New Study Links Diabetes to Availability of Sugar

A decade-long study of diabetes and eating habits in 175 countries around the world has found a surprising connection between rates of the disease and how much sugar is available to consumers.

The study - which was done by a team of Bay Area researchers from Stanford, UCSF and UC Berkeley - found that for every additional 150 calories of sugar available per person per day, the rate of diabetes in that country's population rose 1% - The same was not true for additional calories from non-sugar products.

For many decades, doctors believed there was a direct connection between sugar consumption and diabetes risk, but multiple studies had shown that wasn't quite true, and that obesity, from eating too much of any kind of food, was the problem.

So the new study results were unexpected, scientists said. They noted that their study looked only at the amount of sugar available in the food supply, and not how much people actually ate. 

Future studies, they said, should focus on actual consumption, plus the types of sugar people are consuming, such as high-fructose corn syrup.

The study results were published Feb. 27 in the journal PLOS ONE.

Article Source: SFGATE