Pure, White and Deadly: How Sugar Is Killing Us and What We Can Do to Stop It

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a b Keys, Ancel (1971). "Sucrose in the Diet and Coronary Heart Disease". Atherosclerosis. 14 (2): 193–202. doi: 10.1016/0021-9150(71)90049-9. PMID 4940760. M&S Christmas advert 2023: Hannah Waddingham, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Zawe Ashton join Queer Eye's Tan France in a very star-studded ad

Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen's daughter Sami Sheen, 19, wearsCommittee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy (1989), Panel on Dietary Sugars. Dietary Sugars and Human Disease. London: Department of Health. Report on Health and Social Subjects 37 Ancel Keys was brilliant, charismatic, and combative. A friendly colleague at the University of Minnesota described him as, “direct to the point of bluntness, critical to the point of skewering”; others were less charitable. He exuded conviction at a time when confidence was most welcome. The president, the physician and the scientist formed a reassuring chain of male authority, and the notion that fatty foods were unhealthy started to take hold with doctors, and the public. (Eisenhower himself cut saturated fats and cholesterol from his diet altogether, right up until his death, in 1969, from heart disease.) Yudkin, John (12 May 1956). "Man's Choice of Food". The Lancet. 267 (6924): 645–649. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(56)90687-0. PMID 13320834. Epidemiological evidence similarly pointed to excess sugar consumption as a contributory factor in the development of type 2 diabetes. As before, the evidence relied on a comparison between different countries in the incidence of type 2 diabetes and the consumption of sucrose, and also on within-country differences between sub-populations that consumed less or more sucrose. Moreover, in developed countries, the increase in sucrose consumption that had occurred over the past several decades appeared to run parallel to the increase in the incidence of type 2 diabetes. Experiments with rats showed that the feeding of sucrose led to impaired glucose tolerance (results with human subjects were more equivocal). The author mentions several other conditions that he believed were caused by or exacerbated by the consumption of sucrose: dyspepsia (indigestion), dental caries, seborrhoeic dermatitis, changes in the refractive index of the eye, and various forms of cancer. With the exception of dental caries, none of these conditions showed as strong a link with sucrose consumption as CHD and type 2 diabetes did.

Two major books have taken up the theme developed by Yudkin: Fat Chance by Robert Lustig (Hudson Street Press, 2013) and The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes (Alfred A. Knopf, 2017). These two books have added momentum to Yudkin’s call in Pure, White and Deadly for a substantial reduction in the consumption of sugar. Also food health advocacy NGOs became more visible during the 1990s, raising awareness of dietary problems. Some were particularly active on sugar – notably the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) in the US and Action and Information on Sugars (AIS) in the UK, now succeeded by the more prominent Action on Sugar (AoS). But even these groups made little public reference to Pure, White and Deadly or to Yudkin. Kelly Ripa is pretty in pink as Barbie and her husband Mark Consuelos dons stripes as Ken for their Halloween special on Live With Kelly & Mark Akinyanju, P.A.; R.U. Qureshi, A.J. Salter and John Yudkin; Salter, A. J.; Yudkin, John (1968). "Effect of an "Atherogenic" Diet Containing Starch or Sucrose on the Blood Lipids of Young Men". Nature. 218 (5145): 975–977. Bibcode: 1968Natur.218..975A. doi: 10.1038/218975a0. PMID 5681247. S2CID 4215023. Jason Momoa is 'beyond happy' that his stepdaughter Zoe Kravitz is engaged to his 'best friend' Channing TatumIn 2009 Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist of the University of California, San Francisco, with a special interest in childhood obesity, made a video, Sugar: The Bitter Truth. [8] Lustig and his colleagues had discovered, independently of Yudkin's work, that sugar has serious deleterious effects, particularly in the etiology of diabetes and obesity. In his video, Lustig referred to his re-discovery of and admiration for Yudkin's research. The popularity of the video, which has been viewed several million times, has contributed to a resurgence of interest in Yudkin's research. [11] Barker, T. C.; Oddy, D. J. (1970). The Dietary Surveys of Dr Edward Smith 1862–3. London: Queen Elizabeth College.

