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The Case Against Sugar

Gary Taubes (Goodreads Author)

3.84 · Rating details · 9,249 ratings · 1,342 reviews

From the best-selling author of Why We Get Fat, a groundbreaking, eye-opening expose that makes the convincing case that sugar is the tobacco of the new millennium: backed by powerful lobbies, entrenched in our lives, and making us very sick.

Among Americans, diabetes is more prevalent today than ever; obesity is at epidemic proportions; nearly 10% of children are thought t ...more

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Published December 27th 2016 by Books on Tape

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Nov 19, 2017 Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing

I still remember when the book “Sugar Blues”, by William Dufty hit the scene in the mid-80’s. ....and Dr. Atkins diet was a revolution....
There were books out in the 70’s that were already screaming “sugar is addictive”....
and learn the “real truth about sugar”.
I studied Kinesiology and nutrition at UC Berkeley. I ‘knew’ about trans fat and the value of Omega 3’s .... years before most people knew the word. When I put my flax seeds into a grinder to sprinkle them on my salads or other foods jus ...more

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Jan 05, 2017 Michelle Burton rated it it was amazing

Gary Taubes has done an excellent job in explaining why sugar is so terrible for the body. I am seeing a nutritionist to help me with my weight and on my last visit she stated to me that you can eat any food in moderation. My response to her was, "What does moderation mean? I guess a person could smoke crack in moderation but no one recommends that." Taubes stated it clearly in his book that the people who say "eat in moderation" typically don't have a weight problem, (and my nutritionist does n ...more

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May 02, 2017 Clif Hostetler rated it it was amazing

Shelves: health-and-selfhelp

This book delves into Western civilization's history with sugar and its increasing rate of consumption since introduction of refined sugar into the Western diet. With this increased consumption also came the economic power of the sugar industry that throughout most of the twentieth century was the funder of nutritional research that tended to focus of causes for Western diseases in directions other that sugar itself.

The rate of occurrence of diabetes, heart disease, gout, and a host of other chr ...more

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Jan 23, 2017 Emily Crow rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, read-in-2017, modern-life, health-and-diet

Guess what? Sugar is not a healthy food. Who knew? In fact, according to Gary Taubes, it causes just about every "disease of Western civilization" and we probably shouldn't eat it at all, which kind of reminded me of all the other nutrition doomsday books I've read over the years:

The China Study...don't eat meat or dairy, you will get sick and die
Wheat Belly...don't eat wheat, you will get sick and die
Eat More, Weigh Less...don't eat fat, you will get sick and die
The Paleo Solution or any other Guess what? Sugar is not a healthy food. Who knew? In fact, according to Gary Taubes, it causes just about every "disease of Western civilization" and we probably shouldn't eat it at all, which kind of reminded me of all the other nutrition doomsday books I've read over the years:

The China Study...don't eat meat or dairy, you will get sick and die
Wheat Belly...don't eat wheat, you will get sick and die
Eat More, Weigh Less...don't eat fat, you will get sick and die
The Paleo Solution or any other paleo book...don't eat grains or beans, you will get sick and die
Sugar Blues...oh wait, that was sugar again. Two strikes against sugar.

So I guess I need to hole up in my nutrition bunker with nothing but vegetables and salad greens, and wait out the food apocalypse, because there's nothing left to eat! But, in all seriousness, I think any reasonable person can concede that sugar--at least in the ginormous amounts it is consumed in our society--is pretty much bad for us. As to just how bad, Gary Taubes is here to explain, and I found a lot that was interesting or valuable in this book. I've read about sugar and metabolic syndrome (potentially leading to type II diabetes, heart disease and other things) before, but Taubes described the process convincingly, and I ran across a couple of new things, like the potential link between high sugar consumption and gout. I also enjoyed the first few chapters about the history of the sugar industry.

