Summary and Analysis of The Case Against Sugar: Based on the Book by Gary Taubes
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In his New York Times–bestseller, journalist Gary Taubes reveals how sugar became a staple in our diet and how it may be the biggest threat to our health since tobacco. Citing decades of scientific research, Taubes meticulously makes the case that sugar causes a host of diseases from obesity and diabetes to heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s.
Obesity and diabetes are pandemic around the world, with more than half a billion people considered obese, including one in three Americans. With more and more American adults getting diagnosed with diabetes, the once uncommon disease has followed the spread of the sugar-rich Western diet around the globe.
Tracing the history of sugar; detailing studies on how it can lead to weight gain and other medical problems; and chronicling the lengths to which the powerful sugar industry has gone to hide this information, Taubes reveals traditional advice recommending a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet is wrong—it’s sugar we should be looking out for.
The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of nonfiction.
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- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Magnificent.. how did big sugar Kill us. Too many dollars to stop it. Do read this book.
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Summary and Analysis of The Case Against Sugar - Worth Books
Contents
Context
Overview
Summary
Timeline
Cast of Characters
Direct Quotes and Analysis
Trivia
What’s That Word?
Critical Response
About Gary Taubes
For Your Information
Bibliography
Copyright
Context
A journalist with a background in physics and engineering, Gary Taubes first became interested in nutrition in 1997 when his editors at Science magazine assigned him to cover a medical study on a new protocol for lowering blood pressure without restricting salt. Taubes, who had previously authored two books on the history of physics, became engrossed in the research for his article The (Political) Science of Salt
that challenged conventional wisdom on the relationship between salt and blood pressure. If everything we thought we knew about salt was wrong, Taubes wondered, what other nutritional misinformation were we basing our eating and medical decisions on?
This question brought him to sugar, which he came to believe was responsible for a host of Western diseases that were previously blamed on overconsumption of fat, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and even cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. Taubes became known for his reporting on sugar with his provocative 2002 New York Times Magazine article, What if It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?
After Taubes’s article ran counter to mainstream medical research, he has been criticized in Reason and Newsweek magazines, and on The Dr. Oz Show.
Taubes has since published three books—Good Calories, Bad Calories in 2007, Why We Get Fat in 2011, and now The Case Against Sugar in 2016—continuing to build his argument that sugar is killing us. All three have been national bestsellers. The Case Against Sugar traces the history of medical research on sugar, presents the scientific evidence that supports his case, and reveals the lengths the sugar industry went to promote studies that take the blame off sugar. He looks at how populations around the world were introduced to a Western diet and began to develop the associated diseases—all linked to eating more sugar.
The Case Against Sugar, published more than a decade after Taubes’s first revolutionary New York Times article, comes at a time when more than half a billion people on the planet are obese, including one in three Americans. In addition, 12–14% of American adults have diabetes. If sugar is indeed behind cancer, heart disease, and other leading causes of death in modern society—as the evidence strongly suggests—then Taubes’s book is a necessary and prescient read that may save lives.
Overview
Taubes opens The Case Against Sugar with the story of how doctors first noticed the rising rate of diabetes in the late 19th century, and then points to the staggering statistics on obesity and diabetes in the United States and around the world today. He aims to debunk the prevailing wisdom that overeating—especially eating too much fat—is to blame for this problem, and to prove that sugar is actually the root cause of Western diseases including heart disease, stroke, cancer, and Alzheimer’s.
The history of sugar begins around ten thousand years ago when the sugarcane plant was first cultivated in New Guinea. When Europeans colonized the New World, they found the climate of the Caribbean was ideal for growing sugarcane, and they put African slaves to work cultivating sugar. As sugar dropped in price, it became available to people of all class levels in Europe and the United States. Sugar has become part of our culture and can be found in nearly all processed foods. But despite its prevalence in our diet, studies in animals have shown it may be as addictive as cocaine or heroin.
Early research on