An Australian man who followed a sugar-heavy diet for 60 days to explore the ingredient’s impact on his health received a shocking diagnosis at the end of the two-month trial: He has fatty liver disease.
Following in the footsteps of Morgan Spurlock, who ate only McDonald’s food for one month for the film “Super Size Me,” filmmaker and actor Damon Gameau adhered to a strict diet of “healthy,” low-fat food with high sugar content for an upcoming documentary, “That Sugar Film,” News.com.au reported.
But in the days after filming ended, the formerly healthy Gameau became moody and sluggish and a doctor told him he is beginning to develop fatty liver disease, which can lead to deadly liver failure,
Fox News reports.
Gameau reportedly consumed 40 teaspoons of sugar per day — twice what the average American consumers, according to the American Heart Association (which recommends a daily sugar consumption limit of six teaspoons for women and nine teaspoons for men).
“I had no soft drink, chocolate, ice cream, or confectionery,” Gameau told Yahoo. “All the sugars that I was eating were found in perceived healthy foods, so low-fat yogurts, and muesli bars, and cereals, and fruit juices, sports drinks ... these kind of things that often parents would give their kids thinking they’re doing the right thing.”
During the filming, Gameau found the sugary diet affected his physical and mental health, and doctors called his mental functioning “unstable.” He also added nearly four inches of visceral fat around his waist, even though he said the diet left him feeling hungry, no matter how much he ate.
Gameau said the film’s message is that no one needs to completely cut out sugar, but people need to be aware about how much sugar has been added to what’s believed to be healthy food.
“Sugar’s now in 80 percent of the processed food we’re eating,” he said. “If we can remove that, that’s the first step towards making a change.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 29.1 million Americans, or 9.3 percent of the population, have diabetes. In adults, Type 2 diabetes accounts for up to 95 percent of all diagnosed diabetes cases. Research has shown that sugary drinks are linked to Type 2 diabetes.
Consuming excess added sugar is also associated with a higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease — the leading cause of death for men and women in the United States, according to the CDC. Heart disease accounts for one in four deaths in the United States, or about 600,000 annual deaths.
“That Sugar Film” will be released in in February 2015.
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