It's health week! A new longread each day about various health-related topics.
We'll start with nutrition and an article from Gary Taubes about the dangers of sugar. Taubes is a bit of a renegade in the world of nutrition science. He comes from the school of thought commonly associated with Atkins that identifies carbohydrates (especially things like refined sugar) as a root cause of obesity, diabetes, and numerous other serious health problems. Taubes is both a persistent researcher and quality writer, and this article about sugar should be engaging for anyone interested in the debate over what kind of diet is best for overall health.
"Is Sugar Toxic?" by Gary Taubes
Published in the New York Times, April 13, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
Check back each business day the rest of this week for more health longreads!
Eric
Are there any articles/studies you've come across that try to answer the question, "What's the lowest amount of sugar to have in your diet and still remain healthy?"
ReplyDeleteFrom a very general standpoint, this article is good -- http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/75/5/951.2.full. It addresses the question of whether carbohydrates are truly necessary for human nutrition.
ReplyDeleteAs for your specific question -- it's seemingly very simple but actually very complicated. The reason is that "healthy" means different things to different people.
For some people, healthy means as much muscle and as little fat as possible (bodybuilders, for example). Some folks in that camp go with diets that at times have virtually zero carbs -- see this for example about the ketogenic diet: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/keto.htm
For others, healthy is about being able to be extremely active and competitive in sports (or hiking or things like that). An extremely low-carb diet might be dangerous for these folks, especially if their activity is the type that requires a lot of energy. The reason it could be dangerous is because the body can start to burn up muscle for energy.
For others, healthy means having good health indicators (within normal ranges on BMI and blood levels, for example) such that they are not at any elevated risk of major health problems like heart disease, diabetes, etc. This is probably the largest group of people and unfortunately is also the group over which there is the greatest controversy. Hence Taubes being seen as a provocateur in this field.
Eric
http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/eat-like-an-ikarian/?ref=magazine
ReplyDeleteInteresting blog article that is an offshoot of an article on diet and longevity.
They mention the 'Is Sugar Toxic' article as a way to view diet.
Instead of asking, 'what are we eating'...just as importantly we should be asking, 'what aren't we eating'.
Another interesting article in the New Yorker a few weeks ago did an overview look at the science of the bacteria that live in our body. There is a group that is researching how a specific type of bacteria cause cavities. These bacteria are activated by the sugars we consume. The scientists are developing a mouth wash that targets this specific bacteria to try to eradicate cavities in humans...