Hey, Sugar (and Sugar Substitute)!

Lower quality foods are usually higher in carbohydrates, starches and sugar-laced additives. Let’s face it, a plate of spaghetti with store-bought tomato sauce is a whole lot cheaper than a slab o’ fish, a steak and some freshly steamed vegies. What’s worse, the quality of our tomato crops has so deteriorated in recent years, flavorless fruits that are bred to show color and ripen quickly but often at the cost of flavor. Flavorless tomatoes for pasta sauce? Solution? Commercial products often add lots of sugar to make the sauce taste better!

Looking for a little flavor for that otherwise boring meal? How about some nice cheap soft drinks to go with it? Cheap soft drinks, even the diet kind, often substitute for healthier drinks, but then, counting calories might not really give you the whole picture.

“Consumption of ‘light’ or ‘diet’ sodas may be linked to an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to new research… [A recent] study followed more than 65,000 European women for over 14 years, tracking their consumption of sugar-sweetened and artificially-sweetened (or sugar free) sodas and juices… Published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the research finds that a higher than average intake of both sugar-sweetened and sugar free sodas is linked to an increased incidence of type 2 diabetes… However, rather surprisingly, the authors also found that those consuming diet soda had an even higher incidence than those drinking ‘regular’ sugar sweetened soda.” FoodNavigator.com, February 21, 2013.

Hey, but Americans are consuming fewer soft drinks; they are wising up. “[T]he latest Nielsen xAOC data revealed that unit sales of diet carbonates from the top three players combined declined by 7% in the year to date (Coca-Cola -5.1%, PepsiCo -8.3% and Dr. Pepper Snapple Group -7.6%. In comparison, unit sales of regular (full sugar) carbonates were up very slightly at Coca-Cola (+0.3%) and down a more modest -3.3% for PepsiCo and -1.7% at Dr. Pepper Snapple Group.)...

“If current trends continue, carbonated soft drinks volumes could decline 15-20% by 2020 driven by sharp declines in diet variants, predicts Wells Fargo. But why have Americans fallen out of love with diet soda, and what are they drinking instead?... Because of the ongoing declines and worsening performance of diets which we [Wells Fargo] attribute to broader awareness of studies questioning the safety of artificial sweeteners, we believe we are seeing a fundamental shift in consumption behavior as Diet drinkers leave the category altogether.” FoodNavigator.com, October 14, 2013. You mean there’s hope? Just a little, even as New York City wasn’t able to eliminate those giant soft drink cups, there are still plenty of folks drinking such sodas like the addicts they have become.

All of these indicators suggest that diet high in carbs or that have fizzy sodas with artificial sweeteners are particularly not recommended for anyone with diabetes issues, either the more virulent early-onset (often genetic), Type 1, or adult-onset, Type 2. They can accelerate the disease, so perhaps no one should be drinking them. Both types of diabetes can seriously impair your internal organs, your vision (blindness is all-too-common), result in blood circulation loss which can kill tissue (entire limbs and worse), shorten your life or out-and-out kill you. Diabetes must be managed and monitored with extreme care. We spend over $100 billion in the United States annually on diabetes-related issues! Anything that can reduce diabetes will save our healthcare system a fortune and make life that much more tolerable for millions.

Obesity rates – often related to diabetes – skyrocket where cultures consume vast quantities of sweetened soft drinks. A summer 2011 study from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation tells us: “While the rise in obesity over the past 30 years has coincided with the rise in soft drink consumption, soft drinks represent only 7 percent of energy intake among adults. The case may be made for focusing on reducing soda consumption among the younger age groups, as obesity during childhood predicts adult obesity and concomitant health problems.” Mexico is clamping down on a horrific increase in obesity, and the resultant heavy demand on its already inadequate healthcare system, by layering new taxes on these sugary drinks and “diet” equivalents. This particularly slams the poorest members of society, who often live on such beverages.

And when cash flow is an issue, diet choices move into the carbs fast and furious. And starchy carbs can easily turn into sugar as the body’s digestive system deploys its magical juices. “Poor people with diabetes are significantly more likely to go to the hospital for dangerously low blood sugar at the end of the month when food budgets are tight than at the beginning of the month, a new study [published online on January 6^th in the journal Health Affairs] has found.

“Researchers found no increase in such hospitalizations among higher-income people for the condition known as hypoglycemia, suggesting that poverty and exhausted food budgets may be a reason for the increased health risk… Hypoglycemia occurs when people with diabetes have not had enough to eat, but continue taking medications for the disease. To control diabetes, patients need to keep their blood sugar within a narrow band. Levels that are too low or too high (known as hyperglycemia) can be dangerous.

“Researchers found a clear pattern among low-income people: Hospital admissions for hypoglycemia were 27 percent higher at the end of the month than at the beginning. Researchers said they could not prove that the patients’ economic circumstances were the reason for the admission, but the two things were highly correlated.” New York Times, January 6^th. Hmmm… What do you think? So cutting our support for food stamps, which recently happened as Congress addressed our budget deficit issues, seems to carry with it a corollary increase in healthcare issues under Medicaid and other programs for the poor. Did or will we actually wind up costing the taxpayers even more than those savings in that food stamp program? And why must we insist on eating ourselves to death?

I’m Peter Dekom, and other than the fact that our electorate and the politicians they elect are not particularly good at the cause-and-effect thang, you are what you eat… and what you eat can indeed kill you!