14 ms·

The sugar conspiracy: sugar—not fat—is the greatest danger to our health

274 points by kevbin 11y ago

127001brewer 11y ago
This is a duplicate from four (4) days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444941
- LyndsySimon 11y ago
  Thank God. I was questioning both my sanity and the freshness of my browser's cache.
arviewer 11y ago
> In 1972, a British scientist sounded the alarm that sugar – and not fat – was the greatest danger to our health. But his findings were ridiculed and his reputation ruined. How did the world’s top nutrition scientists get it so wrong for so long? First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
- jerf 11y ago
  Fourth, it is claimed that it was understood this way all along and everybody always knew it.
meesles 11y ago
This story always remind me of this interesting study done on rats, where they found sugar more tantalizing than cocaine or heroine.[0] Take it with a grain of salt (or sugar, if you prefer), since sugar has some nutritional value, but this is a little terrifying. Look at the obese, particularly in the USA, and look at these massive buckets of soda they drink, breads stuffed with 20+grams of sugar, sweets which are literally nothing except colored sugar. The public desperately needs some education, just like how trans-fats were scared out of us 10-20 years ago. [0] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/connie-bennett/the-rats-who-preferred-su_b_712254.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/connie-bennett/the-rats-who-pr...
- busterarm 11y ago
  Cane is a hell of a drug.
- talles 11y ago
  > “is much more rewarding and probably more addictive than intravenous cocaine.” Sugar is bad alright but more addictive than IV cocaine?
- moron4hire 11y ago
  "The public needs education" is the absolute wrong answer to the obesity epidemic. The public has been receiving education. That sugar is bad is not news. We need to start questioning why the health and medical industries' attempts at addressing the obesity epidemic have thus far been abject failures.
mtgx 11y ago
So when can we have stevia into all of our food?
- greggman 11y ago
  I tried stevia for a while. It doesn't come even close to sugar's flavor and eventually I just gave it up.
  - bosdev 11y ago
    It absolutely does not have the same flavor, no artificial sweetener does. But if you decide to not have sugar, you can grow to enjoy it in a different way. For me, for example, regular Coca-Cola is just non-existant in my world at this point. I drink Coke Zero, and I like it. I'm sure the sugar full version tastes better, but I've decided that's just not an option for me.
    - J-dawg 11y ago
      I drink a lot of sugar-free cola, and to my dismay there seems to be mounting evidence that diet soft drinks actually contribute to weight gain, possibly by altering gut fauna. [0] As with all nutrition advice, I find myself wondering what to do with this information (other than kicking my diet coke habit just to be on the safe side). Good science takes time, but I want to make decisions that benefit my health right now. Any that's before you even get into the crazy amount of pseudo-science and quackery that exists around nutrition. It would be great if anyone knowledgable about the subject could add their two cents! [0] http://time.com/3746047/diet-soda-bad-belly-fat/ http://time.com/3746047/diet-soda-bad-belly-fat/
      - ktRolster 11y ago
        It might be true....but sugar soda is definitely worse than diet soda. For example, you can drink through 5 cans of diet pepsi in a day, with very few health problems (if you do it consistently, over a long period of time, it might cause problems, but that is still 'might' so it's not obvious). Now imagine drinking 5 cans of sugar pepsi in a day. That's 800 calories of pure sugar! If you keep that up, you'll be gaining a pound every week.....or feeling the effects of malnutrition by the end of the year. Nothing subtle about that.
rdtsc 11y ago
Just the other day was in a store saw a package of candy -- basically pure sugar + artificial food coloring. Big giant label on the front -- "Fat Free!". It is true. But somewhat misleading as to what it implies -- "this is healthy, no fats here, eat this". And also "2.5 servings per package", while most people would it eat it a single serving I imagine, but hey, they calorie counts look more reasonable, so they just divided whatever calories they had, by whatever they thought is acceptable to print on the nutritional label and they got some value for serving size.
- ant6n 11y ago
  And the sort of irony is that some of the best sweet stuff, for example Nougat or Nutella, is so because of fat.
- criddell 11y ago
  When organic foods got super popular, I knew more than one person that thought organic cookies were healthy. > whatever they thought is acceptable to print on the nutritional label I'm not certain, but I think that's regulated.
- awqrre 11y ago
  Labelling really need to be better regulated in the US... They started using multiple kinds of sugars in the same product to make them appear lower in the ingredient list (I have no proof that it is truly the reason, but that is the only reason that makes sense to me).
AndrewKemendo 11y ago
The major thing I took away from both the article and the comments originally submitted a few days ago is that nutrition science is too hard to create a one-size fits all guideline to what people should eat. If we have to have a one-size fits all solution to nutrition however, my anecdotal guess is that the answer shouldn't be what we should eat but how much. Namely as long as people aren't over or under eating they should be fine.
- bosdev 11y ago
  Is that really true? Or is the evidence pretty much in that all people shouldn't really be eating refined sugar?
  - CuriouslyC 11y ago
    Someone who is highly active can consume a lot more fructose-containing sugar than someone who is sedentary, and in fact fructose-containing sugar is more efficient at restoring liver glycogen than straight glucose. The problem comes when the liver's glycogen stores are full, and primary pathway for disposing of that fructose is via de-novo lipogenesis. Like anything, the problem is consumption to excess. Unfortunately, excess in this case (for the typical sedentary person) is quite a small amount.
  - AndrewKemendo 11y ago
    I don't think it's conclusive - that's my point. I think it is conclusive that there are no old obese people.
