11 ms·

The Bitter Truth About Sugar

79 points by phaedrus 16y ago

zyb09 16y ago
Yea, no news for the HN crowd I guess. Good to see that more and more sources report on the dangers of sugar. Low-fat mentality is still the common opinion for healthy food and this non-sense really needs to change.
- chipsy 16y ago
  Nobody deserves to have to go so far out of their way and do tons of research to achieve a healthful diet, though, and most people can't or won't due to ignorance, stress, money, or any number of other problems in their life. Real solutions should be coming top-down to the consumer, so that you would have to really go out of your way to eat a "vice meal." As it is, companies seem to have barely budged for any of the trends of the last decade - it's easier to sell addiction, after all. But I've often thought that there's probably a lot of room for innovative approaches to the food service business that try to take on these problems and make it sexy to eat greens and drink tea.
  - karzeem 16y ago
    One big issue is that health advocates spend 99% of their time telling people what not to eat. That doesn't work because, as you say, people aren't going to think, "Now that I know not to eat x, I'll take the initiative to figure out what I should be eating instead." I think Whole Foods (among others) has realized this and capitalizes on it. It eliminates the guesswork. "Come into the store and get whatever you want. You can't mess up because it's all healthy/sustainable/whatever." (Of course, it's not really all healthy/sustainable/whatever, but it's certainly harder to go wrong at Whole Foods than it is at Safeway.)
    - starkfist 16y ago
      I dunno about Whole Foods. I find it pretty easy to "go wrong" every time I shop there. The percentage of food at Whole Foods that is actually "healthy" is probably the same percentage as Safeway.
      - pyre 16y ago
        At Whole Foods a lot of the things that end up being really cheap from no-name brands at traditional markets are coming from brands that have extra mark-up for being organic or slightly out of the norm. So it's easier to not buy it due to the price? In general, most of the cheap bulk food that you can get out there ends up being not so great for you from a health standpoint. It's a lot less expensive to buy a bagged cereal knock-off of some highly sweetened cereal (Cocoa Puffs, etc) than to buy some sort of granola cereal. [That said, I haven't done any direct comparisons to the bulk pricing on oatmeal or grits.]
        starkfist 16y ago
        What I meant is that Whole Foods carries just as much junk food as Safeway. There are entire sections of chips, cookies, candy, beer, cheese, ice cream and so forth. You can easily go in and buy nothing that's good for you. I do it all the time. Sadly, organic vegan potato chips aren't really any better for you than Ruffles... Slightly off-topic. I've lived in the alternate universes of NYC and SF for the past 10 years, and for many staples, Whole Foods has the cheapest options. The canned house brand beans have almost no sodium and cost 89 cents a can. In comparison, Goya brand, the cheap option at Safeway, wloaded with sodium, cost about the same. Produce at WF and Safeway can be about the same, especially if you buy organic. It really depends on the season and location. The house brand seltzer is about the same as any house brand seltzer and much cheaper than Schweppes or Canada Dry. Safeway in SF is really only cheaper if you are loading up on junk food for the superbowl game. I don't really make any meat at home and I'm allergic to dairy so I don't know how meat, milk and cheese compares. WF is actually FAR cheaper than any of the bodegas or small grocery stores in Brooklyn for any item. Buying fruit or vegetables in Brooklyn is usurious almost anywhere besides Fairway foods in Red Hook, or the Farmer's Market.
    - robryan 16y ago
      It's a good point, without spending a lot of time looking into it myself I always get the impression that nearly everything I can make is considered unhealthy in some way. I know there are so many recipes and cookbooks out there but it is hard to know what attributes you should be aiming for in food.
Tim_M 16y ago
Previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1006980 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1006980
Jun8 16y ago
"Scientific innovation is pushing human longevity past the traditional limits. Yet despite this upward trend, we’re still not much smarter about what we put in our bodies. " I expect medicine to solve problems caused by my bad habits rather than preach me about them! This is to say that sugar is my only vice (I don't drink, do drugs, gamble, drive dangerously, or eat too much meat) and I'm not quite ready to give it up. You may find that infantile but if the great things in life are taken away (or substituted with tofu), what remains?
- dwwoelfel 16y ago
  I disagree with this sentiment. Life isn't about chasing momentary pleasures at the expense of long-term values. What remains? A long healthy life free from obesity, lack of energy, gum disease, etc. Try giving up sweet things for a month or two, then drink a coke. If you're like me, you'll find that it's too sweet and you won't want another. But you can't cheat and use splenda or some other sugar substitute.
- chipsy 16y ago
  It's a change in material lifestyle. We know from studies, collective experience, and numerous spiritual teachings that happiness doesn't actually come from that form of pleasure, but it remains desirable and hard to change regardless. (For my part, I've got quite a thing for the noncaloric sweeteners and meat with the evil sodium nitrite. Neither of them have noticeable immediate effects on me, which is how I've changed my habits elsewhere, so I'm kind of stuck on how to progress with them.)
- karzeem 16y ago
  Your expectation is a worthwhile ideal, but it's very far out of the reach of modern medicine. Doctors are pretty good at treating symptoms, but when it comes to root causes of serious diseases, they're pretty bad at treating them without inflicting collateral damage on some other body system. Especially if the treatment involves disrupting a body process designed by evolution. The body owes as much of its function to the ways its systems interact as it does to the individual systems. And we're pretty much at a loss when it comes to tracing the mechanism of those interactions. In other words, I strongly suspect that until we're all flying around Mars in hover cars, any "don't worry about sugar anymore" treatment will end up being harmful in some insidious, not-discovered-until-years-later way.
