By now you’ve probably heard the litany of health problems--obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and stroke--attributed to high fat, high sugar “junk” foods.

Increasingly researchers are convinced that we should add brain impairment and neurodegenerative conditions to the list.  In fact, junk food appears to affect the brain in ways that may lead to overeating, obesity and the other health problems we have long associated with junk food.

In reviewing the evidence from animal and human studies from the last three decades, a group of Australian researchers suggest that a diet high in saturated fats and refined sugars (HFS diet) affects areas of the brain that control cognitive abilities (in particular memory, attention and inhibition) and reward processes.

This not only appears to contribute to overindulging in high fat or sugar-laden foods, but researchers believe that other conditions such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) may result from an HFS diet.

One researcher described the link between high amounts of dietary sugar and AD as “diabetes of the brain.”

“These forms of neural dysfunction result in impaired social, educational and occupational function, and present a substantial burden on the social-welfare system, especially AD,” they wrote.

Perhaps the most sobering finding in this and similar research is that junk food’s adverse affects on our brain may not be reversible.

Sources:

Food Navigator

Science Daily

PubMed

Let’s face it, many food labels can be misleading. They can lead us to believe that a product contains (or doesn’t contain) something when that’s not really the case, or labels may not tell the whole story. While touting “I’m a good healthy choice” on one count, closer inspection reveals the product fails to deliver on others—like too much added sugar, salt, or saturated fats.

Take the term “whole grain” for example; a study by the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) reviewed five different industry and government guidelines for classifying foods as whole grain:

• The Whole Grain Stamp, a packaging symbol for products containing at least 8 g of whole grains per serving. (created by the Whole Grain Council, a non-governmental organization supported by industry dues.)
• Any whole grain as the first listed ingredient. (as defined by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s MyPlate and the Food and Drug Administration’s Consumer Health Information guide)
• Any whole grain as the first ingredient without added sugars in the first three ingredients (also the standard used by USDA’s MyPlate)
• The word “whole” before any grain anywhere in the ingredient list (recommended by USDA’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010)
• The “10:1 ratio,” a ratio of total carbohydrate to fiber of less than 10 to 1, which is approximately the ratio of carbohydrate to fiber in whole wheat flour (recommended by the American Heart Association’s 2020 Goals)

Then the researchers analyzed the nutritional content of 545 grain products (breads, bagels, English muffins, cereals, crackers, cereal bars, granola bars and chips.)

As it turned out, products with the Whole Grain Stamp were higher in fiber and lower in trans fats, but also contained more sugar and calories compared to products that didn’t bear the stamp.

If you had followed any of the three USDA criteria for identifying a healthy grain product, your results would be mixed.

The American Heart Association’s standard based on a 10:1 ratio of carbohydrates to fiber proved to be the best indicator of overall healthfulness. Products meeting this ratio were higher in fiber and lower in trans fats, sugar, and sodium, without higher calories than products that did not meet the ratio.

The Takeaway

This study underscores a few important tips that can help you make healthy food choices:

• Choose whole foods instead of processed foods.
• If purchasing processed foods, choose the one made from whole ingredients without additives (preservatives, dyes, artificial flavors, etc.)
• Scan the “Nutrition Facts” box and ingredients list. Choose a product:
  • without added sugars
  • no trans fats (hydrogenated oils) and little or no fat overall
  • low sodium
  • fewest/no additives

We cover these tips and more in greater detail in our guide, Fooled by Food Labels: 9 Deceptive Claims to Watch Out For.

Source:

Harvard University

Since the 1970s the American diet has become increasingly filled with processed foods loaded with many types of sugar, especially high-fructose corn sugar. This trend is not only being blamed for the high rates of obesity, ongoing research continues to demonstrate how sugar is sabotaging our health.

A new study shows how fructose may play a role in the obesity epidemic. The scientists used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to track blood flow in the brain in 20 young, normal-weight people before and after they had drinks containing glucose or fructose.

Scans showed that drinking glucose “turns off or suppresses the activity of areas of the brain that are critical for reward and desire for food,” said one study leader, Yale University endocrinologist Dr. Robert Sherwin. With fructose, “we don’t see those changes,” he said. “As a result, the desire to eat continues — it isn’t turned off.”

