6 ms·

I know HN hate anecdotal stories, but here goes anyways. 6 months ago, despite my regular exercise routine, I was about 20 pounds over my college weight and pre

by lbenes 10y ago

I know HN hate anecdotal stories, but here goes anyways. 6 months ago, despite my regular exercise routine, I was about 20 pounds over my college weight and prediabetic. Instead of following my doctor’s recommendations and going on Metformin, I cut all nearly sugars out of my diet and replaced it with sucralose, fat, and fiber. Now, exactly 5 lbs sugar equivalent of sucralose later, and I’m back to my college weight. While I hate the idea of artificial sweeteners, I hated the idea of a lifetime of medications and being overweight. Everyone's body is different, but for me they played a huge role in getting my health back.

fpgaminer 10y ago
> While I hate the idea of artificial sweeteners Don't take this as a personal attack on your opinion, but I just don't understand this. The distinction that we make between artificial chemicals and natural chemicals seems to be whether it was invented by humans or invented by evolution. That's a fine distinction to make, but why are human invented chemicals seen as the _worse_ of the two? When evolution invents a chemical it's completely random and untested. When humans invent a chemical they vet it through rigorous study and testing. Given a random chemical from nature and a random chemical from human labs, I'll take my chances on humans. Real-life examples of evolution engineering... heart conditions, dementia, HIV, anemia, etc. Anemia is a good example, because it makes humans immune to malaria. Just a few side effects though... I feel like our track record is stellar compared to all the follies of evolution. So why are our chemicals viewed in such a negative light compared to these Loki designed chemicals? It's absurd. Speaking specifically about sugar versus artificial sweeteners, all our studies to date have indicated that sugar is decidedly toxic at average consumption levels, whereas sucralose/aspartame is non-toxic. Again, it seems like nature designed a worse chemical than us.
- ewzimm 10y ago
  I think it comes down to trust. We're part of nature, created by it and in it. The naturally created chemicals we deal with have been around for longer than we have. We have generations of people who have tested them for both short-term and long-term effects. When things previously thought safe start to harm us, it's usually because of changes in processing, like adding sugar to everything. Human-created chemicals are much more of a risk. They might only have existed for a few years, and the amount of testing done is nothing compared to the history of evolution on Earth. We are creating them with an imperfect understanding of chemistry and biology. Many people simply prefer an imperfect but reliable solution over a potentially much better but also riskier option. Not everyone is going to be able to personally vet the safety of new chemicals, so they have to trust the manufacturers who often prioritize profits over safety, confident that they will be able to pay for damages. Consumers need a better reason to trust the people pushing artificial chemicals in food because right now it's hard for them to see their interests as aligned with the companies that make them.
  - fpgaminer 10y ago
    I can certainly see that, especially the corrupt companies side of things. But the argument doesn't make sense for anyone over 30 years old. Pre-industrial humans had a lifespan of about 30-50 years (30 years in-city, 50 years outside of city for most all of human history). Those are the humans who vetted all these natural chemicals; people who died at 30. If you're over 30, you're in unknown territory when it comes to natural chemicals. Human derived chemicals and engineering have given us over 40 extra years of life. That's more than double our previous lifespans. So on the one hand you can trust nature and live for 30 years (which would mean most everyone on HN is either now dead or getting ready to die), or you can trust humans and live for 70 years. That, to me, is clear evidence that despite the rare incidences of human negligence and corruption our batting average far exceeds evolution's.
    - dualogy 10y ago
      > Human derived chemicals and engineering have given us over 40 extra years of life. Yeah well to some degree of participation.. chiefly we have reduced maternal death rate & early childhood mortality; (re)discovered/refined/improved-upon/better-understood what compounds at what dosage made traditional/herbal/ancient antiseptic/antibiotic/antifungal tinctures actually work and how to turn them into more reliable pharmaceuticals, developed ever better understanding of nourishment and hygiene and surgery, and figured out intravenous saline/nutrient infusions. Those are the major contributors to "moderns' longer lives", and any pre-moderns who managed to circumvent all the above health hazards lived pretty much almost as long as us today (and was greatly revered admired respected and consulted for it by all). "Human derived chemicals and engineering" clearly contributed quite a bit here, no argument. But it's not like some chemists churned out a formula that added 40 additional years to an otherwise-strictly-30-year-lifespan just-like-that.
      - fpgaminer 10y ago
        Citation needed. All credible research I've seen indicates that age specific mortality has decreased over the ages (from city living onward) across the board, not just infant mortality.
- christophilus 10y ago
  I'm on the fence on this one. Here's the logic of the anti-artificial crowd, as best I can put it... Humans have evolved alongside natural systems. And if humans have been eating something for a very long time, it's probably alright to eat. If a new sugar-like substance came into existence, it would probably come into existence as incremental changes to an existing system. Let's say that existing system was a staple food source for humans. Humans would gradually change as their food source changed, and adapt to it... Or, that food source would gradually become toxic to humans, and we would stop eating it. Now, take human-invented stuff. You have a sudden new thing which hasn't had generations of humans munching on it. Some lab tests show that it's great. But who really knows? Biology is super complex. And lab tests often have questionable funding and incentives. Consider the day that wonder-bread was introduced to the world. Old-school fermented sourdough bread had been eaten for a very long time by healthy humans. Wonder-bread had various chemicals tested in isolation which had proved to be positive for health (iron, calcium, etc). But now that enough time has passed, I don't think anyone looking back would suggest that wonder-bread is preferable to traditional sourdough fermentation. Asbestos is another good example. We thought the stuff was just the best thing ever. Turns out, in the very long run, it's pretty bad news. So, there's a certain logic to trusting evolved-systems over human-designed systems.