarily reliable and
that it detracts from the overall health concerns surrounding over
consumption and obesity, but Lusted contends that we can't dismiss

(25:51):
that sugar, which is relatively new to our bodies evolutionarily speaking,
is more harmful than previously thought. Yeah, well, is that
all the bad as we have? Lauren Um, It's certainly
not one one question. Um that that kind of begs

(26:14):
itself when we're discussing all of this, is is how
I mean? Like like if this was new to you,
dear listener, as it was new to me, Like I
mean like I knew that like sugar is bad. But
but I but I didn't know these types of facts
about it. Uh, you know, look like why hasn't medicine
figured out before now that sugar is bad? Like like,

(26:35):
why is it taking studies being conducted in in this
are fresh new twenty one century to figure this stuff out.
Part of the reason for that is coming up after
one more ad break. So so why why do we
eat so much sugar? Why is it in the foods

(26:57):
on American shelves? Why? I don't mean, why haven't we
figured out more about it before? Now? Do I smell
a conspiracy? It's it is a conspiracy. Oh, no, food conspiracy.
Here's here is where it gets crazy. Um Okay, So,

(27:18):
with all these scary health implications, you might be thinking
about purging your pantry and promising yourself to be more
mindful about your sugar and take. But that is probably
easier said than done, especially and given how many different
names there are for a lot of sugar on nutrition labels.
Speaking of, if you look at a nutrition label, you'll
notice that sugar is different from everything else on there,

(27:41):
and that it doesn't have a percent daily value number
next to it. What's up with that? The sugar industry
don't do? Aren't you shocked? No, we could, We could
probably do like several episodes in a row about about

(28:02):
all of the ins and outs of this of this drama.
But we'll give you like kind of sort of the
cliff notes version, right. Okay, So in nineteen twenties America,
you didn't see her here that much about heart disease,
which is a key player in all of this. Yes,
But over the next few decades it became more and
more common, culminating in when President Dwight Eisenhower had a

(28:26):
heart attack and in a public statement, the president's physician
said the key to avoiding heart disease was one quit
smoking and two cut back on fats and cholesterols. SATs
and cholesterols. Yes. To back up this advice, the physician
pointed to the research of nutritionists and Zel Keys, who

(28:48):
was a pioneer of this nutrition advice. Most of us
are familiar with now of avoiding fats like butter, red meat,
and eggs because it'll clog up your arteries. Uh. And
Eisenhower took those advice to aren't too soon uh and
stopped eating saturated fat completely until he died of heart
disease in nineteen six. Apparently it didn't really work. American

(29:12):
doctors listened, and the danger fat posed shaped our views
on health and diet, despite the fact that it didn't
apparently work out in this one very famous case. Right, Okay.
Nutritionists in the UK, we're not as convinced. They were,
led by the author of the nineteen seventy two book
Pure White and Deadly, John you Can Okay. Through various

(29:35):
studies and observations about how the liver process sugar before
it entered the bloodstream, you Can grew more and more
convinced that instead of fat, sugar was to blame for
heart disease. Another reason he thought this was was because
fat had always been a part of our diet, whereas
sugar was new to the scene. Back in the US,
and o'key is called you Can a hack and his

(29:57):
research propaganda on off of big meat and dairy. Aside
from professionally disagreeing with each other. The two apparently like
really didn't like each other. Yeah, and I also hear um,
I don't hear I read that you can was kind
of shy and didn't really like to speak publicly, whereas

(30:18):
Antel Keys was very charismatic. Yeah, so he was just
better at getting the public on his side. There's a
similar story in um in uh what's the word that's
not anthropology paleontology that word, yes, with with the with
the brontosaurus, which I guess we can't really talk about
on this show because they're not food aside from the flintstones.

