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This author doesn't read his own studies or check his numbers. Here's the most glaring example: > One of Lustig’s opening assertions is that The Atkins diet an

This author doesn't read his own studies or check his numbers. Here's the most glaring example: > One of Lustig’s opening assertions is that The Atkins diet and the Japanese diet share one thing in common: the absence of fructose. This is flat-out false because it implies that the Japanese don’t eat fruit. On the contrary, bananas, grapefruits, Mandarin oranges, apples, grapes, watermelons, pears, persimmons, peaches, and strawberries are significant staples of the Japanese diet [17]. Except the Japanese DON'T eat much fruit compared to Americans. It's in his own citation: Japan fruit consumption: 41.5 kg per person per year USA fruit consumption: 126.5 kg per person per year http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/wrs0406/wrs0406h.pdf http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/wrs0406/wrs0406h.pdf http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.pdf http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.pdf Americans eat over 300% more fruit than Japanese. I don't know what a "significant staple" is, but from my time in Tokyo, Osaka, the rest of Kansai, and Hokkaido, Japanese have a heck of a lot less fructose than Americans do. It's mostly rice, meat, fish, and vegetables, and the main desserts are only semi-sweet like mochi and red bean.

jerf 17y ago
The most powerful argument Lustig makes is one he barely makes any fuss about in the video, but can't just be waved aside: "I use this information to craft diets that consistently cause obese children to lose weight." If you dig into actual dietary outcomes, "a person consistently loses weight on this diet" is a milestone hardly any diet reaches. Certainly not diets based on the idea that obesity is caused by eating too much and so the solution is to eat less; those have a terrible track record. The way to cut through the scientific fog is not to argue about mechanisms and causation; the way is to look at who makes correct predictions, and consequently in the case of diets, what works and what doesn't. Fructose may not be evil, it may merely be strongly correlated with something else that is evil, but that's good enough for me, for today.
albemuth 17y ago
He also left out the fact about the fibre, Lustig never said fruit was bad, but rather the fructose <b>without</b> the rest of the fruit
paulbaumgart 17y ago
I think the point was that the Atkins diet allows for far less fruit consumption than the Japanese have on average, so grouping the two diets together as "effectively fructose-free" is incorrect.
dabent 17y ago
I also didn't think the problem was fruit, but rather things like HFCS-sweetened sodas. A banana or an apple has about 100 calories, but a 12 ounce can of soda has about 150. I know people (I was one) that will drink 32 ounces (about a liter) of soda just at lunch but won't have more than 2 pieces of fruit a day. There's also the fact that the apple or banana have fiber and other nutrients the sodas are missing. The sodas (or often other HFCS-rich foods) don't have.
- keltex 17y ago
  Agreed. If you actually watch the video it's the HFCS that's the major source of fructose, NOT fruit.
- Goladus 17y ago
  Yeah, at one point Lestig points out that generally fruit is ok because the amount of fructose in fruit is relatively low and accompanied by lots of fiber and micronutrients. Fruit also tends to be more expensive so you can't eat as much even if you wanted to. A mango is a sweet and not particularly fibrous fruit, and it's only about 15% sugar. According to nutritiondata.com, A pound of mango pulp has about 65 grams of sugar. That would probably cost about $7.00 prepared (you can get them sliced fresh at Whole Foods). According to thedailyplate, a 20oz bottle of Pepsi, which feels expensive at $1.25 as you can get liter bottles for only slightly more, has 69 grams of sugar. And like I said, mango is not a particularly low-sugar fruit. Pineapple is 8.5% sugar and the bromelain makes your mouth hurt if you eat too much. Apples 10.5%.
- msluyter 17y ago
  Actually, a banana has about 200 calories, 23g sugars, and a fairly high glycemic index: http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/1846/2 http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/1... That's why a lot of the paleo diet folks avoid them.
  - dabent 17y ago
    That's 1 cup, mashed. I looked up 1 medium banana: http://www.weightlossforall.com/calories-banana.htm http://www.weightlossforall.com/calories-banana.htm Edit: To note that I still do see your point about why certain diets avoid them. I think of bananas as the 3 Musketeers Bar of fruit. :-)
yanowitz 17y ago
Also, the author makes one of the most annoying forms of argument: "truth through averaging." "So, what’s the upper safe limit of fructose per day (all sources considered)? [Author than compares high and low estimates]... Figuring that both sides are biased, the middle figure between the two camps is roughly 50 grams for active adults." Lessee -- scientists argue that the Earth formed ~6 billion years ago, creationists say ~6000 years ago. Figuring both sides are biased, the middle figure between the two camps is roughly 3 billion years ago. So the Earth is 3 billion years old. QED.
- nixme 17y ago
  Although I don't completely agree with the author, he accuses Lustig of a similar fallacy: using the popularity of his Youtube video to justify where the truth stands. See his retrospective of the original article: http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-the-fructose-alarmism-debate/ http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-... It has a decent (although one-sided) summarization of the comments from the original.
- paulbaumgart 17y ago
  It completely depends on what probability distribution you assume for the range. If it's a normal distribution with a high confidence interval from 25g to 90g, taking the average is reasonable. For the age of the Earth example, clearly the distribution is a bit more binary. Maybe we're getting "hung up on the trivial minutia of an exact gram amount", though.
  - graywh 17y ago
    I think the word you want is "bimodal".
    - paulbaumgart 17y ago
      I guess you're technically correct, though the two peaks are almost narrow enough to be binary. :-)
henrikschroder 17y ago
He also says that: "High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is nearly identical to sucrose in structure and function." But we had this article recently on HN that shows the exact opposite: http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/91/22K07/ http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/91/22K07/
- grandalf 17y ago
  I think he must not have been aware that article... pretty embarrassing for him after he does that long, snide blog post only to have a new study blow it out of the water.
  - ajslater 17y ago
    The princeton study is very poor science. Here's a good summary of why: http://www.foodpolitics.com/2010/03/hfcs-makes-rats-fat/ http://www.foodpolitics.com/2010/03/hfcs-makes-rats-fat/ And here's a longer article about why at Ars: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/03/does-high-fructose-corn-syrup-make-you-fatter.ars http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/03/does-high-fructo...
- roc 17y ago
  To be fair, that study has a few procedural gaps that make me want to wait for confirmation and expanded testing. Even though I'm predisposed to agree with it's conclusions --or perhaps because I'm so predisposed to agree with it's conclusions-- I'd prefer to wait for better science before calling the race.
- jared314 17y ago
  The resulting chemical structure, after digestion, is the same, but with different amounts of each chemical. Sucrose is a 50/50 mix of fructose to glucose. HFCS has a customized ratio, 55/45, 42/58, or 90/10.
  - alex_stoddard 17y ago
    A sucrose molecule is just a glucose and a fructose chemically bound as a compound (so it necessarily has a 50/50 composition). But the fructose is HFCS is free, not bound to glucose. This is an interesting hypothesis for why HFCS might have such an effect compared to sucrose. From the article: "Second, as a result of the manufacturing process for high-fructose corn syrup, the fructose molecules in the sweetener are free and unbound, ready for absorption and utilization"