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Soft white sandwich bread was an aspirational food. People didn't start eating it because they were excited about the health benefits of fortified flour, they started eating it because they had been taught to believe that white flour was a sign of wealth. The government decided to fortify flour because deficiency diseases are pretty stupid to put up with when you know how to prevent them. This happened quite some time after modern milling brought nutrition-less white flour to the masses. And to be clear, at one point, refined flour was a sign of wealth and status: http://contemporaryfoodlab.com/hungry-world/2015/09/white-is-the-warmest-color-a-history-of-refined-flour/ http://contemporaryfoodlab.com/hungry-world/2015/09/white-is... .
  - ac29 10y ago
    >Asbestos is another good example. We thought the stuff was just the best thing ever. Turns out, in the very long run, it's pretty bad news. Asbestos isn't manmade, its a naturally occurring set of minerals [1]. It was obviously put into various man-made objects, but the fiber itself is naturally occurring. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos
- devishard 10y ago
  > When evolution invents a chemical it's completely random and untested. This is where I think your argument breaks down a bit. Let's take your example of sugar: humans have been consuming sugar since before it would be reasonable to call them humans. That's why our bodies have adapted to crave sugars and seek them out--because they have been tested by evolution and found to contribute to survival and reproduction. And when you say that sugar is decidedly toxic at average consumption levels, you're correct, but that's a human-created problem: the levels of sugar naturally occurring in the fruits a person could obtain, say, 10,000 years ago, were much, much lower than the levels we can obtain by harvesting massive fields of sugar cane, sugar beets, and corn, and refining the sugar from them. So evolution did test sugars, and then humans refined them to a far greater extent than nature did and, without adequate testing, integrated sugars into our diet to an extent that's culturally very difficult to reverse even though we now know it's deadly. And the same goes for a lot of things: coca, consumed in leaf form, is relatively safe and effective for treating altitude sickness, but when refined and mass produced becomes cocaine. Alcohol when consumed from rotting fruit has little danger until it's produced in quantity and consistency that enables alcoholism. Chances are, if there's a whole chunk of plant that humans have been interacting with for millennia, it's pretty safe because it has been tested, but refinement processes invented by humans bring otherwise safe chemicals into concentrations and quantities that become unsafe. And while we do test these things, it's often after-the-fact, too late, or just completely ignored. To be clear, I'm not advocating a "things from nature are better" stance. GMO grain has saved millions of lives. Most of the medicines out there are the results of human innovation. And there are plenty of poisonous plants out there which are perfectly natural. What I am advocating is that the human track record versus evolution track record is pretty bogus, and vulnerable to selection bias. The fact is, that's just not even a good way to choose whether to consume something. We rarely have enough information to make an informed choice. Even when we study something for a decade we don't completely understand that. So in the absence of information, basing our decision on "organisms pretty biologically similar to me have survived by interacting with this other organism for millions of years" is not a metric to be dicarded.
- secstate 10y ago
  My take? Zero-calorie sweeteners have no practical reason to exist. It is a marketer's pursuit to make us consume food in ever vaster quantities while being guilt free. What we should be doing is reducing our sugar intake given that most of us are no longer living on the edge of caloric survival. But that's hard, and not doing it comes with guilt and health issues. So instead we create a chemical that provides all the pleasure of eating with none of the caloric benefits. Calorie-free food is pure hedonism. Not bad in and of itself, but to the extent we in the developed world have taken it, something to be just a little bit ashamed of.
  - bobdole1234 10y ago
    You say hedonism like it's a bad thing. Life is short, why are you heaping guilt about enjoying something on a pleasure like eating?
finnh 10y ago
If I'm reading you correctly, you eat nearly a pound of sugar per month? And your doctor recommended something called "Metformin" instead of saying "don't eat so much sugar"? Maybe you need a new doctor to go along with your new sweetener =)
- jklinger410 10y ago
  >you eat nearly a pound of sugar per month? You don't?
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Not raw sugar added to food, which is sort of implied in the ggp comment. It's at least not clear if they mean a 5 pound bag of sweetener or 5 pounds net.
    - lbenes 10y ago
      Sucralose is 600x sweeter than sugar so it's sold by equivalent volume serving. I consumed the equivalent of 5lbs of sugar by volume in 6 months. This may sound like a lot if you eat out every meal, but I eat breakfast and dinner at home. I use/d sucralose/sugar in my coffee, oatmeal, iced-tea and homemade desserts. A lot of people here say I should have just cut sugar and dealt with it. I missed it way too much. Before the first week of my low/no sugar diet was over, I was about to throw in the towel. With sucralose, I've made it 6 months now.
- ruste 10y ago
  A pound of sugar a month is only 15ish grams per day. You get more than twice that in a can of coke.
Grishnakh 10y ago
Ok, here's my anecdotal story: about 12 years ago, I was probably 40 pounds over my college weight. So I stopped drinking sodas every day, and drank water instead. I also got more exercise. (I also cut out stuff with hydrogenated oils, trans fats, etc.) Now I'm back to my college weight. I don't use sucralose, and I really don't see why you need to.
vl 10y ago
But why would you use sucralose/sweetener at all?

