PEDIATRICIANS PROTECTING KIDS. SWEET!

By Kim Stagliano

Well it's nice to see pediatricians concerned about the health of their young patients. Abbot Labs has an organic Similac sweetened with sucrose, pure cane sugar. Pediatricians expressed their concern in NYT article today (HERE) about this choice of sweeteners. 

I realize American children are suffering from obesity at alarming rates and that's nothing to joke about. But when you're prescribing Prozac for kids, doling out antibiotics like Dots and injecting babies with mercury and aluminum, it seems a bit silly to worry about organic sugar. Don't you think?

“I would be very concerned about this as a pediatrician,” said Dr. Benjamin Caballero, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and an expert in risk factors for childhood obesity. “The issue is that sweet tastes tend to encourage consumption of excessive amounts,” Dr. Caballero said. Evidence shows that babies and children will always show a preference for the sweetest food available, he said, and they will eat more of it than they would of less-sweet food.

Kim Stagliano is Managing Editor of Age of Autism and relies on sucrose and other sugars (all natural) along with copious amounts of Starbucks coffee for her very survival. Oh yeah, and her Dad was a dentist. 

Comments

[Michael Wolff]

I am working primarily with pediatrics and am locked in a debacle with a local insurance company trying to recover a significant portion of money for providing evaluation and treatment, not just for children Autism, but any disability. This is so incredibly hard to see and diagnose these families and to put a developmental disability on the diagnostic formulary is teh same as wishing them well. I am trying to investigae options for pursuing this and have contacted a few legal groups to see if their is interest in pursuing this matter. In the mean time, our company confronts risk of loosing paneling and extremee financial jeopardy. This is extremely frustrating from a professional end, I cannot imagine being a family seeking help.

[K Fuller Yuba City, Ca]

I laughed out loud. The spokesperson cannot possibly be reading or following any news stories. I can't imagine being proud of being quoted about sweetener and tooth enamel when a war is raging about our childrens brains and bodies. What about High Fructose corn syrup and trans fat??
Let's let our Dentist educate us on our tooth enamel and get busy fixing the vaccine schedule.

[Cockles of your heart]

"Warms my ire-- not so much my heart."

Here's a heart warmer for you -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPI7zdGdqo4&feature=related

[Gatogorra]

Yeah, the same peds with Risperdal (aka, gain-a-pound-a-month) pamphlets in their waiting rooms are whining about a little sugar. Warms my ire-- not so much my heart.

[Gotta justify my existence]

"But to pediatricians, there are risks in giving babies cane sugar: Sucrose can harm tooth enamel faster than other sugars; once babies get used to its sweeter taste, they might resist less sweet formulas or solid foods; and some studies suggest that they might overeat, leading to rapid weight gain in the first year, which is often a statistical predictor of childhood obesity."

Hmmm nice use of time. How do these pedistricians get all the time in the world to analyze the sugar content of formula whilst the DAN doc clinics are bursting at the seams with waitlists running into months? My DAN always looked tired and stressed and haggard whilst these pediatricians are having a picnic, or so it seems.

What luxury, to be able to obsess about formula and whether the organic form of it is indeed good because by golly it actually TASTES good! Who would have thought of such a thing? Never, this cannot be right. We can't have babies actually liking this stuff, they might want more of it. Let's find a problem with it, we have to justify our existence. How about this? They might get obese from it, a lot of Americans are obese. No, this is a very BAD formula. Away with it. I am a pediatrician by golly, and I say this organic formula that tastes good, is bad for you!

[Gimme That Dew!!!]

Kim, if it wasn't for Starbucks and Mt. Dew (oh sweet nectar of the Gods!), I don't think many of us parents of autistic children would be able to function :)