  - stonemetal 11y ago
    If there is evidence I haven't seen any. Pretty much everything I have seen suggests that A) You should meet your macro needs which are slightly different for everyone, B) after that don't over eat, but what you eat doesn't really matter. From a weight loss perspective low sugar diets are good for psychological reasons, not thermodynamic ones. Sugar tends to cause quick, but short lived fullness, where fat and protein take longer to kick in but once they do they are much longer lived.
donutdan4114 11y ago
As someone who has shifted to a sugar-free, high-fat lifestyle (keto diet), I can attest to the fact that sugar really is the ultimate evil in terms of health and nutrition. I've lost about 100lbs in 2.5 years... The only thing that I really changed was doing a Keto diet. I've learned a lot about nutrition along the way, and it's amazing how bad nutrition info was when I was growing up.. Common Misconceptions I hear/see ALL THE TIME: 1) Fruit Juice is healthy. It's not. It is sugar-water. 2) A calorie is a calorie... No. Your body does not process all foods the same. A thousand calories of broccoli will effect your body VERY differently than a thousand calories of soda. Yes the energy-intake might be the same, but the resulting effects are very different. 3) Fats are bad. They are not. Your body uses fats for all sorts of processes, and most importantly, your body understands and can use fats. 4) Sugar is part of a healthy diet. Nope, sugar is not necessary in our diets at all. 5) Salt is bad. In moderation, salt and other electrolytes are actually needed by our bodies (unlike sugar). 6) Lack of exercise is the reason people get fat. No... Most people would have to run 10 miles per day to burn off the garbage they would eat in the morning (think of a young adult having an innocent bowl of cereal and OJ for breakfast). "People aren't obese because they eat too much and are lazy. People are lazy and eat too much because they are fat." Sugar and insulin and the whole endocrine system play a huge roll in how people feel physically and mentally eating sugary foods. So many more misconceptions out there... It's hard to find good info when you have Big Sugar, Big Food, and Big Beverage shoving bad information down the masses throats.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- donutdan4114 11y ago
  If anyone has any questions about starting a keto diet (high-fat, mid-protein, low-carb), feel free to ask. :) Cannot recommend it enough. It simply just works..
  - bosdev 11y ago
    Can you give some example meals you eat?
jrcii 11y ago
Dr. Lustig is known for his interesting and thorough, if somewhat controversial, case against sugar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
marknutter 11y ago
Maybe the greatest danger to our health is... eating too much of any one type of thing? Alas, that doesn't grab headlines.
- hcho 11y ago
  Indeed. Just that somethings are easier to eat in access than others.
jug5 11y ago
No one with any semblance of nutrition background believes that fat is bad and sugar is acceptable.
pkorzeniewski 11y ago
Several years ago I was addicted to coca-cola, drinking daily even 2L - I probably exceeded the daily recommended amount of sugar 4 or 5 times. Since then I've drastically reduced sugar in my diet and luckily I never had a problem with weight, but I wonder what'll be the long-term effects of intaking so much sugar for such long time. The scary thing, now that I check the ingredients of everything I buy, is how much sugar is there in the majority of products, even in those advertised as "healthy".
- cmrdporcupine 11y ago
  I had a roommate who was quite large and used to drink at least one 2L of cola a day. He cut it out and went on a weight loss diet and vigorous exercise and lost around 100 pounds. But I gotta think a huge part of that was just the insane amount of excess calories in the pop. Still admire the degree of dedication he put into his lifestyle change tho.
- gman2093 11y ago
  There are 212 grams of sugar in a 2L of coke. According to the World Health Organization recommendation of 25g/day or fewer, that would clock in at about 8.5 times the recommended maximum. So yeah, coke has lots of sugar, even twice as much as you guessed.
tinkerrr 11y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444941 399 points | 4 days ago | 350 comments
Lidador 11y ago
My father died at 105 and was addicted to chocolate and ice-creams.
- Shengbo 11y ago
  My grandfather died at a similar age and he's been a smoker for decades. Doesn't make smoking any less harmful in my eyes.
- pyre 11y ago
  Some people are immune to HIV.
jlebrech 11y ago
there's nothing wrong with sugar other than how fast it spikes into your bloodstream.
jackfoxy 11y ago
Robert Atkins published Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution (possibly the ancestor of all the modern low-carb diets) in 1972 and credited a 1958 article in The Journal of the American Medical Association by Alfred W. Pennington. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_diet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_diet So I don't think one lone researcher figured this out in 1972.
- hcs 11y ago
  The article agrees that this is the case: the dangers of sugar used to be orthodoxy, but around the '70s is when sugar was de-emphasized in favor of fat to such a degree that low-carb proponents were labelled cranks. > When, in 1957, John Yudkin first floated his hypothesis that sugar was a hazard to public health, it was taken seriously, as was its proponent. By the time Yudkin retired, 14 years later, both theory and author had been marginalised and derided.
sickbeard 11y ago
The greatest danger is overeating our past our caloric limits. It's not sugar or fat or whatever, it's calories. Lets stick to that.
- phil248 11y ago
  But that's not true since our bodies process different foods in different ways. Marathon runners don't eat a bunch of steak fat before a run.
  - mason55 11y ago
    Overall bodyweight is controlled by calories in vs. calories out. The different types of calories that you consume (fats vs. carbs vs. proteins) control things like how the extra bodyweight is stored or burned off and the signals your body gives as to whether or not you're hungry. There are a few biological pathways that you can use to your advantage but they're difficult and short-term. Your body has a very hard time storing protein as fat but that just means it will store the extra calories from carbs and fat as body fat. These discussions about "CICO only" vs. "Obviously macros matter" are always caused by people arguing two different things with each other.