henryw 16y ago
saw the video a few months ago by recommendation from a friend. it is really really good. it has a slow start, but if you can finish the 90 min video, you will learn a lot about eating right and imho it's worth your time. direct link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM&feature=player_embedded# http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM&feature=playe...!
kellishaver 16y ago
I cut all refined sugars out of my diet about a month ago, with a few rare exceptions (the occasional meal out with friends, for instance, which may happen once a month). Basically, it has been life-changing. I have more energy, I sleep better, I don't have the stomach/digestive problems I used to, I don't get the daily headaches, my blood pressure is lower, I don't get as hungry, and I've lost 12lbs (with exercise, too).
- pierrefar 16y ago
  How can you attribute the benefits you're seeing to cutting sugar, when there is a ton of evidence saying exercise gives these exact benefits?
  - tome 16y ago
    Presumably a lot of things give the exact same benefits. The OP's post sounds like a generic description of "I'm healthier". He said he cut out sugar; he didn't say he exercised more. I'm guessing that's why he thinks the cause was the sugar.
    - kellishaver 16y ago
      Yes, this. My level of exercise hasn't really changed. I just didn't want to imply that I was sitting around doing nothing, and losing weight solely from the sugar. I'm sure the exercise was a huge part of that, but I definitely saw more weight loss the past month after cutting out the sugar than I did previously from the same level of activity.
  - pkulak 16y ago
    Actually, excercise alone won't usually make you lose weight.
- forgottenpaswrd 16y ago
  I did the same thing years ago. Occasionally I eat honey. I didn't had health problems, but I got a lot more energy during the day(first I cut alcohol that really makes me want to sleep).
Bjoern 16y ago
A good alternative for a sweet tooth is Honey. Not the cheap rubbish but the good stuff (e.g. UMF 10+). Manuka Honey even has antibacterial benefits and tastes great.
- rsheridan6 16y ago
  And it's loaded with sugar, just like high fructose corn syrup or cane sugar.
  - OrangeGuutan 16y ago
    There are different types of sugars. High fructose corn syrup is usually either 55% fructose and 45% glucose, or 42% fructose and 58% glucose. Honey is about 40% fructose, 30% glucose, along with sucrose and maltose. It's also known to have antimicrobial and antioxidant effects. Equating high fructose corn syrup with honey is a major oversimplification.
    - rsheridan6 16y ago
      Not really. The proportions of fructose and glucose are similar - actually worse if you buy Lustig's theory that the fructose is the most harmful part of sugar and HFCS. Sucrose is quickly broken down into sucrose and fructose - according to Lustig there's no clinically important difference between sucrose and HFCS. I doubt that a little bit of maltose makes much difference, antimicrobial effects aren't going to save you from diabetes, and the results of clinical trials for antioxidants have been underwhelming - they aren't going to save you from diabetes or metabolic syndrome. Honey is just more unhealthy crap, even if it's natural. Same with agave juice. Sugar is sugar.
elai 16y ago
People living in different, default thin/rare diabetic cultures don't have magical diet information, often they know nothing! It's just the default diet or 'food culture' results in those results. In the 60s/70s most people were fairly thin, and the smoking gun points to north america's changing food culture, more sedentary work and transportation and food industry marketing research, even though there is a much greater awareness now about food and diet than back then.
somebear 16y ago
Researchers from the Bartholin Institute at the Danish national hospital have found a correlation between intake of refined sugar and type-1 diabetes. There is still quite a bit of controversy over whether an increased intake of refined sugar does lead to type-1 diabetes, with researchers from the Danish Diabetes association dissenting. Unfortunately, the only information I could find about this research was in Danish, but feel free to read the (translated) newspaper article here: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fpolitiken.dk%2Ftjek%2Fsundhedogmotion%2Fborn%2Farticle991371.ece&sl=auto&tl=en http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&h...
zeynel1 16y ago
towards the end of the article he writes --we as consumers have more power than we think when it comes to dictating food industry trends which could advocate for a healthier population in the long run-- but gives no explanation -how- we have more power dictating food industry - it seems to me that we have no power - food industry dictates what we eat - and we have to make an effort to protect ourselves from forming habits dictated by the food industry
- Lendal 16y ago
  The 'food industry' doesn't dictate what you eat. The 'food industry' provides you with many choices at many different stores and restaurants. You just choose the unhealthy ones. That's not the food industry's fault. Make better choices.
  - zeynel1 16y ago
    the way i understand it -food industry- refers to these global corporations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_industry#Prominent_Food_Companies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_industry#Prominent_Food_Co... rather than local restaurants but you are right at least here in new york there are many choices to eat healthy - but my point is that we need to make an effort to sustain a healthy diet because the global food industry is pushing for us to consume highly processed food sold by them
asdflkj 16y ago
The guy in the video says energy expenditure and feeling good are synonymous. How about with opiates?

