28 ms·

The Sugar Conspiracy

413 points by oska 11y ago

tkyjonathan 11y ago
I still dont agree that sugar is the problem. Lustig himself seems to have not figured out what the secret is to health and weightloss as he is obese to morbidly obese. Saturated fats still do cause heart disease, strokes, alzheimers.. anything where blood is blocked or doesnt reach the organ it needs to. If anything, processed sugars like HFCS which is extracted from corn by a chemical enzyme process, could be the cause. But the problem to me is when people think chocolate bar, cake, pizza or milk shake.. these are food items with 75% calories from fat. So if you exclude high fat items and greatly reduce heavily processed sugar foods, you will not have the issues we are facing today.
- thomaspurchas 11y ago
  The irony of you starting your rebuttal with an ad hominem attack is pretty amusing. Expecially in reponse to an article that talks at length about others in nutritional science using ad hominem attacks as a primary form of defence against dissident arguments.
  - tkyjonathan 11y ago
    It may seem like an attack, but you can also consider it fair comment as he is an expert tell us that sugar causes weight gain, when he himself is obese for many years now. How can you both be an expert on weightloss and obese at the same time?
    - kristiandupont 11y ago
      I can think of plenty of reasons: he might not care (or care enough to change his life style to the degree necessary). He might have a disease that causes it. Or maybe he doesn't know how to get slim, but still knows that reducing fat is not the answer.
    - omurphyevans 11y ago
      You're confusing knowledge and application of that knowledge in a personal situation. A cosmologist may know all about the orbit of the planets but still say 'The sun rose this morning'.
  - tremon 11y ago
    against dissident arguments Against alternative explanations, I prefer. Dissident carries a negative connotation that is unwarranted here.
- sjwright 11y ago
  > Saturated fats still do cause heart disease, strokes, alzheimers.. All the studies claiming to make these links have been comprehensively debunked. And it's worth remembering that the vast, vast bulk of fats and cholesterol in your body are not dietary, they were produced inside your body from other macro-nutrients. And they are essential. Without them you would die. On a very basic level, blood flow gets blocked because inflammation in your arteries causes cholesterol manufactured by your liver to stick to the walls and build up. Consuming saturated fat does not cause this inflammation. Whereas there is evidence that consuming sugar does.
  - padelt 11y ago
    It is my understanding that your reply is the reasonable state of affairs. Do you have some "canonical", go-to link that makes your claim approachable to ordinary people? Say parents?
    - pigpaws 11y ago
      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2716748/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2716748/ http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v67/n8/full/ejcn2013116a.html http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v67/n8/full/ejcn2013116a....
      - tkyjonathan 11y ago
        Ketogenic diets increase all-cause mortality http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20820038 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20820038 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22850317 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22850317 http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(15)00350-2 http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(15)0... and make you gain weight http://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-finds-cutting-dietary-fat-reduces-body-fat-more-cutting-carbs http://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-finds...
        pigpaws 11y ago
        not compared to a high carb/sugar based diet as we can plainly see in everyday life. Re: 20820038 - Keto is low carb, moderate protein. it doesn't really matter where you get the protein from. Re: 22850371 - Again, Ketogenic is not HIGH protein diet as eating too much protein is just turned into sugar which defeats the whole purpose of eating keto... so yes, if you eat a lot of fat, and a lot of sugar, you will die sooner. re: Cell.com - it measured whether or not these people went into ketosis for 6 whole days, when it takes upwards of 3 months to become keto-adapted. It takes the average person (not the morbidly obese person) 3-5 days just to get into ketosis, let alone keto-adapted.
- Saad_M 11y ago
  >> If anything, processed sugars like HFCS which is extracted from corn by a chemical enzyme process, could be the cause. Fructose, which Lustig (and other scientists) suspect as the prime cause is present in both HFCS and granulated sugar (cane or beet). It’s my understanding that the difference in fructose quantity between HFCS (55% Fructose, 45% glucose) and granulated sugar (50-50) is not a significant factor.
  - Gibbon1 11y ago
    Turns out though depending on the source sometimes they are using 70/30 HFCS. Difference between sugar and HFCS in the US is generally people add sugar themselves. And HFCS is added by the producer. Compare you putting a teaspoon of sugar in your coffee with the 10 teaspoons of HFCS in a can of coke. If you buy your coke at the quik mart it may also be HFCS 70/30 to boot.
- minsight 11y ago
  > Lustig himself seems to have not figured out what the secret is to health and weightloss as he is obese to morbidly obese. I just googled images and videos of him, in case your statement had some validity. The Lustig I saw looked like an ordinary man. Not detectably obese and certainly not morbidly obese.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    "obesity" is an objective label. It's difficult to look at a photo of people who are overweight (and he's clearly overweight in the photos I've seen) and call them obese or not obese. Especially for men who tend to have visceral fat.
- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  >But the problem to me is when people think chocolate bar, cake, pizza or milk shake.. these are food items with 75% calories from fat. Those are all junk food. Use sparingly. Try eating a piece of fruit instead. I mean, FFS, I really like chocolate, but of course it's unhealthy. Salads and fish are healthy. Everyone knows that.
  - pixl97 11y ago
    Modern fruit is junk food. It has a much larger sugar content than wild varieties of the same plant, and was purposely cultured that way because people like large sweet fruits. Eat sparingly.
    - atomical 11y ago
      I eat a lot of fruit. Sometimes I eat over 600 grams of carbohydrate a day.
    - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
      Look, I'm pretty sure that if I want something sweet, fruit is better than cake. I'm also pretty sure that if I want to never, ever "sin" regarding diet, I will probably die, because some jerk is going to find something wrong with boiled greens and then I won't even be able to eat those anymore. Balance.
  - leshow 11y ago
    nothing is inherently unhealthy or bad for you. let's have an example, lets say you eat a balanced diet, plenty of fibre, micronutrients, protein, fats, and you have 300 calories left for the day before you go over your maintenance intake. you decide to eat a mars bar. unhealthy? not at all. another example, you don't eat enough fibre, because all you eat is pizza pockets. you drink coke instead of water, you go over your maintenance intake by 500 calories and decide to have a mars bar. unhealthy? yes. but it wasn't the specific food that was unhealthy. unfortunately things aren't as simplistic as you want them to be, you have to look at things in the context of the diet.
- GordonS 11y ago
  > But the problem to me is when people think chocolate bar, cake, pizza or milk shake.. these are food items with 75% calories from fat I don't believe this statement is true. Calories in pizzas are generally around 1:1 from carbs:fat[1]. Likewise with a typical (i.e. low cocoa solids) chocolate bar[2], milk[3], or cake[4]. Calories in a milkshake are likely to be from 2:1 carbs:fat, at best (milkshake generally equals milk, plus sugar, fruit and flavourings). [1] http://corporate.dominos.co.uk/Media/Default/CSR/Nutritional%20info%20-TAFL/Nutritional%20Info%20-%20May%202014-1.pdf http://corporate.dominos.co.uk/Media/Default/CSR/Nutritional... [2] http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=273968548 http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=273968548 [3] http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=254656543 http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=254656543 [4] http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=257617038 http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=257617038
teslabox 11y ago
The article is pretty good, but neglects to mention that there are more types of fatty acids than the saturated kind. Unsaturated fatty acids become more unstable as the level of unsaturation increases. The so-called "essential" fatty acids, the polyunsaturated oils, are the most unstable of all. Soybean oil is useful as biodiesel, and not much else.
- peteretep 11y ago
  Can you explain what link "instability" has with obesity?
- maxwelljoslyn 11y ago
  What is the significance of a fatty acid's being unstable?
  - nunb 11y ago
    They get oxidized more easily. Arterial plaque is oxidized fatty acids. Fatty acids are essential to cell wall formation. Deductively, fatty acids which are more susceptible to reactive oxidation species (aka free radicals) will lead to more cell damage. It's an interesting topic and the nutritional science (PUBMED) is very far away from the popular perception (ex Time magazine). - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16757819 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16757819 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T78cJv6gi88 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T78cJv6gi88 - http://oregonstate.edu/dept/biochem/hhmi/hhmiclasses/biochem/lectnoteskga/2kjan14lecturenotes.html http://oregonstate.edu/dept/biochem/hhmi/hhmiclasses/biochem...
- CuriouslyC 11y ago
  That isn't exactly true. Most oils in nature are paired with anti-oxidant molecules that prevent rancidity (it wouldn't do for a plant's germ cell food source to go bad). The problem is that your typical soybean oil (or other common cooking oil) is removed from the plant matter by washing with a solvent like liquid CO2, which is then filtered and evaporated. The result is an oil that is almost pure lipid, with very little in the way of anti-oxidants. If you were to get an expeller pressed, unfiltered soybean oil, it would be just fine.
Synaesthesia 11y ago
Very interesting how people can all subscribe to an orthodoxy for so long, ignoring evidence to the contrary. Max Planck: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
- zongitsrinzler 11y ago
  I think this is one of the worst thing about humans as a generation. If everyone accepted scientific evidence and research as the truth as soon as it was available I believe we would evolve much faster.
  - atemerev 11y ago
    There is no such thing as instantly available scientific evidence. Even in physics, hypotheses can take decades to decisively be confirmed or rejected (is string theory true? We don't know. Is holographic universe hypothesis true? Probably no, but we don't know. Is there an event horizon in black holes which light can't ever escape? Hawking recently famously changed his mind and now telling us it might not be). In biology, there is even less certainty and established theories routinely fail to reproduce. Is Central Dogma of Molecular Biology true? How it couldn't be with such a name? Well, no, there is now a lot of evidence against it. And don't even get me started on climate science.
    - hypertexthero 11y ago
      [Planck's Principle][1]: > A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. — Max Planck, Scientific autobiography, 1950, p. 33 [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck's_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck's_principle
  - popmystack 11y ago
    That is an incredibly poor understanding of science.
SeanDav 11y ago
Looks like "Nutritional Science" has been an oxymoron for far too many decades, perhaps it should have been replaced by "Closed Minded Egotist".
- sjwright 11y ago