These results mirrored how hungry the people said they felt and may explain the results of earlier animal studies.

Researchers are now testing obese people to see if they react to fructose and glucose in a similar fashion as normal weight people.

What’s the Solution?

As you might expect, the researchers suggest cutting back on processed foods and sugary drinks containing fructose and high-fructose corn syrup. You don’t have to give them up entirely, just make them an occasional “special treat,” not the mainstay of your diet.

They also suggest that you cut back on all forms of sugar as most of us eat way too much of it. Find out if you’re over the limit in the post, How Much Sugar is Too Much?

Sources:

The Seattle Times

HealthFinder

According to recent studies, many of us are eating more than twice the recommended amounts of sugar each day--and most don’t even realize it. That’s because most of today’s packaged foods, drinks and snacks contain added sugar, and not just a little. At the end of the day, it all adds up to sugar overload.

Moreover, this overload can easily sabotage your health. Many health experts believe that consuming too much sugar is fueling the epidemic of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and many other health problems.  

How Much is Too Much

The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends limiting the amount of added sugars to no more than half of your daily “discretionary calorie allowance.” (These calories consist of fats and sugars.)

So, here’s your daily sugar limits:

• Women – No more than 100 calories per day which equals 6 teaspoons or 24 grams of sugar.
• Men – No more that 150 calories per day which equals 9 teaspoons or 36 grams of sugar.
• Children – The AHA has not established a limit but the CDC recommends no more than 5-15% of total calories should come from discretionary fats and sugars depending on the child’s age and other factors.  

Just one can of regular soda which contains eight teaspoons of sugar and 130 calories puts most of us at our limit. In fact, most added sugars in our diets come from sweetened drinks. Other culprits are candy, flavored dairy products like chocolate milk and ice cream and baked goods like cookies, cakes and pies. Researchers estimate that about 41% of added sugars in our diets come from drinks and the rest from foods.

A recent study found that the average teenage boy consumes about 362 calories a day from added sugar which equates to 17.5 percent of all calories. That’s a whopping 90.5 grams of sugar or over 22 teaspoons of added sugar a day!

Hidden Sugar

In addition to the obvious offenders, you’ll find sugar in almost all processed foods—from breakfast cereals to spaghetti sauce. However, it can be a little difficult to determine how much sugars are added to foods as current “nutrition facts” labels only list the total amount of sugar per serving. It doesn’t separate the sugars that are naturally in some foods versus sugars that are added. Luckily, there are some tricks you can use to figure out how much of total sugars is added sugars:

• Read the ingredients list and scan for any type of sugar including: molasses, honey, corn syrup (HFCS), maltose, sucrose, fructose, glucose, dextrose, galactose, or invert sugar.  As ingredients are listed in order of weight, the higher these sugars are on the list, the more sugar there is in proportion to the other ingredients.
• Look for the words “no sugar added” on the package.  Some food producers are waking up to the sugar overload problem and are offering more foods without added sugar.
• Sometimes you can also compare the same whole food to its processed cousin to determine how much sugars have been added. For example, a container of old fashioned rolled oats that lists only one ingredient—oats, has less than one gram of sugar per ¼ cup (40g). That one gram represents the natural sugars in the oatmeal.  Then look at the flavored, sweetened individual packets of oatmeal.  Some contain as much as much as 12-16 grams of sugar. Therefore, 11-15 grams have been added. That’s about three to four teaspoons of added sugar.

Tips to Cut Sugar

• Reduce or eliminate the amount of sugar added to things you eat or drink regularly like cereal, pancakes, coffee or tea. Try cutting the usual amount of sugar you add by half and wean down from there.
• Buy fresh fruits or fruits canned in water or natural juice. Avoid fruit canned in syrup, especially heavy syrup.
• Instead of adding sugar to cereal or oatmeal, add fresh fruit (try bananas, cherries or strawberries) or dried fruit (raisins, cranberries or apricots).
• When baking cookies, brownies or cakes, cut the sugar called for in your recipe by one-third to one-half. Often you won’t notice the difference.
• Instead of adding sugar in recipes, use extracts such as almond, vanilla, orange or lemon.
• Enhance foods with spices instead of sugar; try ginger, allspice, cinnamon or nutmeg.
• Substitute unsweetened applesauce for sugar in recipes (use equal amounts).