79 points by phaedrus 16y ago

zyb09 16y ago

Yea, no news for the HN crowd I guess. Good to see that more and more sources report on the dangers of sugar. Low-fat mentality is still the common opinion for healthy food and this non-sense really needs to change.

chipsy 16y ago
Nobody deserves to have to go so far out of their way and do tons of research to achieve a healthful diet, though, and most people can't or won't due to ignorance, stress, money, or any number of other problems in their life. Real solutions should be coming top-down to the consumer, so that you would have to really go out of your way to eat a "vice meal." As it is, companies seem to have barely budged for any of the trends of the last decade - it's easier to sell addiction, after all. But I've often thought that there's probably a lot of room for innovative approaches to the food service business that try to take on these problems and make it sexy to eat greens and drink tea.
- karzeem 16y ago
  One big issue is that health advocates spend 99% of their time telling people what not to eat. That doesn't work because, as you say, people aren't going to think, "Now that I know not to eat x, I'll take the initiative to figure out what I should be eating instead." I think Whole Foods (among others) has realized this and capitalizes on it. It eliminates the guesswork. "Come into the store and get whatever you want. You can't mess up because it's all healthy/sustainable/whatever." (Of course, it's not really all healthy/sustainable/whatever, but it's certainly harder to go wrong at Whole Foods than it is at Safeway.)
  - starkfist 16y ago
    I dunno about Whole Foods. I find it pretty easy to "go wrong" every time I shop there. The percentage of food at Whole Foods that is actually "healthy" is probably the same percentage as Safeway.
    - pyre 16y ago
      At Whole Foods a lot of the things that end up being really cheap from no-name brands at traditional markets are coming from brands that have extra mark-up for being organic or slightly out of the norm. So it's easier to not buy it due to the price? In general, most of the cheap bulk food that you can get out there ends up being not so great for you from a health standpoint. It's a lot less expensive to buy a bagged cereal knock-off of some highly sweetened cereal (Cocoa Puffs, etc) than to buy some sort of granola cereal. [That said, I haven't done any direct comparisons to the bulk pricing on oatmeal or grits.]
      - starkfist 16y ago
        What I meant is that Whole Foods carries just as much junk food as Safeway. There are entire sections of chips, cookies, candy, beer, cheese, ice cream and so forth. You can easily go in and buy nothing that's good for you. I do it all the time. Sadly, organic vegan potato chips aren't really any better for you than Ruffles... Slightly off-topic. I've lived in the alternate universes of NYC and SF for the past 10 years, and for many staples, Whole Foods has the cheapest options. The canned house brand beans have almost no sodium and cost 89 cents a can. In comparison, Goya brand, the cheap option at Safeway, wloaded with sodium, cost about the same. Produce at WF and Safeway can be about the same, especially if you buy organic. It really depends on the season and location. The house brand seltzer is about the same as any house brand seltzer and much cheaper than Schweppes or Canada Dry. Safeway in SF is really only cheaper if you are loading up on junk food for the superbowl game. I don't really make any meat at home and I'm allergic to dairy so I don't know how meat, milk and cheese compares. WF is actually FAR cheaper than any of the bodegas or small grocery stores in Brooklyn for any item. Buying fruit or vegetables in Brooklyn is usurious almost anywhere besides Fairway foods in Red Hook, or the Farmer's Market.
  - robryan 16y ago
    It's a good point, without spending a lot of time looking into it myself I always get the impression that nearly everything I can make is considered unhealthy in some way. I know there are so many recipes and cookbooks out there but it is hard to know what attributes you should be aiming for in food.