(30:41):
But it's a pretty good there's a pretty good brain
Stuff episode about it if you if you want to
go check out that video. I do very interested anyway, Yes,
Brontosaurus aside. The British Sugar Bureau also attack you Can,
and the World Sugar Research Organization called his book si
acience fiction goodness, which is pretty harsh. Meanwhile, Keys rose

(31:05):
up the nutrition and health ranks in the US, from
the American Heart Association to the National Institutes of Health,
and to back up his claim that fat was the
real culprit, he kept citing a study he and some
of his colleagues conducted on the diets, lifestyles, and health
of over twelve thousand middle aged men from seven countries
that showed a correlation between fat intake and heart disease.

(31:29):
But as you might, yeah, this wasn't the most scrupulous study,
the primary problem being that the seven countries were chosen
by Keys as once he knew would support his hypothesis.
And on top of that, there was no control group,
no way to pinpoint saturated fat as the cause when
it could be one of the hundred plus things that

(31:52):
make up the diets and lifestyles of folks. And in fact,
the studies lead researcher went back to the data several
years later and conclud who did, that sugar was more
closely correlated with heart disease than fat. There was no
follow up study, of course, to corroborate keys blame fat
battle cry, but nevertheless, the damage was done. Doctors told

(32:15):
patients that fat and cholesterol were bad, and it didn't
help that fat also means fat as an oboues. Yeah. Yeah, words, man,
they matter. Doctors surveyed and still believe this, by the way,
Oh yeah, this this was all made even worse um
by the sugar industry itself, right, because you better believe

(32:39):
they did not waste any time to capitalize on and
encourage the vilification of fat sugar refineries started what eventually
would become the Sugar Association in response to World War Two,
rationing pamphlets telling Americans they don't even know gosh darn sugar,

(33:00):
which which at the time was a good political message
like save that sugar for soldiers overseas, but the Sugar
Association was not gonna have it. By seven, the Sugar
Association had its own pr division called Sugar Information, Inc.
And one of their first ad campaigns hailed sugar as

(33:22):
a weight loss products. These were These were some serious campaigns.
Association started out with an annual budget of what would
be three point four million in today's dollars, and that
was funded by sugar brands like Dixie and Domino and etcetera. Um.
They were they were paying doctors and nutritionists and food

(33:45):
and drink companies to help propagate their message. And we
have we have evidence of this where I mean not
us personally, but but but the world at large. We
didn't do investigative journalism here, were merely reporting memos from
the Sugar Association dating back to nineteen sixty to demonstrate

(34:06):
the Sugar Association's top brass We're aware of a possible
correlation between sugar and heart disease. But to them this
was small potatoes because many Americans had made the switch
to diet drinks sweetened with not sugar, big problem for
the a k A. Artificial sweeten nurse right and their

(34:27):
share of the soft drink market. The artificial sweeteners share
of the soft drink market jumped up from four percent
in nineteen three to in nineteen which is pretty solid growth. Yeah, totally,
so is a response. Ye. Also in nineteen s the
Sugar Associations started the International Sugar Research Foundation or i

(34:49):
s r F to combat what they called false claims
about the detrimental effects of eating sugar. And they poured
money into this as well, examinating, examinating, examinating, examining every
possible health downside of using artificial sweeteners. One of them

(35:10):
s like lowmates, cyclamates. I'm gonna say cyclamates, cyclamates. I'm
I'm pretty sure it's not like LaMonte. Uh. They were
banned in the US and nine nine when a study
found a correlation linking them to bladder cancer, something that

(35:30):
later was dismissed. The m I s r F vice
president and research director at the time, John Hickson, would
later work for the Cigar Research Council. Good, good, dude,
all around. The Cigar Research Council is an organization that
says it's smoking is basically fine. M Yeah, so he
cut his teeth. Sugar moved up. Okay. The I s

(35:53):
r F would eventually get sacharin banned to another artificial sweetener.
So you've got to admit, we're pretty effective their jobs.
They were moving and shaken. Yeah. Um. Confronted with mounting
evidence that sucros was a factor in athers clerosis, that's it,
thank you. The Sugar Association wanted to shift the focus

