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SUGAR, NOT GENES: THE HIDDEN DRIVER OF CHRONIC DISEASE?

Most U.S. infant formulas contain mainly added sugars, posing a serious risk to babies’ health, researchers say

By Pamela Ferdinand | US Right To Know | February 25, 2025

Most infant formulas in the U.S. contain mostly added sugars instead of natural lactose, which experts say can harm early development, a new report from the University of Kansas shows.

“Infants may consume upwards of 60 grams of added sugars per day, or the equivalent of two soft drinks per day if they are entirely formula-fed,” researchers say in the study, published yesterday [Feb. 24, 2025] in the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis. 

The findings reveal “the staggering extent” to which sugar-laden U.S. formulas undermine federal healthy diet recommendations for infants—and cannot be easily avoided, they say.

“[Most] of the formulas that parents and caregivers feed their infants likely present a substantial risk to their infant’s health and development. Ultimately, caregivers and infants in the US deserve a formula market that promotes healthy infant development and does not promote early obesity risk.”

Added sugars provide energy but lack nutritional value, boosting the odds of rapid infant weight gain that can eventually lead to obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other health problems. They may also make babies develop a stronger preference for sweet foods, increasing the risk of overeating and obesity later in life. And they do not support beneficial gut bacteria as well as lactose.

In contrast, lactose, which is naturally found in breast milk, cow and goat milk, is perfectly designed to support an infant’s nutrition, immune system, and gut health, researchers say. Because lactose digests slowly, it doesn’t cause the sharp spike in blood sugar that can set the stage for long-term health problems. It also satiates hunger and helps the body absorb minerals that are important for bone health.

Dr. David Ludwig, an endocrinologist and researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital who conducted some of the original studies linking sugar-sweetened beverages and fast food to obesity, calls infant formula spiked with added sugars a “metabolic nightmare for infants.”

“You lose the beneficial effects of what lactose does, and you get the harmful effects of what these fast-digesting sugars do,” Ludwig says. “Unless we’re talking about the very rare child who can’t take lactose, that should be the dominant carbohydrate.”

Out of 73 formulas available in the U.S. in 2022, the vast majority of which were for infants up to 12 months old, the researchers found only five contained mainly naturally occurring lactose—and those are no longer available in this country. It is unknown whether any formulas on the current U.S. market contain primarily naturally occurring lactose, they say.

The study also shows the quality and type of sugars in infant formulas varied by formula. Gentle (with marketing claims such as “gentle,” “soothe,” “sensitive,” or “acid reflux”) and lactose-free formulas contain less sugar than standard formulas but much more starch, the study shows.

“Our findings highlight a major problem with the infant formula supply,” says lead author Audrey Rips-Goodwin, who headed the analysis of data from the Nutrition Data System for Research for KU’s Health Behavior and Technology Lab. “Our infant formula market totally contradicts what experts in infant health recommend.”

Children under 2 years should not be given any foods or beverages with added sugars, since they need nutrient-rich diets and are developing taste preferences, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (2020–2025). Yet with few formula options free of added sugars, the researchers say parents and caregivers who can’t breastfeed or access breast milk face tough choices in terms of finding a nutritionally suitable formula due to lax government regulations.

Unlike adult food products, US regulations do not require that added sugars be reported on the nutrition label of infant formulas (only total carbohydrates). The FDA specifies 30 nutrients that must be included in infant formulas but does not regulate the types of carbohydrates or require their clear labeling. That means formula manufacturers can use any type of carbohydrate, including starches or added sugars such as corn syrup solids, fructose, and glucose.

“Consumers are blinded to the fact that added sugars may be present in infant formulas, and in what quantities,” the researchers say. “As a result, parents and guardians may unknowingly feed their infants formula that contains substantial quantities of added sugars.”

The study builds on others that revealed the high sugar content of infant formula. It also comes less than a year after news reports that two of Nestlé’s leading baby-food brands, promoted as healthy in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, contain high levels of added sugar.

To promote healthy development, the researchers say efforts should focus on requiring formula companies to produce products that contain naturally occurring lactose as the only sugar. The amount of lactose present in infant formula should also reflect that of human milk.

At the same time, societal barriers to breastfeeding, including a lack of parental leave and affordable early child care, should be removed, the researchers add.

“[The] focus on an individual-level solution (breastfeeding promotion to women and caregivers) is not well matched to addressing the systemic nature of the problem and places an unfair burden on women and families who are expected to navigate this systemic issue,” Rips-Goodwin says.