The second half of the book was not as satisfying for me, though. For one thing, Taubes returned to a couple of his key issues that I've always been a bit skeptical of, such as a complete dismissal of the "calories in/calories out" equation for weight loss. I get that it is not quite that simple--a lot of things can go wonky with the metabolism, and the types of foods eaten do make a difference--but at a certain level, yes, if you eat less and/or exercise more, you WILL lose weight, and we all know people who have done that. And then there's the Ancel Keys bashing.... I get it, Taubes thinks Keys was completely wrong with his Seven Countries Study and theory of saturated fat causing heart disease, but honestly, his rancor towards the man comes across like a personal grudge match at times. Especially since I actually do respect Keys' contributions and as far as I'm concerned, the saturated fat versus sugar issue hasn't been resolved yet. Regardless, the Mediterranean diet that Keys ended up espousing is NOT high in sugar and, as far as population studies goes, appears to be quite healthful.

Now maybe you are thinking that population studies are of limited use and that Keys cherry-picked the Seven Countries Study to prove his point, and you would be right. Which leads me to my main issue with this book, and why I couldn't give it higher than a three star rating--in the last couple of chapters, Taubes shamelessly cherry-picks population studies to prove his extreme anti-sugar point, focusing on tribal peoples such as the Pima Indians and certain Pacific Islanders. Much closer to home (and much closer to the DNA mix of most of his audience, I'm guessing), I could point out other, conflicting populations, such as the Amish, who eat a lot of sugar (and refined flour) and don't have anywhere near the levels of heart disease and diabetes as the rest of us....

Another missed opportunity is that, while Taubes discusses the economics and politics of sugar in the past (even the recent past), he doesn't address the political landscape that has created our current sugar glut. I've lived three places where sugar crops are a major part of the local economy: Hawaii (sugar cane), central Michigan (sugar beets) and currently central Illinois (corn, a.k.a. high fructose corn syrup). I am surrounded by field upon field upon field of mono-crops of genetically modified, pesticide-laden corn, much of it bound for factories to be turned into HFCS and then splattered on just about every processed food in the market at cut-rate prices, so that junk foods are cheaper than fresh vegetables. Because of government farm subsidies. And then the taxpayers are socked again at the end of the cycle, paying for all the health care. But if we all stopped eating this crap, I don't even want to imagine the economic repercussions. It's a messed up system, and it's entirely relevant to the issue of why so many North Americans are sick and obese, and it's barely addressed in this book.

Finally, towards the end of the book, the speculation and scare-mongering about sugar reached an almost ridiculous level. Implying that allowing a child to have a single scoop of ice cream per week would be unhealthy? Wondering if we have messed up our health for generations to come by eating sugar? At this point, I just stopped taking the author seriously.

But I will admit, at one point he states that the people who say sugar is OK in moderation are the people who don't have a problem with it, and I guess I just proved his point. Despite my many dietary vices, I don't have much of a sweet tooth, and can enjoy a bit of dark chocolate or a creme brulee once in a while. Sugar isn't addictive for me, and I actually find the sweetness of many processed foods kind of off putting. So I guess I would say, if you feel "hooked" on sugar, then definitely read this book. Otherwise, it has a few interesting points but ultimately seems a bit overwrought to me. ...more

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Apr 13, 2017 Kieran Seán Fitzpatrick added it · review of another edition

Shelves: food, audible, biology

main take-aways:

- a calorie is not a calorie.
- fats in food are not bad.
- sugar causes: diabetes, gout, cancer, bad breath, insomnia, restless leg syndrome, MRSA, depression, economic inequality, republicans, nazis, trump, and alzheimer's.
- the sugar industry uses tactics similar to climate-change-deniers.
- it is almost impossible to not eat sugar.
- there is as much sense in eating a "moderate amount" of sugar as there is in smoking a "moderate amount" of cigarettes.

it's not like any of these c ...more

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Jan 02, 2017 Bam cooks the books ;-) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017-reads, healthy-living-aging, non-fiction

Having been on a zero-sugar diet for the past three weeks and planning to make it a lifestyle change (see my review of Zero Sugar Diet: The 14-Day Plan to Flatten Your Belly, Crush Cravings, and Help Keep You Lean for Life), I wanted to read a bit more about the science behind the claim that the added sugars in processed foods could possibly be the cause of the current obesity and diabetes epidemic. Intuition, common sense and observation tells one it is true but so many diet fads have come and ...more

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Jan 08, 2017 Ita rated it it was amazing

‘Medicine is mostly taught untethered from its history,’ asserts Gary Taubes at the beginning of this book. ‘Students are taught what to believe, but not always the evidence on which their beliefs are based.’
This book is a much needed history of sugar. I can think of nowhere else where failure to look at the evidence on which medical beliefs are based has had, and continues to have, such tragic consequences.

