Lay off the cheesecake

A LITTLE OF WHAT YOU FANCY GETS YOU ADDICTED

We are gradually working our way through a backlog of recorded television programs and last night we watched one with those twin English doctors - Chris and Xander something, doing a comparison between fat and sugar - which is worst for your health?

It was a typical pop science/medical program of the type that populates the television schedules these days. They take a premise and devise an 'experiment' to test it, exploring various research programs along the way. I'm sure the real scientists/researchers/medicos out there would pour scorn on such programs, because the 'experiments' do not accord with any rigorous experimental guidelines. But I do think they are really good, because they show in a fun, simple or sensationalised way what we should do to live a healthy life. This one was probably squarely aimed at the obesity epidemic that pervades western culture.

The 'experiment' - with a sample of just two and, as they said, therefore somewhat ridiculous even if the two were genetically identical - was to see if fat or sugar was worse than the other in terms of making you ill. Because we all know, of course, that fat is bad - cholesterol, heart disease, etc. and sugar too - diabetes, obesity, etc. So is one worse than the other? One of the twins went on a high fat diet - no sugars - which meant no fruit and vegetables as well as sugar itself - and this includes carbohydrates which are converted by the body into sugar. The other went on a high sugar diet - no fats but lots of fruit and vegetables. They did it for a month - tested for all the obvious suspects - and also did a bit of heavy exercise on bikes in the middle.

I honestly can't remember all of the results but some of them were a bit surprising. Like the twin on the high fat diet was the one who ended up pre-diabetic. I'm sorry - I can't remember the scientific explanation - something to do with the body creating insulin from fat? Indeed, as an aside, I rarely remember all of the actual science from these programs - how it works - and if you want to know I'm sure you could find out with a little surfing of the net - but I do remember the conclusions, which in cases like this is probably all you need to remember. How to apply it to your own life.

The other surprising thing was that both of them lost weight! I can't remember which lost more. Whether this was to do with more exercise or not I don't know. Though they lost muscle not fat - so not a good weight loss. I don't think extra exercise was part of the experiment - the exercise segment in the middle was just to test how they were going on their respective diets.

And I don't think the cholesterol was affected much.

So where does cheesecake come into this? Well, as they admitted, their 'experiment' didn't really prove anything, but they talked to various people who had been doing real experiments - most notably on rats. These scientists found that, like the twins, a high fat or a high sugar diet did not make a huge amount of difference in terms of weight - remember this was all partly to do with finding out why the obesity epidemic. The rats did not overeat on either of these diets. However, if they were fed cheesecake - a combination of sugar and fat - they couldn't stop eating it and put on massive amounts of weight. And this was all to do with the addiction centres in the brain, or was it addiction hormones - addiction anyway. So the conclusion from the experts is that it is not fat or sugar on their own (though not good), but a combination of the two which is the root cause and deadly. So a little of what you fancy does not do you good - it can indeed get you seriously addicted to such things and make you fat. So no more cheesecake.

The best illustration of this was an 'experiment' in which they ate some straight sugar, but really didn't want to go on eating it. Then some straight cream but didn't want to go on eating that - mixed them together - and voilà ice-cream! Pretty addictive.

Though now I look at all the pictures of cheesecakes I checked out for this article, I'm wondering whether to make one for dessert for tonight when the grandchildren and parents are coming for dinner. Maybe I should just stick to strawberries and cream - but hey that's fat and sugar too! Not to mention ice-cream. So maybe no dessert? Well that would be a bit sad. Surely a little treat every now and then is OK?

So can these programs make a difference? Here I am considering ignoring this particular program's conclusions in favour of a treat for the grandchildren - whom I should be protecting from obesity. I know it's wrong but am seriously considering it because I assume that I am not prone to addiction and that it is only an occasional sin. And a little of what you fancy does you good! Cheers you up when you are down anyway. Maybe I should do a bit of soul-searching.

And I am still a little overweight - well I have lost weight on my diet, but I don't seem to have lost any inches - I still look a bit like Michelin lady. So I should be listening. Trouble is I can always come up with some excuse to justify a splurge on something sweet and delicious. And I only do it occasionally. I truly do not think I am addicted to sweets, Imagine how hard it would be for somebody who is.