  Part of the problem is that doing good nutritional science is difficult and expensive, and there's not much grant money or enthusiasm for rigorously testing what we naively assume are the basics.
  - zimpenfish 11y ago
    An example I read recently - http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2016/04/04/cetp-finally-heads-to-the-trash-heap http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2016/04/04/cet... "But that brings up a third possibility, that lipidology is complex enough to have fooled us completely, and that HDL and LDL are not, in fact, good markers at all. [...] Several large companies have poured hundreds of millions of dollars apiece down the drain in finding this out for us."
henrik_w 11y ago
I thought that "Why We Get Fat" was pretty interesting. It argues that sugar, not fat, is the reason. http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259/ http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259/
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Phlow 11y ago
"Look at a graph of postwar obesity rates and it becomes clear that something changed after 1980. In the US, the line rises very gradually until, in the early 1980s, it takes off like an aeroplane." Not that I disagree with the premise of this article, but the graphs I can find show that there is a steep increase in the late 70's, not after the Dietary Guidelines were written in the early 80's.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- jnbiche 11y ago
  > but the graphs I can find show that there is a steep increase in the late 70's, not after the Dietary Guidelines were written in the early 80's. But still, the upward trend follows the cultural meme that "fat is bad" that started propagating in the early 1970s. The dietary guidelines only formalized that bit of "scientific wisdom". (naturally, correlation does not equal causation, but it does often indicate a phenomenon of interest, worthy of further investigation)
  - scholia 11y ago
    You are correct.... The McGovern committee (of the U.S. senate) published the first Dietary Goals For The United States in 1977. This was supposed to reverse the epidemic of heart disease. McGovern rubber-stamped the prevailing views first made popular by Ancel Keys' Seven Countries Study, published in 1970. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Countries_Study https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Countries_Study So the steep increase in starting in the late 70s is right on time....
  - CuriouslyC 11y ago
    Perhaps people thought science had "solved" how people get fat (eating fat) and ate more assuming if they avoided fat, they wouldn't get fat. "I can eat an entire box of snackwells and there's only 5 grams of fat!"
sjwright 11y ago
[In response to a now-deleted comment] It is still a fringe theory in the context of "mainstream" nutritional science. It just happens to also be a theory that aligns surprisingly well with evidence. This paradox is what makes the story increasingly interesting to the community and media. Whether or not the fundamentals of this line of argument turn out to be ultimately correct, it shines a light on the way practical science can become myopic.
- leshow 11y ago
  except it doesn't align with evidence, unless you cherry pick. people have been getting fatter as fructose consumption has declined, and the studies Lustig & Taubes use to demonize sugar/fructose are done in rats that were fed ungodly amounts of it. the answer to why people are getting fatter isn't some evil sugar molecule; it's that people are overconsuming food.
zaruvi 11y ago
I'll just leave this here... http://nutritionfacts.org http://nutritionfacts.org
dantiberian 11y ago
I think it's pretty likely that in 10-20 years, the sugar companies of today will be seen in the same light as the tobacco companies of yesterday.
- chinathrow 11y ago
  I do hope so. But the tobacco companies are still around and are still selling their shit.
  - snird 11y ago
    And they should be able to do so. We are free people (I hope). If one decide to buy tobacco, it's his own responsibility, and he should have the freedom to do so.
    - latch 11y ago
      I don't have a strong opinion on this, but if you really believe that as an absolute, how do you balance the harm to society? For tobacco, harm being costs for increased health care, health impacts on non-smokers, and frankly the simple impact it has on the happiness of those subjected to your freedom.
      - mistermann 11y ago
        > costs for increased health care Smokers are net over-contributors in most countries, cigarette taxes vastly exceed health care costs, in no small part to shorter lifespans of smokers and often quick deaths. > health impacts on non-smokers Maybe if you work in a smoking bar/restaurant (which is your choice) or live with someone who smokes inside. > the simple impact it has on the happiness of those subjected to your freedom I'll worry about that when society starts extending the same courtesy.
        latch 11y ago
        I don't think that's unreasonable. Honestly, there's nothing you can say to bring me 100% on-board. I'll never believe that someone's right to smoke is greater than my right not to be subject to smoke and that the burden should be on the one who acts/smokes. I can agree that someone should be free to smoke in their house, provided they have no dependents. Again, I don't have a strong opinion, probably because [in parts of the world anyways] I feel things are decently balanced (maybe you disagree). I was just curious.
LCDninja 11y ago
A friend watched "That Sugar Film" and it had a profound effect - I'm told that it's very difficult to avoid sugar these days in processed food (especially in fat-free products). I was blown away to learn that even low fat milk from the supermarket contains sugar.
- coredog64 11y ago
  The lactose that's a component of milk, or added sucrose/HFCS? As I understand it, food manufacturers are going away from sugar a little. Sucralose provides a similar sweetness at no additional calories and with a longer shelf life.
  - tremon 11y ago
    Which is still the wrong way to go, I feel. We're now replacing the (newly introduced) refined sugars with even newer artificial sweeteners. I really don't look forward to hearing about them in another 40 years. Stop sweetening. Period. There's a lot more to flavour than just sweet, and the sooner we can revive our taste for other flavours, the better our children will be.
    - epalmer 11y ago
      I agree we don't need sweet food. I gave up carbs and everything tastes better. I don't use artificial sweeteners at all. Of course low carb may turn out to be harmful. Who knows. I feel better =, have lost some weight and my blood sugar and a1c is in the great range.
- AlgorithmicTime 11y ago
  Of course milk contains sugars! It's got a sugar named after it - lactose.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
nxzero 11y ago
"But instead of becoming healthier, [America] grew fatter and sicker." Complex topic, but this sentence to me was the most interesting from the story; in part, because of how much focus is put on solving problems that do not harm nearly as many Americans being over weight & unhealthy. It be curious to know if this topic has even come up once in America's election.
- erikpukinskis 11y ago
  Overweight and unhealthy are very different things. There is never been a scientific study that showed being overweight (not obese) causes health problems. And the opposite causality (weight gain resulting from unrelated health problems) is incredibly common. Julie Guthman's book "Weighing In" goes into detail.
  - nxzero 11y ago
    Interesting any other suggested source of info on nutrition?
chinathrow 11y ago
"We replaced steak and sausages with pasta and rice, butter with margarine, eggs with muesli. But we still grew fatter" Check mueslis and the sugar most of them contains. It's _horrible_. I try buying a no sugar muesli once in a while - within regular european supermarkets, it's next to impossible!
- leonroy 11y ago
  Really? I find it in the UK (Tesco) quite readily. Tastes extremely bland though (like eating uncooked porridge oats) which might explain its unpopularity.
  - goda90 11y ago
    In the US I like Bob's Red Mill muesli. The only sugar is the naturally occurring sugar in the raisins and dates. To make it more interesting I sometimes mix it into a thick smoothie(made of only whole fruit and veggies and water/ice) and eat it with a spoon.
  - ValentineC 11y ago
    Curious: how do you eat your muesli? I eat my unsweetened muesli with yoghurt (like the Swiss do), and find it quite tasty.
    - leonroy 11y ago
      Chopped dried apricots (if you can pick some up which are grown in Silicon Valley - not kidding - you're in for a treat), almonds, walnuts and a dollop of Greek yoghurt. Don't overdo the dried fruit though since you'll end up defeating the point of unsweetened muesli!
- anon4 11y ago
  Don't buy müsli. Buy plain oats, nuts and dried fruits. Make your own.
minikites 11y ago
> Eventually, he tracked down a copy after submitting a request to his university library. Unrelated to nutrition, but libraries and inter-library lending can track down all sorts of things and your taxes already pay for this service, so take advantage of it.
minikites 11y ago
> Despite requests, he cited no examples of her unprofessional behaviour. The vitriol poured over Teicholz is rarely dispensed to Gary Taubes, though they make fundamentally similar arguments. I wonder why more women don't want to go into science.
- tashi 11y ago
  Yes, that made me sad too. As the father of a girl, I'm often discouraged when I see how angry some men get when women (and only women) disagree with them, regardless of tone or substance.
guard-of-terra 11y ago
Isn't it, like, obvious that excessive sugar is bad for you? It tastes good, and you consume a lot of it. Kind of easy to make an inference. Doesn't require any research. I was taugt from my childhood that excessive sugar leads to obesity and diabetes. Not that I cut down its consumption by a lot :), but at least I was aware, as everybody else around me. Maybe it's because we're all hypochondriacs here so we assume that anything is bad for you unless proven otherwise.
Udik 11y ago
Here is a more balanced and more scientific article about sugars and health: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/is-sugar-really-toxic-sifting-through-the-evidence/ http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/is-sugar-real...
- pitchka 11y ago
  Definitely. Lustig made numerous claims in his Bitter Truth talk that were just incorrect. Here are articles that are unbalanced but on the other end of spectrum (pro sugar). http://anthonycolpo.com/sweet-stupidity-part-1-is-sugar-really-as-bad-as-alcohol-cocaine-heroin/ http://anthonycolpo.com/sweet-stupidity-part-1-is-sugar-real... http://anthonycolpo.com/sweet-stupidity-part-2-the-bitter-truth-about-robert-lustigs-anti-sugar-claims/ http://anthonycolpo.com/sweet-stupidity-part-2-the-bitter-tr... It's interesting that in the USA the calorie consumption rose from 80s to 00s from 3100 to 3600. In the UK and Australia they eat less fructose but more calories. Everyone keeps on getting fatter. There's not a single food to blame. Any food can't be healthy or unhealthy. Diets can be healthy or unhealthy. Thinking otherwise is a sign of unhealthy relationship with food. Avoiding stuff because it is carcinogenic (processed meat) or correlates with cancer (red meat) is ridiculous. Eating large amounts every day (which is what most of the obese do) isn't? I don't care if apples have cyanide or 60g of fructose will give me liver disease. I won't eat 50 bananas a day, I won't eat 100 apples a day, I'll eat agave syrup all over my pancakes and won't feel a thing. It's food. I enjoy it. Having fructose in it, or animal products just means I can easily overdose if I consume it every day but I won't.
tempodox 11y ago
Had Yudkin posted HN comments, he would have learned quickly that telling the truth is not only profoundly unpopular, but actively being penalized.
fasteo 11y ago
It is sad to see how we are going from fat phobia to carb phobia, repeating the same mistakes 50 years later. I have genetic metabolic disease and I have thought about this many times. My conclusion is simple enough: Eat real food, ignore the macros, listen to your body and adapt your food intake accordingly. Paul Jaminet's diet [1] is the closest I have found to fit this idea. [1] http://perfecthealthdiet.com/ http://perfecthealthdiet.com/
