ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 17, 1996 TAG: 9603190024
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: PAUL RECER ASSOCIATED PRESS
RESEARCHERS at Duke University say sugar's bad rap is undeserved
Sugar has a reputation as an evil food that causes diabetes, obesity, mood swings and other bad health effects. But Duke University researchers say that is all a myth.
It's fat - not sugar - that is the bad guy, said Richard Surwit, research director of the Stedman Nutrition Center at Duke. Sugar got its unsavory reputation, he said, from associating with fat.
Surwit said that research using laboratory mice and human beings shows that sugar has no more effect on weight gain than any other carbohydrate and that it does not trigger diabetes or affect personality.
Nor does sugar cause depression, hyperactivity, anxiety, or affect the ability to concentrate, he said.
The digestive system, Surwit said, breaks down carbohydrate elements in grains, pasta, bread and cereals into forms of sugar. Pure, white sucrose found in the sugar bowl is the same thing, so far as the body is concerned, he said.
``Sugar is just a carbohydrate like all others,'' he said. ``It is healthful and should be regarded like all other carbohydrates. There's no difference metabolically.''
Once sugar is in the digestive tract, Surwit said, enzymes break it down ``in the same manner as they break down complex carbohydrates, such as pasta and grains.''
In the studies presented Saturday at the fourth International Congress of Behavioral Medicine, Surwit and his colleagues reported on testing of sugar diets on both laboratory mice and people.
Surwit said in their first experiment, colonies of mice were fed a fatty, sweet diet that was essentially cookie dough.
``The animals all got fat and diabetic,'' he said.
Then the researchers fed groups of mice four different diets: high sugar-high fat; high sugar-low fat; low sugar-low fat and low sugar-high fat.
Only those receiving the high fat diets, he said, developed diabetes and obesity, or showed personality changes. Sugar was not the villain, said Surwit. It was the fat.
The Duke researchers then carried the idea into humans.
Forty-two overweight women, divided into two groups, were fed low-fat diets of exactly the same caloric content for six weeks. For one group, 43 percent of the calories came from sugar. The other group was fed no added sugar, but instead got calories from increased servings of pasta and grains. Only artificial sweetener was used for the second group.
After the experiment, there was virtually no difference between groups, Surwit said.
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