Review | Gary Taubes makes The Case Against Sugar as the cause of lifestyle diseases
A growing body of evidence points to the white stuff’s connection to heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes, says science writer Taubes
by Gary Taubes
Alfred A Knopf
Consume more calories than you burn and you’ll put on weight. Eat lots of saturated fats and you risk not only packing on the kilos but also heart disease. For many of us those were givens, but the finger of blame is increasingly starting to point in a different direction when it comes to determining the causes of many so-called diseases of Western lifestyles. The culprit? Sugar, the trigger for hormonal disorders behind the problems.
American science writer Gary Taubes presents the case against this sweet “killer” on the back of growing opinion about the culpability of sugar (both sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup) in causing diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancer, strokes and possibly even dementia and Alzheimer’s.
He has delved into decades of research to show the ways in which commercial and political forces helped shape facts. Concerns about sugar stretch back much further, however: in the 1670s, when sugar began flowing into England from the Caribbean, one Thomas Willis noticed diabetes was becoming more prevalent among his affluent patients.