Summary and Analysis of The Case Against Sugar

Based on the Book by Gary Taubes

• Publisher: Worth Books
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781504020336
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Diseases & Allergies

So much to read, so little time? This brief overview of The Case Against Sugar tells you what you need to know—before or after you read Gary Taubes's book. Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader. This short summary and analysis of The Case Against Sugar includes:

• Chapter-by-chapter overviews
• Profiles of the main characters
• Detailed timeline of key events
• Important quotes
• Fascinating trivia
• Glossary of terms
• Supporting material to enhance your understanding of the original work

About The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes: In his New York Times –bestseller, journalist Gary Taubes reveals how sugar became a staple in our diet and how it may be the biggest threat to our health since tobacco. Citing decades of scientific research, Taubes meticulously makes the case that sugar causes a host of diseases from obesity and diabetes to heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer's. Obesity and diabetes are pandemic around the world, with more than half a billion people considered obese, including one in three Americans. With more and more American adults getting diagnosed with diabetes, the once uncommon disease has followed the spread of the sugar-rich Western diet around the globe. Tracing the history of sugar; detailing studies on how it can lead to weight gain and other medical problems; and chronicling the lengths to which the powerful sugar industry has gone to hide this information, Taubes reveals traditional advice recommending a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet is wrong—it's sugar we should be looking out for. The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of nonfiction.

Summary

Introduction: Why Diabetes?

Historically, diabetes has been a relatively rare disease. According to an 1898 study by Elliott Joslin (a doctor who would go on to become one of the most influential diabetes specialists) and pathologist Reginald Fitz, only 172 out of 48,000 patients seen at Massachusetts General Hospital since 1824 had been diagnosed with diabetes, but this number was on the rise. Joslin and Fitz found that there were as many cases of diabetes seen in the hospital in the 13 years from 1885–1898 as there were in the previous 61 years. In 1934, Elliot concluded that only two to three Americans in every thousand had diabetes. Today, that figure stands at around 12–14% or one in every seven to eight Americans. Similar patterns have emerged around the globe. Countries that have adopted a Western diet have also seen a sharp rise in diabetes—even among populations like the Chinese and Inuit where, previously, the disease barely existed.

While some early researchers cited the link between sugar and diabetes, the blame shifted to fat and saturated fat in the latter half of the 20th century. Despite growing evidence that sugar, instead of fat, was to blame, these beliefs stuck—partly under pressure from the sugar industry, and partly because of the medical establishment’s hesitancy to challenge its established doctrine. As obesity rates soared, scientists and doctors argued the epidemic wasn’t caused by eating a specific food, but by eating too much food in general. Because fat contains nine calories per gram (versus four in carbohydrates and protein), it became an easy scapegoat in the calories-in/ calories-out theory (also known as “energy balance”). This hypothesis benefitted the sugar industry; it could place the blame for diabetes on obesity in general—not their product.

But author Gary Taubes argues that sugar, specifically, in all its forms (sucrose, high fructose corn syrup, etc.), is responsible for changes in the human body that trigger not just diabetes, but obesity, heart disease, stroke, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease, as well. As a group, these diseases represent the leading cause of death in Western countries and all have been linked to a condition called “insulin resistance,” which is present in type 2 diabetics. Taubes sets out to prove that the explosion of sugar consumption around the world, rather than consuming too many calories and exercising too little, is the source of these problems.

Need to Know: Since the late 19th century diabetes has become an epidemic in America as well as in countries that have adopted a Western diet. Taubes argues that sugar is uniquely responsible for the physiological and hormonal changes in the body that cause obesity, diabetes, and a range of other diseases including heart disease, stroke, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease.

Chapter 1: Drug or Food?

