Technically sugar is not the direct cause of obesity. The most fattening or obesigenic foods are those that combine carbohydrate with fat. Think potato chips. A potato chip delivers a load of starch and fat. The highly processed potato starch is high-glycemic meaning that it is rapidly absorbed and converted into blood glucose. Your body responds by releasing a lot of insulin.
The combination of high insulin and lipids levels in the blood causes an enhanced uptake of fat storage in your fat cells.
High glycemic carbohydrates raise blood insulin levels much higher than an equivalent amount of glucose from a high fiber low glycemic carbohydrate. Most of the absorption is in the upper small intestine, so the release of hunger suppressing hormones in the lower small intestine is muted meaning that more food is required to satisfy that hunger.
So, eating potato chips spikes blood insulin and concurrently raises blood lipids which the body then stores as fat at an accelerated pace. You eat more because it doesn’t satisfy so much. The high insulin leads to a sharp drop in blood glucose a few hours later making you want to eat more.
This is why processed foods which lack fiber are fattening.
But what about Sugar? Sugar enhances the process driving fat accumulation. Sugar catalyzes the process by making you insulin resistant leading to even higher blood insulin levels.
Eating the high amount of sugar commonly found in processed food floods the liver with fructose where a significant amount gets converted directly to liver fat. High liver fat makes the liver insulin resistant. The same fat gets released in the blood as triglycerides and contain the type of fat that causes visceral fat accumulation. Visceral fat is associated with insulin resistance. The mechanism for all that is unclear. Are visceral fat and insulin resistance both effects? Or does visceral fat cause insulin resistance?
But I think we have enough to know that high sugar consumption causes high insulin and leads to insulin resistance as assuredly as high consumption of drugs leads to resistance to the effects of those drugs.
So, sugar makes you fat indirectly. It’s like high winds spreading a wild fire.
A positive trend in America is that per capital sugar consumption is going down. That trend leads some to believe that Sugar does not make you fat since sugar consumption is down but obesity rates keep rising. Don’t be mislead by that claim. Per capita sugar consumption still remains high. A modest reduction in sugar consumption will not reverse obesity already acquired. Continued high sugar consumption is still associated with continued increases in obesity rates. But the rate of increase in obesity could slow a bit. It appears that it has. The data supports the theory that sugar does in fact make you fat.
Perennial Longevity 