by lbenes 10y ago

fpgaminer 10y ago

> While I hate the idea of artificial sweeteners Don't take this as a personal attack on your opinion, but I just don't understand this. The distinction that we make between artificial chemicals and natural chemicals seems to be whether it was invented by humans or invented by evolution. That's a fine distinction to make, but why are human invented chemicals seen as the _worse_ of the two? When evolution invents a chemical it's completely random and untested. When humans invent a chemical they vet it through rigorous study and testing. Given a random chemical from nature and a random chemical from human labs, I'll take my chances on humans. Real-life examples of evolution engineering... heart conditions, dementia, HIV, anemia, etc. Anemia is a good example, because it makes humans immune to malaria. Just a few side effects though... I feel like our track record is stellar compared to all the follies of evolution. So why are our chemicals viewed in such a negative light compared to these Loki designed chemicals? It's absurd. Speaking specifically about sugar versus artificial sweeteners, all our studies to date have indicated that sugar is decidedly toxic at average consumption levels, whereas sucralose/aspartame is non-toxic. Again, it seems like nature designed a worse chemical than us.

ewzimm 10y ago
I think it comes down to trust. We're part of nature, created by it and in it. The naturally created chemicals we deal with have been around for longer than we have. We have generations of people who have tested them for both short-term and long-term effects. When things previously thought safe start to harm us, it's usually because of changes in processing, like adding sugar to everything. Human-created chemicals are much more of a risk. They might only have existed for a few years, and the amount of testing done is nothing compared to the history of evolution on Earth. We are creating them with an imperfect understanding of chemistry and biology. Many people simply prefer an imperfect but reliable solution over a potentially much better but also riskier option. Not everyone is going to be able to personally vet the safety of new chemicals, so they have to trust the manufacturers who often prioritize profits over safety, confident that they will be able to pay for damages. Consumers need a better reason to trust the people pushing artificial chemicals in food because right now it's hard for them to see their interests as aligned with the companies that make them.
- fpgaminer 10y ago
  I can certainly see that, especially the corrupt companies side of things. But the argument doesn't make sense for anyone over 30 years old. Pre-industrial humans had a lifespan of about 30-50 years (30 years in-city, 50 years outside of city for most all of human history). Those are the humans who vetted all these natural chemicals; people who died at 30. If you're over 30, you're in unknown territory when it comes to natural chemicals. Human derived chemicals and engineering have given us over 40 extra years of life. That's more than double our previous lifespans. So on the one hand you can trust nature and live for 30 years (which would mean most everyone on HN is either now dead or getting ready to die), or you can trust humans and live for 70 years. That, to me, is clear evidence that despite the rare incidences of human negligence and corruption our batting average far exceeds evolution's.
  - dualogy 10y ago
    > Human derived chemicals and engineering have given us over 40 extra years of life. Yeah well to some degree of participation.. chiefly we have reduced maternal death rate & early childhood mortality; (re)discovered/refined/improved-upon/better-understood what compounds at what dosage made traditional/herbal/ancient antiseptic/antibiotic/antifungal tinctures actually work and how to turn them into more reliable pharmaceuticals, developed ever better understanding of nourishment and hygiene and surgery, and figured out intravenous saline/nutrient infusions. Those are the major contributors to "moderns' longer lives", and any pre-moderns who managed to circumvent all the above health hazards lived pretty much almost as long as us today (and was greatly revered admired respected and consulted for it by all). "Human derived chemicals and engineering" clearly contributed quite a bit here, no argument. But it's not like some chemists churned out a formula that added 40 additional years to an otherwise-strictly-30-year-lifespan just-like-that.
    - fpgaminer 10y ago
      Citation needed. All credible research I've seen indicates that age specific mortality has decreased over the ages (from city living onward) across the board, not just infant mortality.
christophilus 10y ago
