Family Forum / Parenting / Children's Health / September 2007

"The cereal killer threatening your liver", Daily Mail, September 21,
2007,
Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/dietfitness.html?in_articl
e_id=482979&in_page_id=1798

A breakfast of cereal and white toast could raise the risk of a
potentially deadly liver disease, research suggests.

Scientists have shown that diets rich in rapidly-digested
carbohydrates raise the risk of fatty liver, a condition that can lead
to liver failure and death.

Such foods are classed as having a high glycaemic index, or GI, and
include white bread, white rice and highly-processed breakfast
cereals.

Already known to expand the waistline, research now suggests they may
cause fatty liver - in which large globules of fat collect in the
liver, causing it to swell and raising the risk of it failing.

In experiments carried out at the Children's Hospital in Boston,
scientists looked at how mice fared when fed either a high or low GI
diet.

Examples of low GI foods are beans, vegetables, unprocessed grains and
wholemeal bread.

Special K and All Bran fall into this category. Weetabix and untoasted
muesli have a moderate GI.

After six months on their diets, the mice weighed the same.

But those on the high GI diet had twice the normal amount of fat in
their bodies, blood and livers, the journal Obesity reports.

It is thought that the sharp rise in sugar levels associated with
eating high GI foods drives up the production of the hormone insulin,
which tells the body to make and store fat.

Researcher Dr David Ludwig said that fatty liver is becoming
increasingly common among children and is a "dangerous epidemic".