    - csours 11y ago
      I think a lot of people talk past each other in these discussions. One problem is that a lot of diet fads promise magic solutions, and then people get tired of magic and revert back to CICO only. Any discussion that does not start with CICO and clearly show which side of the CICO ledger is influenced, and by what mechanism is doomed. I think maybe if we discussed CI and CO separately it would help: CI: Calories in are influenced by many things: eating habits, Macro content of food, access to good food, stress eating, satiety signals from blood sugar, leptin, ghrelin, etc. CO: Calories out are influenced by basal metabolic rate, exercise, enviromental temperature, fat storage (calories that do not get used up), etc. I would love to see a series of articles that clearly articulates the two main headings, and then goes into each item underneath, in order of impact on health overall and weight specifically
jedberg 11y ago
To everyone saying a Keto diet is great, a word of caution. Going Keto gave me kidney stones. I asked my mom, who's had both children and kidney stones, which pain was worse, and she said the pain was about the same, but at least with childbirth you get a few months warning -- stones just show up and give you excruciating pain. So it's great y'all are loosing weight (I did too!) but just be careful and drink a lot of water if you do it.
- Shengbo 11y ago
  Wouldn't adopting a balanced diet that's reasonably low in carbs plus some exercise achieve the desired effect but without fucking shit up in the process? I can't imagine going from a sedentary, high-carb, overweight lifestyle to a radical diet(be it keto or whatever else the person chooses) is easy on the body. Did you get any lab tests done before and after starting the diet? If you did, how did the results compare?
  - jedberg 11y ago
    > Did you get any lab tests done before and after starting the diet? If you did, how did the results compare? Only my normal annual blood test. Cholesterol was down after the diet, everything else was pretty much unchanged. We never caught the stone for analysis, but the diet was pinned as the most likely cause. To be fair, I don't have enough data to say it was the diet for certain, only correlations that people who go on Keto have a higher incidence of stones than those who don't.
    - Shengbo 11y ago
      I see, thanks. It'd be interesting to have people take a lab test right before going on a keto diet and then repeating it at fixed intervals to see how it affects the results.
- FreeFull 11y ago
  I wonder if it's because you've been consuming too much protein, and not enough fat.
framioco 11y ago
I lost a bunch of weight doing Low Carb High Fat, but later on switched to a vegan diet (of High Carb, Low Fat) for ethical reasons. I've been keeping the weight off with the High Carb diet and I'm actually eating more than before. Please note that high carb does not mean highly processed food. I eat mostly whole foods, little processing or refining, but ultimately it is treated as 'sugar' for the body: rice, potatoes, bread, etc. I also took blood analysis after LCHF and some months after the HCLF, and pretty much all indicators either stayed the same or improved. Colesterol levels were way high during the High Fat phase, and are now back to normal levels.
shirro 11y ago
It really is about a lack of balance between our activity and our food intake and the types and quantity of food we consume. As a society we have become too good at making cheap, easy to consume food that supplies far more energy than most of us need. Sugar is one of the worst culprits perhaps but it isn't the only one. I have avoided most really sugary foods for years but with my age and activity levels eating a lot of grain based foods has pretty much the same result. Which isn't really surprising. When I have the discipline to do it what really works for me is eating more veggies. I am sure you can get fat on a vegetable heavy diet but you probably have to work a lot harder at it.
Fando 11y ago
I think people here will appreciate the following information. To understand fat production, I recommend everyone research the way a liver metabolizes sugar, and its connection to fiber - it is most important. Long story short, the liver metabolizes excess sugar into fat cells when there is not enough fiber. Presence of fiber allows excess sugar to be broken down into waste which leaves the body, avoiding production of fat cells. In essence, this is why eating a bag of apples is healthy while eating just the sugar from the same amount of apples is not. Consuming adequate amounts of fiber is key to healthy sugar consumption. If you noticed, fat people tend to not eat much fiber. The smaller the ratio of fiber to sugar the fatter you are. Simply focusing on increasing fiber consumption leads to much better health because you naturally begin to consume more vegetables and fruits which also have the nutrients. Additionally, and this is perhaps the most understated health fact. The importance of pH balance. The body depends and thrives when the environment is alkaline, and dies when it's acidic. Although acidic foods are also healthy, it's important to eat more alkaline foods than acidic. And the pH is determine only after the body digests the food. This is why for example lemons are actually one of the most alkaline foods. Especially when you're sick, eating alkaline vs acidic foods is the best way to regain immune system strength and health. _ Dr Lustig's video presentation about sugar/fiber/fat metabolism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM _ List of alkaline & acidic foods: http://www.rense.com/1.mpicons/acidalka.htm http://www.rense.com/1.mpicons/acidalka.htm
dmritard96 11y ago
I am most likely wrong or oversimplifying, but my understanding was that ultimately whatever macromolecules you are consuming, lipids, proteins, or carbohydrates all only get absorbed into the blood stream as glucose (putting on hold random nutrients like iron, vitamin XYZ etc etc). If that's the case, doesn't it not matter what the originating molecules are as long as you avoid fast highs and lows in blood glucose levels since that is the main danger presented by sugars (fastest to be broken down)?