- MicroBerto 11y ago
  Macro tracking is the best way to fine tune your body composition and measure what actually works for you. Collecting data is never a bad thing and is always worth doing.
  - fasteo 11y ago
    I did macro tracking a couple of years. At the end, "listening to your body" is just a unconscious way to track macros.
- notthegov 11y ago
  What is real food? I disagree strongly. Eating shouldn't make you tired. I could eat 2 1/3 pound greasy cheeseburgers with toppings but if I skip the buns, I feel like I ate nothing. There is something legitimate to intermittent fasting, ketogenic diets, avoiding refined carbs, avoiding bread etc. I have a serious disease that is thought to prevented by ketogenic diets. And I think there's an equal chance I got the disease from refined carbs as anything else. I also know many so-called experts in this field (MDs) and they know nothing; and worse they do not want to know anything. My conclusion is simple: just don't eat bread or drink any sugary drinks.
  - kdamken 11y ago
    If you don't mind me asking, what disease did you get?
    - 11y ago
tomaskazemekas 11y ago
One diet that reflects these findings and is tested personally is "5:2 fast diet, proposed by M. Mosley. This method really is effective in reducing the ill effects of modern food and lifestyle and is easy to turn into normal weekly behavior pattern. https://thefastdiet.co.uk/ https://thefastdiet.co.uk/
- buserror 11y ago
  Funny, I do the other way around! 5 days fast, 2 days eating. I think a 2 day fast is a bit harsh; you 'pay' the price of hunder the first day, but only have one day really of 'benefiting' from it... In my case if I have to do it, I'd rather pay the price the first day, then keep the momentum. Also the third/fourth day there is a payout as you get a nice 'mental high'... And blimey, the friday evening you can eat anything and it'll taste heavenly :-)
  - cies 11y ago
    With most 5:2 diets, you are not supposed to fast two consecutive days. Non the less 2:5 sounds cool; please come back to report your experience! :)
    - buserror 11y ago
      Oh I've been doing it for years! As soon as I notice the waistline expanding, or I feel like a bit of 'detox', I try to schedule myself on a week where the fridge isn't too full of nice and/or perishable things, and I have a good mean on sunday night. Then it's occasional fruit juice in the morning (bit of an energy boost) and coffee only until the friday. It's a lot easier than it sounds, the 'key' thing is preparation; pick a week were you don't have a lot of 'social' to do, or any heavy physical things planned, and near empty fridge is good; instruction to the family not to decide to cook your favorite meal during the week and so forth. Otherwise it's as reported; hunger on the first day mostly, then nothing; you get a bit of a metallic taste in the mouth, but tolerable... You get what I only can describe as a 'high' on the third/fourth day. I lose roughly 1Kg a /day/ with that method, so if you do it once every quarter or so, that's largely enough to make up for some the odd chrismas/party/easter and so on :-)
tim333 11y ago
>We no longer live in a world in which elites of accredited experts are able to dominate conversations about complex or contested matters. Yay, go internet. The public opinions of the elites on complex contested matters often seem to degenerate into something like party politics.
blubb-fish 11y ago
30 years ago people had to be proactive and smart enough to gain information. Now people have to be proactive and smart enough to distinguish between sound and unfounded (aka bullshit) information. From that point of view not that much changed really.
- tunap 11y ago
  No real difference between a "Dark Age" where info is cloistered for the few and a blindingly "Light Age" where the signal is buried in noise of conflicting interests. The beauty of this puzzle for most people can be solved with a modicum of info, simple maths and listening to their body. Treating indigestion, constipation and other irritants with magic pills only masks the symptoms of bigger problems, most of which can be cured by diet & physical activity. Of course, as always, YMMV.
  - erikpukinskis 11y ago
    Yes there is. People use can and do use networks of trust to navigate the latter. It's messy, but it works to an extent. In the former you have no such option. As a species we're becoming more knowledgable at a staggering pace right now. If you think the non-academic world is not benefitting from having access to the Internet you are crazy.
    - tunap 11y ago
      I concur on the potential, quite staggering infos. However, the key word here is "can". It is very interesting to me to monitor progress of the young nerdlings I cross paths with regularly. There is hope, but there is also a shit-ton of distractions and general malaise. Where human nature + freedom of will are concerned, the difference is, again, "can". For better or worse the die is cast. To say nothing else, the digital renaissance makes for very interesting times. edit: typos & clarity
- kelvin0 11y ago
  You mean the "One weird trick to lose belly fat" tips are not bonafide nutrional expertise? :)
coldcode 11y ago
When I was taking nutritional chemistry in the late 70's the idea that serum cholesterol had little to do with consumed cholesterol was something our professor repeated over and over again. The next 40 years I heard the opposite over and over again. Now people are finally accepting this fact.
- criddell 11y ago
  I think the you are what you eat maxim is somewhat responsible for the strange dietary beliefs held by many.
- abawany 11y ago
  The book "Cholesterol is not the culprit" was an eye opener for me especially given how one never heard about alternative viewpoints and experiments on this topic.
basicplus2 11y ago
the healthy diet.. lots of vegetables, fatty meats, rice for carbs, and no addded sugars, and nothing you see in bakeries ( ie no breads etc) and virtually no pasta.
- GordonS 11y ago
  Why is rice OK, but pasta isn't? If pasta is cooked al dente (why would you cook it any other way?!), the glycemic index will be lower than that of white or brown rice - this means it impacts your blood glucose levels less.
- popmystack 11y ago
  I will never give up my weekend biscuits and pad thai.
- CuriouslyC 11y ago
  Sorry but you can't proclaim one healthy diet for everyone; people with different genes, activity levels and gut microbiomes will respond differently to different foods. That being said, even your simplified recommendations are wrong. A ton of research exists linking saturated fat to systemic inflammation and a worsening of insulin sensitivity in pre-diabetic populations. Rice is fairly bad carb source in terms of nutrients/calorie (not to mention arsenic contamination in American rice) - the only thing it has going for it is it is hypo-allergenic. Whole wheat/multigrain sourdough bread is actually a really good carb source. Additionally, there are premium pastas like Barilla protein plus that are good as well.
- goda90 11y ago
  Beans and lentils for carbs. They are high fiber, high protein and cheap. Only downside is the gas(with beans anyway. lentils aren't too bad in that regard)
leonroy 11y ago
Jack Lalanne (American fitness guru) stated "If man made it, don't eat it". I recall reading that and scratching my head at the sheer number of food products that encompassed. I thought it a rather presumptuous statement. Five years later and after many books and articles on nutrition I now fully agree with him. When I hit the grocery store I skip the middle aisles and head straight for the fish and meat counter or the fresh fruit and veg section. My only (dietary) vices are coffee and the odd glass of wine (both very much man made). I think that the human body has evolved to run on a certain fuel and of course we adapt but it takes time. Grains and milk are relatively recent to our diet (past 10000 years) so you will see some people who can and some who can't digest them. Sugar however and all the other myriad man made products on store shelves are even more recent and apart from as occasional treats should really be avoided. As an aside one incredibly beneficial thing people can do for their health is exercise. The lymphatic system which helps rid the body of waste substances is 'pumped' by respiration and physical activity. If you want to eat that cupcake or enjoy that cold glass of beer be sure to exercise it off. It really is incredible how effective exercise can be at covering a multitude of dietary sins!
- neotek 11y ago
  A fairly high percentage of the fruits and vegetables you're eating are man made, insofar as they've been genetically engineered through selective breeding to produce things more palatable to the average consumer. Fruit in particular should probably only be eaten in moderation like any other sugar-filled treat. And exercise, while useful for building muscle mass and increasing your capacity for physical exertion, isn't particularly useful for covering up a poor diet - it would take more than two hours of jogging to burn off the calories in a small Big Mac meal from McDonalds, for example. If you want to lose weight, it's far, far more efficient to simply eat less.
  - scott_s 11y ago
    Even the fruits and vegetables from centuries ago were "man-made". The wild versions are mostly inedible. What we eat is the result of millennia of breeding and cultivation. There is no bright and shining line between "natural" and "man made" for most of our food. Ever since we started practicing and depending on agriculture, all of our food is, to some degree, "man made". By the way, I am unaware of any evidence that fruit should be eaten in moderation.
at-fates-hands 11y ago
"Nobody could have predicted, it is said, how the food manufacturers would respond to the injunction against fat – selling us low-fat yoghurts bulked up with sugar, and cakes infused with liver-corroding transfats." It's interesting the author notes trans-fats as a by product of the injuction against fat, which couldn't be further from the truth. Trans-fat has been around since the 1900's and was used widely as a substitute for butter when it was in short supply during WWII. Remember Crisco? Mom's in the 1970's used it for everything, including baking and cooking. It wasn't until the 1990's that the FDA finally put warnings out regarding partially hydrogenated oil. The fact is, trans fats had been around a LONG time before before the government decided to start saying that it was bad for your health. Hell, it took them another decade before they made the recommendation to stop using trans fats after the 1980 guidelines came out.
js2 11y ago
Stephan Guyenet, obesity researcher and neurobiologist, critiques the carbohydrate-insulin-obesity hypothesis put forward by Lustig, Taubes, et al. He and Lustig exchange arguments here: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2016/01/always-hungry-its-probably-not-your.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2016/01/always-hungry-... https://medium.com/@davidludwigmd/ludwig-responds-to-whole-health-source-article-93d8e1667477 https://medium.com/@davidludwigmd/ludwig-responds-to-whole-h... http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2016/01/testing-insulin-model-response-to-dr.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2016/01/testing-insuli...
PepeGomez 11y ago
There is no evidence for what Lustig says. He produced one mediocre paper after multiple attempts. That's it. It's not science. It's just an attempt to distract from the real issue. It started with pet food. Attempts at making plant based foods for dogs and cats initially failed, becuase the animals didn't want to eat these unnatural diets. But a solution was found: the so called "palatants". When they were added to the food, animals ate it. Naturally, somebody thought of using these in human food as well. It didn't work as expected - it turned out they don't work by making the food tastier, they work by disabling the satiety response. Once the palatants get into your bloodstream, you won't feel satisfied no matter how much you eat until your body can get rid of these these chemicals. You may feel that your stomach is completely filled and stop eating, but you won't ever feel that you ate enough. Since adults would get suspicious if they got more hungry, it started with child menus. The idea was the same as with pet food - if children eat a lot of the food, their parents will buy it again. Now we have at least two generations of people who believe it's perfectly normal not to feel satisfied until their stomach can't hold any more food and that staying not obese requires arduous discipline. Our perception of normal weight has changed as well, for pets and human alike. Cats, when fed unaldutered meat eat to stay very skinny, with body shape that many modern guidelines show as "very thin" or "underweight". But many people today think of them as naturally fatty animals. Many of these chemicals are approved food aditives and are listed usually as emuglators, flour conditioners or something similarly inconspicious.