That a COMA panel had for the first time been asked to consider cardiovascular disease was itself a sign of the changes with which Pure, White and Deadly was concerned. As wartime privations receded and industrialised nations prospered, diets changed and the focus of nutrition changed too – from deficiency diseases to problems of excess, what Yudkin called the “diseases of civilisation”. Mandelstam, Joel; J. Yudkin (1952). "Studies in Biochemical Adaptation. The Effect of Variation in Dietary Protein upon the Hepatic Arginase of the Rat". Biochemical Journal. 51 (5): 681–686. doi: 10.1042/bj0510681. PMC 1197916. PMID 13018145. At the time of publication, it was generally accepted that the alarming recent increase in the incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD) was due to the excessive consumption of animal fat. [12] Yudkin believed that this view was wrong and that, instead, an important cause of CHD was the excessive consumption of sugar (i.e. sucrose). More generally, he argued, excessive sucrose consumption provokes a metabolic disturbance that has several undesirable results. Yudkin's failure to incorporate possible confounding factors in his case-control designs was an area of heavy criticism at the time; apart from other unmeasured known risk factors that might affect cardiovascular disease (CVD), data had emerged soon after, suggesting that sugar intake was associated with smoking, a big risk factor for CVD. [5] Yudkin's failure to account for confounding factors led to harsh words from Ancel Keys at the time. [6] From the late 2000s, there was a resurgence of interest in his work, following a 2009 YouTube video [7] about sugar and high-fructose corn syrup by the pediatric endocrinologist Robert Lustig, and because of increasing concern about an obesity epidemic and metabolic syndrome. [8] [9] [10] Pure, White and Deadly was republished in 2012, with a foreword by Lustig. [11] Early life and education [ edit ] The law should be involved when people are incapable of making rational judgements for themselves and when their behaviour is a risk to others.Although excessive sugar consumption is recognised as a major health issue, it is likely to remain a problem for decades ahead. The prevalence of obesity remains high in most developed countries. It is also rising in many developing societies, even those with widespread deficiencies, where it produces the “double burden” of malnutrition. As yet, “not one single country has managed to turn around its obesity epidemic in all age groups”. [34] [35] The burden of illness has shifted, in rich and poor countries alike, towards “non-communicable diseases”, including those of the metabolic syndrome associated with sugar. Kim and Khloe Kardashian dress up in plaid mini skirts as Bratz dolls for Halloween... after Kylie Jenner collaborated with the toy brand Al-Nagdy, Sohair; D.S. Miller, R.U. Qureshi and John Yudkin; Qureshi, R. U.; Yudkin, John (1966). "Metabolic Differences Between Starch and Sugar". Nature. 209 (5018): 81–82. Bibcode: 1966Natur.209...81A. doi: 10.1038/209081a0. PMID 5927230. S2CID 4187732.

For the general public, the most significant development was the increasing popularity of low-carbohydrate diets from the mid-1990s onwards. These created a generalised sense that there was something harmful about sugar and that people should eat less of it. Llewellyn Smith, Julia (17 February 2014). "John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 14 February 2015. The end result is that I am fit and healthy and I experience the full range of my feelings, rather than push them down with mood-altering substances. I enjoy my life enormously but I am not enormous. The book and author suffered a barrage of criticism at the time, particularly from the sugar industry, processed-food manufacturers, and Ancel Keys, an American physiologist who argued in favour of restricting dietary fat, not sugar, and who sought to ridicule Yudkin's work. [2] In later years, Yudkin's observations came to be accepted. [note 1] [2] [4] [5] [6] A 2002 cover story about sugar by Gary Taubes in The New York Times Magazine, "What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?", attracted attention, [7] and the following year a World Health Organization report recommended that added sugars provide no more than 6–10% of total dietary intake. [8] In 2009 a lecture on the health effects of sugar by Robert Lustig, an American pediatric endocrinologist, went viral. [9] The subsequent interest led to the rediscovery of Yudkin's book and the rehabilitation of his reputation. [2] [10]Nutrition and Your Health" (PDF). Home and Garden Bulletin. US Department of Agriculture. February 1980. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 February 2021 . Retrieved 8 April 2016. But it was not impossible to foresee that the vilification of fat might be an error. Energy from food comes to us in three forms: fat, carbohydrate, and protein. Since the proportion of energy we get from protein tends to stay stable, whatever our diet, a low-fat diet effectively means a high-carbohydrate diet. The most versatile and palatable carbohydrate is sugar, which John Yudkin had already circled in red. In 1974, the UK medical journal, the Lancet, sounded a warning about the possible consequences of recommending reductions in dietary fat: “The cure should not be worse than the disease.”