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 The more people eat of foods made with subsidized commodities, the
more likely they are to be obese, have abnormal cholesterol and high
blood sugar, according to a report in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Current federal agricultural subsidies help finance the production
of corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, sorghum, dairy and livestock, which
are often converted into refined grains, high-fat and high-sodium
processed foods, and high-calorie juices and soft drinks (sweetened
with high-fructose corn syrup), the authors write.
“We know that eating too many of these foods can lead to obesity,
cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes,” said lead author Karen
R. Siegel of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in
Atlanta.
But the subsidies help keep the prices of those products down,
making them more affordable.
“Among the justifications for the 1973 U.S. Farm Bill was to assure
consumers a plentiful supply of food at reasonable prices,” Siegel
told Reuters Health by email. “Subsidized food commodities are foods
made from federally funded crops to ensure the American population
has an adequate supply of food, thus they tend to be non-perishable,
or storable, e.g., corn, wheat, rice, to reduce the risk of
spoiling.”
The researchers used National Health and Nutrition Examination
Survey responses obtained from more than 10,000 adults between 2001
and 2006. Each person reported everything they had eaten in one
24-hour period.
The researchers gave each individual a “subsidy score” based on the
percentage of their total calories than had come from subsidized
foods.
At the same time, participants had their body mass index, abdominal
fat, C-reactive protein (a marker of inflammation), blood pressure,
cholesterol and blood sugar levels measured.
On average, people were getting about 56 percent of their calories
from subsidized food commodities. When the total group was divided
into four smaller groups based on their subsidy score, those with
the highest scores were more likely to be obese, have a larger waist
circumference, more C-reactive protein, more “bad” cholesterol and
higher blood sugar than those in the lowest subsidy score, as
reported in JAMA Internal Medicine.
The study itself can't prove that a diet higher in subsidized foods
causes poor health, Siegel said. But foods that are high in fat,
sugar and sodium are known to increase the risk for chronic health
problems, particularly when paired with other factors such as
smoking and inactivity, she added.
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In a separate study in the same journal, a team led by Dr. Frank B.
Hu of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston found
that over a 32-year period, eating more saturated fat and trans-fat,
found in fatty meat and dairy, rather than polyunsaturated and
monounsaturated fatty acids, found in sunflower oil and olive oil,
was associated with higher rates of death.
U.S. dietary guidelines recommend emphasizing fruits, vegetables,
whole grains, and fat-free or low-fat milk products, lean meats,
poultry, fish, beans, eggs, and nuts, Siegel said.
The government subsidies were a strategy to support rural
communities and to manage hunger in the 1970s, said Raj Patel of the
University of Texas at Austin, who wrote a commentary on Siegel’s
report.
But “we rarely buy these foods raw,” Patel told Reuters Health by
email. “These commodities are grown to be processed.”
It’s easy to tell people to eat fresh fruits and vegetables instead
of subsidized commodities in processed foods, “but affording healthy
food is a challenge for millions of Americans – around 50 million
Americans are food insecure – and it makes little sense to blame the
working poor for their inability to afford to eat fewer subsidized
foods and more fresh fruit and vegetables, when our modern food
system is geared toward encouraging everyone to eating these
commodity crops,” Patel said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/29rDFrS and http://bit.ly/29gZ2Jo JAMA
Internal Medicine, online July 5, 2016.
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