Deadly Consequences Of Sugar And Glucose Epidemic In The United States

Questions

Obesity rate in the United States have been increased since the past 20 years because of the amount of food we eat which contains a lot of sugar. In addition to the obesity rate, studies have shown a connection between to large amounts of sweet - sweetened beverage with childhood obesity. Similar studies were conducted by Robert Lustig MD, Kimber Standhope PhD, and Peter Havel Dvm PhD. In this experiment they had a 10 week experiment. The participant in the control group drinking glucose drinks meanwhile the experimental group drank fructose drink. They got their results back in 10 weeks where the fructose group have increased of triglyceride which comes from high fructose corn syrup when the liver couldn’t break down the molecules it becomes a fatty droplet on the liver causing type 2 diabetes. Also the fructose decreases insulin sensitivity where the pancreas produces insulins to breakdown sugar. 

Also high fructose corn syrup is a type of sugar that is considered bad for our metabolism and causes problems. Sucrose is a table sugar. Sucrose and high fructose corn syrup comes from sugar canes and they are both two sugar moles fructose and glucose. There is not a difference with high fructose corn syrup and Sucrose since they are chemically equivalent. The consumption over time of high fructose corn syrup causes diseases such as Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and fatty liver disease. On average Americans are suppose to consume about 100 calories (6 teaspoons) for women and 150 calories ( 9 teaspoons) for a day, but we consume about 28 teaspoons a day and about 90 per year which is not good for our health. Accord to Dr. Lustig he said that only high amount of fructose such as process food and fruit juice are bad meanwhile low added sugar such as milk is good for us. 

In our cell we only use glucose as an energy source because it is to give energy to our body meanwhile fructose is a toxin in our body where the liver can’t break down fructose and instead it stores the fructose, to creates citrates which is a triglyceride where it has fatty droplets on the liver. The body can be hurt with too much citrates because once there’s too much fatty droplets in the liver the, body will be insulin resistance which means that the body can no longer regulate blood sugar and as an result we develop type 2 diabetes. The excessive amounts of citrates can cause two type of major diseases, Cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes. Not only we develop diabetes from the citrates it can also cause inflammation in the liver and increase blood pressure. 

Alternative Scientific Theories

The main criticism that Robert Lustig gets from medical experts that don’t buy his theory is that David katz M. D. , M. P. H. explains that Lustig isn’t a specialist in fructose and that he has only done two studies on it and they are not even official lab reports instead they are government based. Another expert in the field that studies fructose Sievenpiper, M. D. , Ph. D. , a researcher at St. Michael’s Hospital and McMaster University in Ontario, Canada said that Lustig theory isn’t a theory instead its a hypothesis. It’s because there has not been a lot of evidence to prove that high fructose corn syrup in sweetened beverage can cause obesity along with metabolic syndrome and heart disease. 

Within Dr. Lustig’s theory is based on data from animal models where they feed three times the dosage of fructose to the anime instead of the human experiment. Also Lustig didn’t take in consideration that animals and humans take in carbohydrates differently. Where the animal’s liver is to make fat with the carbohydrates. Dr. Lustig’s prior research did not outline his general theory prior to his lecture because in his scientific papers about overweight children in two of his papers only mention fructose which doesn’t say much and now 6 of his papers mention glucose only to support his theory ever since his lecture. 

Many scientist including Kimber Stanhope, Peter Havel have supported Lustig’s theory and have collaborated with him on a 10 week study to see if his theory is correct. How they tested it is by giving overweight or obese people either glucose or high fructose corn syrup for them to drink and they have seen results that matches Lustig’s theory. Such as the group that drank the glucose developed the good kind of fat called unsaturated fat meanwhile the group who drank the fructose group decreased their insulin sensitivity and increase in triglycerides which causes type 2 diabetic. 

Also participants who drink the fructose drank gain visceral fat which is bad fat that is considered a metabolic syndrome. As a result the more consumption of fructose is link to obesity, since you are doing more damage to your liver and to your heart. When you drink those Fruit juice it stores fructose stores it creates citrates the liver can’t break it down which have fatty droplets stick to the liver. As more fatty droplet stick to the liver it will cause liver diseases and also insulin resistance where high blood sugar can occur which is the cause for type two diabetes. 