- cpplinuxdude 11y ago
  I'm sorry for being the one breaking it to you, but I think you may, unfortunately, be wrong. :)
  - dmritard96 11y ago
    care to elaborate? open to being wrong, but also want to see who says so and why
    - dualogy 11y ago
      > my understanding was that ultimately whatever macromolecules you are consuming, lipids, proteins, or carbohydrates all only get absorbed into the blood stream as glucose Amino acids, glucose and fatty acids are all ancient molecular structures known to all cellular life and thus can and do circulate in our blood at all times. If everything got converted into glucose during digestion, that would mean we could live entirely off candy fortified with vitamins and minerals, and produce all essential fatty acids and all essential amino acids from the glucose. Not so. PROTEINS provide amino acids, basic building blocks for near everything organic about our body (or all cellular life-forms really), not just muscles but hormones neurons etc etc. The body may convert protein into glucose but this laborious process occurs to any significant degree mostly under a prolonged lo-fat-lo-carb-hi-protein regimen or plain starvation conditions (ie post-fasting, not just normal fasting with plenty of fat reserves left, which is simply ketosis, hence protein-sparing and fat+ketone-burning). If so, this doesn't occur in the digestive tract, since glucose production (or provision from glycogen) is the job of the liver. LIPIDS aren't and cannot be converted to glucose in the digestive tract, or we wouldn't store body fat to begin with and also have essential fatty acids circulating at all times now, would we? BUT 2 triglycerides CAN donate their glycerol backbones for the production of 1 glucose molecule, and I believe this is constantly happening in ketosis when glycogen is depleted. Again, glucose production/provisioning is a liver job, not a digestive tract job. CARBohydrates of most any kind ARE converted to glucose in the digestive tract. Exceptions: fiber travels on to the colon for excretion or to be fermented by bacterial action (into I believe short-chain fatty acids and B/K vitamins) and fructose is "metabolized" into triglycerides by the liver. Since the blood needs a certain glucose level at all times (around 5g-ish), circulating glucose in excess is immediately shuttled into first: any cells that are receptive to the concurrent insulin signaling, second: glycogen storage (liver and muscles), third as a last resort converted into body fat.
Kip9000 11y ago
This type of demonising one over the other is not proper science. Sugar (in various forms) carries the energy needed for the cells to operate well, brain being the highest consumer. Balanced nutrients would be the best bet for overall wellbeing.
notLustig 11y ago
I'm seeing two major factual problems with many of the comments here. 1. In terms of determining how much weight you are going to lose/gain. A calorie is a calorie. Calories in/calories out is the secret sauce to every successful weight loss diet, even keto. That is a simple fact, backed by all of the truly solid nutritional research in modern science. 2. If we are talking about lean body mass, body fat percentage goals, healthy eating habits or disease prevention, then we should have a talk about sugar. It is certainly a variable that deserves attention. However, it is not the devil... Fat is not the devil... Meat is not the devil... Carbs are not the devil... etc. If you don't believe me, if some pop science book has convinced you that sugar is the worst thing in the world, I ask that you look into the work of Alan Aragon. A good place to start would be the following article: http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/ http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-ab...
- cholantesh 11y ago
  This should be the top comment. The article is full of Galileo gambit (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Galileo_gambit http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Galileo_gambit) silliness and short on evidence outside of conflating correlation with causation.
- SebKba 11y ago
  Regarding #1... I'm pretty sure that to digest 100kcal worth of chicken breast requires more energy for the body to do, compared to digesting 100kcal worth of Coke/sugar. It also has a different impact on your insulin levels. Living on a 3000kcal McDonalds diet will give you a different body shape compared to living on a 3000kcal diet of home cooked, organic meals. No?
  - notLustig 11y ago
    For #1: the point of #1 is that body shape and insulin levels are not being considered. That point specifically only matters for weight gain/weight loss. In regards to differing energy expenditure for digestion for one food vs another, I would guess that that is a level of detail the average person would not spend their time investigating. For McD's vs home cookin, calories in/calories out still holds to be true. So, if your exercise levels are the same, then you will end up weighing approximately the same after both diets. However, lean body mass, body fat percentage, your overall health and the effect McD's has on any diseases you are fighting/trying to prevent will likely be different based on the quality of your diet and it's macronutrient distribution.
pitchka 11y ago
Again, bunch of anecdotal unscientific evidence in this thread, just like the last one. It's unbelievable that this community believes in fad diets (keto, paleo, lchf, atkins, etc.), that it is afraid of food, afraid of sugar. Sugar, carbs and fat makes you fat, not sugar alone. This scaremongering of certain types of foods is negatively influencing people to have an unhealthy relationship with food. Robert Lustig is an idiot who in his speech told a bunch of lies and presented a lot of misinformation. Is it really hard to check the facts? Checkout books below if you have any fears of any foods. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto http://www.amazon.com/Defence-Food-Nutrition-Pleasures-Eating-ebook/dp/B002RI99LY/ http://www.amazon.com/Defence-Food-Nutrition-Pleasures-Eatin... The Gluten Lie: And Other Myths About What You Eat http://www.amazon.com/Gluten-Lie-Other-Myths-About/dp/1941393063/ http://www.amazon.com/Gluten-Lie-Other-Myths-About/dp/194139...
ktRolster 11y ago
This is not really a conspiracy. We've been hearing this for four decades at least.

