The Case Against Sugar
David Drummond (Jacket photograph) New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2016. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. xi, [1], 365, [5] pages. Footnotes. Illustration. Includes Author's Note, Acknowledgments, Notes, Bibliography, and Index. Chapters cover Why Diabetes?; Drug or Food?; The First Ten Thousand Years; The Marriage of Tobacco and Sugar; A Peculiar Evil; The Early (Bad) Science; The Gift That Keeps On Giving; Big Sugar; Defending Sugar; What They Didn't Know; The If/Then Problem: 1; The If/Then Problem: II; and How Little Is Still Too Much? The purpose of this book is to present the case against sugar--both sucrose and high-fructose cornsyrup--as the principle cause of the chronic diseases that are most likely to kill us, or at least accelerate our demise, in the twenty-first century. Its goal is to explain why these sugars are the most likely suspects, and how we arrived at the current situation. The obesity epidemic is an ever-growing threat to the overall health of our nation. Gary Taubes details the often insidious efforts by the sugar industry to hide how harmful sugar is, just as the tobacco companies once did with cigarettes. This is a carefully reasoned, persuasive account of how doubts about sugar in the modern diet were systematically overlooked for more than a century. The author presents a compelling argument that will challenge our knowledge about the connection between food and health--it's a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the impact of the ingredients we eat. From the Best-Selling Author of Why We Get Fat. Taubes has won the Science in Society Journalism Award of the National Association of Science Writers three times. Gary Taubes (born April 30, 1956) is an American journalist, writer and low-carbohydrate diet advocate. He is the author of Nobel Dreams (1987), Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion (1993), and Good Calories, Bad Calories (2007), titled The Diet Delusion (2008) in the UK and Australia. In December 2016, Taubes published The Case Against Sugar, which further expanded his arguments against dietary carbohydrates and sugar in particular. A groundbreaking, eye-opening exposé that makes the convincing case that sugar is the tobacco of the new millennium: backed by powerful lobbies, entrenched in our lives, and making us very sick. Among Americans, diabetes is more prevalent today than ever; obesity is at epidemic proportions; nearly 10% of children are thought to have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. And sugar is at the root of these, and other, critical society-wide, health-related problems. With his signature command of both science and straight talk, Gary Taubes delves into Americans' history with sugar: its uses as a preservative, as an additive in cigarettes, the contemporary overuse of high-fructose corn syrup. He explains what research has shown about our addiction to sweets. He clarifies the arguments against sugar, corrects misconceptions about the relationship between sugar and weight loss; and provides the perspective necessary to make informed decisions about sugar as individuals and as a society. Derived from a Kirkus review: The award-winning journalist once again takes up the cudgel in defense of health. In his latest book, Taubes makes the provocative contention that sugar, rather than fat, is the primary cause of obesity and a major culprit in a spectrum of chronic diseases. While it is now recognized that a drastic increase in the consumption of sugar and refined starches correlates to a dramatic rise of obesity in populations that adopt a Western diet, the author argues that nutritionists have yet to pinpoint its significance. He points out that obesity is a marker for the overconsumption of carbohydrates responsible for the onset of Type 2 diabetes. The problem, he writes, is not the number but the kind of calories consumed—nor is it necessarily a diet high in saturated fats. Taubes compares sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup to “toxins…that do their damage over years and decades, and perhaps even from generation to generation.” Furthermore, diabetics and obese people are “more likely to have fatty liver disease” as well as other degenerative diseases due to elevated carbohydrate intake. For this reason, Taubes is dismissive of advice that urges an across-the-board reduction in the total amount of calories we consume. The author buttresses his provocative contention with population studies showing the increase of chronic disease in populations that subsist on a Western diet. An example is the increase since 1960 of chronic disease among the indigenous population of a New Zealand protectorate that substituted a carbohydrate-rich diet for the saturated fats they formerly consumed. Taubes makes a convincing, well-documented case against the modern carbohydrate-rich diet. Limiting their intake is an important factor in longevity, not merely as a matter of weight control. An important book that merits—and will likely receive—broad circulation and discussion. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: Sugar, Fat, Carbohydrates, Obesity, Nutrition Western Diet, Diabetes, Heart Disease, Insulin, Elliott Joslin, John Yudkin
ISBN: 9780307701640
[Book #82503]
Price: $37.50