jerf 17y ago

The most powerful argument Lustig makes is one he barely makes any fuss about in the video, but can't just be waved aside: "I use this information to craft diets that consistently cause obese children to lose weight." If you dig into actual dietary outcomes, "a person consistently loses weight on this diet" is a milestone hardly any diet reaches. Certainly not diets based on the idea that obesity is caused by eating too much and so the solution is to eat less; those have a terrible track record. The way to cut through the scientific fog is not to argue about mechanisms and causation; the way is to look at who makes correct predictions, and consequently in the case of diets, what works and what doesn't. Fructose may not be evil, it may merely be strongly correlated with something else that is evil, but that's good enough for me, for today.

albemuth 17y ago

He also left out the fact about the fibre, Lustig never said fruit was bad, but rather the fructose <b>without</b> the rest of the fruit

paulbaumgart 17y ago

I think the point was that the Atkins diet allows for far less fruit consumption than the Japanese have on average, so grouping the two diets together as "effectively fructose-free" is incorrect.

dabent 17y ago

I also didn't think the problem was fruit, but rather things like HFCS-sweetened sodas. A banana or an apple has about 100 calories, but a 12 ounce can of soda has about 150. I know people (I was one) that will drink 32 ounces (about a liter) of soda just at lunch but won't have more than 2 pieces of fruit a day. There's also the fact that the apple or banana have fiber and other nutrients the sodas are missing. The sodas (or often other HFCS-rich foods) don't have.