st4ck3r 11y ago
It will take a solid 5 years minimum for the 'main stream dietitians' to start believing this and promoting it. My mom with all the information I have shared, still refuses to give up milk and thinks I may be reading too much into a 'FAD DIET' to say things like milk can be bad for health. Either she is too entrenched/doesn't care or I am not providing enough evidence or need to provide an alternative way of making her switch.
- exhilaration 11y ago
  The article agrees with your mom: We replaced steak and sausages with pasta and rice, butter with margarine and vegetable oils, eggs with muesli, and milk with low-fat milk or orange juice. But instead of becoming healthier, we grew fatter and sicker.
  - maskull 11y ago
    Vegetable oils, having vegetable in the name, sound healthy but are like the HFCS of the oil world. They are cheap, heavily processed, and prone to rancidification.
- scholia 11y ago
  > still refuses to give up milk Good for her! Milk is one of the most nutritious foods you can get. Lots of protein, vitamin B12, calcium, riboflavin etc. It reduces the risk of osteoporosis -- important for ageing people -- and tends to reduce blood pressure. And the downside that it may increase the risk of prostate cancer in men is one that your mother doesn't have to worry about ;-)
estambolieva16 11y ago
Some of you have criticized governments here, and this is why small tech startups come to offer help. Lustig or not, the time for us to collect all useful nutrition information, tone it down so everyone can read and understand it, and give it to the population. Then, each individual can make this own nutrition choices - very much like smoking cigarettes and knowing the dangers this habit can pose to the long-term health. Take the European Sugarwise for instance: https://www.facebook.com/aboutsugarwise/ https://www.facebook.com/aboutsugarwise/. Powered by a handful of social entrepreneurs, Sugarwise is a mobile application to count nutrient intake and provide diet alternations when nutrient deficiencies are detected. The idea started with raising awareness about added sugar and exposing it in foods, and grew to cover a full range of nutrients and minerals. The bests part of it is that it is one of many great social projects that shape our future.
leshow 11y ago
Sugar is not to be demonized, there is an overwhelming amount of research pointing to overconsumption as the culprit in ill health affects normally associated with sugar.
Mc_Big_G 11y ago
Only hacker news could bikeshed over the definition of man-made food.
asadkn 11y ago
It's typical how most people really want to immediately buy into the simple fixes and religiously believe them without knowing why it worked. Overweight? Must be the fructose (recently) / carbs (a while back) / fats (further back). Same old story. Somebody makes rounds in media and makes a lot of money after publishing a book with something "new" - a simple fix. Fortunately we have people like Lyle McDonald, Alan Aragon, Guyenet out there talking some sanity. Unfortunately, they never make it to mainstream media. Some Resources: http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/index.php/free-content/free-content/volume-1-issue-7-insulin-and-thinking-better/insulin-an-undeserved-bad-reputation/ http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/index.php/free-cont... http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2016/01/testing-insulin-model-response-to-dr.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2016/01/testing-insuli... https://medium.com/@lylemcdonald/highly-processed-carbohydrates-cause-more-insulin-secretion-calorie-for-calorie-than-any-other-38f907ae75d1#.p38cx0qc2 https://medium.com/@lylemcdonald/highly-processed-carbohydra... (A comment by Lyle on the rhetoric posted by Ludwig)
- funkyy 11y ago
  Very few public, true fitness instructors and dietitians are following the simplest rule ever - decrease calories to lose weight. This method is not that popular, its to tricky since it requires for person to calculate foods, which makes it unpopular for lazy. But it is absolutely the best method to lose weight fast, decrease calorie intake and create shortage.
  - npsimons 11y ago
    A million times this. People think that the second law of thermodynamics doesn't apply to them because "biology is complex!", which sounds an awful lot like the creationists. You can't outrun your fork. Even if you want to create a caloric deficit through increased activity level, you'll need to hold intake constant, therefore you most likely have to track it to begin with. These days with things like MyFitnessPal there is no excuse. And while it's possible to lose weight without tracking (I've done it), it's not nearly as straightforward. If people are truly lazy, they'd put down the fork, as that's all that's needed, no time "wasted" at the gym necessary. But hunger is a hard thing to beat, and willpower can be used up, not to mention a lot of other factors (mindless eating, eating for comfort or to self-medicate, etc).
joesmo 11y ago
My take on this article is that nutrition science is not science, no one knows what the fuck they're talking about, and we're basically still in the 1920's with absolutely no real nutritional information or system (usually science in our society) to get there. Having lost someone very dear to me to "cholesterol" and knowing it was a lie at the time, let alone now, this makes me fuming angry. But I live in the US, where the primary driving factor for such misinformation is continuing to profit off of people's misery, so it's hardly surprising that profit has completely kicked science out of one of its most important subjects. Maybe when we stop letting companies profit off of misery and pain, we'll learn something, but I doubt that will ever happen.
- acchow 11y ago
  I wonder if we will someday discover that everybody's bodies are dramatically unique and require their own diet to maintain health - i.e. some people can't handle much sugar, some people can't handle much cholesterol, some saturated fat, etc.
talles 11y ago
I'm still waiting for a prominent figure in the nutrition world to start the debate about intermittent fasting just as Lustig is doing with sugar. Many nutritionists are prescribing the exact opposite of it: avoid fasting for more than very few hours. Heck, my coworker have a timer that fires every 2 hours to remind him to eat something.
- Someone1234 11y ago
  In fairness to nutritionists, intermittent fasting is really bleeding edge stuff. There have been some clinical research that shows it may be effective (in particular against pre-diabetes) but more research could be done on this, and plus it would need to filter down out of the scientific sphere. Nutritionists get attacked both for jumping on "trendy" new ideas and for being too conservative. Really is no winning. Someone is going to criticise. Plus much of the advice people read doesn't come from anyone qualified, even the term "nutritionist" has different meanings in different places and requires literally no qualifications at all in some jurisdictions (they're essentially "alternative medicine" practitioners). Dietitians often require at least SOME professional training and certification. That's who a doctor will refer you to, rather than a nutritionist.
simook 11y ago
Sugar free for almost two years now and I avoid it like the plague. Really glad to see more and more articles like these. All the naysayers should continue to eat sugar, and let nature do it's "thing".
heisenbit 11y ago
Throwing two things in a bucket and information is lost. This makes the topic so complex everyone talks about carbs but almost no one talks about that fructose and glucose are very different in very significant ways: 1) Natural prevalence: Glucose is more common 2) Digestion: Glucose is transported by different mechanisms from the gut to the bloodstream. The mechanisms for fructose are in some people significantly weaker 3) Regulation in the body: Glucose is regulated by insulin and handled by all cells. Fructose is left to the liver and contributes to blood triglycerides. If intake, processing, regulation and resting places are different should there not always be two different discussions?
Cshelton 11y ago
Here is what worked for me to lose fat (weight), but not muscle. It really is simple. - Reduce carbs/sugar intake to around ~100 grams/day, this varies slightly per person. Just reducing bread/grain intake alone is a TON. Grains are turned into glucose, same as sugar, it's effectively the same thing. This also means getting rid of all sweats, processed food. They are just bad for you whether you are overweight or not...don't do it. Occasional is fine. - Drink water. Often times when you are hungry, you're dehydrated. If you drink soda or something else, do the "diet" version at least. Diet Coke, Miller Lite, etc. - Portions. Most restaurants in the U.S. server portions that are way too big. Eat half your plate, then wait 10 - 15 min while having a conversation with others or whatever, do something else. Take your mind off food. I bet after 15 min, you won't be that hungry anymore. That super tired feeling you get after a big meal...yeah, you should never have that. That means you overate. - Get your heart rate up for at least 10 min a day. Try to do an hour, but sometimes that's not practical with limited time, etc. Even just doing jumping jacks for 10 min will do the trick...Just do it. It's crazy how many people will go a day...a week..or more without out ever getting their heart rate above 100 bpm... That's terribly bad for you. Forget all the fads or popular, trending stuff out there... They try to sell you on quick fixes. Weight loss is not a quick fix. Instead of viewing it as trying to lose weight, just look at it like trying to live a healthy life style. Don't obsess checking the scale everyday or counting calories. Take a picture of yourself in underwear once a week in the mirror. Every month, not any smaller intervals, check your 4 pictures from that month and see how far you've come. This should drive you more. That's it, you'll be healthy in no time.
- cname 11y ago
  Hasn't it been shown that artificial sweeteners can mess with your blood sugar level and may be just as bad for you as sugar? It seems like it would be best to wean yourself from the craving for sweets. http://www.webmd.com/diet/20140917/artificial-sweeteners-blood-sugar http://www.webmd.com/diet/20140917/artificial-sweeteners-blo...
  - Cshelton 11y ago
    Yeah, there is a lot of different studies about artificial sweeteners, it's a pretty controversial topic... They probably aren't great for you, but I don't think it's near as bad as consuming 40g of sugar/High fructose corn syrup per soda... Ideally you stay away from both, but If you are going to drink a soda/sweetened drink, go with the one with 0g sugar and 0g carbs... Its too easy to intake an stupid amount of carbs and sugar from just liquids...3 sodas in one day and boom...140g of carbs/sugar already...even worse, their "empty carbs", which is to say, it provides you with no nutritional energy/value. Note: I'm not a dietician/nutritionist. Just someone who has used the above methods and have had great results.
csours 11y ago
Sugar: The Bitter Truth Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM (as I did not see it linked)
steaminghacker 11y ago
big up the sugar tax! demonise sugar so we can tax it like tobacco...
BBL 11y ago
Mexico successfully increased their tax on sugary beverages, and companies threw relatively few hissy fits. I think a large part of the country's willingness to shoulder that tax, and the lack of push back from industry, came about as a result of positive leadership from Mexico's president at that time and the recognition that diabetes was becoming an epidemic.