The leading authority who dominated the teaching about diabetes during the twentieth and ‘Medicine is mostly taught untethered from its history,’ asserts Gary Taubes at the beginning of this book. ‘Students are taught what to believe, but not always the evidence on which their beliefs are based.’
This book is a much needed history of sugar. I can think of nowhere else where failure to look at the evidence on which medical beliefs are based has had, and continues to have, such tragic consequences.

The leading authority who dominated the teaching about diabetes during the twentieth and into the twenty-first century was a dedicated doctor called Elliott Joslin. His textbook, ‘The Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus was first published in 1916. Revered as a bible, its most recent edition appeared in 2005, forty-three years after his death. Joslin argued that fats, and not sugar, were the cause of diabetes. This belief was supported by Harold Himsworth, a very influential diabetes researcher based in London, who in 1931 proposed that a diet rich in carbohydrate should be recommended to diabetics. Both Joslin and Himsworth pointed to Japan as a country where the diet was rich in carbohydrate and low in fat, and where there was very little diabetes. What both men ignored was that sugar consumption in Japan at that time was comparable to that in England and America in the nineteenth century, when diabetes was very rare. They both assumed that sugar and other carbohydrates were equivalent in their effects on the human body.

Sugar (sucrose) is formed in plants by the condensation of two simpler sugars – glucose and fructose. Glucose, the molecule into which starches are digested, is used to provide energy. Any surplus is converted, in the liver and muscles, to glycogen (‘animal starch’) for storage until needed. Conversion of glucose to glycogen is under the control of the hormone insulin. Fructose, by contrast, is converted by the liver into fat. Its fat-forming effects seem to be enhanced when glucose is present.

Joslin’s and Himsworth’s misconception might have been challenged by the research on metabolism, endocrinology, genetics and nutrition which was taking place in Germany and Austria before the Second World War. Post 1939 this very valuable work was lost to the scientific community. Nutritionists in the English-speaking world focussed on energy balance. A calorie was a calorie no matter where it came from. Putting on weight was simply a matter of consuming more calories than could be expended. Excess weight caused both diabetes and obesity. Diet and exercise were the solutions.

When the technique of radioimmunoassay was developed in the 1960s, it brought with it the possibility of measuring hormone levels, and the problem of insulin resistance came to light. Unexpectedly, high insulin levels could accompany high levels of sugar in the blood. Insulin was no longer effective in moving glucose out of the blood and into cells. This pattern was found in people suffering from obesity, and in those who developed diabetes later in life. What caused insulin resistance was then a mystery. It has since been linked to sugar consumption.

By the 1950s it was recognised that heart disease was associated with both diabetes and obesity. Whether too much fat or too much sugar caused heart disease was still an open question, and researchers were highly motivated to find an answer. The hypothesis that fat was the murder weapon was supported by the very wealthy and powerful Sugar Association with its Food and Nutrition Advisory Committee. The American Heart Association also came down on the side of fat. It advocated low fat diets for every American, while its researchers were admitting that the dietary fat/heart disease hypothesis needed much more investigation. Those who favoured the sugar hypothesis like John Yudkin in England faced ridicule and the charge of being quacks. In the 1960s Yudkin fed human subjects sugar-rich diets and reported that this increased their cholesterol and triglyceride levels. It seemed to ratchet up their insulin levels and even make their blood platelets sticky.
Clinical trials were set up in the US and in Europe to test the fat, but not the sugar hypothesis. To date they have failed to show that high levels of dietary fat cause heart disease, obesity or diabetes. Nevertheless, in 1986 the American government and health organisations committed themselves to getting Americans to eat a low fat diet. Everyone else followed suit. The epidemic of diseases included in metabolic syndrome has only worsened.

