Posts Tagged ‘sugar’

JAMA Internal Medicine has just published the latest chapter in a hot debate about insulin and sugar as culprits responsible for obesity. David Ludwig and Cara Ebbeling present the prosecution’s case. A spike in highly processed carbs – like refined starches and sugar – is giving us a high glycemic load, they say. And in turn, […]

Summer holidays are here, bringing us a bounty of holiday foods, picnics, and recreation. Life is sweet. Or maybe too sweet, if you follow the headlines about how much sugar we’re eating. And you’ll definitely find a lot of it in the food at a typical picnic. But we’d like to suggest that the real […]

The wheels of government grind slowly. Especially when they need to reverse direction. But surprisingly, FDA did indeed reverse itself this week on a confusing bit of added sugar labeling. Maple producers have been howling about FDA’s plan to say that all of the sugar in pure maple syrup is “added.” Finally, FDA relented. An […]

Myth-busting is a popular approach for tackling controversial or misunderstood subjects. Certainly you’ll find a bit of that here at ConscienHealth. We’re not shy about dispelling myths. But Derek Powell and colleagues conclude that myth-busting can become deceptive. If the question at hand is subtle – not starkly true or false – then myth-busting can leave readers […]

On Friday, an independent panel advising the World Health Organization backed away from a recommendation for  taxing sugar to reduce obesity. Pakistan’s former health minister, Sania Nishtar, co-chaired the WHO Independent High-Level Commission on Noncommunicable diseases. She explained what happened: The reason behind the opposition of one commissioner in particular was with regard to the strength […]

Hi Alan. I’ve still got a bee in my bonnet about oranges only getting 4½ stars when you ran them through the Australian Health Star Rating system for May GI News despite their being packed with good stuff like vitamin C, fibre, potassium, folate and over 170 different types of phytochemicals that have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, […]

Vermonters are ticked. It’s time to implement the new Nutrition Facts label and they’re afraid it will give their beloved maple syrup a black eye. The label calls out added sugar. And pure maple sugar is what their syrup is all about. Yesterday, Vermont maple producers and legislators staged an event to protest an FDA […]

Late last week, the American Journal of Preventive Medicine published a correlation study of sugar and diet soda consumption in mothers during pregnancy and soon after childbirth. The researchers found that mothers who consumed more sugar during pregnancy and after childbirth tended to have children with lower cognition scores. But the researchers note correctly: As […]

It’s a favorite rationale for avoiding anything sweet. Even if it has no calories it will drive you to want more sweet foods and drinks. Sweet stuff will give you a sweet tooth, says the Harvard School of Public Health on its website: The human brain responds to sweetness with signals to eat more. By […]

We’ll say it again. You don’t need a scientific reason to hate artificial sweeteners. It’s OK. But even so, people keep coming up with speculation, dressing it up with science, and making unfounded claims about the bad effects of sweeteners. Today, Moises Velasquez-Manoff is telling us in the New York Times that germs love diet soda. […]