The American Heart Association releases new guidelines calling for a dramatic reduction in sugar consumption, in an effort to fight obesity.

Its hard to know how to take this. On the one hand strongly suspect this is more likely to be the right target than the Associations previous wars on fat and a sedentary lifestyle.

On the other hand this is another example of jumping the gun and attacking a convenient target. The science linking sugar to obesity is speculative. Obviously, if hyperinsulmia is a major cause of obesity then it makes sense to limit sugar. However, we don’t know that it is, and even if it is we don’t know how strong the link is between sugar and obesity.

It intuitive that consuming a snack (soda) of which 100% of the calories come from sugar, is likely to induce a significant insulin response and more rapid onset of insulin resistance. However, there are all sorts of thing that can effect this process.

Suppose there was a seemingly benign food additive, that when combined with the digestive process caused polysaccharides to be broken at a much faster rate. We could see sharper insulin responses starches than would have been the case previously.  Not that I think this is what’s going on, but simply to highlight how it easy it is to get sidetracked by an obvious but nonetheless wrong connection.

HT: McArdle

About these ads