The winter was rotten for weather (and school attendance) here in central Illinois, and the gloom was compounded by some not-so-sweet news published in the Journal of the American Medical Association: Sugar, that seductive temptress, is more dangerous to our health than previously recognized.
Research published online in JAMA suggests that “consuming too much added sugar…increases your risk of death from heart disease.” The study’s lead author, Quanhe Yang, a senior scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, states, “The risk of cardiovascular disease death increases exponentially as you increase your consumption of added sugar.”
Investigators reviewed data from several National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES), and found that among those “whose sugar intake is about a quarter or more of their total daily calories had twice the risk of dying from heart disease than those who whose intake was 7 percent.” Meanwhile, “for those whose intake of added sugar was about 19 percent, their risk of dying from heart disease was about 38 percent higher.”
This establishes sugar consumption as what physicians consider an “independent risk factor” for cardiovascular mortality. In short, too much is not only not good for you, it is downright hazardous to your health.
How much is too much? The American Heart Association and the World Health Organization both recommend that added sugars comprise no more than 10 percent of your total daily discretionary calories. For the average man, that means a total of 7-10 teaspoons, for most women it is 5-8 teaspoons, and even less for children, depending on age and daily caloric needs.
At first glance, most people find that an easily attainable goal. However, because added sugars are listed in grams, it is very easy for consumers to gloss past just how much sugar is added to most processed food and beverages. For example, the average 12-ounce can of soda contains 42 grams of added sugar.
Here’s the quick conversion: 4g=1 teaspoon.
That’s right. I just told you that the average 12-ounce can of soda has 10½ teaspoons of added sugars.
Sugar-sweetened beverages are the major source of excess sugar consumption, and it isn’t just soda that is a culprit. Sports drinks, coffee concoctions and even juices and smoothies all add huge numbers of non-nutritive calories daily.
Added sugars are so ubiquitous in the processed foods we purchase that it is easy to quickly and unknowingly consume far more than intended. We must take another, closer look at the foods we eat. The low-fat craze, born in the 1970s, gave way to a simple (cheap) carbohydrate glut that has come back to haunt us. The highly refined, highly processed diet we have consumed in increasing quantities for 30 years has harmed us in more ways than previously imagined. The solution is surprisingly straightforward, but by no means simple: We must reclaim our kitchens and our dinner tables. We must prioritize and hone the skills necessary to prepare foods from scratch and control the quality and quantity of the nutrients we put into our bodies – if not for our own sake, then for our children.
This season, as we move from the deep freeze into a spring thaw, let us collectively renew our commitment to what is real and fresh. Let us talk and share with each other our kitchens, add a new recipe to our repertoires, a new vegetable to our “like” column. Let us give our children the gift of sophisticated (or expanding) palates and time together around the dinner table. All evidence points to what needs to be done: Eat real. Move more.
Kemia Sarraf, M.D., M.P.H., is president and founder of genHkids Coalition. She can be contacted at Kemia@genHkids and www.genHkids.org.
This article appears in Capital City Parent January 2014.
