The long read (7 April) fascinated me with its account of the life of John Yudkin, who played a big part in my middle years when I bought his Penguin book entitled This Slimming Business (which is not mentioned in the article). I still have that very copy. I had no idea that Yudkin was vilified in the scientific press, ostracised by his college at the University of London and died a disappointed man.
I bought his book on the recommendation of a friend, followed the low-carbohydrate diet it described and lost well over 2 stone in less than a year, ending up at 10 and a half stone in weight. I seem to remember I was partly motivated to lose weight by the arrival of our children who would be dependent on my income (and me staying alive, therefore!) for at least the next two decades. And the result of the Yudkin diet was basic to my reaching my present weight (10 stone), when much, much later we became vegetarians and I lost another half stone.
Before reading Ian Leslie’s article, I knew nothing about Yudkin’s tough time in academe and more generally because of his views on the dangers of sugar to our health. However, perhaps my story is not atypical? More than likely there are other 88-year-olds out there who have kept a healthy weight for pushing half a century because of Yudkin and the ever popular Penguin Books. I hope so.
Reg Snowdon
Newcastle Upon Tyne
• Ian Leslie properly stresses the importance of refined sugar in today’s epidemic of obesity and heart disease, but goes on to say that saturated fat is not also a factor. However, the studies he quotes in support of this do not exonerate saturated fat.
Several surveys have shown that people do better on low-carbohydrate diets than on low-fat ones. But this is explained by the unlimited sugar in low-fat diets, and by them lacking unsaturated fat, which is cardioprotective.
Diets low in saturated fat and high in unsaturates – as in Japan and the Mediterranean – are associated with good health and longevity. And, crucially, statin drugs are proven to prevent heart disease by lowering the level of low-density (LD) cholesterol in the body: both sugar and saturated fat raise LD cholesterol.
Dr Jenny Smith
Halifax, West Yorkshire
• Ian Leslie states that, since 1980, there has been “no commensurate decline in physical activity, in either country [the UK or the US], exercise levels have increased over the last 20 years”. This appears to disregard the fact that, in the 1980s, physically onerous work began to decline, with the diminution of heavy industry and, at the same time, an enormous increase in computer-related office work. If the measure of exercise levels relates only to leisure activities – sports, dancing etc – this too needs to be quantified, since many of the leisure activities that can be counted fairly accurately depend on people being able to afford them.
While it is extremely probable that sugar is indeed the principal culprit in weight-gaining internationally, physical energy requirements are obviously part of the mix too. I look forward to an announcement that a scientific project, preferably free from the nutritionist old order, is to begin researching any correlations, if only to rule them in or out of the equation.
John Starbuck
Huddersfield, West Yorkshire
• As I read the long read on the battle to get sugar accepted as a contributor to obesity, the treatment of Prof John Yudkin by his fellow scientists, and the recent belittling of Nina Teicholz’s BMJ article, I was reminded of the hounding and denial by the chemical industry of Rachel Carson and her book Silent Spring – the bullying and personal egos. And Rachel Carson was so right, as I believe Prof Yudkin was so many years ago.
Jo Fisher
Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
• I was delighted to see an article reminding the world of John Yudkin’s excellent destruction of dietary sugar, a book unfortunately well before its time. Ian Leslie might also have paid some attention to the role of “trade” bodies such as the American Soybean Association, which succeeded in effectively driving coconut oil out of the mainstream food markets and substituting trans fats, which are now regarded as highly damaging.
Roderick White
London
• Prof Yudkin’s work was well-known in the food industry in the mid-80s when I was doing PR for a major dairy products company. I was still rather surprised when I visited the factory in Cheshire that made Ski low-fat yogurt to see beside the main building two huge, identical hoppers: one for skimmed milk powder, the other for sugar.
Jim Trimmer
London
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