Because we experience immediate pleasure from eating sugar (studies have shown that when infants first taste sugar their facial expressions show relaxation and satisfaction), it’s become an ingrained part of our culture. Parents use it to reward children, who demand it, and it’s a staple at celebrations like birthday parties and weddings. Even our language has become infused with sugar—someone we love is a “sweetheart” or “honey”—linking warm emotions to the sweet confection. Once populations are introduced to sugar they will consume as much of it as they can afford. In the 1870s, a British doctor noted that poor Brits would more likely cut back on nutritious foods rather than sugar when times were tough.

Unlike substances like heroin, cocaine, or alcohol, sugar doesn’t come with any immediate negative side effects, even though eating it lights up the same pleasure receptors in the brain. Studies in rats have shown that after becoming addicted to cocaine the rats will voluntarily choose sugar water over cocaine water within two days. When cocaine was removed from Coca-Cola in 1903, Americans still craved the sugary drink. On a nationwide scale, during Prohibition, candy consumption per capita doubled, and breweries were converted into candy factories.

As with drugs, we become habituated to sugar in that the more we consume, the more we feel we need it. Recovering alcoholics and drug addicts often find that replacing their drug of choice will assuage their cravings. Because our palates are so attuned to sugar, it is included in nearly all processed foods, from lunchmeats and hot dogs to salad dressing and canned tomatoes. Since the 1980s, companies have replaced fat in their products with sugar so that they could label them as fat-free and heart-healthy.

Need to Know: Sugar activates the same pleasure centers in our brains as cocaine and heroin, but because it doesn’t cause the type of destructive behavior seen in alcoholics and drug users, we haven’t sought to study it as a drug.

Chapter 2: The First Ten Thousand Years

The sugarcane plant was first domesticated in New Guinea about ten thousand years ago. Initially consumed in the form of sap from the plant, sugar was not refined until around 500 B.C. when farmers in India figured out how to transform the sap into dry crystals by heating and cooling the liquid. As the liquid evaporates, the crystals form. In this new solid form sugar could be traded across long distances. People also found that sugar could be used to preserve fruits and berries, prevent mold and bacterial growth in condensed milk and other liquids, reduce the saltiness of preserved meats, fuel yeast growth for baking bread, and enhance the taste of other foods.

The colonization of the New World and the proliferation of slavery helped break through two barriers keeping sugar from being consumed by the masses: cost and availability. Because sugarcane needs to be grown in a tropical climate and requires extensive labor to harvest, Europeans found that forcing slaves to work on sugar fields on the Caribbean Islands was the most effective way to boost production. Fortunes were made on large plantations that grew and refined sugar. By 1775, sugar constituted nearly one fifth of British imports, five times more than tobacco. Taxing sugar brought in huge revenue to the new American government—early evidence that protecting the sugar industry has long been in the government’s best interest. The industrial revolution also fueled the growth of the sugar industry as new technologies could refine more sugar in less time and for less money. Since the 1840s, four massive industries emerged that drew on our love for sugar: candy, chocolate, ice cream, and soft drinks.

Need to Know: People have been consuming sugar for about ten thousand years. And once sugar became accessible—thanks to the slave trade—American and British consumers demanded huge quantities of it. The sugar industry generated massive profits, and new products emerged that contained sugar. Tax revenue from sugar motivated the government to protect the industry.

Chapter 3: The Marriage of Tobacco and Sugar

One product we don’t often think of as containing sugar is cigarettes. In 1913, Camels, the first blended-tobacco cigarettes—made from multiple types of tobacco—were introduced. By flue-curing the tobacco (heating by iron flues), the enzymes that would otherwise reduce the sugar content are broken down. Countless other companies followed suit, including Marlboro and Lucky Strike. Blended cigarettes, with their higher sugar content, caused a surge in tobacco consumption as their smoke was less irritating to the mucous membranes in the throat than pipes or cigars. The more tobacco is inhaled into the lungs, the larger the internal surface area to absorb nicotine—increasing the likelihood of developing cancer. Tobacco farmers also sweetened tobacco after curing it, by immersing the leaves in honey, molasses, and other sweeteners. American blended cigarettes are the most commonly smoked cigarettes, their high-sugar content contributing to how addictive and...