Sugar what you need to know …
It is Sugar awareness week 18th – 24th January 2021 so I thought I would take a look at this in more detail for you as it is one of the biggest concerns my patients have when I see them at my clinics. What is sugar? The term ‘sugar’ usually refers to what we know as table or granulated sugar – the type of sugar that we add to our tea or coffee. We also are familiar to the different variations which include caster sugar, icing sugar, brown sugar, demerara sugar, these are types mostly used in baking.These, you may already know, are not the only sugars around. Sugar occurs naturally in all foods that contain carbohydrates, such as fruits and vegetables, grains, and dairy.All ‘sugars’ are carbohydrates and along with starch they one of our body’s main source of energy. Carbohydrates are required for our brains, bodies and nervous system. In fact it has been part of our diets for thousands of years. Sugar is found naturally in most foods like fruits, vegetables and milk as well as being an ingredient used in a wide range of foods and drinks. Great, so what is all the fuss about? Consuming whole foods that contain natural sugar is acceptable as part of a healthy intake when you have a healthy metabolism. Plant foods have high amounts of fibre, essential minerals, and antioxidants alongside smaller amounts of carbs, and dairy foods contain protein, fats and calcium which are important for the body.Because of these extra components your body digests these foods slowly allowing the sugar in them to provide a steady supply of energy to your cells. A sufficient intake of fruits, vegetables, and fibre rich foods have been shown to reduce the risk of many chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers. So what’s the problem? Increasing technology has brought many changes to our food production. More and more convenience foods are available that taste good, are very addictive and can be eaten 24/7.Problems occur when regularly eating these processed foods leads you to consume too much “added sugar”. The food manufacturers add this to enhance the flavour or extend shelf life and this can often be hidden in foods you would never imagine.In the modern diet, the top sources of sugar are soft drinks, fruit drinks, flavoured yogurts, cereals, biscuits, cakes, sweets and most processed foods. But added sugar is also present in items that you may not think of as sweetened, like soups, bread, processed meats, and condiments like ketchup. How much sugar are we allowed? Our recommended dietary intake of sugar per day: Adults should have no more than 30g of free sugars a day, (roughly equivalent to 7 tsps/sugar cubes). Children aged 7 to 10 should have no more than 24g of free sugars a day (6 tsps/sugar cubes). Children aged 4 to 6 should have no more than 19g of free sugars a day (5 tsps/sugar cubes). What sugar we consume Adults in the UK take in 3 times the recommended amount at an average of 22 teaspoons/cubes of added sugar per day, according to the NHS website.Four to 10-year-olds are eating more than twice as much sugar as they should per day, equivalent to 13 tsps/sugar cubes (PHE 2018). “Excess sugar’s impact on obesity, Blood pressure, inflammation, weight gain, fatty liver and diabetes and this is well documented, but one area that may surprise many is how their taste for sugar can have a serious impact on their heart health and increase risk of stroke,” says Dr. Frank Hu, professor of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Impact of sugar on your heart In a study published in 2014 in JAMA Internal Medicine, Dr. Hu and his colleagues found an association between a high-sugar diet and a greater risk of dying from heart disease. Over the course of the 15-year study, people who are 17% to 21% of their calories from added sugar had a 38% higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease compared with those who consumed 8% of their calories as added sugar. “Basically, the higher the intake of added sugar, the higher the risk for heart disease,” says Dr. Hu. Sugar has several indirect connections to affecting heart health: 1) high amounts of sugar overload the liver. “Your liver metabolizes sugar the same way as alcohol, and converts dietary carbohydrates to fat,” says Dr. Hu. Over time, this can lead to a greater accumulation of fat, which may turn into fatty liver disease, a contributor to diabetes, which raises your risk for heart disease.2) Consuming too much added sugar can raise blood pressure and increase chronic inflammation, both of which are pathological pathways to heart disease.3) Excess consumption of sugar, especially sugary drinks, also contributes to weight gain by tricking your body into turning off its appetite-control system because liquid calories are not as satisfying as calories from solid foods. This is why it is easier for people to add more calories to their regular diet when consuming sugary drinks. How you can reduce your sugar intake? Reading food labels is one of the best ways to monitor your intake of added sugar. Look for the following names for added sugar and try to either avoid, or cut back on the amount or frequency of the foods where they are found: • brown sugar• corn sweetener• corn syrup• fruit juice concentrates• high-fructose corn syrup• honey• invert sugar• malt sugar• molasses Also syrup sugar molecules ending in “ose” (dextrose, fructose, glucose, lactose, maltose, sucrose). Check the total sugar of the product, which includes added sugar, this is usually listed in grams.If it says 5 grams of sugar per serving, but the normal amount you would eat is three or four servings, you will easily consume 20 grams of sugar which is way too much.Also, watch the amount of sugar or syrups you add to your food or drinks. About half of added sugar comes from
