Fast food: it’s the sugar, not the fat

Swedish researchers did a study where they asked young, healthy people to eat at least two fast food meals per day and not exercise for four weeks. The goal was to raise their body weight 10 to 15% rapidly and see what effect that had on them.

They were expecting the fat to raise bad cholesterol levels. Instead: the fat boosted the good cholesterol. That’s the cholesterol that actually protects you from disease and even lifestyle choices like smoking.

But before you stop reading and dash off to McDonald’s, note that some of the subjects did experience the beginning of liver damage. But not because of the fat: because of the sugar in the cokes. This may finally explain the “French paradox”:

For nearly two decades, scientists have wrestled to explain how the French can consume a diet rich in fats — from abundant butter, cream, cheese and meat — yet have generally low levels of heart disease and hypertension.

“The study showed that the increase in saturated fat correlated with the increase in healthy cholesterol,” he said.

The other important thing to consider here is that low-fat processed foods often contain more sugar than their counterparts. Fat provides a lot of flavor, so it takes a lot of sugar to replace it. Even food you don’t think of as sweet – like sour cream – can get a couple of grams of sugar added to every serving. A couple of grams doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you eat low-fat salad dressings, sour creams, breads, etc., a “couple of grams” here and there adds up.

It’s interesting to note that most of the later press reports of the study ignored the sugar issue and blamed fat exclusively for the problems the people in the study experienced, even though that’s totally not what the study actually said. This study alone doesn’t establish that saturated fat is okay or good for you – the scientists specifically said more studies need to be done to figure out why it had a good effect on cholesterol. What you can take away from this study is that refined sugar can be really, really bad for you.

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Posted in Health and Beauty on February 15, 2008