Salon.com > Sugar

What we talk about when we talk about donuts

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 13:16:00 +0000

The University of Illinois’ Robert Rushing has waded into the fight over sugar—but he’s not a scientist. Sugar has been much in the news (including here at PS) following a widely publicized study by doctors Robert Lustig and Sanjay Basu, which appeared to conclusively link a sweet tooth to Type-2 diabetes. Rushing, a professor of comparative literature, doesn’t dispute the science, but does wonder about the terms we’re using to discuss it:

Meet Kickstart: Mountain Dew’s breakfast soda

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 19:11:00 +0000

Hey bros, ever feel sluggish in the morning? Like maybe all of that Dorito taco-eating and late night Xbox 360-playing is catching up with you and harshing some of your get up and go?

Been there, dude. I have so, so been there.

But get ready to be totally stoked: PepsiCo is launching a new Mountain Dew drink that's just for breakfast time! Kickstart is made with 5 percent "real fruit juice" and "the right amount of kick" which is, apparently, 92 milligrams for a 16-ounce can.

Why is Mountain Dew launching a breakfast beverage, you ask?

Study: Fructose linked to overeating

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 16:19:00 +0000

This is your brain on sugar, folks.

Scientists at Yale University have used scans of the human brain to show that fructose, a monosaccharide found in everything from fruit to chicken nuggets, can trigger brain function that leads to overeating. According to the study, research subjects given a fructose beverage were less likely to feel "full" than subjects given a glucose beverage.

As reported by the Associated Press, researchers used MRI scans to monitor blood flow in the brains of 20 young, average-weight people before and after they consumed drinks containing fructose or glucose. Brain scans revealed that drinking glucose “turns off or suppresses the activity of areas of the brain that are critical for reward and desire for food,” said Robert Sherwin, an endocrinologist who led the study. Adding that with fructose, “we don’t see those changes. As a result, the desire to eat continues — it isn’t turned off.”

Is sugar the next tobacco?

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 18:00:00 +0000

Among the least likely viral megahits on YouTube is a 90-minute lecture by the food scold and pediatric endocrinologist Robert Lustig, entitled “Sugar: The Bitter Truth.” He delivers it in a windowless room at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. The talk is simultaneously boring and powerful, combining the gravitas of a national health crisis, the thrill of conspiracy theory, and the tedium of PowerPoint slides. Midway through the talk he scans the hall for approval. “Am I debunking?”

The UCSF extension students mutter “yeah”—most of them, at least. Lustig has a way of seeking validation and pissing off people at the same time. His combined love of showmanship and need for approval led to acting in 12 musical-theater performances during his three years as an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His greatest role yet may be as the loudest, most contrarian voice in the public-health debate over why we get fat and what we should do about it.