Health expert: Give Pinoy kids 'real food,' save them from diabetes

Often cited as a quick fix for parents without time to cook, pre-packaged cookies, cupcakes and packed juices fill students' lunch boxes.

Dr. Robert Lustig of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Division of Endocrinology, warned that this time-saving practice of parents may eat more time in the future due to illnesses that result from too much processed food.

“When parents understand that the most important thing for them is their child's health, then they understand that it is worth their time to do the right thing by their child and in the process, do the right thing by themselves,”  Lustig, a sugar and obesity expert, said at the “Fats and Sugars: Friends or foe?” forum at the Makati Shangri-La.

He said cakes and other processed food contain too much dietary sugar, a hedonic substance which triggers the rewards centers of the brain and makes the eater crave for more.

Consuming too much sugar triggers metabolic syndrome, a suite of symptoms including diabetes, now considered one of the most expensive and lethal diseases globally.

And while eating sugar triggers weight gain, Lustig emphasized that obesity itself does not cause diabetes. He said even thin people get diabetes.

“There has been a 25-percent increase in the rates of diabetes among the obese. But there's also been a 25-percent increase among the normal weighted population as well. If obesity is the cause of diabetes, then how come the normal weight patients are getting as diabetic as fast as the obese patients?” Lustig said.

“Thin people get diabetes too and they get it for the same reason as the obese do. And then it's not about behavior, because it's not about calories; then it's about what kind of calories, where do they come from, what happened inside the bodies,” he added.

Sugar is “at least one” risk factor, a specific, causative factor for “fatty liver disease, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and teeth decay,” with indirect correlation with cancer and dementia.

In the US, combating the reliance on processed and fast food has been slow as prevailing attitudes about quick bites has made most Americans lose their ability to cook.

“They get so easy that people will stop cooking. Then they will not know how, then their children will not know how because after all, who do you learn from? The parents. And so, you're hostage to the food industry for the rest of your life,” he said.

“The goal is to turn that around. Parents need to know the science of [what] the food is doing to them and their children,” Lustig continued.

He said that instead of boxed juices, parents should give their children healthier options such as water, plain tea, or even unsweetened milk.

Lustig cited a study where four groups were asked to drink a liter of regular soda, diet soda, milk, and water every day for six months.

He said the group that only took water lost weight, the group that had milk maintained their weight, the group with diet soda gained 1.5 kilos, and the group given regular soda gained at least 10 kilos.

Lustig said this demonstrates how much sugar affects people's health and why nutritionists are still torn over sugar alternatives.

“How do you explain how the diet soda group gained weight? We don't know for sure. I think it's because their insulin was still high because sweet tells the pancreas to release more insulin. They didn't have as many calories because it's diet soda, but they still gained weight, probably because their insulin was still high,” Lustig said.

Fruits, especially fibrous kinds, are safe and healthy alternatives for all sweet cravings as these are self-regulating.

Lustig added that real food are also cheaper than pre-packed alternatives.

“Real food, if you know how to buy it, if you know how to prepare it, if you know how to store it, actually is cheaper than fast food. You just have to know how to do it,” he said. —ALG, GMA News