Senior author Tera Fazzino agrees.

“Even though breastfeeding is promoted as the best option, the lack of support makes it hard to do exclusively,” says Fazzino, associate director of the Cofrin Logan Center for Addiction Research & Treatment at KU’s Life Span Institute. “Most parents end up using formula, either as a supplement or completely. But our findings suggest that formula itself may pose a serious risk to infant health.”

Reference

Rips-Goodwin AR, Jun D, Griebel-Thompson A, Kong KL, Fazzino TL. US infant formulas contain primarily added sugars: An analysis of the infant formulas on the US market. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis. Published online February 2025:107369. doi:10.1016/j.jfca.2025.107369

The HighWire with Del Bigtree | March 6, 2025

March 9, 2025 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bitter truth: Sugar may be as harmful as stress – study

RT | February 16, 2016

A group of researchers from Australia and India released a study suggesting that sugar consumption may cause not only diabetes and obesity, but also brain defects comparable to those caused by stress or abuse.

The study published in the Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience journal focused on whether and how the diet may influence the brain compared to to stress and other psychological loads during infancy.

The scientists paid special attention to the hippocampus, a brain region responsible for long-term memories, stress regulation and behavioral patterns.

The tests involved female Sprague-Dawley rats (“as females are more likely to experience adverse life events,” the scientists explained) from one litter with half of them being exposed to artificial stressful conditions such as limited nest material for the first days of their life. The other half lived normal rat lives free from stress and anxiety.

During the next stage there were four groups of rodents: a no-stress group drinking water, a no-stress group drinking sugar solution, a stress group drinking water and a stress group drinking sugar solution.

The experiment took 15 weeks and ended with a check of the rats’ brains. The autopsy showed similar anomalies in the hippocampus regions both in the rats that were stressed but drank water and the non-stressed rats that drank sugar. The receptor hindering the stress hormone cortisol was found impaired which means coping with stress for those rats wouldn’t be that easy.

“The novelty of this study lies in the finding that chronic consumption of sugar produced equivalent hippocampal molecular deficits as early life stress exposure,” the study said.

Both sugar and stress also messed with a gene, called Neurod1 that is accountable for the growth of nerves. Other similar genes were affected only by sugar, the study noted.

However, it’s still not clear whether similar processes take place in human bodies as well, and so further research is required, the scientists said.

The results raise a major issue since the diet of an average modern human often includes sugary soft drinks.

“If similar processes are at play in humans, manipulating the later environment of those exposed to early life adversity, and controlling the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages across the community may be an effective way to curtail the burden of psychiatric disorders,” the study explained.

Read more:

‘The worst calories’: Sugar even more harmful than it seems, study finds

February 16, 2016 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | | 3 Comments

The Sugar Conspiracy

The Secrets of Sugar

Film Review by Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall | March 20, 2015

The Secrets of Sugar is a Canadian documentary about the conspiracy by the sugar industry and processed food companies to conceal the damaging effects of sugar on human health. For decades, the medical establishment has led us to believe that our intake of animal fat is responsible for soaring rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. It turns out the real culprit all along is sugar (see The Big Fat Surprise).

Investigators have uncovered industry documents going back to the 1950s linking excess sugar intake with health problems. In 1972, researcher John Yudkin published the book Pure, White and Deadly about research linking sugar to heart disease. The response by the food industry was a vicious campaign to portray Yudkin as an incompetent quack. This, in turn, led to a thirty-year shutdown of institutional funding for research into sugar’s health effects.

For me, the film’s most shocking revelation was the immense amount of sugar hidden in so- called “healthy” processed foods, such as yoghurt, oatmeal, soup and Healthy Choice frozen dinners. In one segment, a former industry scientist nicknamed “Dr Bliss” explains the importance of the “bliss point,” the quantity of added sugar that makes you crave a particular product.

A close look at product labels suggests they are designed to confuse consumers about the actual sugar content of foods. Meanwhile like the tobacco industry, Food Inc spends billions of dollars lobbying against government (and UN) recommendations for a maximum daily sugar intake and clearer food labeling laws.

For years, doctors and dieticians have been telling us that sugar is bad because of all the “empty” calories. New research indicates sugar acts as a poison, inflicting direct damage on the liver and brain via its impact on insulin production. In addition to studies implicating high sugar intake in obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer, others point to its role in the development of Alzheimer’s Disease and polycystic ovarian disease.