(36:17):
of America's health concerns to absolutely anything else, and that
something else was saturated fats. So in nine edition of
the New England Journal of Medicine, there was this review
paper out of Harvard's Department of Nutrition. It was led
by Frederick Stair and funded in part by companies like
Kelloggs and Coca Cola, and in part by the aforementioned

(36:41):
I s r F. So you know it was on
the up and up. It pointed the finger at fat
for being a direct cause of coronary heart disease. The
publication did not disclose the sugar industries funding of the study,
you know, nor that the International Sugar Research Foundations that
objectives for cantributed content to and received drafts of the paper.

(37:04):
And and this was huge, Okay that the New England
Journal of Medicine was and is a premier journal and
review papers which compiled data from a lot of different
scientific studies. Review papers are really widely cited. So by
using such a paper to suggest that prior studies linking
sugar to negative health effects were problematic, no matter how
good they actually were, and and then simultaneously holding up

(37:26):
studies about fats negative effects, no matter how bad those
studies were, they were able to shape the discourse with
this one paper about both sugar and fat for decades
to come. Um, there's there's a really amazing paper about
the history of all of this in the November issue
of the Journal of the American Medical Association, which is

(37:47):
worth the read if you have access to it. And
Frederick Stare, that's not the last you're going to hear
of him, but he would go on to testify about
sugars positives to Congress and compile a document funded by
the industry of scientific evidence, loosely using that word. They're
um exonerating sugar titled Sugar in the Diet of Man,

(38:11):
and the press release accompanying this document read Scientists to
spell sugar fears uh. Nine seventies, ads from the sugar
industry said things like, quote, if sugar is so fattening,
how comes so many kids are thin? And and here's
my favorite. This was from a women's magazine, Um, I
believe it, Ran and Marie Claire quote, sugar can be

(38:34):
the willpower you need to under eat, which is almost
the opposite of what we're here now. It's it's also
just awful, like like, don't discourage, don't don't encourage women
to under eat. That's goodness, my okay. But they were
but they were being vastly rewarded within their own industries

(38:55):
for this kind of behavior. In nineteen seventy six, in fact,
one of the highest awards in the realm of public relations,
the Silver vill was presented to executives from the Sugar
Association for quote forging the public opinion get it at
anvils forging. I'm just like doing the research, horrified that

(39:21):
puns went right over my head. Coincidentally, that same year
Stairs Frederick Stairs conflicts of interests were exposed. It didn't
matter though. An f d A committee with two members
that had ties to the sugar industry used Stairs sugar
in the Diet of Man paper to label sugar as

(39:42):
generally recognized as safe, which is an actual thing. That's
a category I think grass, which is funny because that's
fat and French. Anyway, they conceded that maybe it wasn't
great for the teeth, but other than that it was
a okay. There were detractors, mainly the U s d

(40:04):
A's Carbohydrate Nutrition Laboratory, who advocated that sugar consumption should
come down by sixty percent, that it didn't, and that
it did excuse me cause diabetes, obesity and heart disease.
But they were ignored. And all of these shenanigans, like
weren't even the first time that the sugar industry had

(40:27):
gotten up to some serious shenanigans. Nope, sugar refiners campaigned
for scientific standards to differentiate between raw and refined sugar
and pushed successfully for purer quotes raw sugar to be
more heavily taxed. Um, there are a lot of taxes

(40:50):
and tariffs around sugar. I did not know this. Yeah, yeah,
And it leads to the fluctuating politics of It leads
to fluctuating prices and sugar, which is a another fascinating
little bit of history for a whole other episode, right,
which we have researched, and you will get to hear

(41:10):
sometimes sometimes yes, yes, first the scary stuff, then the
other terrible scary stuff. I think we should This should
be a horror podcast. Food horror, food horror. Man. We
could do it too, yeah, we could. So. Basically, by
getting these tariffs on raw sugar, it was a way

