Time to start treating sugar like cocaine

Obesity reached epidemic proportions in the 1970s. Before then, most people were lean.

Now, lean folks are in the minority. The awareness of the threat of excess weight to our health and well-being is solid. It is an established risk factor for diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, and many cancers.

Many countries are searching for answers, but, so far, none have undertaken effective action. While the war on smoking has reduced Canadian rates from 50 per cent to 20 per cent in adults, the war on obesity has not even begun.

A 1948 editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association warned of a potential rise in rates of obesity if consumption of sugars, sweets and fats were to increase.

This was based on awareness that life in the United States had become less physically demanding.

The following decades saw a revolution in the mass preparation of cheap, tasty, highly advertised, high-caloric foods. The revolution has not stopped.

To give examples: Some cookies for sale in our supermarkets contain five teaspoons of sugar; a 12-ounce can of Coke contains 10. The largest ingredient after tomatoes in some spaghetti sauces is sugar.

Cereals used to be sold as healthy alternatives to bacon and sausage. Now they are more like candy, with many cereals containing 50-per-cent sugar by weight (with a subsequent explosion in dental decay in children).

Take a lot of sugar out of processed foods and the result is much less appealing. It is all about the trade-off between convenience food that is not so healthy and healthy food that is not so convenient.

People have increasingly found it difficult to prepare meals from scratch.
No food additive can compete with sugar in creating appeal. It is in a class by itself.

MRI scanning of the brain reveals the same area lights up for sugar as for cocaine. Research has shown that rats will willingly put up with electric shocks in order to eat sweet cheesecake.

Newborn babies love sugar. Like tobacco and illicit drugs, it acts on the brain to encourage subsequent intake. Plain and simple, sugar is addictive.

Excessive weight in children has tripled since 1980. Diabetes is now showing up in children, who are unable to perceive the risks of their eating and drinking choices. And those choices are readily affected by advertising.

Government-imposed regulations on the advertising of alcohol and tobacco to children and young people have been quite effective, but there is no such approach to sugar-laden products.

With enough clamour for change, shifts in government policy become possible. Take, for instance, bans on smoking in public places and the use of designated drivers, not to mention airbags in cars and condom dispensers in public bathrooms.

These simple meas ures are now taken for granted as essential tools for public health. It’s time to turn our attention to sugar.

Ultimately, food producers must reduce the amount of sugar added to foods and drinks, even though sugar is cheap and tastes good. It is addictive and, taken in excess, bad for your health — a bad combination.

For further study, please read the 2011 series obesity in the medical journal The Lancet, Robert Lustig’s 2012 article “The toxic truth about sugar” in Nature and Michael Moss’ book “Salt, Sugar, Fat.”

Dr. Peter Zalan is president of the medical staff at Health Sciences North. His monthly column tackles issues in health care from a local perspective.