When it comes to addiction or health risks, most people wouldn’t put sugar and alcohol in the same category. However, three obesity researchers from the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine believe that sugar consumption should have regulations just like alcohol. These researchers also believe that sugar is just as dangerous as alcohol.
Dr. Robert Lustig, a professor of pediatrics at UCSF, is well known for his YouTube lecture “Sugar: The Bitter Truth.” The video lecture has garnered more than 2 million views. Lustig, along with two of his colleagues, published a position paper in Nature arguing that “added sweeteners pose dangers to health that justify controlling them like alcohol.”
In the lecture, Lustig explains that our bodies process fructose the same way they process alcohol and other poisons. “It’s for this reason we took on the question of, is sugar consumption underlying this pandemic of chronic metabolic disease of which obesity is a feature, not the cause?” Lustig said.
Lustig and his colleagues not only compare sugar to alcohol, but they also compare sugar to cigarettes. According to Lustig, excess sugar consumption can lead to non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Sugar is also known to have addictive properties.
Lustig believes that placing a tax on all items that contain sugar and high fructose corn syrup will force people to stop consuming so much of them. He compared this tax to the current sin taxes on cigarettes. He and his colleagues also support placing age limits on certain items and reducing advertisements for foods with high amounts of sugar.
While Lustig’s efforts to regulate sugar consumption may have good intentions, it seems as if punishing an entire nation may not be completely effective.
Regulating certain foods just because they are unhealthy seems a bit rash. Why should someone who makes healthy choices but craves the occasional sugary snack be under a government-mandated diet? Instead of regulating sugar consumption, more efforts should be put into educating the nation and helping others make better decisions when it comes to food.
Lustig, however, believes that education is not enough and that regulation is absolutely necessary in order to lower the obesity pandemic.
Proposing that sugar be regulated in the same fashion as alcohol may be a bit of a stretch, but there’s no doubt that obesity and certain health conditions are on the rise in this nation.
Regulating sugar consumption may help curb the problem at hand, but if people want to eat sugary foods, they will. Increasing the price on cigarettes may have stopped some people from buying cigarettes, but it did not stop people from smoking. People need to know why eating a large amount of sugar is detrimental. Education is key, not regulation.
Reach the columnist at agales@asu.edu
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