Sugar is a known obesogenic food and mechanisms have been investigated to explain this process. In short, sugar is able to enter hepatic (liver) pathways that stimulate the formation of fatty acids, and these fatty acids accumulate in tissues and interfere with the insulin signal cascade. This interference leads to insulin resistance and the development of obesity. It might therefore be expected that those with the highest intakes of sugar have the highest risk of being overweight or obese. However, this is not what the literature shows. A meta-analysis of 19 studies that reported on associations between sugary confection intake and obesity, showed that those in the highest category for intake, actually had an 18 % lower risk of being obese than a reference group. The study reported that a 1 time per day increase in the consumption of confectionery actually decreased the odds of being overweight or obese by 13 %. A similar inverse association was found between chocolate and non-chocolate confectionery.
It is well reported that low quality diets containing high amounts of sugar are obesogenic in nature. Removing sugar from the diet, or severely limiting it, is one of the most effective ways to cause weight loss. Many people claim that energy restrictive diets are able to cause weight loss. This is true, but not for the reason of energy restriction. Energy restriction diets severely limit sugar intake through restriction of the types of foods that contain sugar, and this is likely the real reason they cause weight loss. Replacing sugary food such as confectionary and soft drinks with vegetables will often result in significant weight loss with no other dietary changes.
At face value it would therefore appear that sugar consumption is associated with weight control. However, there are a number of factors that could explain this association. The most obvious reason for this association may be the under reporting of food intake to the researchers. There have been a number of studies that have investigated the self reporting of food intakes and many have found that they can be unreliable. Often people purposefully or accidently under report their food intake, particularly when that food is known to be detrimental to health. In this way the subjects of these studies under investigation could simply have been underreporting their true confectionery intake. Another possibility is that the data is real, and the obese and overweight do consume less confectionary. They may however consume more soft drinks and other sugar containing foods, such that their total sugar intake is greater. This highlights the problem with correlations, as a cause and effect can never be determined.
Eat Well, Stay Healthy, Protect Yourself
RdB