keltex 17y ago
Agreed. If you actually watch the video it's the HFCS that's the major source of fructose, NOT fruit.
Goladus 17y ago
Yeah, at one point Lestig points out that generally fruit is ok because the amount of fructose in fruit is relatively low and accompanied by lots of fiber and micronutrients. Fruit also tends to be more expensive so you can't eat as much even if you wanted to. A mango is a sweet and not particularly fibrous fruit, and it's only about 15% sugar. According to nutritiondata.com, A pound of mango pulp has about 65 grams of sugar. That would probably cost about $7.00 prepared (you can get them sliced fresh at Whole Foods). According to thedailyplate, a 20oz bottle of Pepsi, which feels expensive at $1.25 as you can get liter bottles for only slightly more, has 69 grams of sugar. And like I said, mango is not a particularly low-sugar fruit. Pineapple is 8.5% sugar and the bromelain makes your mouth hurt if you eat too much. Apples 10.5%.
msluyter 17y ago
Actually, a banana has about 200 calories, 23g sugars, and a fairly high glycemic index: http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/1846/2 http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/1... That's why a lot of the paleo diet folks avoid them.
- dabent 17y ago
  That's 1 cup, mashed. I looked up 1 medium banana: http://www.weightlossforall.com/calories-banana.htm http://www.weightlossforall.com/calories-banana.htm Edit: To note that I still do see your point about why certain diets avoid them. I think of bananas as the 3 Musketeers Bar of fruit. :-)

yanowitz 17y ago

Also, the author makes one of the most annoying forms of argument: "truth through averaging." "So, what’s the upper safe limit of fructose per day (all sources considered)? [Author than compares high and low estimates]... Figuring that both sides are biased, the middle figure between the two camps is roughly 50 grams for active adults." Lessee -- scientists argue that the Earth formed ~6 billion years ago, creationists say ~6000 years ago. Figuring both sides are biased, the middle figure between the two camps is roughly 3 billion years ago. So the Earth is 3 billion years old. QED.

nixme 17y ago
Although I don't completely agree with the author, he accuses Lustig of a similar fallacy: using the popularity of his Youtube video to justify where the truth stands. See his retrospective of the original article: http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-the-fructose-alarmism-debate/ http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-... It has a decent (although one-sided) summarization of the comments from the original.
paulbaumgart 17y ago
It completely depends on what probability distribution you assume for the range. If it's a normal distribution with a high confidence interval from 25g to 90g, taking the average is reasonable. For the age of the Earth example, clearly the distribution is a bit more binary. Maybe we're getting "hung up on the trivial minutia of an exact gram amount", though.
- graywh 17y ago
  I think the word you want is "bimodal".
  - paulbaumgart 17y ago
    I guess you're technically correct, though the two peaks are almost narrow enough to be binary. :-)

henrikschroder 17y ago

He also says that: "High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is nearly identical to sucrose in structure and function." But we had this article recently on HN that shows the exact opposite: http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/91/22K07/ http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/91/22K07/

grandalf 17y ago
I think he must not have been aware that article... pretty embarrassing for him after he does that long, snide blog post only to have a new study blow it out of the water.
- ajslater 17y ago
  The princeton study is very poor science. Here's a good summary of why: http://www.foodpolitics.com/2010/03/hfcs-makes-rats-fat/ http://www.foodpolitics.com/2010/03/hfcs-makes-rats-fat/ And here's a longer article about why at Ars: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/03/does-high-fructose-corn-syrup-make-you-fatter.ars http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/03/does-high-fructo...
roc 17y ago
To be fair, that study has a few procedural gaps that make me want to wait for confirmation and expanded testing. Even though I'm predisposed to agree with it's conclusions --or perhaps because I'm so predisposed to agree with it's conclusions-- I'd prefer to wait for better science before calling the race.
jared314 17y ago
The resulting chemical structure, after digestion, is the same, but with different amounts of each chemical. Sucrose is a 50/50 mix of fructose to glucose. HFCS has a customized ratio, 55/45, 42/58, or 90/10.
- alex_stoddard 17y ago
  A sucrose molecule is just a glucose and a fructose chemically bound as a compound (so it necessarily has a 50/50 composition). But the fructose is HFCS is free, not bound to glucose. This is an interesting hypothesis for why HFCS might have such an effect compared to sucrose. From the article: "Second, as a result of the manufacturing process for high-fructose corn syrup, the fructose molecules in the sweetener are free and unbound, ready for absorption and utilization"