274 points by kevbin 11y ago

This is a duplicate from four (4) days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444941

LyndsySimon 11y ago
Thank God. I was questioning both my sanity and the freshness of my browser's cache.

arviewer 11y ago

> In 1972, a British scientist sounded the alarm that sugar – and not fat – was the greatest danger to our health. But his findings were ridiculed and his reputation ruined. How did the world’s top nutrition scientists get it so wrong for so long? First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

jerf 11y ago
Fourth, it is claimed that it was understood this way all along and everybody always knew it.

meesles 11y ago

This story always remind me of this interesting study done on rats, where they found sugar more tantalizing than cocaine or heroine.[0] Take it with a grain of salt (or sugar, if you prefer), since sugar has some nutritional value, but this is a little terrifying. Look at the obese, particularly in the USA, and look at these massive buckets of soda they drink, breads stuffed with 20+grams of sugar, sweets which are literally nothing except colored sugar. The public desperately needs some education, just like how trans-fats were scared out of us 10-20 years ago. [0] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/connie-bennett/the-rats-who-preferred-su_b_712254.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/connie-bennett/the-rats-who-pr...

busterarm 11y ago
Cane is a hell of a drug.
talles 11y ago
> “is much more rewarding and probably more addictive than intravenous cocaine.” Sugar is bad alright but more addictive than IV cocaine?
moron4hire 11y ago
"The public needs education" is the absolute wrong answer to the obesity epidemic. The public has been receiving education. That sugar is bad is not news. We need to start questioning why the health and medical industries' attempts at addressing the obesity epidemic have thus far been abject failures.

mtgx 11y ago

So when can we have stevia into all of our food?

greggman 11y ago
I tried stevia for a while. It doesn't come even close to sugar's flavor and eventually I just gave it up.
- bosdev 11y ago
  It absolutely does not have the same flavor, no artificial sweetener does. But if you decide to not have sugar, you can grow to enjoy it in a different way. For me, for example, regular Coca-Cola is just non-existant in my world at this point. I drink Coke Zero, and I like it. I'm sure the sugar full version tastes better, but I've decided that's just not an option for me.
  - J-dawg 11y ago
    I drink a lot of sugar-free cola, and to my dismay there seems to be mounting evidence that diet soft drinks actually contribute to weight gain, possibly by altering gut fauna. [0] As with all nutrition advice, I find myself wondering what to do with this information (other than kicking my diet coke habit just to be on the safe side). Good science takes time, but I want to make decisions that benefit my health right now. Any that's before you even get into the crazy amount of pseudo-science and quackery that exists around nutrition. It would be great if anyone knowledgable about the subject could add their two cents! [0] http://time.com/3746047/diet-soda-bad-belly-fat/ http://time.com/3746047/diet-soda-bad-belly-fat/
    - ktRolster 11y ago
      It might be true....but sugar soda is definitely worse than diet soda. For example, you can drink through 5 cans of diet pepsi in a day, with very few health problems (if you do it consistently, over a long period of time, it might cause problems, but that is still 'might' so it's not obvious). Now imagine drinking 5 cans of sugar pepsi in a day. That's 800 calories of pure sugar! If you keep that up, you'll be gaining a pound every week.....or feeling the effects of malnutrition by the end of the year. Nothing subtle about that.

rdtsc 11y ago

Just the other day was in a store saw a package of candy -- basically pure sugar + artificial food coloring. Big giant label on the front -- "Fat Free!". It is true. But somewhat misleading as to what it implies -- "this is healthy, no fats here, eat this". And also "2.5 servings per package", while most people would it eat it a single serving I imagine, but hey, they calorie counts look more reasonable, so they just divided whatever calories they had, by whatever they thought is acceptable to print on the nutritional label and they got some value for serving size.

ant6n 11y ago
And the sort of irony is that some of the best sweet stuff, for example Nougat or Nutella, is so because of fat.
criddell 11y ago
When organic foods got super popular, I knew more than one person that thought organic cookies were healthy. > whatever they thought is acceptable to print on the nutritional label I'm not certain, but I think that's regulated.
awqrre 11y ago
Labelling really need to be better regulated in the US... They started using multiple kinds of sugars in the same product to make them appear lower in the ingredient list (I have no proof that it is truly the reason, but that is the only reason that makes sense to me).

AndrewKemendo 11y ago

The major thing I took away from both the article and the comments originally submitted a few days ago is that nutrition science is too hard to create a one-size fits all guideline to what people should eat. If we have to have a one-size fits all solution to nutrition however, my anecdotal guess is that the answer shouldn't be what we should eat but how much. Namely as long as people aren't over or under eating they should be fine.

bosdev 11y ago
Is that really true? Or is the evidence pretty much in that all people shouldn't really be eating refined sugar?
- CuriouslyC 11y ago
  Someone who is highly active can consume a lot more fructose-containing sugar than someone who is sedentary, and in fact fructose-containing sugar is more efficient at restoring liver glycogen than straight glucose. The problem comes when the liver's glycogen stores are full, and primary pathway for disposing of that fructose is via de-novo lipogenesis. Like anything, the problem is consumption to excess. Unfortunately, excess in this case (for the typical sedentary person) is quite a small amount.
- AndrewKemendo 11y ago
  I don't think it's conclusive - that's my point. I think it is conclusive that there are no old obese people.
- stonemetal 11y ago
  If there is evidence I haven't seen any. Pretty much everything I have seen suggests that A) You should meet your macro needs which are slightly different for everyone, B) after that don't over eat, but what you eat doesn't really matter. From a weight loss perspective low sugar diets are good for psychological reasons, not thermodynamic ones. Sugar tends to cause quick, but short lived fullness, where fat and protein take longer to kick in but once they do they are much longer lived.