Gary Taubes cannot prove that sugar is the cause of Western chronic diseases, but the evidence he gives is overwhelming. I have concentrated on some of the scientific aspects, but this book contains much more. It is also as riveting as a good novel. Taubes’ clarity of vision is very rare, and a book like this is worth its weight in gold. ...more

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Jan 02, 2017 JDK1962 rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I happened to be reading this at the same time as I was listening to a three-part Freakonomics podcast series called "Bad Medicine," and they both hit on the same problem: the emphasis upon "eminence-based" medicine, rather than evidence-based medicine, i.e., if a renowned practitioner is behind a hypothesis, that can be enough to direct, or at least influence, decades of research and practice.

This is especially critical in the science of sugar, because Taubes' point is that the damage done by ...more

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May 09, 2017 Cres rated it did not like it

I could not read this book without getting red faced with frustration every other sentence. One of the most hyperbolic, poorly researched (in terms of actual scientific studies) pieces of hysteria I have read in a long time. The accolades given to Gary Taubes are beyond confusing. His fervent advocacy supported by limited peer reviewed work and even junk science reminds me of another popular cause du jour, the anti-vaxxer movement. The fact that he has taken to consorting with a dangerous self-p I could not read this book without getting red faced with frustration every other sentence. One of the most hyperbolic, poorly researched (in terms of actual scientific studies) pieces of hysteria I have read in a long time. The accolades given to Gary Taubes are beyond confusing. His fervent advocacy supported by limited peer reviewed work and even junk science reminds me of another popular cause du jour, the anti-vaxxer movement. The fact that he has taken to consorting with a dangerous self-promoting snake oil salesman like anti-vaccine/anti-mammogram advocate Joe Mercola tells me all that I need to know about his agenda. It isn’t for the betterment of society; it is to stake a claim in a controversial realm that will help enrich himself even if its foundation is built on a bold face lie.

As for the book, the constant quoting of 50, 70 and even 100 plus year old newspaper articles or books, detailing the intricacies of how early cereal makers came to add sugar to their product or spending an annoying amount of time explaining how tobacco is processed doesn’t make for actual science or a good read. All it does is give the illusion of it for those too ignorant or lazy to see past the dog and pony show that is The Case Against Sugar. If he spent more time reading actual peer reviewed research, or even conducted some himself, the book would have been better served. Instead he comes in with an agenda on page one and twist and shapes what little research he does present to ensure that it fits into his preconceived box, ignoring what isn't convenient to his argument and using massive amounts of fluff to fill in any gaps and draw unsubstantiated conclusions.

On one hand the author claims that science has proved his theories as correct, (they haven’t, in fact an institute he helped found argues against many of his beliefs, oops) and on the other he attacks any and every scientist that disagrees as being a shill for “big sugar”. The outrageous claims he pushes (sugar has killed more people in the last century than war or guns) are ludicrous. He states early on that all, ALL, diseases are caused by sugar “There is clearly enough evidence to indict sugar as the single prominent environmental trigger of disease,”. This sets the stage to be able to make the previous claim that big sugar is essentially committing mass murder on a global scale using the declaration that it is the root cause as proof. All without providing any evidence to back either assertion up.

Why after reading this book would anyone take him serious is beyond me. I would posit that most people aren’t actually “reading” the book and understating what he says and, more importantly, doesn’t say. But rather looking for an example to point to while they pat themselves on the back for being so enlightened.

Look, we all know sugar is bad when consumed in large amounts. I guess it just isn’t sexy enough to point out that we need to practice much better moderation as we should with all things. It is much easier to come out all crazy like screaming that the sky is falling and suggesting that the government make its use illegal. At least that sells books ...more

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Mar 02, 2017 Lubinka Dimitrova rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audio, eye-opening, male-author, history-will-teach-us-nothing, pop-science, based-on-real-events, definitely-should-reread, fitness-health-wellbeing, thought-provoking

Amazingly eye-opening, and truly terrifying. It's hard to grasp the huge impact of refined sugar on human evolution, and - once again - thanks to greedy lobbies, we happily march towards our doom, so that the sugar industry barons may continue to enjoy the profits of providing us with our drug of choice. It's unbelievable that governments try to regulate recreational drugs, at the same time when one of the most toxic inventions of humanity is virtually promoted as a healthy alternative to the "o ...more

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Mar 15, 2017 Peter Karlin rated it did not like it

You will require sugar to stay awake during this book. I've read far more interesting articles on the subject. ...more

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Nov 25, 2017 Bharath rated it liked it · review of another edition

The title says it all – sugar is not good for us.