413 points by oska 11y ago

I still dont agree that sugar is the problem. Lustig himself seems to have not figured out what the secret is to health and weightloss as he is obese to morbidly obese. Saturated fats still do cause heart disease, strokes, alzheimers.. anything where blood is blocked or doesnt reach the organ it needs to. If anything, processed sugars like HFCS which is extracted from corn by a chemical enzyme process, could be the cause. But the problem to me is when people think chocolate bar, cake, pizza or milk shake.. these are food items with 75% calories from fat. So if you exclude high fat items and greatly reduce heavily processed sugar foods, you will not have the issues we are facing today.

thomaspurchas 11y ago
The irony of you starting your rebuttal with an ad hominem attack is pretty amusing. Expecially in reponse to an article that talks at length about others in nutritional science using ad hominem attacks as a primary form of defence against dissident arguments.
- tkyjonathan 11y ago
  It may seem like an attack, but you can also consider it fair comment as he is an expert tell us that sugar causes weight gain, when he himself is obese for many years now. How can you both be an expert on weightloss and obese at the same time?
  - kristiandupont 11y ago
    I can think of plenty of reasons: he might not care (or care enough to change his life style to the degree necessary). He might have a disease that causes it. Or maybe he doesn't know how to get slim, but still knows that reducing fat is not the answer.
  - omurphyevans 11y ago
    You're confusing knowledge and application of that knowledge in a personal situation. A cosmologist may know all about the orbit of the planets but still say 'The sun rose this morning'.
- tremon 11y ago
  against dissident arguments Against alternative explanations, I prefer. Dissident carries a negative connotation that is unwarranted here.
sjwright 11y ago
> Saturated fats still do cause heart disease, strokes, alzheimers.. All the studies claiming to make these links have been comprehensively debunked. And it's worth remembering that the vast, vast bulk of fats and cholesterol in your body are not dietary, they were produced inside your body from other macro-nutrients. And they are essential. Without them you would die. On a very basic level, blood flow gets blocked because inflammation in your arteries causes cholesterol manufactured by your liver to stick to the walls and build up. Consuming saturated fat does not cause this inflammation. Whereas there is evidence that consuming sugar does.
- padelt 11y ago
  It is my understanding that your reply is the reasonable state of affairs. Do you have some "canonical", go-to link that makes your claim approachable to ordinary people? Say parents?
  - pigpaws 11y ago
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2716748/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2716748/ http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v67/n8/full/ejcn2013116a.html http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v67/n8/full/ejcn2013116a....
    - tkyjonathan 11y ago
      Ketogenic diets increase all-cause mortality http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20820038 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20820038 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22850317 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22850317 http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(15)00350-2 http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(15)0... and make you gain weight http://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-finds-cutting-dietary-fat-reduces-body-fat-more-cutting-carbs http://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-finds...
      - pigpaws 11y ago
        not compared to a high carb/sugar based diet as we can plainly see in everyday life. Re: 20820038 - Keto is low carb, moderate protein. it doesn't really matter where you get the protein from. Re: 22850371 - Again, Ketogenic is not HIGH protein diet as eating too much protein is just turned into sugar which defeats the whole purpose of eating keto... so yes, if you eat a lot of fat, and a lot of sugar, you will die sooner. re: Cell.com - it measured whether or not these people went into ketosis for 6 whole days, when it takes upwards of 3 months to become keto-adapted. It takes the average person (not the morbidly obese person) 3-5 days just to get into ketosis, let alone keto-adapted.
Saad_M 11y ago
>> If anything, processed sugars like HFCS which is extracted from corn by a chemical enzyme process, could be the cause. Fructose, which Lustig (and other scientists) suspect as the prime cause is present in both HFCS and granulated sugar (cane or beet). It’s my understanding that the difference in fructose quantity between HFCS (55% Fructose, 45% glucose) and granulated sugar (50-50) is not a significant factor.
- Gibbon1 11y ago
  Turns out though depending on the source sometimes they are using 70/30 HFCS. Difference between sugar and HFCS in the US is generally people add sugar themselves. And HFCS is added by the producer. Compare you putting a teaspoon of sugar in your coffee with the 10 teaspoons of HFCS in a can of coke. If you buy your coke at the quik mart it may also be HFCS 70/30 to boot.
minsight 11y ago
> Lustig himself seems to have not figured out what the secret is to health and weightloss as he is obese to morbidly obese. I just googled images and videos of him, in case your statement had some validity. The Lustig I saw looked like an ordinary man. Not detectably obese and certainly not morbidly obese.
- DanBC 11y ago
  "obesity" is an objective label. It's difficult to look at a photo of people who are overweight (and he's clearly overweight in the photos I've seen) and call them obese or not obese. Especially for men who tend to have visceral fat.
eli_gottlieb 11y ago
>But the problem to me is when people think chocolate bar, cake, pizza or milk shake.. these are food items with 75% calories from fat. Those are all junk food. Use sparingly. Try eating a piece of fruit instead. I mean, FFS, I really like chocolate, but of course it's unhealthy. Salads and fish are healthy. Everyone knows that.
- pixl97 11y ago
  Modern fruit is junk food. It has a much larger sugar content than wild varieties of the same plant, and was purposely cultured that way because people like large sweet fruits. Eat sparingly.
  - atomical 11y ago
    I eat a lot of fruit. Sometimes I eat over 600 grams of carbohydrate a day.
  - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
    Look, I'm pretty sure that if I want something sweet, fruit is better than cake. I'm also pretty sure that if I want to never, ever "sin" regarding diet, I will probably die, because some jerk is going to find something wrong with boiled greens and then I won't even be able to eat those anymore. Balance.
- leshow 11y ago
  nothing is inherently unhealthy or bad for you. let's have an example, lets say you eat a balanced diet, plenty of fibre, micronutrients, protein, fats, and you have 300 calories left for the day before you go over your maintenance intake. you decide to eat a mars bar. unhealthy? not at all. another example, you don't eat enough fibre, because all you eat is pizza pockets. you drink coke instead of water, you go over your maintenance intake by 500 calories and decide to have a mars bar. unhealthy? yes. but it wasn't the specific food that was unhealthy. unfortunately things aren't as simplistic as you want them to be, you have to look at things in the context of the diet.
GordonS 11y ago
> But the problem to me is when people think chocolate bar, cake, pizza or milk shake.. these are food items with 75% calories from fat I don't believe this statement is true. Calories in pizzas are generally around 1:1 from carbs:fat[1]. Likewise with a typical (i.e. low cocoa solids) chocolate bar[2], milk[3], or cake[4]. Calories in a milkshake are likely to be from 2:1 carbs:fat, at best (milkshake generally equals milk, plus sugar, fruit and flavourings). [1] http://corporate.dominos.co.uk/Media/Default/CSR/Nutritional%20info%20-TAFL/Nutritional%20Info%20-%20May%202014-1.pdf http://corporate.dominos.co.uk/Media/Default/CSR/Nutritional... [2] http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=273968548 http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=273968548 [3] http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=254656543 http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=254656543 [4] http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=257617038 http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=257617038

teslabox 11y ago

The article is pretty good, but neglects to mention that there are more types of fatty acids than the saturated kind. Unsaturated fatty acids become more unstable as the level of unsaturation increases. The so-called "essential" fatty acids, the polyunsaturated oils, are the most unstable of all. Soybean oil is useful as biodiesel, and not much else.

peteretep 11y ago
Can you explain what link "instability" has with obesity?
maxwelljoslyn 11y ago
What is the significance of a fatty acid's being unstable?
- nunb 11y ago
  They get oxidized more easily. Arterial plaque is oxidized fatty acids. Fatty acids are essential to cell wall formation. Deductively, fatty acids which are more susceptible to reactive oxidation species (aka free radicals) will lead to more cell damage. It's an interesting topic and the nutritional science (PUBMED) is very far away from the popular perception (ex Time magazine). - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16757819 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16757819 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T78cJv6gi88 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T78cJv6gi88 - http://oregonstate.edu/dept/biochem/hhmi/hhmiclasses/biochem/lectnoteskga/2kjan14lecturenotes.html http://oregonstate.edu/dept/biochem/hhmi/hhmiclasses/biochem...
CuriouslyC 11y ago
That isn't exactly true. Most oils in nature are paired with anti-oxidant molecules that prevent rancidity (it wouldn't do for a plant's germ cell food source to go bad). The problem is that your typical soybean oil (or other common cooking oil) is removed from the plant matter by washing with a solvent like liquid CO2, which is then filtered and evaporated. The result is an oil that is almost pure lipid, with very little in the way of anti-oxidants. If you were to get an expeller pressed, unfiltered soybean oil, it would be just fine.

Synaesthesia 11y ago

Very interesting how people can all subscribe to an orthodoxy for so long, ignoring evidence to the contrary. Max Planck: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

zongitsrinzler 11y ago
I think this is one of the worst thing about humans as a generation. If everyone accepted scientific evidence and research as the truth as soon as it was available I believe we would evolve much faster.
- atemerev 11y ago
  There is no such thing as instantly available scientific evidence. Even in physics, hypotheses can take decades to decisively be confirmed or rejected (is string theory true? We don't know. Is holographic universe hypothesis true? Probably no, but we don't know. Is there an event horizon in black holes which light can't ever escape? Hawking recently famously changed his mind and now telling us it might not be). In biology, there is even less certainty and established theories routinely fail to reproduce. Is Central Dogma of Molecular Biology true? How it couldn't be with such a name? Well, no, there is now a lot of evidence against it. And don't even get me started on climate science.
  - hypertexthero 11y ago
    [Planck's Principle][1]: > A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. — Max Planck, Scientific autobiography, 1950, p. 33 [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck's_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck's_principle
- popmystack 11y ago
  That is an incredibly poor understanding of science.