I'm on the fence on this one. Here's the logic of the anti-artificial crowd, as best I can put it... Humans have evolved alongside natural systems. And if humans have been eating something for a very long time, it's probably alright to eat. If a new sugar-like substance came into existence, it would probably come into existence as incremental changes to an existing system. Let's say that existing system was a staple food source for humans. Humans would gradually change as their food source changed, and adapt to it... Or, that food source would gradually become toxic to humans, and we would stop eating it. Now, take human-invented stuff. You have a sudden new thing which hasn't had generations of humans munching on it. Some lab tests show that it's great. But who really knows? Biology is super complex. And lab tests often have questionable funding and incentives. Consider the day that wonder-bread was introduced to the world. Old-school fermented sourdough bread had been eaten for a very long time by healthy humans. Wonder-bread had various chemicals tested in isolation which had proved to be positive for health (iron, calcium, etc). But now that enough time has passed, I don't think anyone looking back would suggest that wonder-bread is preferable to traditional sourdough fermentation. Asbestos is another good example. We thought the stuff was just the best thing ever. Turns out, in the very long run, it's pretty bad news. So, there's a certain logic to trusting evolved-systems over human-designed systems.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Soft white sandwich bread was an aspirational food. People didn't start eating it because they were excited about the health benefits of fortified flour, they started eating it because they had been taught to believe that white flour was a sign of wealth. The government decided to fortify flour because deficiency diseases are pretty stupid to put up with when you know how to prevent them. This happened quite some time after modern milling brought nutrition-less white flour to the masses. And to be clear, at one point, refined flour was a sign of wealth and status: http://contemporaryfoodlab.com/hungry-world/2015/09/white-is-the-warmest-color-a-history-of-refined-flour/ http://contemporaryfoodlab.com/hungry-world/2015/09/white-is... .
- ac29 10y ago
  >Asbestos is another good example. We thought the stuff was just the best thing ever. Turns out, in the very long run, it's pretty bad news. Asbestos isn't manmade, its a naturally occurring set of minerals [1]. It was obviously put into various man-made objects, but the fiber itself is naturally occurring. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos
devishard 10y ago
> When evolution invents a chemical it's completely random and untested. This is where I think your argument breaks down a bit. Let's take your example of sugar: humans have been consuming sugar since before it would be reasonable to call them humans. That's why our bodies have adapted to crave sugars and seek them out--because they have been tested by evolution and found to contribute to survival and reproduction. And when you say that sugar is decidedly toxic at average consumption levels, you're correct, but that's a human-created problem: the levels of sugar naturally occurring in the fruits a person could obtain, say, 10,000 years ago, were much, much lower than the levels we can obtain by harvesting massive fields of sugar cane, sugar beets, and corn, and refining the sugar from them. So evolution did test sugars, and then humans refined them to a far greater extent than nature did and, without adequate testing, integrated sugars into our diet to an extent that's culturally very difficult to reverse even though we now know it's deadly. And the same goes for a lot of things: coca, consumed in leaf form, is relatively safe and effective for treating altitude sickness, but when refined and mass produced becomes cocaine. Alcohol when consumed from rotting fruit has little danger until it's produced in quantity and consistency that enables alcoholism. Chances are, if there's a whole chunk of plant that humans have been interacting with for millennia, it's pretty safe because it has been tested, but refinement processes invented by humans bring otherwise safe chemicals into concentrations and quantities that become unsafe. And while we do test these things, it's often after-the-fact, too late, or just completely ignored. To be clear, I'm not advocating a "things from nature are better" stance. GMO grain has saved millions of lives. Most of the medicines out there are the results of human innovation. And there are plenty of poisonous plants out there which are perfectly natural. What I am advocating is that the human track record versus evolution track record is pretty bogus, and vulnerable to selection bias. The fact is, that's just not even a good way to choose whether to consume something. We rarely have enough information to make an informed choice. Even when we study something for a decade we don't completely understand that. So in the absence of information, basing our decision on "organisms pretty biologically similar to me have survived by interacting with this other organism for millions of years" is not a metric to be dicarded.
secstate 10y ago
My take? Zero-calorie sweeteners have no practical reason to exist. It is a marketer's pursuit to make us consume food in ever vaster quantities while being guilt free. What we should be doing is reducing our sugar intake given that most of us are no longer living on the edge of caloric survival. But that's hard, and not doing it comes with guilt and health issues. So instead we create a chemical that provides all the pleasure of eating with none of the caloric benefits. Calorie-free food is pure hedonism. Not bad in and of itself, but to the extent we in the developed world have taken it, something to be just a little bit ashamed of.
- bobdole1234 10y ago
  You say hedonism like it's a bad thing. Life is short, why are you heaping guilt about enjoying something on a pleasure like eating?

