It is obvious, yet it is not. We need to ban sugar!
When I was on a road tour of the Southern USA in 2012 with my family, we went to the ‘Golden Corral’ all-you-can-eat buffet one morning for breakfast. The Golden Corral, like so many other fast-food and convenience-food outlets, was a church or cathedral to sugar. A place where you go to worship on the altar of sugar one of the most addictive substances known to man. I was horrified at how many obese Americans were eating at the Golden Corral, the types of food they were eating and the quantity they were eating.
The following international study confirms that the intake of foods with a high glycemic index is associated with increased cardiovascular disease and mortality. A high glycaemic index simply means the sugar, or more correctly the glucose, in the food is rapidly absorbed and results in a much higher insulin response curve. The insulin overshoot you get with high glycaemic foods often causes the glucose levels to drop precipitously because there is no gradual absorption of glucose over many hours that you see with unprocessed complex foods. The rapid drop in glucose with high glycaemic foods then triggers a hunger response forcing you to seek more food. This is why people who eat a diet high in processed and ultra-processed carbohydrates tend to snack and hence eat more calories per day than people on a low carbohydrate diet or diet rich in unprocessed complex carbohydrates with a low glycemic index.
It is becoming increasingly clear we need major policy and public education initiatives to clean up our diets. The current level of political activism around sugar is pathetic and is simply not good enough. On the other side of the coin, the modern food industrial complex is simply too powerful; too many vested interests and too much counter-lobbying. Do you agree? What can we do about it?
Jenkins et al. Glycemic Index, Glycemic Load, and Cardiovascular Disease and Mortality. N Engl J Med. 2021 Apr 8;384(14):1312-1322. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2007123. Epub 2021 Feb 24.
Background: Most data regarding the association between the glycemic index and cardiovascular disease come from high-income Western populations, with little information from non-Western countries with low or middle incomes. To fill this gap, data are needed from a large, geographically diverse population.
Methods: This analysis includes 137,851 participants between the ages of 35 and 70 years living on five continents, with a median follow-up of 9.5 years. We used country-specific food-frequency questionnaires to determine dietary intake and estimated the glycemic index and glycemic load on the basis of the consumption of seven categories of carbohydrate foods. We calculated hazard ratios using multivariable Cox frailty models. The primary outcome was a composite of a major cardiovascular event (cardiovascular death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, stroke, and heart failure) or death from any cause.
Results: In the study population, 8780 deaths and 8252 major cardiovascular events occurred during the follow-up period. After performing extensive adjustments comparing the lowest and highest glycemic-index quintiles, we found that a diet with a high glycemic index was associated with an increased risk of a major cardiovascular event or death, both among participants with preexisting cardiovascular disease (hazard ratio, 1.51; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.25 to 1.82) and among those without such disease (hazard ratio, 1.21; 95% CI, 1.11 to 1.34). Among the components of the primary outcome, a high glycemic index was also associated with an increased risk of death from cardiovascular causes. The results with respect to glycemic load were similar to the findings regarding the glycemic index among the participants with cardiovascular disease at baseline, but the association was not significant among those without preexisting cardiovascular disease.
Conclusions: In this study, a diet with a high glycemic index was associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and death. (Funded by the Population Health Research Institute and others.).
CoI: multiple
Twitter: @gavinGiovannoni Medium: @gavin_24211
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| Rod Long on Unsplash |
When I was on a road tour of the Southern USA in 2012 with my family, we went to the ‘Golden Corral’ all-you-can-eat buffet one morning for breakfast. The Golden Corral, like so many other fast-food and convenience-food outlets, was a church or cathedral to sugar. A place where you go to worship on the altar of sugar one of the most addictive substances known to man. I was horrified at how many obese Americans were eating at the Golden Corral, the types of food they were eating and the quantity they were eating.
 |
| Buffet Bar at the Golden Corral |
The rapid change in our diets driven by the cheap supply of processed carbohydrates has resulted in metabolic chaos, which is causing the obesity crisis and the cascade of health problems stemming from the resulting hyperinsulinaemia.
The following international study confirms that the intake of foods with a high glycemic index is associated with increased cardiovascular disease and mortality. A high glycaemic index simply means the sugar, or more correctly the glucose, in the food is rapidly absorbed and results in a much higher insulin response curve. The insulin overshoot you get with high glycaemic foods often causes the glucose levels to drop precipitously because there is no gradual absorption of glucose over many hours that you see with unprocessed complex foods. The rapid drop in glucose with high glycaemic foods then triggers a hunger response forcing you to seek more food. This is why people who eat a diet high in processed and ultra-processed carbohydrates tend to snack and hence eat more calories per day than people on a low carbohydrate diet or diet rich in unprocessed complex carbohydrates with a low glycemic index.
It is becoming increasingly clear we need major policy and public education initiatives to clean up our diets. The current level of political activism around sugar is pathetic and is simply not good enough. On the other side of the coin, the modern food industrial complex is simply too powerful; too many vested interests and too much counter-lobbying. Do you agree? What can we do about it?
Jenkins et al. Glycemic Index, Glycemic Load, and Cardiovascular Disease and Mortality. N Engl J Med. 2021 Apr 8;384(14):1312-1322. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2007123. Epub 2021 Feb 24.
Background: Most data regarding the association between the glycemic index and cardiovascular disease come from high-income Western populations, with little information from non-Western countries with low or middle incomes. To fill this gap, data are needed from a large, geographically diverse population.
Methods: This analysis includes 137,851 participants between the ages of 35 and 70 years living on five continents, with a median follow-up of 9.5 years. We used country-specific food-frequency questionnaires to determine dietary intake and estimated the glycemic index and glycemic load on the basis of the consumption of seven categories of carbohydrate foods. We calculated hazard ratios using multivariable Cox frailty models. The primary outcome was a composite of a major cardiovascular event (cardiovascular death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, stroke, and heart failure) or death from any cause.
Results: In the study population, 8780 deaths and 8252 major cardiovascular events occurred during the follow-up period. After performing extensive adjustments comparing the lowest and highest glycemic-index quintiles, we found that a diet with a high glycemic index was associated with an increased risk of a major cardiovascular event or death, both among participants with preexisting cardiovascular disease (hazard ratio, 1.51; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.25 to 1.82) and among those without such disease (hazard ratio, 1.21; 95% CI, 1.11 to 1.34). Among the components of the primary outcome, a high glycemic index was also associated with an increased risk of death from cardiovascular causes. The results with respect to glycemic load were similar to the findings regarding the glycemic index among the participants with cardiovascular disease at baseline, but the association was not significant among those without preexisting cardiovascular disease.
Conclusions: In this study, a diet with a high glycemic index was associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and death. (Funded by the Population Health Research Institute and others.).
CoI: multiple
Twitter: @gavinGiovannoni Medium: @gavin_24211
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