Sources:

Health Finder

Mayo Clinic

American Heart Association

WebMD

You may have wondered why General Mills made such a big splash recently about reducing the amount of refined sugar in their breakfast cereals marketed for children -- remember the not-so-bright Smart Choices Program -- to a maximum of 10 grams per serving.

Although what multi-national companies decide to do behind closed doors to promote their business bliss is way beyond my pay grade, I suspect this recent joint study from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, directly addressing concerns many parents have about their picky kids eating cereals without so much sugar in them, may have had something to do with it.

For the record, researchers randomly assigned 91 children attending a summer camp into one of two breakfast groups. One chose between three high-sugar cereals, while the other could select from three low-sugar products. Both groups had access to low-fat milk, orange juice, bananas, strawberries and, of course, sugar.

You may be only slightly surprised to learn kids in both groups liked or loved the cereals they chose and that patients generally ate bigger portions of cereal than the norm. The real shocker: Kids in the high-sugar group ate nearly twice as much cereal (61 grams) and refined sugar (24.4 grams) compared to the low-sugar group (35 and 12.5 grams, respectively). And, even though the total number of calories both groups consumed didn't differ significantly, the low-sugar kids ate far more fresh fruit with their cereal, and derived more calories from it too.

No doubt, smarter parenting will go a long way toward helping your youngster avoid childhood obesity and reduce their risk of premature death in their middle years.

Pediatrics December 13, 2010 Free Full PDF Study

healthfinder.gov December 13, 2010

Add gout, a form of arthritis that happens when uric acid builds up in joints, to the growing list of health problems, along with pancreatic cancer and hypertension, associated with drinking soft drinks and fructose-rich products like orange juice.

Researchers discovered the connection after reviewing the health records of nearly 79,000 women participating in the Nurses' Health Study (1984-2006) who provided details about their intake of sweet beverages and fructose and had no history of gout at the start. Over time, almost 800 patients were diagnosed with gout.

Patients who consumed one sweet drink every day were 74 percent more likely to develop gout than those who drank less than one serving per month and 41 percent for orange juice based on those same amounts and intervals, not unsurprising results by a long shot.

Drinking two or more servings of orange juice or soft drinks each day, however, caused those risks of gout to double. Additionally, the top 20 percent of patients who drank the most fructose-laden drinks were 62 percent more likely to deal with gout than those in the lowest quintile who consumed the least amount of the sweet stuff.

Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 304, No. 20, p. 2270-2278, November 24, 2010

EmpowHer November 23, 2010

healthfinder.gov November 10, 2010

ScienceNews November 10, 2010

Whether it's fructose, high fructose corn syrup, corn sugar or merely the plain ol' white processed stuff, there's little disputing that the extra sugars lurking in processed foods are responsible for fueling the epidemic of obesity, particularly among our children, in America.

Based on data culled from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Study (NHANES), foods filled to the brim with empty calories from added sugars and solid fat provided nearly 40 percent of the total number eaten by kids (ages 2-18). Half of these "empties" come from six kinds of foods: Whole milk, fruit drinks, dairy and grain desserts, pizza and soft drinks.

Even worse, 10 percent of a child's daily caloric intake is made up of sugary-sweet drinks like fruit drinks and sodas, already linked to elevated blood pressure and doubling a patient's risks of fighting, and probably losing, a battle with pancreatic cancer.

Skeptical about the latter link? Take a few minutes to review our latest CNCA Newsletter to learn more about the history behind this deadly connection between cancer and sugar that dates back to 1923.

Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Vol. 110, No. 10, p. 1456-1460, October 2010

Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Vol. 110, No. 10, p. 1477-1484, October 2010

Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Vol. 110, No. 10, p. 1532-1536, October 2010

Yahoo News October 1, 2010

ScienceDaily October 1, 2010

Differences in the nutritional value of homemade, home-brewed teas versus bottled brands of tea and assorted sugary soft drinks may be very obvious to most adults, but not nearly so much to kids.