finnh 10y ago

If I'm reading you correctly, you eat nearly a pound of sugar per month? And your doctor recommended something called "Metformin" instead of saying "don't eat so much sugar"? Maybe you need a new doctor to go along with your new sweetener =)

jklinger410 10y ago
>you eat nearly a pound of sugar per month? You don't?
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Not raw sugar added to food, which is sort of implied in the ggp comment. It's at least not clear if they mean a 5 pound bag of sweetener or 5 pounds net.
  - lbenes 10y ago
    Sucralose is 600x sweeter than sugar so it's sold by equivalent volume serving. I consumed the equivalent of 5lbs of sugar by volume in 6 months. This may sound like a lot if you eat out every meal, but I eat breakfast and dinner at home. I use/d sucralose/sugar in my coffee, oatmeal, iced-tea and homemade desserts. A lot of people here say I should have just cut sugar and dealt with it. I missed it way too much. Before the first week of my low/no sugar diet was over, I was about to throw in the towel. With sucralose, I've made it 6 months now.
ruste 10y ago
A pound of sugar a month is only 15ish grams per day. You get more than twice that in a can of coke.

Grishnakh 10y ago

Ok, here's my anecdotal story: about 12 years ago, I was probably 40 pounds over my college weight. So I stopped drinking sodas every day, and drank water instead. I also got more exercise. (I also cut out stuff with hydrogenated oils, trans fats, etc.) Now I'm back to my college weight. I don't use sucralose, and I really don't see why you need to.

vl 10y ago

But why would you use sucralose/sweetener at all?