I've written in the past that the science of nutrition is still in its state of infancy to explain why key beliefs get modified or replaced. That's why more experts now pooh-pooh a belief that I've known is dog poop for 20 years.

That all calories are equal.If you adhere to that notion, you don't fret about consuming what I call "empty calories" - foods highly processed and lacking nutritional value - until they make you fat. Which is why about seven out of every 10 adult Americans should feel as frazzled as a strung-out junkie in a traffic jam.That's the current rate of adult Americans who are overweight.If you doubt me, check out the CDC's website for confirmation. Better yet, go to your local Walmart and take the eyeball test. Fat Land is more than the title of a great book.But I digress. Time to do less ranting so you can do more reading about empty calories.One group of researchers started calling empty calories "ultra-processed calories" this year when they announced that nearly 58 percent of total calories consumed by Americans come from such foods. For research purposes, ultra-processed foods are defined as "industrial formulations which, besides salt, sugar, oils and fats, include substances not used in culinary preparations," such as flavorings, colorings, sweeteners, and emulsifiers. You know them primarily as any packaged sweets, baked goods or desserts, reconstituted meat products, crunchy snacks, many condiments and salad dressings, and just about all easy-to-prepare meals, like macaroni and cheese.Now if that percentage is not troubling enough, consider that ultra-processed foods contain 90 percent of the added sugars an American ingests.Yet this column will not focus on how those seven out of every 10 overweight adult Americans need to reduce their use of added sugars to reduce the likelihood of developing the diseases linked to being overweight. Instead, it will provide proof that the science of nutrition is still in a state of infancy by showing that many of the diseases associated with being overweight also occur to the other three out of 10 if they make a certain mistake.Consume too much added sugar.Research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2014, for instance, revealed that independent of body weight the risk factors for coronary heart disease increased with an increase in the consumption of added sugars.In other words, we had it wrong for many years. It's not necessarily the extra weight that creates high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high triglycerides; it's often the type of food consumed.Further proof comes from a 2015 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition study performed at UC Davis that used young adults and the most likely manner you'll consume added sugars: through sweetened beverages. Researchers divided the young adults into four groups and then manipulated their diets so that a high (25 percent), medium (17.5 percent), or low (10 percent) amount of their daily calories came from sugary beverages.In just two weeks, researchers recorded a 16-point increase in "bad" cholesterol and a 37-point increase in triglycerides in the group receiving 25 percent of their daily calories from sugary beverages. Since the bad cholesterol and triglycerides levels in the low and medium groups also increased but incrementally, yet the levels of the control group that ingested no calories from sweetened drinks did not, the researchers believe that any added sugar from beverages increase the risk of coronary heart disease.Findings like these have caused a reassessment of the primary cause of CHD, which currently kills one out of every six Americans. Since the 1950s when Ancel Keys discovered a correlation between the consumption of dietary fats and developing CHD, dietary fats have been promoted as the number-one cause.But when three prominent researchers reevaluated all the research to date, they concluded something else: that sugar consumption, especially sugars added to processed foods, plays a bigger role in the development of CHD than saturated fats. So big, that one of the three researchers, James J. DiNicolantonio, PharmD, said: "It seems appropriate to recommend dietary guidelines shift focus away from recommendations to reduce saturated fat and towards recommendations to avoid added sugars."The article, first published online in November of 2015 by Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases, not only proves that the science of nutrition is still in its state of infancy but also Laura Schmidt's belief quoted in last week's article: that added sugars make us sick as well as fat.They also sicken our telomeres.The protective caps on the ends of DNA, telomeres naturally shorten with time, leaving you more likely not only to develop heart disease but also cancer and some age-related disorders, as well. Ongoing research performed primarily at the UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco has linked sugary-beverage consumption with shortening telomere length.Additionally, drinking a single sugary soda a day was found to increase the odds of developing rheumatoid arthritis - independent of all other dietary and lifestyle factors - through analyzing the ongoing Nurses Health Study. Moreover, Harvard research revealed that young girls who drink at least a can and a half of soda reach puberty about three months faster than girls who rarely drink soda.Early puberty in girls increases the odds in adulthood that they develop breast and endometrial cancer.Contact Kevin Kolodziejski at

kolo@ptd.net