sugar
Americans Are Still Eating Too Much Added Sugar, Fat
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Most of us know one of the best health moves we can make is to skip the junk food and eat a nutritious, well-balanced diet. But how are we doing at putting that knowledge into action? Not so great, according to a new analysis that reveals Americans continue to get more than 50 percent of their calories from low-quality carbohydrates and artery-clogging saturated fat.
In their analysis of the eating habits of nearly 44,000 adults over 16 years, NIH-funded researchers attributed much of our nation’s poor dietary showing to its ongoing love affair with heavily processed fast foods and snacks. But there were a few bright spots. The analysis also found that, compared to just a few decades ago, Americans are eating more foods with less added sugar, as well as more whole grains (e.g., brown rice, quinoa, rolled oats), plant proteins (e.g., nuts, beans), and sources of healthy fats (e.g., olive oil).
Over the last 20-plus years, research has generated new ideas about eating a proper diet. In the United States, the revised thinking led to the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. They recommend eating more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and other nutrient-dense foods, while limiting foods containing added sugars, saturated fats, and salt.
In the report published in JAMA, a team of researchers wanted to see how Americans are doing at following the new guidelines. The team was led by Shilpa Bhupathiraju, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, and Fang Fang Zhang, Tufts University, Boston.
To get the answer, the researchers looked to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The survey includes a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults, age 20 or older, who had answered questions about their food and beverage intake over a 24-hour period at least once during nine annual survey cycles between 1999-2000 and 2015-2016.
The researchers assessed the overall quality of the American diet using the Healthy Eating Index-2015 (HEI-2015), which measures adherence to the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines. The HEI-2015 scores range from 0 to 100, with the latter number being a perfect, A-plus score. The analysis showed the American diet barely inching up over the last two decades from a final score of 55.7 to 57.7.
That, of course, is still far from a passing grade. Some of the common mistakes identified:
• Refined grains, starchy vegetables, and added sugars still account for 42 percent of the average American’s daily calories.
• Whole grains and fruits provide just 9 percent of daily calories.
• Saturated fat consumption remains above 10 percent of daily calories, as many Americans continue to eat more red and processed meat.
Looking on the bright side, the data do indicate more Americans are starting to lean toward the right choices. They are getting slightly more of their calories from healthier whole grains and a little less from added sugar. Americans are also now looking a little more to whole grains, nuts, and beans as a protein source. It’s important to note, though, these small gains weren’t seen in lower income groups or older adults.
The bottom line is most Americans still have an awfully long way to go to shape up their diets. The question is: how to get there? There are plenty of good choices that can help to turn things around, from reading food labels and limiting calories or portion sizes to exercising and finding healthy recipes that suit your palate.
Meanwhile, nutrition research is poised for a renaissance. Tremendous progress is being made in studying the microbial communities, or microbiomes, helping to digest our foods. The same is true for studies of energy metabolism, genetic variation influencing our dietary preferences, and the effects of aging.
This is an optimum time to enhance the science and evidence base for human nutrition. That may result in some updating of the scoring system for the nation’s dietary report card. But it will be up to all of us to figure out how to ace it.
References:
[1] Trends in Dietary Carbohydrate, Protein, and Fat Intake and Diet Quality Among US Adults, 1999-2016. Shan Z, Rehm CD, Rogers G, Ruan M, Wang DD, Hu FB, Mozaffarian D, Zhang FF, Bhupathiraju SN. JAMA. 2019 Sep 24;322(12):1178-1187.
Links:
Eat Right (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute/NIH)
Dietary Fats (MedlinePlus, National Library of Medicine/NIH)
ChooseMyPlate (U.S. Department of Agriculture)
Healthy Eating Index (Department of Agriculture)
NIH Nutrition Research Task Force (National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease/NIH)
Dietary Guidelines for Americans (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)
Shilpa Bhupathiraju (Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston)
Fang Fang Zhang (Tufts University, Boston)
NIH Support: National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities; National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
Ultra-Processed Diet Leads to Extra Calories, Weight Gain
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
If you’ve ever tried to lose a few pounds or just stay at a healthy weight, you’ve likely encountered a dizzying array of diets, each with passionate proponents: low carb, low fat, keto, paleo, vegan, Mediterranean, and so on. Yet most nutrition experts agree on one thing: it’s best to steer clear of ultra-processed foods. Now, there’s some solid scientific evidence to back up that advice.
In the first randomized, controlled study to compare the effects of ultra-processed with unprocessed foods, NIH researchers found healthy adults gained about a pound per week when they were given a daily diet high in ultra-processed foods, which often contain ingredients such as hydrogenated fats, high fructose corn syrup, flavoring agents, emulsifiers, and preservatives. In contrast, when those same people ate unprocessed whole foods, they lost weight.