donutdan4114 11y ago

As someone who has shifted to a sugar-free, high-fat lifestyle (keto diet), I can attest to the fact that sugar really is the ultimate evil in terms of health and nutrition. I've lost about 100lbs in 2.5 years... The only thing that I really changed was doing a Keto diet. I've learned a lot about nutrition along the way, and it's amazing how bad nutrition info was when I was growing up.. Common Misconceptions I hear/see ALL THE TIME: 1) Fruit Juice is healthy. It's not. It is sugar-water. 2) A calorie is a calorie... No. Your body does not process all foods the same. A thousand calories of broccoli will effect your body VERY differently than a thousand calories of soda. Yes the energy-intake might be the same, but the resulting effects are very different. 3) Fats are bad. They are not. Your body uses fats for all sorts of processes, and most importantly, your body understands and can use fats. 4) Sugar is part of a healthy diet. Nope, sugar is not necessary in our diets at all. 5) Salt is bad. In moderation, salt and other electrolytes are actually needed by our bodies (unlike sugar). 6) Lack of exercise is the reason people get fat. No... Most people would have to run 10 miles per day to burn off the garbage they would eat in the morning (think of a young adult having an innocent bowl of cereal and OJ for breakfast). "People aren't obese because they eat too much and are lazy. People are lazy and eat too much because they are fat." Sugar and insulin and the whole endocrine system play a huge roll in how people feel physically and mentally eating sugary foods. So many more misconceptions out there... It's hard to find good info when you have Big Sugar, Big Food, and Big Beverage shoving bad information down the masses throats.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
donutdan4114 11y ago
If anyone has any questions about starting a keto diet (high-fat, mid-protein, low-carb), feel free to ask. :) Cannot recommend it enough. It simply just works..
- bosdev 11y ago
  Can you give some example meals you eat?

jrcii 11y ago

Dr. Lustig is known for his interesting and thorough, if somewhat controversial, case against sugar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

marknutter 11y ago

Maybe the greatest danger to our health is... eating too much of any one type of thing? Alas, that doesn't grab headlines.

hcho 11y ago
Indeed. Just that somethings are easier to eat in access than others.

jug5 11y ago

No one with any semblance of nutrition background believes that fat is bad and sugar is acceptable.

pkorzeniewski 11y ago

Several years ago I was addicted to coca-cola, drinking daily even 2L - I probably exceeded the daily recommended amount of sugar 4 or 5 times. Since then I've drastically reduced sugar in my diet and luckily I never had a problem with weight, but I wonder what'll be the long-term effects of intaking so much sugar for such long time. The scary thing, now that I check the ingredients of everything I buy, is how much sugar is there in the majority of products, even in those advertised as "healthy".

cmrdporcupine 11y ago
I had a roommate who was quite large and used to drink at least one 2L of cola a day. He cut it out and went on a weight loss diet and vigorous exercise and lost around 100 pounds. But I gotta think a huge part of that was just the insane amount of excess calories in the pop. Still admire the degree of dedication he put into his lifestyle change tho.
gman2093 11y ago
There are 212 grams of sugar in a 2L of coke. According to the World Health Organization recommendation of 25g/day or fewer, that would clock in at about 8.5 times the recommended maximum. So yeah, coke has lots of sugar, even twice as much as you guessed.

tinkerrr 11y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444941 399 points | 4 days ago | 350 comments

Lidador 11y ago

My father died at 105 and was addicted to chocolate and ice-creams.

Shengbo 11y ago
My grandfather died at a similar age and he's been a smoker for decades. Doesn't make smoking any less harmful in my eyes.
pyre 11y ago
Some people are immune to HIV.

jlebrech 11y ago

there's nothing wrong with sugar other than how fast it spikes into your bloodstream.

jackfoxy 11y ago

Robert Atkins published Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution (possibly the ancestor of all the modern low-carb diets) in 1972 and credited a 1958 article in The Journal of the American Medical Association by Alfred W. Pennington. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_diet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_diet So I don't think one lone researcher figured this out in 1972.

hcs 11y ago
The article agrees that this is the case: the dangers of sugar used to be orthodoxy, but around the '70s is when sugar was de-emphasized in favor of fat to such a degree that low-carb proponents were labelled cranks. > When, in 1957, John Yudkin first floated his hypothesis that sugar was a hazard to public health, it was taken seriously, as was its proponent. By the time Yudkin retired, 14 years later, both theory and author had been marginalised and derided.

sickbeard 11y ago

The greatest danger is overeating our past our caloric limits. It's not sugar or fat or whatever, it's calories. Lets stick to that.