Tim_M 16y ago

Previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1006980 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1006980

Jun8 16y ago

"Scientific innovation is pushing human longevity past the traditional limits. Yet despite this upward trend, we’re still not much smarter about what we put in our bodies. " I expect medicine to solve problems caused by my bad habits rather than preach me about them! This is to say that sugar is my only vice (I don't drink, do drugs, gamble, drive dangerously, or eat too much meat) and I'm not quite ready to give it up. You may find that infantile but if the great things in life are taken away (or substituted with tofu), what remains?

dwwoelfel 16y ago
I disagree with this sentiment. Life isn't about chasing momentary pleasures at the expense of long-term values. What remains? A long healthy life free from obesity, lack of energy, gum disease, etc. Try giving up sweet things for a month or two, then drink a coke. If you're like me, you'll find that it's too sweet and you won't want another. But you can't cheat and use splenda or some other sugar substitute.
chipsy 16y ago
It's a change in material lifestyle. We know from studies, collective experience, and numerous spiritual teachings that happiness doesn't actually come from that form of pleasure, but it remains desirable and hard to change regardless. (For my part, I've got quite a thing for the noncaloric sweeteners and meat with the evil sodium nitrite. Neither of them have noticeable immediate effects on me, which is how I've changed my habits elsewhere, so I'm kind of stuck on how to progress with them.)
karzeem 16y ago
Your expectation is a worthwhile ideal, but it's very far out of the reach of modern medicine. Doctors are pretty good at treating symptoms, but when it comes to root causes of serious diseases, they're pretty bad at treating them without inflicting collateral damage on some other body system. Especially if the treatment involves disrupting a body process designed by evolution. The body owes as much of its function to the ways its systems interact as it does to the individual systems. And we're pretty much at a loss when it comes to tracing the mechanism of those interactions. In other words, I strongly suspect that until we're all flying around Mars in hover cars, any "don't worry about sugar anymore" treatment will end up being harmful in some insidious, not-discovered-until-years-later way.

henryw 16y ago

saw the video a few months ago by recommendation from a friend. it is really really good. it has a slow start, but if you can finish the 90 min video, you will learn a lot about eating right and imho it's worth your time. direct link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM&feature=player_embedded# http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM&feature=playe...!

kellishaver 16y ago

I cut all refined sugars out of my diet about a month ago, with a few rare exceptions (the occasional meal out with friends, for instance, which may happen once a month). Basically, it has been life-changing. I have more energy, I sleep better, I don't have the stomach/digestive problems I used to, I don't get the daily headaches, my blood pressure is lower, I don't get as hungry, and I've lost 12lbs (with exercise, too).