Intriguingly, the weight differences on the two diets occurred even though both kinds of foods had been carefully matched from a nutritional standpoint, including calorie density, fiber, fat, sugar, and salt. For example, breakfast for the ultra-processed group might consist of a bagel with cream cheese and turkey bacon, while the unprocessed group might be offered oatmeal with bananas, walnuts, and skim milk.
The explanation for the differences appears to lie in the fact that study participants were free to eat as little or as much food as they wished at mealtimes and to snack between meals. It turns out that when folks were on the ultra-processed diet they ate significantly more—about 500 extra calories per day on average—than when they were on the unprocessed diet. And, as you probably know, more calories without more exercise usually leads to more weight!
This might not seem new to you. After all, it has been tempting for some time to suggest a connection between the rise of packaged, ultra-processed foods and America’s growing waistlines. But as plausible as it might seem that such foods may encourage overeating, perhaps because of their high salt, sugar, and fat content, correlation is not causation and controlled studies of what people actually eat are tough to do. As a result, definitive evidence directly tying ultra-processed foods to weight gain has been lacking.
To explore the possible connection in the study now reported in Cell Metabolism, researchers at NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases took advantage of the Metabolic Clinical Research Unit at the NIH Clinical Center, Bethesda, MD. The unit is specially equipped to study issues involving diet and metabolism.
The researchers asked 20 healthy men and women of stable weight to stay at the center for 28 days. Each volunteer was randomly assigned to eat either an ultra-processed or unprocessed diet for two consecutive weeks. At that point, they switched to the other diet for another two weeks.
Both diets consisted of three daily meals, and volunteers were given permission to eat as much food as they liked. Importantly, a team of dieticians had carefully designed the ultra-processed and unprocessed meals such that they were well matched for total calories, calorie density, macronutrients, fiber, sugars, and salt.
At lunch, for example, one of the study’s processed meals consisted of quesadillas, refried beans, and diet lemonade. An unprocessed lunch consisted of a spinach salad with chicken breast, apple slices, bulgur, and sunflower seeds with a side of grapes.
The main difference between each diet was the proportion of calories derived from ultra-processed versus unprocessed foods as defined by the NOVA diet classification system. This system categorizes food based on the nature, extent, and purpose of food processing, rather than its nutrient content.
Each week, researchers measured the energy expenditure, weight, and changes in body composition of all volunteers. After two weeks on the ultra-processed diet, volunteers gained about two pounds on average. That’s compared to a loss of about two pounds for those on the unprocessed diet.
Metabolic testing showed that people expended more energy on the ultra-processed diet. However, that wasn’t enough to offset the increased consumption of calories. As a result, participants gained pounds and body fat. The study does have some limitations, such as slight differences in the protein content of the two diets. and the researchers plan to address such issues in their future work.
During this relatively brief study, the researchers did not observe other telltale changes associated with poor metabolic health, such as a rise in blood glucose levels or fat in the liver. While a couple of pounds might not sound like much, the extra calories and weight associated with an ultra-processed diet would, over time, add up.
So, it appears that a good place to start in reaching or maintaining a healthy weight is to follow the advice shared by all those otherwise conflicting diet plans: work to eliminate or at least reduce ultra-processed foods in your diet in favor of a balanced variety of unprocessed, nutrient-packed foods.
Reference:
[1] Ultra-processed diets cause excess calorie intake and weight gain: An inpatient randomized controlled trial of ad libitum food intake. Hall KD et al. Cell Metab. 2019 May 16.
Links:
Obesity (National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases/NIH)
Healthy Eating Plan (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute/NIH)
Body Weight Planner (NIDDK/NIH)
Kevin D. Hall (NIDDK/NIH)
Metabolic Clinical Research Unit (NIDDK/NIH)
NIH Support: National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
Has an Alternative to Table Sugar Contributed to the C. Diff. Epidemic?
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Thinkstock/piyaphat50
Most of us know how hard it is to resist the creamy sweetness of ice cream. But it might surprise you to learn that, over the past 15 years or so, some makers of ice cream and many other processed foods—from pasta to ground beef products—have changed their recipes to swap out some of the table sugar (sucrose) with a sweetening/texturizing ingredient called trehalose that depresses the freezing point of food. Both sucrose and trehalose are “disaccharides.” Though they have different chemical linkages, both get broken down into glucose in the body. Now, comes word that this switch may be an important piece of a major medical puzzle: why Clostridium difficile (C. diff) has emerged as a leading cause of hospital-acquired infections.
