For years, doctors have debated sugar’s role in causing diabetes. The prevailing medical opinion has been that eating more sugar means eating more calories, and it’s the resulting weight gain that leads to diabetes. But a major new study shows a direct link between sugar and diabetes — a link that’s independent of a person’s weight.
KQED’s Stephanie Martin interviewed one of the study’s authors, Dr. Robert Lustig from UCSF. Lustig is an expert on childhood obesity and has been vocal about the health hazards of sugar for years. His video “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” has more than three million views on YouTube.
Lustig told Martin that the study was very carefully done — researchers looked at sugar consumption in 175 countries over a decade and controlled for just about everything including obesity, poverty, and physical activity. They found that the more sugar in the food supply, the higher the rates of diabetes in that country, no matter what the obesity rates were.
In the study, sugar was 11 times stronger than total calories in explaining diabetes rates around the world. “Those countries where sugar went up showed increases in [diabetes] rates. Those countries where sugar availability went down, showed decreases in rate.” Continue reading