Do you really need to quit sugar?

As featured in Body+Soul

‘Sweet poison’ ‘toxic’ and ‘evil’ are just some of the words that have been used to describe sugar. It’s one of the more trendy health topics at the moment with many people having an opinion or at least a few questions about it. Only the other morning, a friend turned to me, ready to empty a sachet of ‘the sweet stuff’ in his coffee and said ‘It can’t be that bad, can it? Can’t I just have a little bit?’ And herein lies a very interesting question: do you really need to quit sugar or is a little bit every now and again ok?

Foods high in sugar are energy dense, but nutrient poor. At one point we though these ‘empty calories’ were the issue, but with more research we know this is now only part of the problem. The fructose component of ‘sugar’ is metabolised very differently to the glucose (see Let’s talk sugar). Fructose gets shunted to our liver, whereas glucose is metabolized by every cell in our body. Frequent fructose exposure sends our liver into over-drive, with most of the fructose getting converted to fat. This increases our risk to conditions like fatty liver disease and insulin resistance, the starting point for conditions like obesity, diabetes and some cancers.

Let’s talk sugar

Without turning this into a chemistry lesson, a ‘sugar’ is a type of carbohydrate, containing specific ratios of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon (in case you were wondering!) The most basic sugar components include glucose and fructose that link together in a variety of combinations to give us different substances. The white granules we think of as ‘sugar’ is technically known as sucrose and is a 50:50 mix of glucose and fructose. Fructose is about twice as sweet as glucose, so the more fructose, the sweeter the food. The worst fructose offenders (in addition to sucrose) include high fructose corn syrup, agave and honey so try and steer clear of these.

Robert Lustig, a leading voice on the health implications of sugar calls it a ‘chronic rather than an acute poison’. I tend to agree with him; it’s the persistent drip-feeding of sugar, especially fructose that creates unnecessary drama for our organs and our waist lines. We are yet to discover what this magic number is, so with this in mind, I generally advise patients to avoid sugar 80 – 90% of the time. You can do this by cutting out the regular consumption of refined sucrose, cakes, biscuits, lollies, chocolate, soft drinks and fruit juice. These sugars are absorbed super quickly, putting additional strain on our body.

So what about the other 10% of time? As long as the rest of your body is in balance, a small piece of birthday cake or a few squares of chocolate shouldn’t be the end of the world. You just need to make sure that this doesn’t start snowballing out of control and this occasional one-off treat doesn’t becomes a daily occurrence. Be mindful and present throughout your consumption and try to choose low fructose options where ever possible.