(41:32):
to make sure that they rained over the sugar market
in the United States. But the EU has done this too,
and also Japan. I believe, um they One of the
ways that they went about this refined sugar was by
running ads that showed insects living inside raw sugar and

(41:55):
claiming that raw sugar caused quote Grocer's Itch rosters that
slaves in China and India were producing sugar tainted with
dirt and animals. Uh. And they did all this to
convince the American public that raw sugar was just not
for them. Stick to that with fine stuff. I feel
like that that the marketing these days for raw sugar

(42:17):
is like, oh, it's more natural than this dirty, chemically
influenced refined sugar. The pendulum is definitely swinging in the
other direction. Okay. The i s RF your National Sugar
Research Foundation, they did look at the health implications of sugar,

(42:39):
but they were encouraged to keep any findings under apps.
I The way I read this was they wanted to
be aware so that if it somehow became public knowledge,
they would like know how to fight it. They would
know how to fight it. And also I'm sure that
they thought, maybe if there's a way we in combat

(43:01):
this problem without anyone ever figuring out it was a problem. Two,
So they did want to know. The sugar industry did
want to know these problems. They don't want everyone to. Uh.
Knowledge is good. I'm glad that they like knowledge for themselves.
And after the bad press from people like you Can,

(43:23):
the I s r F proposed research programs to delve
into the effects sugar hat on health, and the Sugar
Association responded, of course, by pulling support from the I
s r F and all their research projects. Dang Naturally,
they directed that money to seventeen studies conducted from nine

(43:45):
eight designed to absolve sugar under the guise of properly
conducted science, so they're kind of like pseudo studies. A
panel of sugar friendly scientist and a committee of quote
contributing research members. This committee was staffed by representatives from
companies like Coca Cola or Hershees, and they approved all

(44:09):
the research proposals, with the most money awards going to
studies that didn't just absolve sugar but painted it in
a positive light. So of course the scientists are going
to try, did you get the more money by painting
sugar in an even more positive light? Give us give
us an example of one of these shining examples of humanity. Okay,

(44:32):
absolutely um. They recruited a diabetes expert, Edwin Bierman, a
fellow who actually believed that diabetics did not need to
worry about sugar so long as they were healthy, and
convinced the American Diabetes Association to loosen the restrictions on
carbs and sugars, but to raise them unsaturated fats. Since

(44:55):
I just kind of like slammed this dude, I don't,
I don't know. Edwin Bierman p simally, Um, it's possible
that he was just deeply misgiven. Yeah, it's and earnestly
thought that this was great advice and that he was
doing the best thing for human people. I don't, it doesn't.
I don't know. Y'all. People make mistakes, That's all I'm saying.

(45:17):
They do. Anyway, So Edward Berman, we'll give you the
benefit of the town. We will, yes, because we're nice
that way. Um. Research on the potential negative impact of
sugar halted almost completely by nineteen eighty, which interestingly happens
to be the same year that the US issued the
first dietary guidelines. In the UK followed suit pretty soon

(45:40):
after three you're probably familiar, but the main takeaway of
these guidelines was less saturated fat and cholesterol, and people
responded by switching out fats with carbs, sugar being one
of those cars that that that base of that food pyramid.
That's just like eat all of the carbs and sugar.
It's fine, right, so fine for you, fine like sugar.

(46:04):
So so what happened, well, Obesity rates skyrocketed from fift
of Americans in nineteen to thirty five percent in two thousands,
and in the UK the increase was even more significant
six percent in the mid eighties to two thirds the
population today. So obviously these guidelines did not accomplish what

(46:26):
they were set out to do. Uh. And the lack
of evidence that fat was behind all of this was
starting to make some scientists pulled their collars a little
a little uneasy. Uh. And since low fat diets had
never been studied on women, which is an interesting side
of the medical industry. Um, there's a lot of studies
that just don't involve women, including some studies on birth control.

