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Home » Diets that Work » Suicide by sugar? Sweet tooth is killing us, many doctors say

As mounting evidence leads to the tart truth that sugar is a toxic substance and fueling America's biggest health problems, more medical experts are going sugar-free, and more policymakers are seeking ways to clamp down on its consumption.

Next week in Chicago, delegates to the American Medical Association a group that creates much of the country's medical advice will vote on whether taxing sugar-sweetened beverages would be an effective way to reduce their consumption.

Such news is bittersweet: bitter because Americans love their sugar. Sweet because just one dietary change eliminating added sugars could reverse America's deadliest and costliest ills, including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and many cancers, experts say.

The United States now spends three out of every four health-care dollars treating these diseases, according to the authors of a recent article in Nature, which said that because of sugar's potential for abuse coupled with its toxicity and pervasiveness in the Western diet it should be controlled like alcohol and tobacco.

"I agree with all of it," saidDr. PhilWood, a scientist at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in Lake Nona, where he's a professor of metabolic disease. "All these diseases could be largely avoided or prevented if Americans consumed less sugar."

Wood, 55, got serious about kicking his sugar habit 10 years ago. He hasn't had a soft drink since. "I'm disgusted by the whole industry."

Four years ago, his frustration with the food industry's unwillingness to cut sugar in its products led him to walk away from his role as a paid consultant for a large cereal company.

"The company executives refused to listen to my advice," Wood said. "They tried to gloss over the harmful effects of sugar. The food industry is in denial because it will cost them to change their ways."

The association between America's sugar habit and its skyrocketing rate of metabolic diseases already has caught the attention of policymakers.

Last month, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg touted a plan to ban supersized soft drinks in restaurants and movie theaters, citing the sugary drinks' ill effects on health and wallets.

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Suicide by sugar? Sweet tooth is killing us, many doctors say

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Home » Diets that Work » Suicide by sugar? Sweet tooth is killing us, many doctors say