How to eat sugar without gaining weight (crush your cravings and end energy crashes) | Prof Tim Spector & Prof Sarah Berry

**Jonathan** (0:00)
Welcome to ZOE Science & Nutrition, where world leading scientists explain how their research can improve your health.
A spoonful of sugar in your morning coffee, a drizzle of honey on your porridge, a little slice of cake during that afternoon energy dip. For most of us, sugar is such a familiar part of daily life that we barely register it. But historically, sugar has shaped civilizations, driven global trade and transformed the way we eat. Today, it remains big business, hiding in thousands of food products, helping make them irresistible. Yet despite being one of the most studied substances in nutrition, sugar is still veiled in confusion, contradiction and controversy. How can something so familiar still feel so mysterious? We've been told that we need a sugary drink for energy burst when we're exercising. We've also been told that sugar is deadly and we should avoid it completely. Some experts believe it's at the heart of the biggest health challenges of our time. Others argue it's been unfairly demonized. We've heard that sugar causes diabetes, feeds cancer, makes children hyperactive, damages our gut health and drives inflammation. Yet at the same time, our brains need blood sugar to function. And we're told we should eat more fruit even though it's full of sugar. If sugar fuels our cells, how can it be harmful?
Today, Professors Tim Spector and Sarah Berry helped us to get to the bottom of these questions. Tim is one of the world's top 100 most cited scientists, a professor of epidemiology at King's College London and my co-founder here at ZOE. Sarah is professor of nutrition at King's College London, chief scientist at ZOE, and has run the world's largest study looking at how our blood sugar responds to food. Today, you'll learn how sugar really impacts your health, how the food industry hides sugar in surprising places, and simple tips to protect your health when you do indulge in something sweet.
Sarah, thank you for joining me today.

**Sarah Berry** (2:10)
Pleasure, as always, Jonathan.

**Jonathan** (2:13)
Tim, brilliant to have you with us as well.

**Tim Spector** (2:15)
Pleasure.

**Jonathan** (2:16)
You know the drill. Let's kick off with a rapid fire Q&A.
Tim, can my sugar intake negatively impact my mental health?

**Tim Spector** (2:26)
It can.

**Jonathan** (2:27)
Sarah, honey is a natural product. Is it much healthier than sugar?

**Sarah Berry** (2:32)
No.

**Jonathan** (2:34)
Tim, should I try and keep my blood sugar level as low as possible?

**Tim Spector** (2:38)
No.

**Jonathan** (2:40)
Sarah, does our brain need blood sugar to work?

**Sarah Berry** (2:44)
Yes.

**Jonathan** (2:46)
Tim, can too much sugar increase my risk of diabetes?

**Tim Spector** (2:51)
Yes, it can.

**Jonathan** (2:53)
Finally, Sarah, what's the most common myth that you hear about sugar?

**Sarah Berry** (2:58)
That all sugar is bad for us, which is absolutely not true.

**Jonathan** (3:02)
One thing I have to admit is I have a little bit of a guilty secret about sugar that I don't think I've talked about in this podcast before. But when I first met Tim and Sarah right at the beginning of starting ZOE, I put two sugars into my tea and I drank seven or eight cups of tea a day. I had a sweet tooth. I think in general, I was just eating a typical American or British diet where everything was sugary and I was just used to it. No one thinks that sugar is good for them.
They all know that if you have loads of sugar, it'll probably make you overweight. We're all told if we give lots of it to our children, it makes them hyperactive. On the other hand, we're all constantly told that fruit is good for us and that stuff full of sugar.
Then there's all these other alternatives to regular table sugar, all of them claiming to be healthier. It's all a bit confusing and complicated. I hope you're going to make sense of this sickly sweet puzzle and give us all a guide about what we should be doing. Sarah, what is sugar?

**Sarah Berry** (4:07)
Sugar is a type of carbohydrate. It is made up of sugar molecules which we call saccharides, and that stems from the Greek term for sugar.
There's two main forms of saccharides that we talk about in nutrition. There's what we call monosaccharides, which are the very simple sugars that are made up of one sugar molecule. The key ones that are relevant to us are glucose, fructose, and galactose. They're just single sugar molecules. Then you have something called disaccharides, which are basically two simple sugar molecules joined together. You have sucrose, which is what's really common table sugar, the sugar that you're adding to your tea, for example. That's made up of a glucose molecule joined to a fructose molecule.