(46:50):
Isn't that interesting? That's very interesting. Yeah. So in n three,
the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the Women's
Health Initiatives sought to correct the with the largest controlled
diet trial ever commissioned at the time, while simultaneously erasing
any lingering doubts about the villainy effect. But the study
did not bear it out. Women on the low fat

(47:11):
diets were at no lower risk of heart disease than
the control group. Uh. But the study was dismissed as flawed. Right.
This wasn't even the end of of this type of
misleading research study and and like science human buy out
by by the industry. A lot lots of studies are
still funded in part by the sugar industry. Um One

(47:33):
review by the Way found that studies funded by the
sugar and or beverage industry are five times more likely
to report no connection between sugary drinks and weight gain
than the non industry funded studies are. So funding matters.
For for example, in Coca Cola funded the creation of
the Global Energy Balanced Network, which is a nonprofit for

(47:55):
scientists who advocate uh that that we should pay more
attention to total work balance and exercise then to the
source of your calories, or or even to cutting calories.
Um it's vice president, Dr Stephen Blair has received more
than three point five million dollars from Coca Cola for
research projects just since two and that's just the biggest number.

(48:18):
It's it's other higher reps have also received large monetary
gifts or donations more than half a million dollars each.
That money earmarked for for funding and and creating the
This this Global Energy Balance Network look y'all like it's
it's it's certainly true. It's certainly true. That getting funding
for research and special projects, especially if you're a member
of a public university, can be really difficult. UM money

(48:40):
can get scarce, so so gifts from corporations can really help.
But but just holy call y'all, it is a conflict
of interest. Speaking of studies, segue Uh two thousand eight
Oxford study found the opposite of accepted health guidelines UM.
The country with the highest intake of ceteraed fats, which
is France, had the lowest rates of heart disease, and

(49:05):
Ukraine had the highest rates of heart disease and the
lowest consumption of saturiate fats. Huh. An analysis on cholesterol
data from one countries found that lower cholesterol levels correlated
with higher rates of heart disease. It was like, Yeah,
that's the opposite of what I've heard my whole life.

(49:27):
That same year, the u n's Food and Agriculture Organization
their own analysis found no probable or convincing evidence quotes
that heart disease are cancer could be traced to high
fat diets. I I kind of I kind of want
to kind of want to mention that that there there
are obviously a lot of factors that go into abs
rates Uh, it's not like a one to one correlation

(49:49):
of like of like, absolutely, increased sugar intake is the
only thing that has led to OBESITI rates are also
absolutely when um when when between computers and television, people's
started living at a much more sedentary lifestyle in developed countries,
which I'm sure has something to do with it. It
doesn't sound like the sugar hilt, but the way that

(50:11):
sugar is reported on nutrition labels in the United States
at least is going to be changing over the next
couple of years. The ice cream that I was eating
while I was researching this episode, Uh, I had so
many cravings it was really terrible. Um. Uh. The ice
cream I was eating already had a new line on
its label, added sugars. In May of the FDA announced

(50:36):
that packaged foods are going to need to have an
added sugars line on their nutrition labels. UM expressed in
grams and a percentage of daily value you know, according
to that like typical two thousand calorie day diet UM
and proponents are hoping that it'll spur consumers too to
make better informed choices about the foods they're eating, and

(50:57):
hopefully eventually by by products see to spur food companies
to add less sugar to their products. That Good Old
Sugar Association called it a quote dangerous president that is
not grounded in science. Yeah, but everything else on the
new Judician label, lets have it, I don't you know.

