Sugar is Bad for ?

Sugar is the new villain on the block. Dietitians and medical practitioners everywhere are advising their patients to cut back on sugar and carbohydrates and to turn to protein instead.

And yet, for centuries, sugar has been an essential part of our diet – regardless of the culture or age group you are in. Every celebration starts and revolves around sugar, be it cakes and candies or the rice puddings in Eastern countries, or the milk based confections from India. We turn to sugar when we are sad and depressed – cookies, ice cream or just plain old sugar cubes.

So why is sugar suddenly the villain of the piece. Is there any real research to back up the claims of medical practitioners? Our team of researchers went undercover into hospitals and doctors offices to understand when sugar went from being the reward for being a good kid to the absolute worst thing you could give a 7-year-old before bedtime.

In the early 1900s when sugar fields in the colonies were delivering huge profits to the masters in the “civilized” worlds, sugar was being heavily promoted through all channels. It  was a solid energy providing ingredient that not only nourished children but also encouraged them to finish consuming their meal quickly. Lifestyle influencers – primarily magazine editors were also incentivised to promote desserts as a key part of celebrations. Every channel the sugar lobbyists found was being exploited.

By the 1980s, the pharmaceutical companies were manufacturing large quantities of cholesterol and sugar management drugs, for which they needed customers. The sugar consuming patients became ideal candidates for these drugs. The pharma reps enticed doctors to prescribe their medications with trips to international conferences and similar incentives.

But by 2008, margins on these drugs started to fall. The number of reps visiting the medical community and the international conferences started to dwindle. Government pressure to reduce the prices of these drugs further added to the misery of the pharmaceutical companies and indirectly to the end of the gravy train for the medicos.

Angered by having the fine rugs literally pulled from under their feet, hospitals and doctors decided to drive both sugar and the pharmaceuticals to ruin. They also found new suitors in the packaged meat and fish industry as well as the synthetic protein manufacturers.

Today, the same doctor who advised you to put sugar and chocolate in your child’s milk to make him or her drink it up faster, is telling you that that is the equivalent of putting poison into your child’s mouth.

In our opinion, the medical practitioners have as much certainty of the efficacy of protein as they did about the goodness of sugar. They are trying to do the best they can with the available information and the incentives are working as designed.