A new study suggests that excessive consumption of sugar does not have a bad effect on a person's weight.
In a research published in the journal Obesity, it states that sugar is not totally harmful because it causes weight gain. Instead, sugar is considered dangerous because it promotes unhealthy effects to body different than weight problems.
The study was conducted by examining subjects who were at the age of nine to 18. The 43 obese patients were then put on a sugar restriction experiment. Each of the subjects was said to at least have one metabolic problem such as fatty liver and high blood pressure.
A sugar-restricted diet was introduced to the subjects for nine days. The main objective of the test was to cut down the sugar intake from 28% to 10% without losing their weight. The children were then fed starch and carbs in exchange with sugars in order to see what would happen if the sugar intake is the only variable that will be reduced.
The result shows that the subjects' metabolic rate changed significantly. Blood pressure decreased by 5 mmHg, triglycerides lowered by 33 points, LDL down to by 10 points, insulin level lowered by almost 33.5% and the liver function were improved.
Robert Lustig explained the result of the study.
"This study definitively shows that sugar is metabolically harmful not because of its calories or its effects on weight; rather sugar is metabolically harmful because it's sugar," said by the lead author.
This internally controlled intervention study is a solid indication that sugar contributes to metabolic syndrome, and is the strongest evidence to date that the negative effects of sugar are not because of calories or obesity," he added.
Another research also suggests that the most powerful effect of excessive sugar intake happens not on the body but on the brain.
