Medics urge action on ‘toxic, addictive’ sugar

The world is in the grip of an epidemic, and its cause is hiding in plain view: in our fridges, our cupboards, and on supermarket shelves. It is toxic, it is addictive and the average European consumes almost 40 kg of it per year (or 140 teaspoons each week). The name of this poison? Sugar.

This, at least, is the view of Professor Robert Lustig, a medical expert famous for his work on child obesity. He claims that fructose, one of the two main chemicals in sugar, suppresses hormones that make our bodies feel satisfied. The more of it we eat, the more we crave.

The consequences of humanity’s insatiable sweet tooth are grim. Once the body takes in more fructose than it can convert into energy, it starts instead to process it into fat stored in the liver. This has been linked to many serious medical conditions including obesity, diabetes, heart disease and even manic depression.

Lustig’s description of sugar as a toxic and addictive substance is controversial. But few dispute that it is contributing to a serious crisis in global health. The United Nations now ranks conditions linked with obesity as more deadly than infectious diseases such as AIDS and malaria – even in the developing world. And global sugar consumption has trebled in the past 50 years.

Political leaders are so alarmed that some countries are now taking serious steps to regulate sugar. This week the Indian government increased taxes on the sweet stuff by 50% in an effort to protect the country – so far relatively untroubled by the sugar curse – from going the way of the West. The Mayor of New York, meanwhile, recently attempted to ban the sale of large fizzy drinks.

But Lustig and others suggest that these measures may not be enough. Sugar is at least as destructive to our health as many banned drugs, he says, and far more common. Sugar may well be as harmful to our liver as alcohol, and yet it can be bought and sold almost entirely without restrictions.

The curse of the cane

Our favourite sweetener is in fact a dangerous and destructive substance, say some nutritionists. This is not just a matter of an unbalanced diet or undisciplined eating: the rise of sugar is a social evil which has infected almost every culture in the world. The only way to break this habit is to regulate sugar as strictly as we do alcohol or tobacco.

‘Puritans!’ respond the sweet-toothed millions. We all know sugar is bad for us, and most people make some attempt to curb their consumption. The reason we fail is simple: sugary food is delicious. It is only ourselves we harm with this so-called ‘addiction’, and that’s a matter of personal choice – no government has the right to strip the icing from our lives.