5:2 Fasting diet – my thoughts and experience after completing it…
Hi I am Clare writing as part of the 121 Dietitian team. Below is my own assessment of Michael Mosley’s fasting diet. Why I did 5:2 fasting diet I’m soon to graduate as a Dietitian and I have a keen interest in weight management and awareness of food content. When I heard about this diet, I knew that I would be asked about it and decided the best way to be able to give my view/understand what people were dealing with, would be to try it out myself. “Dietitians should take into account what people actually do rather than what we would like them to do” – Dr Krista Varady Note: I didn’t do the fast diet with the aim to lose weight; simply to see how it would feel and the effect it would have on my health and lifestyle. In the UK, nearly 2 in 3 adults, and 1 in 2 children, are overweight or obese. (2012) Having a BMI above 25kg/m2 puts you at higher risk of many other diet-related diseases including Type 2 Diabetes, Heart Disease and Cancer. this is something to be taken seriously and probably one of the biggest reasons for our world’s growing obsession with diets. * To work out your BMI: divide your weight (kg) by your height squared (m)2 e.g. if you are 57kg and 1.62m, it would be 57/2.62 = 21.8kg/m2 Dieting is no new thing; a quick search in google brings up some odd historical diets ranging from the self explanatory ‘chew and spit diet’ to eating tapeworm eggs… So what about this 5:2 fasting diet from Michael Mosley? Fasting is no new concept either. it is an important practice in a number of religions (consider lent, Yom Kippur, Ramadan) carried out to fulfill a number of purposes that include practicing self-control and purifying oneself. In the early Christian church, Wednesdays and Fridays were traditionally fast days, and those partaking would abstain from meat, fish, eggs and butter. ‘i fast twice a week’ – Luke 18:12. “gluttony makes a man gloomy and fearful, but fasting makes him joyful and courageous” – Saint Nikolai of Zicha I have a nagging suspicion that there’s some wonderful underlying truth about improved health with fasting just waiting to be discovered. Does the 5:2 fasting diet work? Start – 4.3.13 – weight 127lbs; BMI 21.8 kg/m2; serum cholesterol 3.8mmol/l Finish – 12.4.13 – weight 127lbs; BMI 21.8kg/m2 This is interesting. My weight stayed stable. Admittedly, on a couple of occasions I cheated, going a little bit over the 500kcal allowance or being sneaky and ‘fasting’ from 2pm one day to 2pm the next day and still allowing myself 500kcal in between (and having a takeaway pizza for lunch at 1.30pm just before i started). Also, this period in my life has been one of celebration and freedom from structure and responsibility. Therefore I have been eating out, throwing dinner parties and having coffee dates much more frequently than usual. So what I have found is that this diet has allowed me to do is to maintain a happy weight whilst eating in a ridiculously undisciplined fashion 5 days a week. It has also shown me that I am disciplined enough to work around food all day (in a cafe on my days off) and not give in to temptation 2 days a week. It required effort in planning and calorie counting and commitment but it brought a sense of achievement and self-control when mastered. I am aware that lowered cholesterol and blood sugars are supposed to be the other health benefits in the fast diet. Prior to starting, and in the name of science I visited my GP to measure my blood sugar and cholesterol levels, but it turned out they only measured my cholesterol (as seen above). Because of this I did not return post fast period because my cholesterol was at a healthy level on starting and I had nothing to compare my sugars to! Not very scientific after all. For anyone else wanting to try out this diet, please make sure to get your bloods checked before and after! Did I over-compensate for my fast days? Yes. Definitely. However, I think that had I started the fast diet with a genuine desire to lose weight, I would easily have been able to refrain from over-compensating. in Mike Mosleys book, Dr Krista Varady carried out a study which showed people generally did not compensate for their fast days by having 175% on a feed day. personally, because I wanted to push boundaries with this diet, I think I have proven that to see all the results you need have a motivation and be very, very strict. What are the benefits of 5:2 fasting diet? Bearing in mind that there have been no long term studies carried out in humans, here is a list of some of the believed benefits of fasting: · longevity (in mice: lowered IGF-1*) · weight loss (i have spoken with a number of people who have lost between 8lbs and 21lbs) · improves learning and memory in mice (possibility of reduced risk of Alzheimer’s?*) · improves nutritional awareness (constantly reading labels) · reduced risk of cancer (due to weight loss and decreased % body fat*) · lowered blood sugar and cholesterol levels · choose your days/ make it suit you · improved self discipline *The science bits. 1) this is a quote from Mike Mosley’s book. “The IGF-1 hormone (insulin-like growth factor) is one of the drivers which keep our bodies in go-go mode, with cells driven to reproduce. This is fine when you are growing, but not so good later in life. There is now evidence suggesting that IGF-1 levels can be lowered by what you eat. Studies on calorie restrictors suggest that eating less helps, but it is not enough. As well as cutting calories you have to cut your protein intake. Not entirely – that would be a very bad idea. It’s about sticking to recommended guidelines, something most of us fail to do. The reason seems to be that when our bodies no longer have access
