Sugar- ain’t always sweet

There are now so many sugar-laden foods around, and people have an insatiable desire for sweet things, our blood sugar levels are dangerously high – killing millions of people worldwide every year.

That’s the finding of researchers from Harvard University in the US who looked at population health surveys and reviews of studies from 52 counties around the world over the past 15 years about the health of people with raised blood sugar.

High blood glucose makes it more likely a person will develop atherosclerosis – the ‘gumming up’ of the arteries which causes heart disease and stroke, the major worldwide killers.

The researchers calculated that raised blood glucose accounts for 21% of ischaemic heart disease and 13% of stroke mortality worldwide – 3.16 million deaths a year. They say deaths from high blood sugar are three times higher than those caused by full-blown diabetes – the condition usually associated with high blood sugar.

It’s a particular problem in low and middle income nations, but blood sugar levels are on the rise in developed counties too, fuelled not only by high sugar intakes and sedentary lifestyles. The less people exercise, the fatter they get, making their bodies less able to metabolise sugar, so their blood sugar levels rise even further.

The researchers call for a more aggressive approach by governments to tackle the problem; public health programs aimed at changing dietary habits, and tightening of regulations governing labelling, marketing and food manufacturing processes.