Shockingly, giving up sugar can change a person's life for the better.
A new study shows that giving it up for just nine days can cause dramatic results.
Published in Obesity, the study substituted the sugar intake of 43 obese children with starch. It found that sugar is dangerous in that it places strain on the body's metabolism, not due to the calories.
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Study author Robert Lustig, paediatric endocrinologist at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital in San Francisco, said the children's insulin levels dropped as a result.
"Everything got better," Dr Lustig claimed. "These findings support the idea that it is essential for parents to evaluate sugar intake and to be mindful of the health effects of what their children are consuming."
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Researched made sure that the kids volunteering for the study maintained the same weight, despite cutting out sugar in their diet. If their weight did drop, they were encouraged to eat more.
"Sugar calories are the worst, because they turn to fat in the liver, driving insulin resistance, and driving risk for diabetes, heart, and liver disease.
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"This has enormous implications for the food industry, chronic disease, and health care costs," Dr Lustig told The Daily Telegraph.
Jean-Marc Schwarz, senior author of the study, said he had never seen anything as "striking or significant".
"After only nine days of fructose restriction, the results are dramatic and consistent from subject to subject."
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5.4 per cent of British people suffer from diabetes, costing the NHS an estimated £14 billion every year.
Taxes on sugar have previously been rejected by David Cameron, opting for tighter controls on advertising to fight childhood obesity.
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