phil248 11y ago
But that's not true since our bodies process different foods in different ways. Marathon runners don't eat a bunch of steak fat before a run.
- mason55 11y ago
  Overall bodyweight is controlled by calories in vs. calories out. The different types of calories that you consume (fats vs. carbs vs. proteins) control things like how the extra bodyweight is stored or burned off and the signals your body gives as to whether or not you're hungry. There are a few biological pathways that you can use to your advantage but they're difficult and short-term. Your body has a very hard time storing protein as fat but that just means it will store the extra calories from carbs and fat as body fat. These discussions about "CICO only" vs. "Obviously macros matter" are always caused by people arguing two different things with each other.
  - csours 11y ago
    I think a lot of people talk past each other in these discussions. One problem is that a lot of diet fads promise magic solutions, and then people get tired of magic and revert back to CICO only. Any discussion that does not start with CICO and clearly show which side of the CICO ledger is influenced, and by what mechanism is doomed. I think maybe if we discussed CI and CO separately it would help: CI: Calories in are influenced by many things: eating habits, Macro content of food, access to good food, stress eating, satiety signals from blood sugar, leptin, ghrelin, etc. CO: Calories out are influenced by basal metabolic rate, exercise, enviromental temperature, fat storage (calories that do not get used up), etc. I would love to see a series of articles that clearly articulates the two main headings, and then goes into each item underneath, in order of impact on health overall and weight specifically

jedberg 11y ago

To everyone saying a Keto diet is great, a word of caution. Going Keto gave me kidney stones. I asked my mom, who's had both children and kidney stones, which pain was worse, and she said the pain was about the same, but at least with childbirth you get a few months warning -- stones just show up and give you excruciating pain. So it's great y'all are loosing weight (I did too!) but just be careful and drink a lot of water if you do it.

Shengbo 11y ago
Wouldn't adopting a balanced diet that's reasonably low in carbs plus some exercise achieve the desired effect but without fucking shit up in the process? I can't imagine going from a sedentary, high-carb, overweight lifestyle to a radical diet(be it keto or whatever else the person chooses) is easy on the body. Did you get any lab tests done before and after starting the diet? If you did, how did the results compare?
- jedberg 11y ago
  > Did you get any lab tests done before and after starting the diet? If you did, how did the results compare? Only my normal annual blood test. Cholesterol was down after the diet, everything else was pretty much unchanged. We never caught the stone for analysis, but the diet was pinned as the most likely cause. To be fair, I don't have enough data to say it was the diet for certain, only correlations that people who go on Keto have a higher incidence of stones than those who don't.
  - Shengbo 11y ago
    I see, thanks. It'd be interesting to have people take a lab test right before going on a keto diet and then repeating it at fixed intervals to see how it affects the results.
FreeFull 11y ago
I wonder if it's because you've been consuming too much protein, and not enough fat.

framioco 11y ago

I lost a bunch of weight doing Low Carb High Fat, but later on switched to a vegan diet (of High Carb, Low Fat) for ethical reasons. I've been keeping the weight off with the High Carb diet and I'm actually eating more than before. Please note that high carb does not mean highly processed food. I eat mostly whole foods, little processing or refining, but ultimately it is treated as 'sugar' for the body: rice, potatoes, bread, etc. I also took blood analysis after LCHF and some months after the HCLF, and pretty much all indicators either stayed the same or improved. Colesterol levels were way high during the High Fat phase, and are now back to normal levels.

shirro 11y ago

It really is about a lack of balance between our activity and our food intake and the types and quantity of food we consume. As a society we have become too good at making cheap, easy to consume food that supplies far more energy than most of us need. Sugar is one of the worst culprits perhaps but it isn't the only one. I have avoided most really sugary foods for years but with my age and activity levels eating a lot of grain based foods has pretty much the same result. Which isn't really surprising. When I have the discipline to do it what really works for me is eating more veggies. I am sure you can get fat on a vegetable heavy diet but you probably have to work a lot harder at it.

Fando 11y ago

I think people here will appreciate the following information. To understand fat production, I recommend everyone research the way a liver metabolizes sugar, and its connection to fiber - it is most important. Long story short, the liver metabolizes excess sugar into fat cells when there is not enough fiber. Presence of fiber allows excess sugar to be broken down into waste which leaves the body, avoiding production of fat cells. In essence, this is why eating a bag of apples is healthy while eating just the sugar from the same amount of apples is not. Consuming adequate amounts of fiber is key to healthy sugar consumption. If you noticed, fat people tend to not eat much fiber. The smaller the ratio of fiber to sugar the fatter you are. Simply focusing on increasing fiber consumption leads to much better health because you naturally begin to consume more vegetables and fruits which also have the nutrients. Additionally, and this is perhaps the most understated health fact. The importance of pH balance. The body depends and thrives when the environment is alkaline, and dies when it's acidic. Although acidic foods are also healthy, it's important to eat more alkaline foods than acidic. And the pH is determine only after the body digests the food. This is why for example lemons are actually one of the most alkaline foods. Especially when you're sick, eating alkaline vs acidic foods is the best way to regain immune system strength and health. _ Dr Lustig's video presentation about sugar/fiber/fat metabolism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM _ List of alkaline & acidic foods: http://www.rense.com/1.mpicons/acidalka.htm http://www.rense.com/1.mpicons/acidalka.htm

dmritard96 11y ago

I am most likely wrong or oversimplifying, but my understanding was that ultimately whatever macromolecules you are consuming, lipids, proteins, or carbohydrates all only get absorbed into the blood stream as glucose (putting on hold random nutrients like iron, vitamin XYZ etc etc). If that's the case, doesn't it not matter what the originating molecules are as long as you avoid fast highs and lows in blood glucose levels since that is the main danger presented by sugars (fastest to be broken down)?

