Thursday, 15 March 2018
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
Read more about sugar
- Long-standing research interest in sugar has world-wide impact, 23 March, 2016
- New Zealanders wising-up about sugar, 15 January, 2015
- What are the WHO recommendations telling us about sugar? 11 July, 2014
