Keeping Kids Healthy: Ten Days Of Less Sugar Reduces Type 2 Risk

It’s amazing how the chemistry of our body can change after just ten days of reduced sugar consumption.

When children, ages 8 to 18, with symptoms of metabolic syndrome were put on a ten-day reduced sugar diet they experienced dramatic reductions in blood sugar, triglyceride, LDL cholesterol, and blood pressure levels, reducing their risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

The study, done at the University of California (UC) in San Francisco, did not restrict the participants’ calorie intake since researchers wanted to measure the effects of reduced sugar apart from the effects of weight loss. The data they collected suggests that “the health detriments of sugar, and fructose specifically, are independent of its caloric value or effects on weight.”

Kids At Risk

The health detriments these researchers refer to are a group of risk factors that raise people’s chances of developing health problems such as type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Together these risk factors are called “metabolic syndrome,” and symptoms include:

• Being overweight or obese; especially carrying excess fat in the stomach or abdominal area.
• High fasting blood sugar levels; insulin resistance.
• Elevated triglycerides (fatty acids in the bloodstream).
• High blood pressure.
• An imbalance of HDL and LDL cholesterols.

Unfortunately, these risk factors are increasingly showing up in our children, something largely unheard-of a half century ago. What has brought this unhealthy change about, some researchers argue, are the added sugars that have crept into our highly processed Western diet. The UC research is one of many studies lending credence to this argument.

Small Adjustments

If added sugars are the health hazard that research suggests, then the solution is simple, though maybe a bit inconvenient. We need to:

• Purchase less processed foods and prepare more of our meals from fresh, whole ingredients.
• Limit our purchase of packaged snack foods, and nibble more often on nuts, seeds, whole fruits, and cut up veggies.
• Check food labels for added sugars. This will become much easier now that food labels are required to state added sugar amounts. For now, sugar can be listed under a variety of names such as glucose, sucrose, fructose, maltose, dextrose, high fructose corn syrup, corn sweetener, beet sugar, cane sugar, dehydrated cane juice, maltodextrin, or dextrin.

While no child will be happy about cutting back on familiar processed foods, and busy parents may be pressed for time to cook, dietary changes can be done gradually. Small adjustments over time are easier to swallow, and make a big difference in long-term health.

Sources: Wiley Library; NHLBI; Healthy Eating/Names For Sugar
Photo credit: jenny downing