Kids today can be seen eating a large variety of junk starting from packed food, which is high on calories, to products that have high sugar content. As a result, high numbers of kids nowadays are seen either obese or overweight. Researchers through a new study found that reducing sugar consumption for at least 10 days showed encouraging results.

Researchers at the University of California-San Francisco and Touro University for their study recruited 43 volunteers between the ages 9 and 18. The participants were put on low-sugar diets.

Of the 43 participants 27 were identified as Latino and 16 as African American, all these were obese and had at least one other metabolic health issue, such as high blood pressure or a marker of fatty liver.

The participants were asked to fill a food questionnaire and were interviewed by a dietitian to come up with a baseline diet. After this, they were given new diet that included a similar amount of protein, fat and carbohydrates as their normal diet. The only change this new diet included was a 10% to 28% cut in normal sugar, which was replaced with starch calorie-for-calorie.

Study author Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco, said, “All of the surrogate measures of metabolic health got better, just by substituting starch for sugar in their processed food – all without changing calories or weight or exercise”.

Researchers after 10 days noted a reduction in diastolic blood pressure, triglycerides and LDL, or bad cholesterol. They also found that glucose tolerance and the amount of excess insulin circulating in the blood improved among participants.