You won't find a better example of this discrepancy than a recent University of Texas study of middle-school and high school age kids that found young patients who drank energy drinks and soft drinks watched more TV and ate unhealthy foods. In fact, a majority of girls (more than 50 percent) and boys (more than 60 percent) who participated in the study (totaling some 15,300 patients) drank at least one sugary drink every day, and 28 percent drank three or more of them per day. What's more, students who drank sodas and most sports drinks usually had poor health habits (they were less active and less likely to eat the right foods).

The disconnect: Kids who drank specific sugary, non-carbonated sports drinks -- Gatorade, Koolaid and punch -- were more likely to eat healthier foods and exercise at higher levels, making one wonder if they are just as blinded by the marketing hype as their younger peers -- "true-to-life" action figures like Mia Hamm and Michael Jordan replacing elves, clowns and assorted cartoon characters "selling" foods people don't need on TV.

On the other hand, you could make a great argument that kids are only mimicking the "blindness" to the obvious they see in their parents, taking into account a recent study about adults ignoring that fat person staring back at them in the mirror.

Learn more about which functional drinks -- from vitamin water to sports drinks -- are the best choices for your health in our recent newsletter.

Pediatrics September 27, 2010 Free Full Text PDF

ScienceDaily September 28, 2010

healthfinder.gov September 27, 2010

CNN Health September 27, 2010

It must've been all those recent studies linked to childhood obesity and cancer that finally forced the hand of the Corn Refiners Association, not to mention, a 20-year low in the consumption of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

The association recently petitioned the FDA to re-label HFCS as corn syrup, a move even popular food industry critic Dr. Marion Nestle (as told the New York Times) believes is "not an unreasonable one," given that there's no biochemical difference between HFCS and sugar.

A name change is necessary because HFCS/corn sugar is "highly disparaged and highly misunderstood," and a new identity would help consumers better "understand" it, according to Corn Producers Association president Audrae Erickson. Of course, the 21 percent dropoff in HFCS/corn sugar consumption among average Americans over a decade from more than 45 pounds to almost 36 pounds, according to USDA figures, might've had something to do with it too.

See what the Corn Refiners Association has up their sleeves by watching two videos already posted on cornsugar.com intended to alleviate the "misperceptions" about HFCS, soon to be known only as corn sugar.

New York Times: Well September 14, 2010

Houston Chronicle September 14, 2010

LiveScience September 14, 2010

We already knew fructose-based sweeteners contributed mightily to the cluster of conditions known as metabolic syndrome. The alarming theme of this newest study, that reviewed health data on more than 6,000 adults participating in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), is not only how those added sugars hiding in processed foods escalate your risks of cardiovascular disease, but how much of them you're eating every day.

The average American's daily consumption of added sugars via processed foods was 3.2 ounces, which doesn't seem like much until you realize that amounts to more than 350 calories and 21 teaspoons of sugar. That's almost 16 percent of your day-to-day caloric intake, representing a jump of about a third based on estimates made some three decades ago.

That's not all: The largest average daily consumption of added sugars among five patient groups was 46 teaspoons. Unfortunately, you won't have to imagine what 46 teaspoons of sugar looks like after watching this illuminating and alarming video from the JAMA Archives.

Just a reminder, sugar isn't the only food additive folks are over-consuming to the detriment of their health.

Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 330, No. 15, pp. 1490-1497, April 21, 2010

USA Today April 21, 2010

ScienceDaily April 22, 2010

For nearly 80 years, medicine has recognized that sugar feeds tumors, but didn't understand how until University of Utah researchers learned more about the way key cellular mechanisms interact behind the scenes. The good news: These discoveries may affect not only future cancer treatments but other diseases, like diabetes.

Normal and cancerous cells are created by a process involving the amino acid glutamine and glucose, but it was assumed by most experts that each chemical acted independently. Instead, Utah researchers found glutamine and glucose act interdependently.

Moreover, curbing the availability of glutamine "short-circuits" the entire cellular process and prevents glucose from doing its work, thus stopping the growth of tumor cells, according to the study.

Under the cellular "hood," scientists discovered that MondoA, a protein that switches genes on and off, also blocks the thioredoxin interacting protein (TXNIP) gene believed to suppress tumors. The suppression of TXNIP by MondoA, however, allows cells to absorb glucose which spurs the growth of tumors.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences August 17, 2009

healthfinder.gov August 20, 2009

Science Daily August 18, 2009