The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss

In Chapter 14, Fung argues that consuming large amounts of fructose leads to insulin resistance and obesity. Nutrition experts almost universally agree that sugar is fattening. Sugar-sweetened drinks, such as sodas and juices, are the worst offenders. Statistics reveal that per capita consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks doubled in the 1970s and that sugar-sweetened drinks became more popular than water by the 1980s. By 2000, more than 22% of the sugar in the American diet came from sugar-sweetened drinks, the highest of any other food group. Between 2003 and 2013, however, health-conscious consumers began turning away from sugar-sweetened drinks, causing soda consumption to drop in the US by almost 20%. Corporations turned to new markets in Asia to make up for lost profits. Consequently, Asian sugar consumption rose at a rate of almost 5% per year, leading to spikes in obesity and diabetes (158).

Sugar drives obesity in several ways. First, it makes food more palatable and thus leads to overconsumption. More important, sugar is a refined carbohydrate that stimulates insulin. Glucose is the main sugar that circulates through the body, and it is stored in various forms, including as