While that is evident from the title, the book has a great deal of detail and history to back up this claim. Diabetes is rising all over the world. In most countries, the disease is multiplying so rapidly that a significant portion of the population either already has diabetes or is at great risk.
Why then is the medical community and governments not really alarmed. As it turns out, research especially in the past has been significantly corrupted ...more

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Jan 14, 2017 Holly rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017-reads

Informative general history. Taubes is a good explainer even if I still wonder about his tendency to zoom in on a particular diet "vice" - it was fat and now it's sugar. (His Why We Get Fat was over-simplified almost to the point of inaccuracy, but it turns out to have been a sloppy distillation of his Good Fats, Bad Fats.)

This new book doesn't offer self-help advice, but serves several other purposes: a history of sugar and how it entered the human diet, a physiology lesson on human diseases ( ...more

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Feb 24, 2017 Chris rated it it was ok

I'll save you some time. Too much sugar may be bad for you. I hope you were sitting down for that insight. This book was a mixed bag. The epidemiological data associating the increased consumption of sugar with metabolic syndrome was fascinating. Disappointing was the lack of hard scientific studies defining exactly why that is - sucrose and liver are highlighted and vaguely but not conclusively associated with fatty liver. Ponderous was the third of the book vilifying the sugar industry. They'r ...more

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Jan 08, 2017 Viv JM rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2018, author-male, non-fiction, food-health, z2018-author-male

Not exactly a riveting read but very convincing and well referenced. But how on Earth do I tame my sweet tooth?!

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May 07, 2018 Elizabeth A rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, 2018

"Nearly 10% of children are thought to have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease."

Let that sink in for a moment. We would never dream of giving kids alcohol or a cigarette, but sugar has nutritional value, so it's OK, right? Not exactly.

I credit Dr. Oz for introducing me to the diseases of metabolic syndrome almost 20 years ago. In that episode he also talked about why sugar is so bad for you. Let me paraphrase: eating sugar is like having sharp razor blades tearing up your arteries. Well, that's a "Nearly 10% of children are thought to have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease."

Let that sink in for a moment. We would never dream of giving kids alcohol or a cigarette, but sugar has nutritional value, so it's OK, right? Not exactly.

I credit Dr. Oz for introducing me to the diseases of metabolic syndrome almost 20 years ago. In that episode he also talked about why sugar is so bad for you. Let me paraphrase: eating sugar is like having sharp razor blades tearing up your arteries. Well, that's an image that has never left me. Once I realized just how much sugar was in everything we ate, I removed most of the white and processed foods from our home. Most of the actual sugar too.

However, I have a sweet tooth, and that's an understatement. I've given up on sugar, and fallen off the wagon, and then got on again. I've learned much about the formulation of fat, sugar, and salt in foods to create a bliss point (and if you have yet to read that book by Michael Moss, would highly recommend it). This is another book to help my brain cement why I want to get off the sugar ride.

I found the history of sugar fascinating, and there is much research and studies covered here that should be talked about on the news daily. Our lack of health is a clear and present danger, and we only seem to be getting sicker, so where is the outrage? There is so much I learned here, like how tobacco soaked in sugar is the technology that made the industry take flight. Sugar is not your friend, and yet somehow we cannot celebrate or mourn or relax or take a breather without a hit. Learning more about the powerful forces behind this industry was eye opening.

The reason I deducted a star was because the writing is rather stilted and a bit of slog to get through at times. Still, there are so many sections highlighted in my copy for review. If you've never read about this topic I'd suggest starting with the book mentioned earlier and then make your way here.