SeanDav 11y ago

Looks like "Nutritional Science" has been an oxymoron for far too many decades, perhaps it should have been replaced by "Closed Minded Egotist".

sjwright 11y ago
Part of the problem is that doing good nutritional science is difficult and expensive, and there's not much grant money or enthusiasm for rigorously testing what we naively assume are the basics.
- zimpenfish 11y ago
  An example I read recently - http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2016/04/04/cetp-finally-heads-to-the-trash-heap http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2016/04/04/cet... "But that brings up a third possibility, that lipidology is complex enough to have fooled us completely, and that HDL and LDL are not, in fact, good markers at all. [...] Several large companies have poured hundreds of millions of dollars apiece down the drain in finding this out for us."

henrik_w 11y ago

I thought that "Why We Get Fat" was pretty interesting. It argues that sugar, not fat, is the reason. http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259/ http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259/

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

Phlow 11y ago

"Look at a graph of postwar obesity rates and it becomes clear that something changed after 1980. In the US, the line rises very gradually until, in the early 1980s, it takes off like an aeroplane." Not that I disagree with the premise of this article, but the graphs I can find show that there is a steep increase in the late 70's, not after the Dietary Guidelines were written in the early 80's.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
jnbiche 11y ago
> but the graphs I can find show that there is a steep increase in the late 70's, not after the Dietary Guidelines were written in the early 80's. But still, the upward trend follows the cultural meme that "fat is bad" that started propagating in the early 1970s. The dietary guidelines only formalized that bit of "scientific wisdom". (naturally, correlation does not equal causation, but it does often indicate a phenomenon of interest, worthy of further investigation)
- scholia 11y ago
  You are correct.... The McGovern committee (of the U.S. senate) published the first Dietary Goals For The United States in 1977. This was supposed to reverse the epidemic of heart disease. McGovern rubber-stamped the prevailing views first made popular by Ancel Keys' Seven Countries Study, published in 1970. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Countries_Study https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Countries_Study So the steep increase in starting in the late 70s is right on time....
- CuriouslyC 11y ago
  Perhaps people thought science had "solved" how people get fat (eating fat) and ate more assuming if they avoided fat, they wouldn't get fat. "I can eat an entire box of snackwells and there's only 5 grams of fat!"

sjwright 11y ago

[In response to a now-deleted comment] It is still a fringe theory in the context of "mainstream" nutritional science. It just happens to also be a theory that aligns surprisingly well with evidence. This paradox is what makes the story increasingly interesting to the community and media. Whether or not the fundamentals of this line of argument turn out to be ultimately correct, it shines a light on the way practical science can become myopic.

leshow 11y ago
except it doesn't align with evidence, unless you cherry pick. people have been getting fatter as fructose consumption has declined, and the studies Lustig & Taubes use to demonize sugar/fructose are done in rats that were fed ungodly amounts of it. the answer to why people are getting fatter isn't some evil sugar molecule; it's that people are overconsuming food.

zaruvi 11y ago

I'll just leave this here... http://nutritionfacts.org http://nutritionfacts.org

dantiberian 11y ago

I think it's pretty likely that in 10-20 years, the sugar companies of today will be seen in the same light as the tobacco companies of yesterday.

chinathrow 11y ago
I do hope so. But the tobacco companies are still around and are still selling their shit.
- snird 11y ago
  And they should be able to do so. We are free people (I hope). If one decide to buy tobacco, it's his own responsibility, and he should have the freedom to do so.
  - latch 11y ago
    I don't have a strong opinion on this, but if you really believe that as an absolute, how do you balance the harm to society? For tobacco, harm being costs for increased health care, health impacts on non-smokers, and frankly the simple impact it has on the happiness of those subjected to your freedom.
    - mistermann 11y ago
      > costs for increased health care Smokers are net over-contributors in most countries, cigarette taxes vastly exceed health care costs, in no small part to shorter lifespans of smokers and often quick deaths. > health impacts on non-smokers Maybe if you work in a smoking bar/restaurant (which is your choice) or live with someone who smokes inside. > the simple impact it has on the happiness of those subjected to your freedom I'll worry about that when society starts extending the same courtesy.
      - latch 11y ago
        I don't think that's unreasonable. Honestly, there's nothing you can say to bring me 100% on-board. I'll never believe that someone's right to smoke is greater than my right not to be subject to smoke and that the burden should be on the one who acts/smokes. I can agree that someone should be free to smoke in their house, provided they have no dependents. Again, I don't have a strong opinion, probably because [in parts of the world anyways] I feel things are decently balanced (maybe you disagree). I was just curious.

LCDninja 11y ago

A friend watched "That Sugar Film" and it had a profound effect - I'm told that it's very difficult to avoid sugar these days in processed food (especially in fat-free products). I was blown away to learn that even low fat milk from the supermarket contains sugar.

coredog64 11y ago
The lactose that's a component of milk, or added sucrose/HFCS? As I understand it, food manufacturers are going away from sugar a little. Sucralose provides a similar sweetness at no additional calories and with a longer shelf life.
- tremon 11y ago
  Which is still the wrong way to go, I feel. We're now replacing the (newly introduced) refined sugars with even newer artificial sweeteners. I really don't look forward to hearing about them in another 40 years. Stop sweetening. Period. There's a lot more to flavour than just sweet, and the sooner we can revive our taste for other flavours, the better our children will be.
  - epalmer 11y ago
    I agree we don't need sweet food. I gave up carbs and everything tastes better. I don't use artificial sweeteners at all. Of course low carb may turn out to be harmful. Who knows. I feel better =, have lost some weight and my blood sugar and a1c is in the great range.
AlgorithmicTime 11y ago
Of course milk contains sugars! It's got a sugar named after it - lactose.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

nxzero 11y ago

"But instead of becoming healthier, [America] grew fatter and sicker." Complex topic, but this sentence to me was the most interesting from the story; in part, because of how much focus is put on solving problems that do not harm nearly as many Americans being over weight & unhealthy. It be curious to know if this topic has even come up once in America's election.

erikpukinskis 11y ago
Overweight and unhealthy are very different things. There is never been a scientific study that showed being overweight (not obese) causes health problems. And the opposite causality (weight gain resulting from unrelated health problems) is incredibly common. Julie Guthman's book "Weighing In" goes into detail.
- nxzero 11y ago
  Interesting any other suggested source of info on nutrition?

chinathrow 11y ago

"We replaced steak and sausages with pasta and rice, butter with margarine, eggs with muesli. But we still grew fatter" Check mueslis and the sugar most of them contains. It's _horrible_. I try buying a no sugar muesli once in a while - within regular european supermarkets, it's next to impossible!

leonroy 11y ago
Really? I find it in the UK (Tesco) quite readily. Tastes extremely bland though (like eating uncooked porridge oats) which might explain its unpopularity.
- goda90 11y ago
  In the US I like Bob's Red Mill muesli. The only sugar is the naturally occurring sugar in the raisins and dates. To make it more interesting I sometimes mix it into a thick smoothie(made of only whole fruit and veggies and water/ice) and eat it with a spoon.
- ValentineC 11y ago
  Curious: how do you eat your muesli? I eat my unsweetened muesli with yoghurt (like the Swiss do), and find it quite tasty.
  - leonroy 11y ago
    Chopped dried apricots (if you can pick some up which are grown in Silicon Valley - not kidding - you're in for a treat), almonds, walnuts and a dollop of Greek yoghurt. Don't overdo the dried fruit though since you'll end up defeating the point of unsweetened muesli!
anon4 11y ago
Don't buy müsli. Buy plain oats, nuts and dried fruits. Make your own.

minikites 11y ago

> Eventually, he tracked down a copy after submitting a request to his university library. Unrelated to nutrition, but libraries and inter-library lending can track down all sorts of things and your taxes already pay for this service, so take advantage of it.

minikites 11y ago

> Despite requests, he cited no examples of her unprofessional behaviour. The vitriol poured over Teicholz is rarely dispensed to Gary Taubes, though they make fundamentally similar arguments. I wonder why more women don't want to go into science.

tashi 11y ago
Yes, that made me sad too. As the father of a girl, I'm often discouraged when I see how angry some men get when women (and only women) disagree with them, regardless of tone or substance.

guard-of-terra 11y ago

Isn't it, like, obvious that excessive sugar is bad for you? It tastes good, and you consume a lot of it. Kind of easy to make an inference. Doesn't require any research. I was taugt from my childhood that excessive sugar leads to obesity and diabetes. Not that I cut down its consumption by a lot :), but at least I was aware, as everybody else around me. Maybe it's because we're all hypochondriacs here so we assume that anything is bad for you unless proven otherwise.

Udik 11y ago

Here is a more balanced and more scientific article about sugars and health: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/is-sugar-really-toxic-sifting-through-the-evidence/ http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/is-sugar-real...

pitchka 11y ago
Definitely. Lustig made numerous claims in his Bitter Truth talk that were just incorrect. Here are articles that are unbalanced but on the other end of spectrum (pro sugar). http://anthonycolpo.com/sweet-stupidity-part-1-is-sugar-really-as-bad-as-alcohol-cocaine-heroin/ http://anthonycolpo.com/sweet-stupidity-part-1-is-sugar-real... http://anthonycolpo.com/sweet-stupidity-part-2-the-bitter-truth-about-robert-lustigs-anti-sugar-claims/ http://anthonycolpo.com/sweet-stupidity-part-2-the-bitter-tr... It's interesting that in the USA the calorie consumption rose from 80s to 00s from 3100 to 3600. In the UK and Australia they eat less fructose but more calories. Everyone keeps on getting fatter. There's not a single food to blame. Any food can't be healthy or unhealthy. Diets can be healthy or unhealthy. Thinking otherwise is a sign of unhealthy relationship with food. Avoiding stuff because it is carcinogenic (processed meat) or correlates with cancer (red meat) is ridiculous. Eating large amounts every day (which is what most of the obese do) isn't? I don't care if apples have cyanide or 60g of fructose will give me liver disease. I won't eat 50 bananas a day, I won't eat 100 apples a day, I'll eat agave syrup all over my pancakes and won't feel a thing. It's food. I enjoy it. Having fructose in it, or animal products just means I can easily overdose if I consume it every day but I won't.

tempodox 11y ago

Had Yudkin posted HN comments, he would have learned quickly that telling the truth is not only profoundly unpopular, but actively being penalized.

fasteo 11y ago

It is sad to see how we are going from fat phobia to carb phobia, repeating the same mistakes 50 years later. I have genetic metabolic disease and I have thought about this many times. My conclusion is simple enough: Eat real food, ignore the macros, listen to your body and adapt your food intake accordingly. Paul Jaminet's diet [1] is the closest I have found to fit this idea. [1] http://perfecthealthdiet.com/ http://perfecthealthdiet.com/

