Editorial: Why you should care about added sugar

A month ago, the Daily reported that Tufts University Dining Services would be changing its nutrient information cards to include sugar content. For many students, this additional information will be irrelevant to their dietary choices. However, this change reflects new national dietary guidelines and on a larger scale the excessive amount of sugar consumed by Americans on a daily basis.

It is important to understand why sugars are so harmful to us. All sugars are made of glucose and fructose. Glucose gives us energy. The culprit is fructose, which is directly processed by our liver and subsequently turned into fat; when this process occurs continuously, fat accumulates and insulin levels rise leading to an increased risk of diabetes. Fructose is mainly found in added and refined sugars, such as cane sugar, honey, maple syrup and high fructose corn syrup.

The American Heart Association recommends that men consume nine added teaspoons of sugar a day and women consume six, but the average American consumes 22 teaspoons of added sugar per day. Additionally, over 50 percent of Americans consume 53 or more teaspoons of added sugar a day. This is often attributed to sugar’s addictiveness. A study from the University of Bordeaux found that in rats, sugar was more addictive than cocaine 94 percent of the time. This makes sense considering sugar acts on our dopamine receptors in a similar way cocaine does. According to the study, chronic consumption of sugar makes our dopamine receptors “down-regulated—there’s [fewer] of them, and they’re less responsive,” which can in turn can cause “a mild state of depression.”

This excessive consumption of sugar is often reflected in statistics pertaining to diabetes, particularly type 2 diabetes, in the United States. Three years ago, 86 million Americans had pre-diabetes, up from 79 million in 2010. More surprising is the increasing incidence of diabetes among youth. At the beginning of the 1990s, it was rare for pediatric centers to have patients with type 2 diabetes. By 1999, however, patients with type 2 diabetes accounted for up to 45 percent of new pediatric cases in certain areas of the United States.

Although many people lead relatively normal lives as diagnosed diabetics, the disease is costly on a physical and financial level. Complications from diabetes include but are not limited to heart attacks, stroke, kidney disease and blindness and is the seventh leading cause of death in the nation. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) found that medical expenditures are more than twice as high for people with diabetes than for people without it.

Many young people seem to be unconcerned about their sugar consumption. This is logical considering that the effects of sugar consumption are not nearly as pronounced among youth. Only 0.25 percent of youth population (people under 20) in the United States is affected by diabetes, compared to 9.3 percent of the overall population. Nevertheless, sugar consumption should be on the mind of young Americans as the ADA estimates that if sugar consumption remains the same, one in three Americans will have diabetes by 2050.

The addition of sugar content to nutrient information cards on campus is a good step. Not only are we setting an example for other universities to do the same, but doing so shows a positive commitment to healthy living.