pierrefar 16y ago
How can you attribute the benefits you're seeing to cutting sugar, when there is a ton of evidence saying exercise gives these exact benefits?
- tome 16y ago
  Presumably a lot of things give the exact same benefits. The OP's post sounds like a generic description of "I'm healthier". He said he cut out sugar; he didn't say he exercised more. I'm guessing that's why he thinks the cause was the sugar.
  - kellishaver 16y ago
    Yes, this. My level of exercise hasn't really changed. I just didn't want to imply that I was sitting around doing nothing, and losing weight solely from the sugar. I'm sure the exercise was a huge part of that, but I definitely saw more weight loss the past month after cutting out the sugar than I did previously from the same level of activity.
- pkulak 16y ago
  Actually, excercise alone won't usually make you lose weight.
forgottenpaswrd 16y ago
I did the same thing years ago. Occasionally I eat honey. I didn't had health problems, but I got a lot more energy during the day(first I cut alcohol that really makes me want to sleep).

Bjoern 16y ago

A good alternative for a sweet tooth is Honey. Not the cheap rubbish but the good stuff (e.g. UMF 10+). Manuka Honey even has antibacterial benefits and tastes great.

rsheridan6 16y ago
And it's loaded with sugar, just like high fructose corn syrup or cane sugar.
- OrangeGuutan 16y ago
  There are different types of sugars. High fructose corn syrup is usually either 55% fructose and 45% glucose, or 42% fructose and 58% glucose. Honey is about 40% fructose, 30% glucose, along with sucrose and maltose. It's also known to have antimicrobial and antioxidant effects. Equating high fructose corn syrup with honey is a major oversimplification.
  - rsheridan6 16y ago
    Not really. The proportions of fructose and glucose are similar - actually worse if you buy Lustig's theory that the fructose is the most harmful part of sugar and HFCS. Sucrose is quickly broken down into sucrose and fructose - according to Lustig there's no clinically important difference between sucrose and HFCS. I doubt that a little bit of maltose makes much difference, antimicrobial effects aren't going to save you from diabetes, and the results of clinical trials for antioxidants have been underwhelming - they aren't going to save you from diabetes or metabolic syndrome. Honey is just more unhealthy crap, even if it's natural. Same with agave juice. Sugar is sugar.

elai 16y ago

People living in different, default thin/rare diabetic cultures don't have magical diet information, often they know nothing! It's just the default diet or 'food culture' results in those results. In the 60s/70s most people were fairly thin, and the smoking gun points to north america's changing food culture, more sedentary work and transportation and food industry marketing research, even though there is a much greater awareness now about food and diet than back then.

somebear 16y ago

Researchers from the Bartholin Institute at the Danish national hospital have found a correlation between intake of refined sugar and type-1 diabetes. There is still quite a bit of controversy over whether an increased intake of refined sugar does lead to type-1 diabetes, with researchers from the Danish Diabetes association dissenting. Unfortunately, the only information I could find about this research was in Danish, but feel free to read the (translated) newspaper article here: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fpolitiken.dk%2Ftjek%2Fsundhedogmotion%2Fborn%2Farticle991371.ece&sl=auto&tl=en http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&h...

zeynel1 16y ago

towards the end of the article he writes --we as consumers have more power than we think when it comes to dictating food industry trends which could advocate for a healthier population in the long run-- but gives no explanation -how- we have more power dictating food industry - it seems to me that we have no power - food industry dictates what we eat - and we have to make an effort to protect ourselves from forming habits dictated by the food industry

Lendal 16y ago
The 'food industry' doesn't dictate what you eat. The 'food industry' provides you with many choices at many different stores and restaurants. You just choose the unhealthy ones. That's not the food industry's fault. Make better choices.
- zeynel1 16y ago
  the way i understand it -food industry- refers to these global corporations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_industry#Prominent_Food_Companies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_industry#Prominent_Food_Co... rather than local restaurants but you are right at least here in new york there are many choices to eat healthy - but my point is that we need to make an effort to sustain a healthy diet because the global food industry is pushing for us to consume highly processed food sold by them

asdflkj 16y ago

The guy in the video says energy expenditure and feeling good are synonymous. How about with opiates?