Sugar vs Fat: Is there an answer on the Horizon?

AppId is over the quota
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Twin doctors Chris and Xand Van Tulleken go on month long high-fat and high-sugar dietsLast Wednesday evening, BBC Two brought us the latest take on our nation's obesity epidemic. Two twins, identical in genetics as well as body composition, abused their bodies on a month-long dietary experiment to tackle one of the hottest questions in nutrition: Which is the enemy - Fat or Sugar?

The battle across the pond leave Americans thinking sugar is the enemy, whilst us Brits put the blame on fat. These two twins decided to wholly devote their diets to one or the other for an entire month, to try and draw conclusions over which country is right. The concept was interesting, despite the experiment demonstrating some extreme eating habits which no one would ever do. One twin was only allowed to eat foods which were high in sugar and had virtually no fat (sweets, carbohydrates, fruit), whilst the other had to eat high fat food with virtually no sugar (butter, eggs, meat, cheese, no fruit/veg allowed.) Would you do either? No, I don't think so.

Whilst maintaining their new diets, the twins conducted some other experiments to test their theories, such as a physical endurance test which was won by Twin sugar, as they proved you can excercise much more dynamically on sugar than you can on fat. Then there was the hunger test, which demonstrated that fat suppresses hunger whilst sugar doesn't, so Twin fat conquered. The science behind the latter experiment was related to the 'hunger hormone' (called gherlin) which is affected differently by fats and sugars: Twin sugar had a high carbohydrate diet, finished his meal and still felt hungry, whereas Twin fat felt fuller quicker, and therefore couldn't finish his meal. So despite being able to excercise more dynamically on sugar, you will ultimately eat less if your diet consists of more high fat foods to suppress hunger. Conclusion drawn. Or not: they established that one gram of fat has twice as many calories as a gram of sugar - back to square one again.

One stomach rumble and several contradictions later, my brain had been engulfed by scientific jargon and had almost switched off. The Twins had both lost weight on their obscure diets, and the television audience were huffing and puffing at the frustration of it (whilst tucking into their low fat yoghurt.) Twin sugar and Twin fat just could not come to a conclusion. And then, suddenly, they ditched the original sugar/fat hypothesis and realised the programme was not about sugar vs fat, but about rats and cheesecake. Here's why...

One scientist conducted his own experiment to find the true answer to the fat vs sugar debate. He fed his pet rats pure sugar and pure fat, and found they had a natural cut-off response to it so didn't return back for more. But, when he combined the two (he used cheesecake) the rats became addicted and couldn't resist going back for seconds, thirds, fourths (I know some of you are still with me here...) The deadly 50/50 combo is what sends us into addictive behaviour, as one of the programme experts explained: when someone says they're craving sugar, they're not craving a bowl of sugar are they? The same applies to someone tucking into a knob of butter - it just wouldn't happen. However, combining the two sends the human appetite into a frenzy: the ice cream, the biscuits, the cake, the creamy desserts. This is what causes our weight gain, they concluded.

So, whilst Twin sugar and Twin fat had endured a month of frankly revolting and borderline dangerous eating habits, the whole experiment was undermined by one scientist and his rats. But I suppose the message was to not be afraid of high sugar and high fat items, but do be afraid by the addictive 50/50 composite. So try to lay off the cheesecake.

You can watch Horizon: Sugar vs Fat on BBC iplayer here, for a limited time only.