Would taxing sugar halt the diabetes epidemic?
Here's an article discussing a paper published in the Journal Nature yesterday.
Summing up the paper the article says "Like alcohol and tobacco, sugar is a toxic, addictive substance that should be highly regulated with taxes, laws on where and to whom it can be advertised, and even age-restricted sales, says a team of UCSF scientists."
Here's another quote concerning the cause of T2. "It's sugar, not obesity, that is the real health threat, Lustig and his co-authors - public health experts Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis - say in their paper. They note that studies show 20 percent of obese people have normal metabolism and no ill health effects resulting from their weight, while 40 percent of normal-weight people have metabolic problems that can lead to diabetes and heart disease. They contend that sugar consumption is the cause.".........'The gestalt shift is maybe obesity is just a marker for the rise in chronic disease worldwide, and in fact metabolic syndrome, caused by excessive sugar consumption, is the real culprit,' said Schmidt, a health policy professor who focuses on alcohol and addiction research."
Although I'm not a big fan of social engineering thru taxing at least this is something from the popular press that shows a little more understanding of T2 as opposed to the recent Paula Deen media storm. I would also note that as usual the article make no distinction between T1 and T2.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Linda G on -
Not necessarily Jean! I have lived a lifestyle of low carb with much activity and still managed to "get it"....genetics play a very big role in the equation! As well have always been thin! Types of diabetes are as diverse as the person with it! Regardless of what shows on youtube!
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Permalink Reply by LaGuitariste on -
Linda, I'm sorry if I gave you the impression that I think that "all" Type 2's are obese. I know very well that this is not true. However, over the broad swath of Type 2's (statistically speaking) there is a high correlation between obesity and early or earlier-than-historically-expected onset of Type 2.
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For example, what used to be considered "adult onset" is now appearing in children. What used to show up in older adults (over sixty) is now becoming an epidemic in people in their late thirties and forties. Of course there is a strong genetic component, and some fraction of Type 2's are thin marathon runners or dancers or triathletes.
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The YouTube I linked to is of a talk by Robert H. Lustig, MD, a UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology. He's not exactly an ignorant lay person -- and he's seeing a world-wide epidemic in childhood obesity in children as young as SIX MONTHS old.
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Are we going to accuse six month old babies of being "lazy"? No. Should we be looking at their diet and the feeding habits of their parents? Absolutely. What has changed in the past thirty years -- world-wide -- to fire off this epidemic in obesity and Type 2 diabetes? A lot of researchers are looking at a high-simple-carb, high fructose, high HFCS diet. It's a lie that "a calorie is a calorie". It's a scientific fact that fructose is preferentially stored as body fat and that a high fructose diet causes fatty liver and other endocrine problems.
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HFCS didn't even exist in the human diet until 1975. Now it's in everything.
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Permalink Reply by Jake on -
Another bad idea, reminds me of the movie Demolition Man.. Do we really want to become a police state where government controls what we read, think, eat, very Orwellian concept. We already have the Diabetes Police, do we need or want the Food Police (oh wait, theres always the lobby group Center for Science in the Public Interest) which already wants the government to control everything we eat and drink. Dont want to end up eating Soylent Green because thats the only food that isnt taxed to death.
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Permalink Reply by Kathyann on -
Let's outlaw sugar and put anyone that uses it in jail or a rehab program. Seriously, this whole thing is sad. It helps to perpetuate the idea that sugar is causing Diabetes, which my co workers are already CONVINCED of.
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Permalink Reply by Nicole on -
What about when us T1's get low? We won't be able to afford to treat it!
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Permalink Reply by acidrock23 on -
I'd need an FSA for jelly beans!
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Permalink Reply by LaGuitariste on
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Can someone please explain to me why so many Americans are ready and willing to sacrifice our health to the multi-national food conglomerates? I don't get it.
Being intentionally poisoned by big corporations is "freedom" but trying to stop them from poisoning us is "big brother run amok"? How does that reasoning work, exactly? I haven't thought that way for forty years. I can't figure it out.
How did Americans get lulled into thinking that any metabolic poison that General Mills or Coca-Cola want to brainwash our kids into eating is benign but anyone who wants to stop them is evil?
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Permalink Reply by acidrock23 on
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Because they will see a commercial with horses playing football in 3 hours. I think that advertising will be found to have been a huge culprit in the collapse of our civilization when someone looks back at it.
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Permalink Reply by LaGuitariste on
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I'm sure you're right. I worked in printing and publishing in my twenties. I've been a pretty darn critical "consumer" of advertising ever since, but they can still get under my radar. I killed my television in my early thirties (it's been over twenty years since I've owned one) and I hate commercial radio like I hate rabies -- but of course I'm still bombarded with ridiculously dishonest food ads everywhere I go.
Maybe someone needs to start making commercials showing T2 diabetics in extremis and have the announcer say in a voice-over, "This gangrene, blindness and kidney failure brought to you by McDunolds, Popsi, Burger Queen, and..."
But of course, no one can do that because it would be libel and their lawyers would rip you to shreds.
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Permalink Reply by furball64801 on -
Just wanted to interject, my mom was never obese or even overweight. My aunt weighs 85 lbs and has been type 2 for 60 yrs my mom was always 100 lbs or less. Sure but how about blamming the disease for the weight not the type 2 diabetic. Genetics is in all of them, sorry this is a sore subject with me because this was never mentioned in the 50s just that I would get diabetes because it was in my geneds.
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Permalink Reply by ninjaken on -
Well if you think about it the diabetes epidemic didn't really escalate until the last 30 years when they had corn subsidies and the HCF High Fructose Corn Syrup started hitting the shelves and into almost every product out there. So lets cut the Government intrusion of corn into our everyday lives as well as other ways white poisons such as flour and salt have increased the epidemic as well.
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