A new study in the journal Nature indicates that trehalose-laden food may have helped fuel the recent epidemic spread of C. diff., which is a microbe that can cause life-threatening gastrointestinal distress, especially in older patients getting antibiotics and antacid medicines [1, 2]. In laboratory experiments, an NIH-funded team found that the two strains of C. diff. most likely to make people sick possess an unusual ability to thrive on trehalose, even at very low levels. And that’s not all: a diet containing trehalose significantly increased the severity of symptoms in a mouse model of C. diff. infection.
Creative Minds: Do Celebrity Endorsements Influence Teens’ Health?
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Marie Bragg is a first-generation American, raised by a mother who immigrated to Florida from Trinidad. She watched her uncle in Florida cope effectively with type 2 diabetes, taking prescription drugs and following doctor-recommended dietary changes. But several of her Trinidadian relatives also had type 2 diabetes, and often sought to manage their diabetes by alternative means—through home remedies and spiritual practices.
This situation prompted Bragg to develop, at an early age, a strong interest in how approaches to health care may differ between cultures. But that wasn’t Bragg’s only interest—her other love was sports, having played on a high school soccer team that earned two state championships in Florida. That made her keenly aware of the sway that celebrity athletes, such as Michael Jordan and Serena Williams, could have on the public, particularly on young people. Today, Bragg combines both of her childhood interests—the influence of celebrities and the power of cultural narratives—in research that she is conducting as an Assistant Professor of Population Health at New York University Langone Medical Center and as a 2015 recipient of an NIH Director’s Early Independence Award.
Taking a New Look at Artificial Sweeteners
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Diet sodas and other treats sweetened with artificial sweeteners are often viewed as guilt-free pleasures. Because such foods are usually lower in calories than those containing natural sugars, many have considered them a good option for people who are trying to lose weight or keep their blood glucose levels in check. But some surprising new research suggests that artificial sweeteners might actually do the opposite, by changing the microbes living in our intestines [1].
To explore the impact of various kinds of sweeteners on the zillions of microbes living in the human intestine (referred to as the gut microbiome), an Israeli research team first turned to mice. One group of mice was given water that contained one of two natural sugars: glucose or sucrose; the other group received water that contained one of three artificial sweeteners: saccharin (the main ingredient in Sweet’N Low®), sucralose (Splenda®), or aspartame (Equal®, Nutrasweet®). Both groups ate a diet of normal mouse chow.
Creative Minds: Trying to Curb Those Sugar Cravings
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
It’s that time of year again: holiday parties and family feasts! One of the most frequently made—and most often broken—New Year’s resolutions is to follow a sensible diet. All goes well until you catch sight of a cupcake or smell some cookies fresh out of the oven. Sensory cues trigger cravings that crumble resolve and, before you know it, you’re on a sugar high.
Actually, from a biological perspective, it’s not a fair fight. Once desires and preferences are hard-wired in the brain, people have difficulty changing their habits. But one of 2013 recipients of the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, Kay Tye of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, is up for the challenge. In a high-risk, high-reward research project, she’s trying to find ways to control food cravings by reprogramming the brain, where the behavior begins.
The Diabetes Threat
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
The number of Americans diagnosed with type 2 diabetes rose from 1.5 million in 1958 to 18.8 million in 2010. That’s an increase of epidemic proportions. Even more disturbing, another 7 million Americans have type 2 diabetes, but don’t know it and, consequently, can’t take steps to control the disease. Altogether, over 8% of the U.S. population now has this potentially deadly metabolic condition.
- Type 2 diabetes wreaks havoc on the body by raising the levels of glucose in the blood, increasing the risk of blindness, heart disease, kidney failure, nerve damage, and even Alzheimer’s disease.
- Pre-diabetes is a condition in which blood glucose levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to be called diabetes. 79 million U.S. adults age 20 and older have pre-diabetes.
- NIH studies have shown that losing just 6–7% of body weight and increasing physical activity can prevent or delay pre-diabetes from progressing to diabetes. 85% of people with diabetes are overweight.
Weighing in on Sugary Drinks
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Drinking the occasional sugar-sweetened beverage, be it soda, an energy drink, sweetened water, or fruit punch, isn’t going to make you fat. But it’s now clear that many children and adults are at risk for gaining weight if they consume too much of these products.
I want to share new research from three recent papers in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) because, together, they provide some of the most compelling evidence of the role of sugary drinks in childhood obesity, which affects nearly one-fifth of young people between the ages of 6 and 19.
In the first study [1], researchers randomly assigned 641 normal-weight school children between the ages of 4 and 12 to one of two groups. The first group received an 8 oz sugary drink each day; the second received the artificially sweetened version. After 18 months, it was clear that the kids consuming the sugary drink had gained about 2.25 pounds more weight, compared with the kids drinking the zero calorie drinks. They also packed on more fat.
