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Sugar's `empty' calories pile upAuthor: By Judy Foreman, Globe StaffHere's the so-called problem: The kids in the Colorado Springs schools just aren't drinking enough Coke, or so says John Bushey, an area superintendent for 13 schools who signs his correspondence, ``The Coke Dude.'' It seems the Colorado district had been hard up for money for extras like band competitions and debates. So in 1997, it signed a 10-year contract by which it would get $8-$11 million from Coca-Cola in return for giving the soft drink giant exclusive rights to peddle Coke, juices, teas, other sugary drinks and fancy water in school vending machines. Coke has similar ``partnerships'' with schools around the country, including the Burlington, Mass. system and dozens of individual schools in the Boston area, says Bob Lanz, Coke's vice president for public affairs for New York and New England. With sugar consumption by teenagers already in the stratosphere, this scheme is not exactly popular with nutritionists. Surprisingly, it doesn't seem all that popular with kids in Colorado Springs, either, because they haven't held up their end of this sugar-coated deal. Sales of Coke products have been so sluggish that Bushey wrote to school officials in September: ``We all need to work together to get next year's volume up to 70,000 cases.'' He wasn't kidding, as he made plain in an interview. In fact, his solution is to let kids buy drinks ``throughout the day except for the half hour before and after lunch'' and to place machines ``where they are accessible all day.'' Let's say, for argument's sake, that bombarding kids with soda pop and other sugary drinks makes economic sense for cash-starved schools. But nutritional sense? Forget it. Sugar consumption, especially among teens, is ``off the charts,'' says Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a health advocacy group in Washington, D.C. The group lays much of the blame on the soft drinks, or ``liquid candy,'' that teens are guzzling. (Sugar-free drinks aren't much better, he adds. Artificial sweeteners ``are used almost exclusively in worthless foods. If you're consuming much of them, you ought to worry about your overall diet. They aren't making good foods better, they're making bad foods less bad.'' Twenty years ago, his group says, teens drank almost twice as much milk as soda. Now they drink twice as much soda as milk. Girls get only 60 percent of the calcium they need to build bones to prevent osteoporosis in later life. Some data suggest drinking soda instead of milk may also contribute to breaking bones while they're still teenagers. The US Department of Agriculture is worried, too, noting that Americans consume twice as much sugar as desirable. Indeed, many of us now get 16 percent of our calories from sugar, including table sugar and products like corn syrup that are added to processed foods. It's not that sugar is a toxin, as some health faddists argue. In and of itself, it's not bad for you. It isn't even a major risk for diabetes. But too much sugar can make for health problems, including obesity, heart disease and tooth decay, said a panel of 21 nutritionists in December. They called for a National Academy of Sciences study of the health consequences of sugar consumption. Metabolically, sugar is a refined carbohydrate, like white bread or potatoes. And, like them, it can trigger a rapid rise in blood glucose, which sets off an outpouring of insulin, the hormone that escorts sugar molecules into cells. Over time, too much of this cycle can raise blood levels of fatty substances called triglycerides and lower levels of HDL (good cholesterol), increasing the risk of heart disease. There's also some evidence that this carbohydrate-insulin cycle can exhaust the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, says Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. But the main problem with sugar, aside from the calories it packs, is that ``it squeezes out the good things'' like fruits, vegetables and milk from the diet, says Dr. George Blackburn, medical director of the Center for the Study of Nutrition and Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Sugar is just ``empty calories,'' agrees Willett, adding that an eight-ounce serving of Coke contains about eight teaspoons of sugar. ``If people thought of spooning down eight teaspoons of sugar, they'd be grossed out,'' he says. ``But drinking makes it virtually invisible, which means you can take in a lot more calories than you realize.'' And too many calories, regardless of where you get them, leads to weight gain, unless you exercise off what you take in. Sugar is also seductive. ``It's not only in things that are sweet, which we know have sugar, but it's also in processed foods that don't taste particularly sweet,'' says Larry Lindner, executive editor of the Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter. That includes ketchup, canned beans, barbeque sauce, spaghetti sauce, even cereals that don't appear to be sweet. But to focus solely on sugar -- and not on refined carbohydrates in general -- is to miss the point, nutritionists say, because in some ways, pure sugar may be less of a problem. ``People have been given the idea they can load up on potatoes and bagels but not sugar,'' says Willett. In fact, table sugar (sucrose) is made up of both fructose and glucose. Because fructose does not trigger an insulin response like glucose, in some ways, ironically, you may be better off eating pure sugar than starch, in terms of metabolic effects on the body, he says. ``No matter how you take carbohydrates in, enzymes in the pancreas turn it all to sugar,'' adds Blackburn. ``What the body sees is sugar. It never sees a starch.'' What, then, is a body to do? Remember the basics -- calories do count, and sugar, especially in liquid candy form, can be an insidious wrecker of healthy diets. Weight control, no matter what the fad diet books say, still boils down to a matter of ``calories in, calories out,'' says Karen Chalmers, director of nutrition services at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston. The bottom line is that you should eat a diet that's roughly half carbohydrate, including sugar. Within that category, you should try to eat less of the refined stuff, which has had much of the fiber and many of the nutrients removed, and more of the whole grain products like brown rice or whole oats. And soft drinks? Forget it. If you're thirsty, drink water. (Juices are okay in small quantities, but they have lots of calories.) If you're hungry, eat real food.
