Newsgrab from the Irish Times:

Cardiac Expert says Sugar More Dangerous than Smoking.

Read the full article here.

Following are a few favorite excerpts from the article:

Sugar is a “drug” that is more dangerous to health than smoking and elevated cholesterol combined, a leading cardiovascular expert has told an international conference in Galway.

Centenarians who are free of cardiovascular disease usually had low sugar and low insulin levels, Sherif Sultan of Galway University Hospital’s Western Vascular Institute said yesterday.

Decelerating insulin increase is “key” to cardiovascular “anti-ageing”, Mr Sultan said. The level of insulin sensitivity of the cell was one of the “most crucial markers of lifespan”. Metabolic or insulin-resistance syndrome affected more than 60 million North Americans and one in four adults over the age of 35, he said.

Insulin should only be used for a “short time”and treatment for diabetes should focus on exercise, weight loss and stress reduction.

“It is unfortunate that multinationals have brainwashed the public into thinking that certain drugs are the only answer.”

Mr Sultan said he believed that certain drugs prescribed for heart disease were doing more harm than good. Cultured stem cell therapy had also “failed to deliver”, while more than €3 billion had been “squandered” globally on human gene trials.