Industry scientists interviewed in the film manifest the same “blame the victim” mentality as the tobacco industry. They maintain the responsibility lies with the consumer to choose whether to eat sugar – or to smoke. The filmmakers counter that healthy choices are impossible without good information.

The film follows an obese couple over three weeks, who achieve significant weight loss, as well as reductions in cholesterol and triglycerides, simply by eliminating all processed foods from their diet.

March 20, 2015 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Sugar is Toxic to Mice in ‘Safe’ Doses

New Test Hints Three Sodas Daily Hurt Lifespan, Reproduction

University of Utah News Center | August 13, 2013

When mice ate a diet of 25 percent extra sugar – the mouse equivalent of a healthy human diet plus three cans of soda daily – females died at twice the normal rate and males were a quarter less likely to hold territory and reproduce, according to a toxicity test developed at the University of Utah.

“Our results provide evidence that added sugar consumed at concentrations currently considered safe exerts dramatic adverse impacts on mammalian health,” the researchers say in a study set for online publication Tuesday, Aug. 13 in the journal Nature Communications.

“This demonstrates the adverse effects of added sugars at human-relevant levels,” says University of Utah biology professor Wayne Potts, the study’s senior author. He says previous studies using other tests fed mice large doses of sugar disproportionate to the amount people consume in sweetened beverages, baked goods and candy.

“I have reduced refined sugar intake and encouraged my family to do the same,” he adds, noting that the new test showed that the 25 percent “added-sugar” diet – 12.5 percent dextrose (the industrial name for glucose) and 12.5 percent fructose – was just as harmful to the health of mice as being the inbred offspring of first cousins.

Even though the mice didn’t become obese and showed few metabolic symptoms, the sensitive test showed “they died more often and tended to have fewer babies,” says the study’s first author, James Ruff, who recently earned his Ph.D. at the University of Utah. “We have shown that levels of sugar that people typically consume – and that are considered safe by regulatory agencies – impair the health of mice.”

The new toxicity test placed groups of mice in room-sized pens nicknamed “mouse barns” with multiple nest boxes – a much more realistic environment than small cages, allowing the mice to compete more naturally for mates and desirable territories, and thereby revealing subtle toxic effects on their performance, Potts says.

“This is a sensitive test for health and vigor declines,” he says, noting that in a previous study, he used the same test to show how inbreeding hurt the health of mice.

“One advantage of this assay is we get the same readout no matter if we are testing inbreeding or added sugar,” Potts says. “The mice tell us the level of health degradation is almost identical” from added-sugar and from cousin-level inbreeding.

The study says the need for a sensitive toxicity test exists not only for components of our diet, but “is particularly strong for both pharmaceutical science, where 73 percent of drugs that pass preclinical trials fail due to safety concerns, and for toxicology, where shockingly few compounds receive critical or long-term toxicity testing.”

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

A Mouse Diet Equal to What a Quarter of Americans Eat

The experimental diet in the study provided 25 percent of calories from added sugar – half fructose and half glucose – no matter how many calories the mice ate. Both high-fructose corn syrup and table sugar (sucrose) are half fructose and half glucose.

Potts says the National Research Council recommends that for people, no more than 25 percent of calories should be from “added sugar,” which means “they don’t count what’s naturally in an apple, banana, potato or other nonprocessed food. … The dose we selected is consumed by 13 percent to 25 percent of Americans.”

The diet fed to the mice with the 25 percent sugar-added diet is equivalent to the diet of a person who drinks three cans daily of sweetened soda pop “plus a perfectly healthy, no-sugar-added diet,” Potts says.

Ruff notes that sugar consumption in the American diet has increased 50 percent since the 1970s, accompanied by a dramatic increase in metabolic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, fatty liver and cardiovascular disease.

The researchers used a mouse supply company that makes specialized diets for research. Chow for the mice was a highly nutritious wheat-corn-soybean mix with vitamins and minerals. For experimental mice, glucose and fructose amounting to 25 percent of calories was included in the chow. For control mice, corn starch was used as a carbohydrate in place of the added sugars.

House Mice Behaving Naturally

Mice often live in homes with people, so “mice happen to be an excellent mammal to model human dietary issues because they’ve been living on the same diet as we have ever since the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago,” Potts says.

Mice typically used in labs come from strains bred in captivity for decades. They lack the territoriality shown by wild mice. So the study used mice descended from wild house mice that were “outbred” to prevent inbreeding typical of lab mice.

