Understanding Life: Understanding Cancer by Hesketh Robin

Author:Hesketh, Robin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2022-04-18T00:00:00+00:00

Sugar

We have mentioned the prominence of sugar in the Western diet, and the adverse effects of its over-consumption have been well publicized, leading to calls for draconian measures to limit how much of it we eat. We should, therefore, summarize the position. Sugar consumption worldwide has gone up three-fold in the last 50 years. According to the American Heart Association, adults in the USA now consume an average of 77 grams of sugar per day. In the UK Public Health England has reported that consumption is also three times the recommended amount and rising, despite the effects of a sugar tax and efforts to persuade food producers to reduce sugar in their products to aid the fight against obesity.

The problem is, of course, that sugar is a great source of calories and that the more calories you shovel down – in whatever form – the bigger you tend to become. And, of course, most of us like the taste.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation is that we should obtain 5 per cent of our daily calories from sugar, but sticking to that limit is more difficult than it appears, not least because, as the WHO points out: ‘Much of the sugars consumed today are ‘hidden’ in processed foods that are not usually seen as sweets. For example, one tablespoon of ketchup contains around 4 g (about one teaspoon) of free sugars. A single can of sugar-sweetened soft drink contains up to 40 g (about 10 teaspoons) of free sugars.’

Very roughly an ‘average’ person needs about 2,100 calories a day and 160 grams of sugar would give between one-third and one-quarter of that total requirement. Taking into account the problem of ‘hidden’ sugar, the American Heart Association recommends a daily sugar intake of no more than 36 grams for men and 25 grams for women but the consumption figures we’ve just noted suggest that their advice is falling on deaf ears. For a historical perspective the recommendation of 36 grams is about three times as much sugar as the denizens of Great Britain were allowed during the Second World War under rationing – a period when our diet is generally considered to have made us healthier than we’ve ever been. So you could say an element of control has been lost.

The ‘2,100 calories’ above are ‘food calories’, the unit sometimes used in nutritional contexts. It’s 1000 times greater than ‘scientific’ calories, or gram calories (cal). Scientifically, therefore, we mean 2,100 kilocalories (kcal) – which is why your fruit juice carton may tell you one glass contains 50 kcal. And, just to stop you wondering, 1 calorie is the heat (energy) you need to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water from 14.5 °C to 15.5 °C.

Sugar consumption has sky-rocketed, eating too much of it unbalances your diet and bad eating habits can cause obesity and metabolic syndrome. But these things aren’t black and white: 20 per cent of obese people have normal metabolism and a normal lifespan, while 40 per cent of those of normal weight will get metabolic syndrome diseases.

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