(51:23):
The the new labels will also up the font size,
on serving size and on calories per serving. So that's so,
that's pretty sweet. Nice. Oh that was a pun. Oh no,
you would realize you were making it. No, I didn't know. Oh,
that's fine, that's okay. Puns are just in my brain. Now.
I spent way too way, way too long podcasting with

(51:43):
Jonathan Strickland. All the love to Jonathan Strickland. Um. And
also there's other there is other, like hypothetically good news
out there, is there? Well, I mean there's been some
really good like social and political pushback over the past
few years. All of those as in various cities and
counties that are trying to cut down on the sizes

(52:06):
of of sugary beverages that can be served or two
in schools. Yeah yeah, whether or not kids can buy
sports drinks or sodas or candy bars. Yeah. I think
the label thing is a pretty big step, because before
I really started hearing about this, I didn't know I
would look on a label and be like, I'm not

(52:27):
sure if I have a lot of sugar? Yeah, how
much sugar? Is a lot of sugar? There's no there's
no percentage, and a lot of things. To me, you
just wouldn't expect to have that much. Sure, you know
there's sugar in there, but like, but how much? Like
I don't know, Like, like, what about this frappuccino? It
must it's delicious, so I should probably how much sugar? What? Yeah?

(52:49):
Those coffee drinks, yeah, notorious. And the weird thing is
a lot of them don't even taste that sweet to me,
which I don't know if that just means I've got
that tolerance thing going on, yeah, or I don't know
me neither. It's a confusing and terrifying world out there.
Thanks for listening. No, no, um, I mean I would.

(53:12):
I would always rather know about these things and know
what we can do to to try to fight it,
then to remain ignorant, um and and hungry. If you
just heard my stomach growl, that's why I said the
hungry part um. I I do hope that those natriction
labels will do that thing of trying to encourage companies
to add less sugar to their products because tastes can change,

(53:33):
like like absolutely, and like all of us do not
need all of that sugar in ketchup or in mac
and cheese or whatever it is. And you know, trying
to switch away from from those foods too, to whole
fruits and vegetables and lean cuts of meat is probably
better for us in the long run. But we're still
going to eat ketchup and mac and cheese. Yeah, maybe
not together. I judge you if you do that. I

(53:55):
can't say I've never done that. If we're taking like
the horror podcast look alternative future, what if we replace
adage sugar with something even worse. I think we just
need to be aware as consumers. Yeah, as society. Don't
totally stress yourselves out about it. But but but yeah,

(54:16):
just just pay attention, like like if you have if
you're not in a total rush at the grocery store,
do read your nutrition labels and just be aware of
what's going on. My general rules, if I can't recognize
some of the ingredients, maybe not maybe not for me.
I don't I'm a little bit las a fair about
stuff like that. But but I mean especially for treats
like I think, I think it's completely valid to treat

(54:38):
yourself and just be like, man, I really want this
donut and eat the doughnut. We'll see a donut doesn't
come with a nutrition label. Therefore, I can like lie
in the back of my head, I'm sure this is
less than It's amazing what you could convince yourself when

(54:59):
you really want to eat it, don't it. So that's
sugar and health. Like we said, we will have um
an episode like the History and Science of making sugar. Yeah,
um that that will be coming your way, if not
immediately after this episode, certainly soon right hopefully immediately after

(55:20):
the future. Anything could happen in it future, but in
the meanwhile, if you're looking for a shorter version of this,
there's an amazing brain stuff video about ship Yes It's fantastic, Yes,
by Mr Paul Dnchant, and it is on brain Stuff.
You can google it. Google brain Stuff the YouTube. And
if there's any other topic ideas that you have for us,

(55:43):
anything else that you'd like us to ruin for you forever,
send us an email food Stuff at how stuff works
dot com. We're also on Instagram at food stuff and
there's gonna be a Twitter account. It's not up right now.
I don't know. If you google food stuff Twitter and
things will happen. Yeah. Basically, just good on Google. Our recommendation,

(56:05):
read your food labels, and google stuff thanks to our
audio producer uh Noel Brown and his fabulous hats. Thanks
to those as well. They always bring me joy and
we hope that many other good things are coming your
way