“They are highly competitive over food, nesting sites and territories,” he says. “This competition demands high performance from their bodies, so if there is a defect in any physiological systems, they tend to do more poorly during high competition.”

So Potts’ new test – named the Organismal Performance Assay, or OPA – uses mice “in a more natural ecological context” more likely to reveal toxic effects of whatever is being tested, he says.

“When you look at a mouse in a cage, it’s like trying to evaluate the performance of a car by turning it on in a garage,” Ruff says. “If it doesn’t turn on, you’ve got a problem. But just because it does turn on, doesn’t mean you don’t have a problem. To really test it, you take it out on the road.”

A big room was divided into 11 “mouse barns” used for the new test. Six were used in the study. Each “barn” was a 377-square-foot enclosure ringed by 3-foot walls.

Each mouse barn was divided by wire mesh fencing into six sections or “territories,” but the mice could climb easily over the mesh. Within each of the six sections was a nest box, a feeding station and drinking water.

Four of the six sections in each barn were “optimal,” more desirable territories because the nest boxes were opaque plastic storage bins, which mice entered via 2-inch holes at the bottom. Each bin had four nesting cages in it, and an enclosed feeder.

The two other sections were “suboptimal” territories with open planter trays instead of enclosed bins. Female mice had to nest communally in the trays.

Running the Experiment

The mice in the experiment began with 156 “founders” that were bred in Potts’ colony, weaned at four weeks, and then assigned either to the added-sugar diet or the control diet, with half the males and half the females on each diet.

The mice stayed in cages with siblings of the same sex (to prevent reproduction) for 26 weeks while they were fed these diets. Then the mice were placed in the mouse barns to live, compete with each other and breed for 32 more weeks. They all received the same added-sugar diet while in the mouse barns, so the study only tested for differences caused by the mice eating different diets for the previous 26 weeks.

The founder mice had implanted microchips, like those put in pets. Microchip readers were placed near the feeding stations to record which mice fed where and for how long. A male was considered dominant if he made more than 75 percent of the visits by males to a given feeding station. In reality, the dominant males made almost 100 percent of male visits to the feeder in the desirable territory they dominated.

With the 156 founder mice (58 male, 98 female), the researchers ran the experiment six times, with an average of 26 mice per experiment: eight to 10 males (competing for six territories, four desirable and two suboptimal) and 14 to 18 females.

The Findings: Added Sugar Impairs Mouse Lifespan and Reproduction

– After 32 weeks in mouse barns, 35 percent of the females fed extra sugar died, twice the 17 percent death rate for female control mice. There was no difference in the 55 percent death among males who did and did not get added sugar. Ruff says males have much higher death rates than females in natural settings because they compete for territory, “but there’s no relation to sugar.”

– Males on the added-sugar diet acquired and held 26 percent fewer territories than males on the control diet: control males occupied 47 percent of the territories while sugar-added mice controlled less than 36 percent. Male mice shared the remaining 17 percent of territories.

– Males on the added-sugar diet produced 25 percent fewer offspring than control males, as determined by genetic analysis of the offspring. The sugar-added females had higher reproduction rates than controls initially – likely because the sugar gave them extra energy to handle the burden of pregnancy – but then had lower reproductive rates as the study progressed, partly because they had higher death rates linked to sugar.

The researchers studied another group of mice for metabolic changes. The only differences were minor: cholesterol was elevated in sugar-fed mice, and the ability to clear glucose from the blood was impaired in female sugar-fed mice. The study found no difference between mice on a regular diet and mice with the 25 percent sugar-added diet when it came to obesity, fasting insulin levels, fasting glucose or fasting triglycerides.

“Our test shows an adverse outcome from the added-sugar diet that couldn’t be detected by conventional tests,” Potts says.

Human-made toxic substances in the environment potentially affect all of us, and more are continually discovered, Potts says.

“You have to ask why we didn’t discover them 20 years ago,” he adds. “The answer is that until now, we haven’t had a functional, broad and sensitive test to screen the potential toxic substances that are being released into the environment or in our drugs or our food supply.”

Potts and Ruff conducted the study with University of Utah biology lab manager Linda Morrison and undergraduates Amanda Suchy, Sara Hugentobler, Mirtha Sosa and Bradley Schwartz, and with researchers Sin Gieng and Mark Shigenaga of Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute in California.

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August 14, 2013 Posted by | Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment