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Thursday 15 March 2018 10:13pm

Professor Jim Mann, Co-Director of the Edgar Diabetes and Obesity Research Centre (EDOR), has commented on a claim by University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Professor Robert Lustig that sugar consumption has a role in the development of type 2 diabetes but only makes a small contribution to obesity.

Professor Mann says arguing about whether sugar is relevant to diabetes or to obesity is unhelpful, because obesity and type 2 diabetes are so closely linked.

"It's extremely difficult to disentangle type 2 diabetes and obesity. There's very strong evidence to say intake of sugar increases the risk of obesity, and obesity drives type 2 diabetes".

If sugar is reduced then the rates of both obesity and type 2 diabetes are likely to be reduced, says Professor Mann. And a reduction in obesity will be associated with a reduction in some of its comorbidities, including cardiovascular disease and cancer.

View the news article

Dr Robert Lustig: a sugar tax is not about obesity, it's about diabetes, Stuff website, 15 March, 2018

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