As an aside, this sweet toothed sugar junkie is off the sugar ride, and it has been way easier than I would have ever believed possible. Now, that is truly sweet. ...more

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Feb 25, 2019 Sher rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nutrition

A stunning indictment against sugar and the way Big Sugar has manipulated people's desires and addictions, so they cannot do without sugar. 2/3 of Americans will be Type Two Diabetic within 20 years. People literally are addicted to sugar and carbs. It's incredible the way food manufactures have destroyed the health of people, especially low income folks. Making them want more and more. The other section of the book I really enjoyed was the first third, which traces the historical connection of ...more

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Feb 09, 2017 Andrea Looney rated it did not like it

Not what I thought it would be about. It was a history of sugar, not why you shouldn't eat it. ...more

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Feb 16, 2017 Scott Diamond rated it liked it

Shelves: nf_health

This book wasn't what I'd hoped. I do believe we consume too much sugar and that it is detrimental to our health but the evidence provided in this book was far from overwhelming. In fairness. as the author points out, we don't get to conduct the experiment of eating a high sugar diet w/o the rest of the factors of modern western society.

The book itself has quite a bit of discussion of the history of sugar, sugar lobby, FDA history etc but it isn't until about 2/3rds through the book that he pre ...more

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Jan 21, 2017 Steve Peifer rated it it was amazing

I defy anyone to read this and not question what they eat and how you eat. But it is much more than that. The author's goal is to link the sugar industry's cover up of the enormous damage that sugar has done to what the tobacco industry did with smoking. The old Watergate question of What did they know and when did they know it is especially apt. I read Sugar Blues in the 70's and it was an attack on sugar; this is more an attack on an industry that knew the damage they were doing but there was ...more

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Dec 02, 2017 Denise Cormaney rated it it was amazing

Every American needs to read this book.

This isn't a diet book. There are no diet plans, no recipes, nothing about losing weight. He isn't a doctor trying to get rich by selling a book based on the latest food craze. Taubes is a science writer, and he presents evidence to prove that sugar is the cause of every modern disease in the Western world. Sound like an exaggeration? It isn't. He makes a solid case.

Unless you have gone deep into the research yourself, you probably believe what we've all be Every American needs to read this book.

This isn't a diet book. There are no diet plans, no recipes, nothing about losing weight. He isn't a doctor trying to get rich by selling a book based on the latest food craze. Taubes is a science writer, and he presents evidence to prove that sugar is the cause of every modern disease in the Western world. Sound like an exaggeration? It isn't. He makes a solid case.

Unless you have gone deep into the research yourself, you probably believe what we've all been told:

-Sugar is essentially harmless. Yes, you shouldn't eat a lot because it is "empty calories" and has no nutritional value. You don't want too many of your daily calories spent on food that doesn't have any essential vitamins and minerals. But in moderation, there's nothing wrong with the occasional sweet treat as long as the rest of your diet is "healthy". (wrong)

-People who are obese eat too much and move too little. It's all about energy balance (calories in/calories out). (wrong)

-Dietary fat causes chronic disease (obesity, heart disease, cancer); specifically butter, eggs, dairy, and fatty meats. You order your pancakes with a side of turkey bacon, thinking you're making a healthy choice. (wrong)

This book is dense with facts, but it is a compelling read. Parts of it made me *so* angry. People, we have been lied to, and it's killing us. Taubes gives us the history of the sugar lobby (which Franklin Roosevelt called "the most powerful pressure group that has descended on the national capital during our lifetime." In the '60s, the Silver Anvil Award went to the Madison Avenue firm the Sugar Association hired to wage a sugar-defense campaign. The award was for "the forging of public opinion." The purpose of that campaign? To assure the public that sugar is safe. In 1964 a Scottish physician was quoted in The Lancet as saying: "The refining of sugar may yet prove to have been a greater tragedy for civilized man than the discovery of tobacco.") They used their influence to suppress scientific research and to sway politicians to affect public policy. The parallels to the tobacco industry are clear. It's infuriating when you read the studies and the history that Taubes presents in this book.