Analysis and scientific method

Based on the abstract of the nurse studies, the scientific method can be improved by telling us the general information about this experiment. For example was there an experimental group and control group within each studies? In a scientific method experiment you are supposed to cover as many confounding variables so that these variables can’t influence your experiment. Which in the abstract there wasn’t any variables that they are covering. According to the abstract of the nurse studies the research Isao Muraki did not conduct the research themselves because there were other people who was part of this research to help Isao. It matters because if a researcher is conducting a research online there are lots of things to consider is. For one is to control confounding variables, control bias. Within the abstract of the nurse’s studies there was a good amount for a sample size for the three groups for the Nurse’s study. The abstract did not include an experimental group and the control group which was strange. 

Through the nurses study there was no indication of a placebo, but there were consumption of many fruits and fruit juice to test the hypothesis. From the abstract there was no mentioning of a experiment group along with a control group. Confounding variables that I could come up with that this experiment is exercise, genetics, consumption of fruit juice and fruits, age, race. The reason that these confounding variables exist in this experiment because they never talked about it and in ways can influence the experiment as a whole. According to the abstract there is no clear indication that they did a blind study or even a blind study which is concerning. It’s because to make sure the researcher and participant bias doesn’t occur we use blind study or double blind to eliminate these bias. 

The subjects were 105 women from the 1984-2008, 104 women from the 1991-2009 nurse study and 173 men from the health Professional Follow- up study (1986-2008). The demographic group was looking into gender which sort of make sense because our bodies are different male to female. Also with this amount of study its broad enough to make a general conclusion that long term effects of fructose consumptions in this group since they did a longitudinal study where they even measure the groups every 2 to 4 years to gather information and even did surveys and self reports to gather a good amount of information, but overall this experiment needs a lot more work to prove their conclusion. 

Opinion

Through a couple of research from articles, meta studies I have concluded that High fructose corn syrup is a type of toxic sugar, but at the same time there is not enough research done to prove that this hypothesis is true. Couple of reasons I feel that way is because as I was reading the abstract of the Meta study of the Nurse’s study I did not see a couple of things that were listed to make an experiment effective. Things like control, experiment groups, blind study or double blind study. These elements need to be cover in an experiment because for one having an experimental and control group is to help test your hypothesis. In terms of blind study or double study its needed to cover bias where these bias can influence an experiment which is bad. When I didn’t see those variables in the experiment it didn’t give enough information that I can conclude that High fructose corn syrup is the leading cause to obesity weight gain and type two diabetes. Although at the same time I felt that Lustig’s theory is true since he talked about how a large amount of fructose will equal to the liver not breaking down the fructose instead store it which is called cirates. They are fatty acid buildup in the liver which can cause type 2 diabetes and inflammation of the liver. Lustig’s theory was supported by two articles that I did some research from. In this article Mark hyman talked about how toxic and deadly High fructose corn syrup is which support Lustig’s theory. 

According to 5 reasons high fructose corn syrup will kill you “Fructose goes right to the liver and triggers lipogenesis (the production of fats like triglycerides and cholesterol) this is why it is the major cause of liver damage in this country and causes a condition called “fatty liver” which affects 70 million people. (Hyman, 2015, p6) In this quote this shows evidence that proves his theory and not only it causes heart disease and resistance in the liver, this type of sugar also contains some sort of mercury which is chlor-alkali which is used in bleach. Which to me was interesting because in the article a FDA researcher asked a high fructose corn syrup company for them to check their supply, but the company rejected. To me that sounds suspicious because it shows that they are hiding something. 

As a result this research is considered relevant to modern life because in our everyday life we tend to pack too much calories which contain high fructose corn syrup which is a bad thing. And with this research people can learn about this dangerous sugar and when they see it in the nutrition label they will pass on it to live a better life. If the general public learn about this sugar and what it does to our body I am sure that our obesity, weight gain and heart disease will slowly decrease.