In truth, methanol toxicity (which can cause blindness) from aspartame is not a serious concern, says Timothy Maher, director of pharmaceutical sciences at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy. In fact, there's more methanol in a can of tomato juice than a soda sweetened with aspartame, which was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for use in some food products in the early 1970s and for soft drinks in 1983. ``There is some evidence that aspartame may be linked to migraine headaches,'' he says, but there's no credible evidence of any link between aspartame and brain tumors, MS, or lupus, although that's largely because these haven't been studied. There is a danger that anti-aspartame crusaders often don't talk about, however, the fact that some people can't metabolize one of the two amino acids (phenylalanine) in aspartame. Those are people born with a condition called PKU (phenylketonuria). Since children with PKU cannot metabolize phenylalanine, they must eat a special diet to avoid proteins that contain the amino acid, or they run the risk of becoming mentally retarded and dying young. If these children consumed aspartame, ``it would really do them in,'' adds Maher. Thanks to genetic screening at birth, however, most people with PKU know it. But this test doesn't pick up people -- a few percent of the population -- who inherit just one defective gene for PKU, not two. This means you could be at risk for an adverse reaction from aspartame and not know it. In addition, some data suggests that schizophrenics who react adversely to antipsychotic drugs such as Haldol also may not be able to metabolize aspartame normally. If they consume it, their reaction to the medications, including involuntary muscle movements, may get worse, says Maher. In other words, if you're worried about aspartame, don't touch it. There are other sweeteners on the market, including Acesulfame K and saccharine, though they're controversial, too, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest. On the other hand, the health advocacy group says, the newest sweetener, Sucralose, approved by the FDA in July, does appear safe. Even so, the take-home message, as Maher puts it, is ``I'd use sugar.'' In moderation, of course.
Sources of sugar Serving size Sugar in grams Pepsi 12 fl. oz. 41 Coke Classic 12 fl. oz. 39 Hershey's milk chocolate bar 1.6 oz. 22 Kellogg's Fruit Loops 1 cup 15 Nabisco Double Stuf Oreos 2 cookies 13 Dannon French Vanilla Lowfat Yogurt 1 cup 51 with Raspberries Dannon Premium Plain Lowfat Yogurt 1 cup 16 Ocean Spray Jellied Cranberry Sauce 1/4 cup 26 Mott's Apple Sauce 1/2 cup 23 Mott's Natural (unsweetened) Apple Sauce 1/2 cup 12 HI-C Orange Drink 8 fl. oz. 31 Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice 8 fl. oz. 22 Whole orange 5 oz. 12 General Mills Almond Oatmeal Crisp 1 cup 16 Kellogg's Corn Flakes 1 cup 2 Prego Pasta Sauce (Traditional) 1/2 cup 15 Campbell's Old Fashioned Beans 1/2 cup 14 Campbell's Home Cookin' Tomato Garden Soup 1 cup 12 SOURCE: Tufts University Health and Nutrition Letter. Globe staff chart |