But we expect industries to make money at the expense of the public. The part that was really infuriating was how the NIH has played a major role in this. They had studies dating from the '40-'60s that showed it was sugar, not dietary fat, that raises triglycerides. They had studies showing that too much sugar causes metabolic syndrome. But here's the pivotal moment that got us to where we are now: in the late 1960's, the NIH set out to confirm this hypothesis: "a low-fat diet plus blood pressure medication will help people live longer." In 1982 they published the results, and THEY FAILED TO CONFIRM THE HYPOTHESIS. Men on low-fat diets suffered MORE deaths than men who ate more fat. They ran a second trial using cholesterol-lowering meds, and published the results in 1984. The results showed that the meds helped, but just barely. Based on that study alone, the NIH, concerned about deaths from heart disease, ASSUMED that if a cholesterol-lowering drug helped reduce deaths, it should be the recommendation for all people over the age of two to eat a low-fat diet. They undertook a massive public relations campaign to sell a low-fat, high-carb diet, and we've been living with the consequences ever since. The NIH did the study again, this time with women, starting in the early '90s. They published their results in 2006, and once again, they failed to confirm the hypothesis. MORE WOMEN DIED EATING A LOW-FAT DIET, one with whole grains and less red meat, than women who ate more fat. And yet the official recommendations haven't changed. You can thank the sugar lobby for that. They benefit from our collective ignorance.

And can't we see that this is true? All we have to do is look around and see that we are getting more and more unhealthy. Think this sounds crazy? Try giving up all sugar for a week (read your labels, it's in everything) and see how you feel. That first week will be HARD, because you are addicted. It's as addicting as cocaine.

As someone who has struggled with weight, this book confirmed what I know to be true from personal experience. It's not about eating less. Some people are genetically predisposed to being sensitive to sugar. If you are, then you will have a hormonal, metabolic response to sugar that will only get worse over time. Your body will secrete too much insulin, which will then cause you to store those calories as fat. That body fat then secretes its own hormones, putting you into a state called Metabolic Syndrome. No amount of calorie reduction will lead to permanent weight loss. Eventually your body will become insulin-resistant. This is why you can eat a low-fat diet of only 1200 calories and exercise everyday, and still remain overweight! If you restrict calories you may lose weight at first, but you will gain it all back (just google "The Biggest Loser contestants" and read about how they've all ended up heavier than when they started.)

Taubes also gives evidence that sugar is at the root of cancer and dementia. He has less evidence to present here (compared to the overwhelming evidence tying sugar to heart disease and diabetes), but he does have peer-reviewed, scientific studies to back up these claims. The research here is new and still emerging, but the correlation is undeniable (i.e. cancer and dementia are nearly nonexistent in cultures that don't eat a Western diet, but then appear within one-to-two generations when a culture adopts a Western diet).

I know this is a bummer. We love our sweets. We can't imagine celebrating a birthday without a cake, or Christmas without a gajillion treats. We associate love and comfort with our favorite foods, with Grandma's cookies. I'm the same way. We think that this is how we've always done things, but as you'll read in this book, refined sugar hasn't been around that long. Maybe if we can wean ourselves off sugar, we could get to a place where we truly only eat it a few times a year. (Could a former smoker have a cigarette only two or three times a year...? Is that even possible?) Sigh.

Every American needs to read this book. ...more

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Apr 23, 2017 Mehrsa rated it really liked it

I literally stopped eating sugar the second I finished this book, but ahh my kids are addicted. I think if I were to pick one Taubes book, it would be the why we get fat book because it has better research. he makes a lot of crazy claims here that are unsupported, but that I guess I kind of buy. I mean, I don't think sugar causes cancer and alzheimers because those diseases started appearing once we started eating sugar. We started eating lots of sugar after we took care of the plague and other ...more

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Dec 19, 2017 Nicole rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, science, audio, omnivore-s-dilemma, 2017

You’re not gonna like this. But in your heart, you already know it’s true. Sugar is killing us. Slowly. It takes years and even decades to see its full effect, and that’s what makes it so insidious. After year of eating with apparent impunity, it ends in diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s.

Taubes, taking an epidemiological approach to the subject, subscribes to the theory of sugar as a hormonal regulatory disrupter that has a different metabolic effect than other substances. That i ...more

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Mar 02, 2018 Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer rated it liked it

Shelves: 2018

If this were a criminal case, The Case Against Sugar would be the argument for the prosecution

And if I were the judge in the case, I would probably struggle to resist turning up for the first day in court wearing a black cap to signal the pre-ordained outcome of the trial – an outcome the cover of the book anticipates with its sugary noose.