MicroBerto 11y ago
Macro tracking is the best way to fine tune your body composition and measure what actually works for you. Collecting data is never a bad thing and is always worth doing.
- fasteo 11y ago
  I did macro tracking a couple of years. At the end, "listening to your body" is just a unconscious way to track macros.
notthegov 11y ago
What is real food? I disagree strongly. Eating shouldn't make you tired. I could eat 2 1/3 pound greasy cheeseburgers with toppings but if I skip the buns, I feel like I ate nothing. There is something legitimate to intermittent fasting, ketogenic diets, avoiding refined carbs, avoiding bread etc. I have a serious disease that is thought to prevented by ketogenic diets. And I think there's an equal chance I got the disease from refined carbs as anything else. I also know many so-called experts in this field (MDs) and they know nothing; and worse they do not want to know anything. My conclusion is simple: just don't eat bread or drink any sugary drinks.
- kdamken 11y ago
  If you don't mind me asking, what disease did you get?
  - 11y ago

tomaskazemekas 11y ago

One diet that reflects these findings and is tested personally is "5:2 fast diet, proposed by M. Mosley. This method really is effective in reducing the ill effects of modern food and lifestyle and is easy to turn into normal weekly behavior pattern. https://thefastdiet.co.uk/ https://thefastdiet.co.uk/

buserror 11y ago
Funny, I do the other way around! 5 days fast, 2 days eating. I think a 2 day fast is a bit harsh; you 'pay' the price of hunder the first day, but only have one day really of 'benefiting' from it... In my case if I have to do it, I'd rather pay the price the first day, then keep the momentum. Also the third/fourth day there is a payout as you get a nice 'mental high'... And blimey, the friday evening you can eat anything and it'll taste heavenly :-)
- cies 11y ago
  With most 5:2 diets, you are not supposed to fast two consecutive days. Non the less 2:5 sounds cool; please come back to report your experience! :)
  - buserror 11y ago
    Oh I've been doing it for years! As soon as I notice the waistline expanding, or I feel like a bit of 'detox', I try to schedule myself on a week where the fridge isn't too full of nice and/or perishable things, and I have a good mean on sunday night. Then it's occasional fruit juice in the morning (bit of an energy boost) and coffee only until the friday. It's a lot easier than it sounds, the 'key' thing is preparation; pick a week were you don't have a lot of 'social' to do, or any heavy physical things planned, and near empty fridge is good; instruction to the family not to decide to cook your favorite meal during the week and so forth. Otherwise it's as reported; hunger on the first day mostly, then nothing; you get a bit of a metallic taste in the mouth, but tolerable... You get what I only can describe as a 'high' on the third/fourth day. I lose roughly 1Kg a /day/ with that method, so if you do it once every quarter or so, that's largely enough to make up for some the odd chrismas/party/easter and so on :-)

tim333 11y ago

>We no longer live in a world in which elites of accredited experts are able to dominate conversations about complex or contested matters. Yay, go internet. The public opinions of the elites on complex contested matters often seem to degenerate into something like party politics.

blubb-fish 11y ago

30 years ago people had to be proactive and smart enough to gain information. Now people have to be proactive and smart enough to distinguish between sound and unfounded (aka bullshit) information. From that point of view not that much changed really.

tunap 11y ago
No real difference between a "Dark Age" where info is cloistered for the few and a blindingly "Light Age" where the signal is buried in noise of conflicting interests. The beauty of this puzzle for most people can be solved with a modicum of info, simple maths and listening to their body. Treating indigestion, constipation and other irritants with magic pills only masks the symptoms of bigger problems, most of which can be cured by diet & physical activity. Of course, as always, YMMV.
- erikpukinskis 11y ago
  Yes there is. People use can and do use networks of trust to navigate the latter. It's messy, but it works to an extent. In the former you have no such option. As a species we're becoming more knowledgable at a staggering pace right now. If you think the non-academic world is not benefitting from having access to the Internet you are crazy.
  - tunap 11y ago
    I concur on the potential, quite staggering infos. However, the key word here is "can". It is very interesting to me to monitor progress of the young nerdlings I cross paths with regularly. There is hope, but there is also a shit-ton of distractions and general malaise. Where human nature + freedom of will are concerned, the difference is, again, "can". For better or worse the die is cast. To say nothing else, the digital renaissance makes for very interesting times. edit: typos & clarity
kelvin0 11y ago
You mean the "One weird trick to lose belly fat" tips are not bonafide nutrional expertise? :)

coldcode 11y ago

When I was taking nutritional chemistry in the late 70's the idea that serum cholesterol had little to do with consumed cholesterol was something our professor repeated over and over again. The next 40 years I heard the opposite over and over again. Now people are finally accepting this fact.

criddell 11y ago
I think the you are what you eat maxim is somewhat responsible for the strange dietary beliefs held by many.
abawany 11y ago
The book "Cholesterol is not the culprit" was an eye opener for me especially given how one never heard about alternative viewpoints and experiments on this topic.

basicplus2 11y ago

the healthy diet.. lots of vegetables, fatty meats, rice for carbs, and no addded sugars, and nothing you see in bakeries ( ie no breads etc) and virtually no pasta.

GordonS 11y ago
Why is rice OK, but pasta isn't? If pasta is cooked al dente (why would you cook it any other way?!), the glycemic index will be lower than that of white or brown rice - this means it impacts your blood glucose levels less.
popmystack 11y ago
I will never give up my weekend biscuits and pad thai.
CuriouslyC 11y ago
Sorry but you can't proclaim one healthy diet for everyone; people with different genes, activity levels and gut microbiomes will respond differently to different foods. That being said, even your simplified recommendations are wrong. A ton of research exists linking saturated fat to systemic inflammation and a worsening of insulin sensitivity in pre-diabetic populations. Rice is fairly bad carb source in terms of nutrients/calorie (not to mention arsenic contamination in American rice) - the only thing it has going for it is it is hypo-allergenic. Whole wheat/multigrain sourdough bread is actually a really good carb source. Additionally, there are premium pastas like Barilla protein plus that are good as well.
goda90 11y ago
Beans and lentils for carbs. They are high fiber, high protein and cheap. Only downside is the gas(with beans anyway. lentils aren't too bad in that regard)

leonroy 11y ago

Jack Lalanne (American fitness guru) stated "If man made it, don't eat it". I recall reading that and scratching my head at the sheer number of food products that encompassed. I thought it a rather presumptuous statement. Five years later and after many books and articles on nutrition I now fully agree with him. When I hit the grocery store I skip the middle aisles and head straight for the fish and meat counter or the fresh fruit and veg section. My only (dietary) vices are coffee and the odd glass of wine (both very much man made). I think that the human body has evolved to run on a certain fuel and of course we adapt but it takes time. Grains and milk are relatively recent to our diet (past 10000 years) so you will see some people who can and some who can't digest them. Sugar however and all the other myriad man made products on store shelves are even more recent and apart from as occasional treats should really be avoided. As an aside one incredibly beneficial thing people can do for their health is exercise. The lymphatic system which helps rid the body of waste substances is 'pumped' by respiration and physical activity. If you want to eat that cupcake or enjoy that cold glass of beer be sure to exercise it off. It really is incredible how effective exercise can be at covering a multitude of dietary sins!

neotek 11y ago
A fairly high percentage of the fruits and vegetables you're eating are man made, insofar as they've been genetically engineered through selective breeding to produce things more palatable to the average consumer. Fruit in particular should probably only be eaten in moderation like any other sugar-filled treat. And exercise, while useful for building muscle mass and increasing your capacity for physical exertion, isn't particularly useful for covering up a poor diet - it would take more than two hours of jogging to burn off the calories in a small Big Mac meal from McDonalds, for example. If you want to lose weight, it's far, far more efficient to simply eat less.
- scott_s 11y ago
  Even the fruits and vegetables from centuries ago were "man-made". The wild versions are mostly inedible. What we eat is the result of millennia of breeding and cultivation. There is no bright and shining line between "natural" and "man made" for most of our food. Ever since we started practicing and depending on agriculture, all of our food is, to some degree, "man made". By the way, I am unaware of any evidence that fruit should be eaten in moderation.

at-fates-hands 11y ago

"Nobody could have predicted, it is said, how the food manufacturers would respond to the injunction against fat – selling us low-fat yoghurts bulked up with sugar, and cakes infused with liver-corroding transfats." It's interesting the author notes trans-fats as a by product of the injuction against fat, which couldn't be further from the truth. Trans-fat has been around since the 1900's and was used widely as a substitute for butter when it was in short supply during WWII. Remember Crisco? Mom's in the 1970's used it for everything, including baking and cooking. It wasn't until the 1990's that the FDA finally put warnings out regarding partially hydrogenated oil. The fact is, trans fats had been around a LONG time before before the government decided to start saying that it was bad for your health. Hell, it took them another decade before they made the recommendation to stop using trans fats after the 1980 guidelines came out.

js2 11y ago

Stephan Guyenet, obesity researcher and neurobiologist, critiques the carbohydrate-insulin-obesity hypothesis put forward by Lustig, Taubes, et al. He and Lustig exchange arguments here: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2016/01/always-hungry-its-probably-not-your.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2016/01/always-hungry-... https://medium.com/@davidludwigmd/ludwig-responds-to-whole-health-source-article-93d8e1667477 https://medium.com/@davidludwigmd/ludwig-responds-to-whole-h... http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2016/01/testing-insulin-model-response-to-dr.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2016/01/testing-insuli...

