In the study, sugar has also been found to contribute to metabolic syndrome in children, according to Dr Robert Lustig, lead author and paediatric endocrinologist at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco.
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“This paper says we can turn a child’s metabolic health around in 10 days without changing calories and without changing weight – just by taking the added sugars out of their diet”, he said. On average, their fructose was decreased from 12 percent to 4 percent and their sugar intake was reduced from 28 percent to 10 percent. Without losing any weight, the kids saw a dramatic health improvement after just 10 days of a no sugar diet. These findings were established by restricting the participants’ sugar intake and putting them on a diet to positively influence high blood glucose levels, high blood pressure and abnormal cholesterol levels.
At the end of the nine days, the researchers were astonished to see that the kids’ metabolic health improved in every aspect even as their weight remained the same.
The study said researchers definitely shows that it is sugar that is metabolically harmful but not due to the amount of calories or how it effects weight.
Cutting most of the sugar from a child’s diet can immediately improve health, even if the diet still contains the same amount of calories and carbohydrates as before, a new study suggests. This, according to Dr. Lustig, is proof of the real ill effects sugar has on the body. In the book, he claims that sugar causes health problem independent of its calorie content, a claim that has been disputed by a number of scientists. The children were between the ages of nine and 18.
In a study released today, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, and Touro University California said they were able to isolate the effects of sugar as opposed to just calories.
It has now become crystal clear that sugar is extremely harmful for our metabolic system – not because of its calories or weight impact.
Heavy sugar consumption can be directly linked with weight gain, diabetes, metabolic and heart disease.
There was a notable reduction in diastolic blood pressure, triglycerides and LDL, or “bad” cholesterol.
The menu was crafted to be kid-friendly, but restricted foods loaded with added sugars such as high-sugar cereals, pastries and sweetened yogurt. At the beginning of the study, the children were asked to complete detailed sureys about the type of foods they normally eat.
As per experts it is very necessary to know how much sugar is added to your food so that a person can reduce its sugar intake knowing the actually amount.
If the children had lost weight, the improvements in their blood sugar and other measures could be attributed to the weight loss, not the sugar restriction, Lustig and Schwarz said. He added that the study has an “enormous implications for the food industry, chronic disease, and health care costs”.
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The children recorded their weight each day, and if any began to lose significant weight, they received added low sugar foods to offset the weight loss. “The results are not convincing to me – this is a very small study, and it has not been statistically well-controlled”, said Naveed Sattar, professor of metabolic medicine at Glasgow University.
