John_Yudkin_-_Pure_White_and_Deadly_revised_1986_OCR

Pure, White and Deadly
a patient whose dyspepsia had been diagnosed by her doctor as being
caused by gallstones. This left us with the thought that perhaps her
gallstone disease as well as her indigestion had been caused by her
usual diet with sugar.
Since we completed that study, some New Zealand research
workers have reported finding that patients with gallstones tended
to be taking more sugar than did people of the same age, sex and
occupation who did not have gallstones; they also had a higher concentration
of insulin in the blood. Their report refers to 124 men
and 219 women with gallstones, whom they compared with III
normal men and 211 normal women. The results showed that the
people with gallstones, both men and women, took more sugar,
chiefly in beverages and confectionery, than did the control subjects.
The authors calculated that an increase in daily sugar consumption
by 40 grams - equivalent to two spoons of sugar in each of three or
four cups of tea or coffee - more than doubled the risk of the individual
developing gallstone disease.
Again, other research workers found that sugar in the diet could
produce gallstones in hamsters and in dogs. The latest research, in
England, has shown that vegetarians are less likely than meat-eaters
to have gallstones. This could be due to something in meat that
promotes gallstones, or something in vegetables that prevents their
formation. But it may well be due to the fact that vegetarians tend
to take less refined sugar and less sugary foods and drinks.
Croho's disease
Crohn's disease is an unpleasant condition of the
alimentary canal which chiefly affects men and women between the
ages of 20 and 40. Its chief characteristics are bouts of pain with
diarrhoea; the pain may be so severe as to mimic appendicitis. It can
affect any part of the digestive tract. No one knows the cause of
Crohn's disease, and there is as yet no satisfactory treatment.
Occasionally, it is necessary to remove the part of the bowel that is
particularly badly affected.
In a study in Bristol, England, 30 patients with recently diagnosed
Crohn's disease were asked about their usual diet before they developed
the disease. These diets were then compared with the diets of
30 healthy people matched for age, sex and social class. The patients
were found to have been taking 122 grams of sugar a day on average,
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A pain in the middle
compared with 65 grams for the control subjects. Their dietary fibre
intake was slightly lower at 17·3 grams compared with 19·2 grams.
In other respects the diets were much the same for patients and
control subjects.
The Bristol doctors then advised their patients to take a diet that
was rich in fibre and low in sugar. They compared these diets and
the patients' responses to this treatment over an average of 52
months with the diets and responses of a carefully matched series of
patients who had attended the same clinic in previous years.
The results showed that the current patients had been admitted
to hospital for an average total of III days during the 52-month
study, compared with an average of 533 days for the patients who
had not been on the new diet. The sugar intake of the current
patients had been reduced to 30 grams a day, as compared with 90
grams for the non-diet-treated patients.
These findings have been confirmed by a similar study in Italy of
109 patients with Crohn's disease. There it was calculated that a diet
with a high sugar content increased by two and half times the risk
of developing the disease.
The Italian doctors also examined the diets of people who developed
ulcerative colitis. This is a condition with some resemblance
to Crohn's disease, except that it affects only the large intestine (the
colon), and there are no strictures in the bowel, but ulcers. These
may become so severe and so deep as to perforate the bowel. The
main symptom is bouts of severe diarrhoea with blood and sometimes
pus in the stools. In some patients it is difficult to distinguish
whether they have ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease. The Italian
study was concerned with 124 patients. From an examination of their
diets, the investigators calculated that here too a high consumption of
sugar increased the chance of developing ulcerative colitis to two and
a half times that of persons with a low sugar consumption.
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