PepeGomez 11y ago

There is no evidence for what Lustig says. He produced one mediocre paper after multiple attempts. That's it. It's not science. It's just an attempt to distract from the real issue. It started with pet food. Attempts at making plant based foods for dogs and cats initially failed, becuase the animals didn't want to eat these unnatural diets. But a solution was found: the so called "palatants". When they were added to the food, animals ate it. Naturally, somebody thought of using these in human food as well. It didn't work as expected - it turned out they don't work by making the food tastier, they work by disabling the satiety response. Once the palatants get into your bloodstream, you won't feel satisfied no matter how much you eat until your body can get rid of these these chemicals. You may feel that your stomach is completely filled and stop eating, but you won't ever feel that you ate enough. Since adults would get suspicious if they got more hungry, it started with child menus. The idea was the same as with pet food - if children eat a lot of the food, their parents will buy it again. Now we have at least two generations of people who believe it's perfectly normal not to feel satisfied until their stomach can't hold any more food and that staying not obese requires arduous discipline. Our perception of normal weight has changed as well, for pets and human alike. Cats, when fed unaldutered meat eat to stay very skinny, with body shape that many modern guidelines show as "very thin" or "underweight". But many people today think of them as naturally fatty animals. Many of these chemicals are approved food aditives and are listed usually as emuglators, flour conditioners or something similarly inconspicious.

st4ck3r 11y ago

It will take a solid 5 years minimum for the 'main stream dietitians' to start believing this and promoting it. My mom with all the information I have shared, still refuses to give up milk and thinks I may be reading too much into a 'FAD DIET' to say things like milk can be bad for health. Either she is too entrenched/doesn't care or I am not providing enough evidence or need to provide an alternative way of making her switch.

exhilaration 11y ago
The article agrees with your mom: We replaced steak and sausages with pasta and rice, butter with margarine and vegetable oils, eggs with muesli, and milk with low-fat milk or orange juice. But instead of becoming healthier, we grew fatter and sicker.
- maskull 11y ago
  Vegetable oils, having vegetable in the name, sound healthy but are like the HFCS of the oil world. They are cheap, heavily processed, and prone to rancidification.
scholia 11y ago
> still refuses to give up milk Good for her! Milk is one of the most nutritious foods you can get. Lots of protein, vitamin B12, calcium, riboflavin etc. It reduces the risk of osteoporosis -- important for ageing people -- and tends to reduce blood pressure. And the downside that it may increase the risk of prostate cancer in men is one that your mother doesn't have to worry about ;-)

estambolieva16 11y ago

Some of you have criticized governments here, and this is why small tech startups come to offer help. Lustig or not, the time for us to collect all useful nutrition information, tone it down so everyone can read and understand it, and give it to the population. Then, each individual can make this own nutrition choices - very much like smoking cigarettes and knowing the dangers this habit can pose to the long-term health. Take the European Sugarwise for instance: https://www.facebook.com/aboutsugarwise/ https://www.facebook.com/aboutsugarwise/. Powered by a handful of social entrepreneurs, Sugarwise is a mobile application to count nutrient intake and provide diet alternations when nutrient deficiencies are detected. The idea started with raising awareness about added sugar and exposing it in foods, and grew to cover a full range of nutrients and minerals. The bests part of it is that it is one of many great social projects that shape our future.

leshow 11y ago

Sugar is not to be demonized, there is an overwhelming amount of research pointing to overconsumption as the culprit in ill health affects normally associated with sugar.

Mc_Big_G 11y ago

Only hacker news could bikeshed over the definition of man-made food.

asadkn 11y ago

It's typical how most people really want to immediately buy into the simple fixes and religiously believe them without knowing why it worked. Overweight? Must be the fructose (recently) / carbs (a while back) / fats (further back). Same old story. Somebody makes rounds in media and makes a lot of money after publishing a book with something "new" - a simple fix. Fortunately we have people like Lyle McDonald, Alan Aragon, Guyenet out there talking some sanity. Unfortunately, they never make it to mainstream media. Some Resources: http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/index.php/free-content/free-content/volume-1-issue-7-insulin-and-thinking-better/insulin-an-undeserved-bad-reputation/ http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/index.php/free-cont... http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2016/01/testing-insulin-model-response-to-dr.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2016/01/testing-insuli... https://medium.com/@lylemcdonald/highly-processed-carbohydrates-cause-more-insulin-secretion-calorie-for-calorie-than-any-other-38f907ae75d1#.p38cx0qc2 https://medium.com/@lylemcdonald/highly-processed-carbohydra... (A comment by Lyle on the rhetoric posted by Ludwig)

funkyy 11y ago
Very few public, true fitness instructors and dietitians are following the simplest rule ever - decrease calories to lose weight. This method is not that popular, its to tricky since it requires for person to calculate foods, which makes it unpopular for lazy. But it is absolutely the best method to lose weight fast, decrease calorie intake and create shortage.
- npsimons 11y ago
  A million times this. People think that the second law of thermodynamics doesn't apply to them because "biology is complex!", which sounds an awful lot like the creationists. You can't outrun your fork. Even if you want to create a caloric deficit through increased activity level, you'll need to hold intake constant, therefore you most likely have to track it to begin with. These days with things like MyFitnessPal there is no excuse. And while it's possible to lose weight without tracking (I've done it), it's not nearly as straightforward. If people are truly lazy, they'd put down the fork, as that's all that's needed, no time "wasted" at the gym necessary. But hunger is a hard thing to beat, and willpower can be used up, not to mention a lot of other factors (mindless eating, eating for comfort or to self-medicate, etc).

joesmo 11y ago

My take on this article is that nutrition science is not science, no one knows what the fuck they're talking about, and we're basically still in the 1920's with absolutely no real nutritional information or system (usually science in our society) to get there. Having lost someone very dear to me to "cholesterol" and knowing it was a lie at the time, let alone now, this makes me fuming angry. But I live in the US, where the primary driving factor for such misinformation is continuing to profit off of people's misery, so it's hardly surprising that profit has completely kicked science out of one of its most important subjects. Maybe when we stop letting companies profit off of misery and pain, we'll learn something, but I doubt that will ever happen.

acchow 11y ago
I wonder if we will someday discover that everybody's bodies are dramatically unique and require their own diet to maintain health - i.e. some people can't handle much sugar, some people can't handle much cholesterol, some saturated fat, etc.

talles 11y ago

I'm still waiting for a prominent figure in the nutrition world to start the debate about intermittent fasting just as Lustig is doing with sugar. Many nutritionists are prescribing the exact opposite of it: avoid fasting for more than very few hours. Heck, my coworker have a timer that fires every 2 hours to remind him to eat something.

Someone1234 11y ago
In fairness to nutritionists, intermittent fasting is really bleeding edge stuff. There have been some clinical research that shows it may be effective (in particular against pre-diabetes) but more research could be done on this, and plus it would need to filter down out of the scientific sphere. Nutritionists get attacked both for jumping on "trendy" new ideas and for being too conservative. Really is no winning. Someone is going to criticise. Plus much of the advice people read doesn't come from anyone qualified, even the term "nutritionist" has different meanings in different places and requires literally no qualifications at all in some jurisdictions (they're essentially "alternative medicine" practitioners). Dietitians often require at least SOME professional training and certification. That's who a doctor will refer you to, rather than a nutritionist.

simook 11y ago

Sugar free for almost two years now and I avoid it like the plague. Really glad to see more and more articles like these. All the naysayers should continue to eat sugar, and let nature do it's "thing".

heisenbit 11y ago

Throwing two things in a bucket and information is lost. This makes the topic so complex everyone talks about carbs but almost no one talks about that fructose and glucose are very different in very significant ways: 1) Natural prevalence: Glucose is more common 2) Digestion: Glucose is transported by different mechanisms from the gut to the bloodstream. The mechanisms for fructose are in some people significantly weaker 3) Regulation in the body: Glucose is regulated by insulin and handled by all cells. Fructose is left to the liver and contributes to blood triglycerides. If intake, processing, regulation and resting places are different should there not always be two different discussions?

Cshelton 11y ago

Here is what worked for me to lose fat (weight), but not muscle. It really is simple. - Reduce carbs/sugar intake to around ~100 grams/day, this varies slightly per person. Just reducing bread/grain intake alone is a TON. Grains are turned into glucose, same as sugar, it's effectively the same thing. This also means getting rid of all sweats, processed food. They are just bad for you whether you are overweight or not...don't do it. Occasional is fine. - Drink water. Often times when you are hungry, you're dehydrated. If you drink soda or something else, do the "diet" version at least. Diet Coke, Miller Lite, etc. - Portions. Most restaurants in the U.S. server portions that are way too big. Eat half your plate, then wait 10 - 15 min while having a conversation with others or whatever, do something else. Take your mind off food. I bet after 15 min, you won't be that hungry anymore. That super tired feeling you get after a big meal...yeah, you should never have that. That means you overate. - Get your heart rate up for at least 10 min a day. Try to do an hour, but sometimes that's not practical with limited time, etc. Even just doing jumping jacks for 10 min will do the trick...Just do it. It's crazy how many people will go a day...a week..or more without out ever getting their heart rate above 100 bpm... That's terribly bad for you. Forget all the fads or popular, trending stuff out there... They try to sell you on quick fixes. Weight loss is not a quick fix. Instead of viewing it as trying to lose weight, just look at it like trying to live a healthy life style. Don't obsess checking the scale everyday or counting calories. Take a picture of yourself in underwear once a week in the mirror. Every month, not any smaller intervals, check your 4 pictures from that month and see how far you've come. This should drive you more. That's it, you'll be healthy in no time.

cname 11y ago
Hasn't it been shown that artificial sweeteners can mess with your blood sugar level and may be just as bad for you as sugar? It seems like it would be best to wean yourself from the craving for sweets. http://www.webmd.com/diet/20140917/artificial-sweeteners-blood-sugar http://www.webmd.com/diet/20140917/artificial-sweeteners-blo...
- Cshelton 11y ago
  Yeah, there is a lot of different studies about artificial sweeteners, it's a pretty controversial topic... They probably aren't great for you, but I don't think it's near as bad as consuming 40g of sugar/High fructose corn syrup per soda... Ideally you stay away from both, but If you are going to drink a soda/sweetened drink, go with the one with 0g sugar and 0g carbs... Its too easy to intake an stupid amount of carbs and sugar from just liquids...3 sodas in one day and boom...140g of carbs/sugar already...even worse, their "empty carbs", which is to say, it provides you with no nutritional energy/value. Note: I'm not a dietician/nutritionist. Just someone who has used the above methods and have had great results.

csours 11y ago

Sugar: The Bitter Truth Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM (as I did not see it linked)

steaminghacker 11y ago

big up the sugar tax! demonise sugar so we can tax it like tobacco...

BBL 11y ago

Mexico successfully increased their tax on sugary beverages, and companies threw relatively few hissy fits. I think a large part of the country's willingness to shoulder that tax, and the lack of push back from industry, came about as a result of positive leadership from Mexico's president at that time and the recognition that diabetes was becoming an epidemic.