My own distillation of current wisdom on diet would probably be something like “everything in moderation, except refined sugar which you should avoid as ...more

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Jan 26, 2019 Samcwright rated it really liked it

Confession: I used to LOVE sugar. I’ve eaten less and less over the past two years. I still eat a chocolate chip cookie whenever I see one (since they’re amazing). And it’s not sustainable for me to completely cut sugar out of my life. But I feel like I’ve gotten my addiction under control. This book reinforced the importance of that effort.

I put this book in the same category as “Why We Sleep.” We are still learning a lot about the science of health. However, there are some things we know are g ...more

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Oct 31, 2020 Katie rated it it was ok

When I picked up The Case Against Sugar, I was hoping for a book that would help me overcome a serious sweet tooth - One that would help me feel less obsessed with sugar. Expectations are risky, and are of no fault of Gary Taubes, the author. Unfortunately this book didn't do the trick. I found the information on the introduction of sugar, the lobbying, and the addiction interesting, but Taubes lost me vilifying sugar as it relates to carbohydrates - no, I'm not talking about simple, but complex ...more

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Apr 13, 2019 Andy rated it really liked it

Taubes is a very good writer and makes a good case against sugar, but he already did that in two previous books. What he adds here is some more explanation of why the authorities keep saying sugar is not the problem even in instances where the evidence shows that it clearly is. He also makes a good argument about if sugar is the main culprit behind metabolic syndrome, then it's a big deal for lots of diseases other than just obesity itself. He even makes a solid argument for sugar's role in the ...more

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Apr 26, 2019 Katie rated it liked it

Shelves: 3-star-rating, library, audiobooks, read-in-2019

This was a really informative and detailed read! There were some things in here that I already knew, but the level of detail, from the history to talking about different case studies and everything was really eye opening and I enjoyed learning more about this. However, if I were trying to physically read this (instead of the audiobook), I don't think I ever would have finished because it's pretty dense. ...more

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Jan 27, 2017 Tessann rated it it was ok

I think Mr. Taubes may be right about the dangers of refined sugar, but Lord did he really have to explain every little chemical reaction and every single study ever done! I got an article from my Sister which was a brief synopsis of the book by Taubes, called "Is Sugar Killing Us?" That article covered everything in the book in a "beautiful" nutshell!! ...more

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Jan 21, 2017 Patrick rated it it was amazing

"We now eat in two weeks the amount of sugar our ancestors of 200 years ago ate in a year." (England 1963) ...more

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About Gary Taubes

Gary Taubes

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Gary Taubes is an American science writer. He is the author of Nobel Dreams (1987), Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion (1993), and Good Calories, Bad Calories (2007), titled The Diet Delusion (2008) in the UK and Australia. His book Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It was released in December 2010. In December 2010 Taubes launched a blog at GaryTaubes.com to promote the ...more

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“…Sugar has become an ingredient avoidable in prepared and packaged foods only by concerted and determined effort, effectively ubiquitous. Not just in the obvious sweet foods (candy bars, cookies, ice creams, chocolates, sodas, juices, sports and energy drinks, sweetened iced tea, jams, jellies, and breakfast cereals both cold and hot), but also in peanut butter, salad dressings, ketchup, BBQ sauces, canned soups, cold cuts, luncheon meats, bacon, hot dogs, pretzels, chips, roasted peanuts, spaghetti sauces, canned tomatoes, and breads. From the 1980's onward manufacturers of products advertised as uniquely healthy because they were low in fat…not to mention gluten free, no MSG, and zero grams trans fat per serving, took to replacing those fat calories with sugar to make them equally…palatable and often disguising the sugar under one or more of the fifty plus names, by which the fructose-glucose combination of sugar and high-fructose corn syrup might be found. Fat was removed from candy bars sugar added, or at least kept, so that they became health food bars. Fat was removed from yogurts and sugars added and these became heart healthy snacks, breakfasts, and lunches.” — 6 likes

“No such ambiguity existed about sugar consumption. “We now eat in two weeks the amount of sugar our ancestors of 200 years ago ate in a whole year,” as the University of London nutritionist John Yudkin wrote in 1963 of the situation in England. “Sugar provides about 20 percent of our total intake of calories and nearly half of our carbohydrate.” — 5 likes

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