cpplinuxdude 11y ago
I'm sorry for being the one breaking it to you, but I think you may, unfortunately, be wrong. :)
- dmritard96 11y ago
  care to elaborate? open to being wrong, but also want to see who says so and why
  - dualogy 11y ago
    > my understanding was that ultimately whatever macromolecules you are consuming, lipids, proteins, or carbohydrates all only get absorbed into the blood stream as glucose Amino acids, glucose and fatty acids are all ancient molecular structures known to all cellular life and thus can and do circulate in our blood at all times. If everything got converted into glucose during digestion, that would mean we could live entirely off candy fortified with vitamins and minerals, and produce all essential fatty acids and all essential amino acids from the glucose. Not so. PROTEINS provide amino acids, basic building blocks for near everything organic about our body (or all cellular life-forms really), not just muscles but hormones neurons etc etc. The body may convert protein into glucose but this laborious process occurs to any significant degree mostly under a prolonged lo-fat-lo-carb-hi-protein regimen or plain starvation conditions (ie post-fasting, not just normal fasting with plenty of fat reserves left, which is simply ketosis, hence protein-sparing and fat+ketone-burning). If so, this doesn't occur in the digestive tract, since glucose production (or provision from glycogen) is the job of the liver. LIPIDS aren't and cannot be converted to glucose in the digestive tract, or we wouldn't store body fat to begin with and also have essential fatty acids circulating at all times now, would we? BUT 2 triglycerides CAN donate their glycerol backbones for the production of 1 glucose molecule, and I believe this is constantly happening in ketosis when glycogen is depleted. Again, glucose production/provisioning is a liver job, not a digestive tract job. CARBohydrates of most any kind ARE converted to glucose in the digestive tract. Exceptions: fiber travels on to the colon for excretion or to be fermented by bacterial action (into I believe short-chain fatty acids and B/K vitamins) and fructose is "metabolized" into triglycerides by the liver. Since the blood needs a certain glucose level at all times (around 5g-ish), circulating glucose in excess is immediately shuttled into first: any cells that are receptive to the concurrent insulin signaling, second: glycogen storage (liver and muscles), third as a last resort converted into body fat.

Kip9000 11y ago

This type of demonising one over the other is not proper science. Sugar (in various forms) carries the energy needed for the cells to operate well, brain being the highest consumer. Balanced nutrients would be the best bet for overall wellbeing.

notLustig 11y ago

I'm seeing two major factual problems with many of the comments here. 1. In terms of determining how much weight you are going to lose/gain. A calorie is a calorie. Calories in/calories out is the secret sauce to every successful weight loss diet, even keto. That is a simple fact, backed by all of the truly solid nutritional research in modern science. 2. If we are talking about lean body mass, body fat percentage goals, healthy eating habits or disease prevention, then we should have a talk about sugar. It is certainly a variable that deserves attention. However, it is not the devil... Fat is not the devil... Meat is not the devil... Carbs are not the devil... etc. If you don't believe me, if some pop science book has convinced you that sugar is the worst thing in the world, I ask that you look into the work of Alan Aragon. A good place to start would be the following article: http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/ http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-ab...

cholantesh 11y ago
This should be the top comment. The article is full of Galileo gambit (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Galileo_gambit http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Galileo_gambit) silliness and short on evidence outside of conflating correlation with causation.
SebKba 11y ago
Regarding #1... I'm pretty sure that to digest 100kcal worth of chicken breast requires more energy for the body to do, compared to digesting 100kcal worth of Coke/sugar. It also has a different impact on your insulin levels. Living on a 3000kcal McDonalds diet will give you a different body shape compared to living on a 3000kcal diet of home cooked, organic meals. No?
- notLustig 11y ago
  For #1: the point of #1 is that body shape and insulin levels are not being considered. That point specifically only matters for weight gain/weight loss. In regards to differing energy expenditure for digestion for one food vs another, I would guess that that is a level of detail the average person would not spend their time investigating. For McD's vs home cookin, calories in/calories out still holds to be true. So, if your exercise levels are the same, then you will end up weighing approximately the same after both diets. However, lean body mass, body fat percentage, your overall health and the effect McD's has on any diseases you are fighting/trying to prevent will likely be different based on the quality of your diet and it's macronutrient distribution.

pitchka 11y ago

Again, bunch of anecdotal unscientific evidence in this thread, just like the last one. It's unbelievable that this community believes in fad diets (keto, paleo, lchf, atkins, etc.), that it is afraid of food, afraid of sugar. Sugar, carbs and fat makes you fat, not sugar alone. This scaremongering of certain types of foods is negatively influencing people to have an unhealthy relationship with food. Robert Lustig is an idiot who in his speech told a bunch of lies and presented a lot of misinformation. Is it really hard to check the facts? Checkout books below if you have any fears of any foods. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto http://www.amazon.com/Defence-Food-Nutrition-Pleasures-Eating-ebook/dp/B002RI99LY/ http://www.amazon.com/Defence-Food-Nutrition-Pleasures-Eatin... The Gluten Lie: And Other Myths About What You Eat http://www.amazon.com/Gluten-Lie-Other-Myths-About/dp/1941393063/ http://www.amazon.com/Gluten-Lie-Other-Myths-About/dp/194139...

ktRolster 11y ago

This is not really a conspiracy. We've been hearing this for four decades at least.