13 ms·

Sugar-sweetened drinks with protein rich meal affect metabolism

131 points by nreece 9y ago

honorable 9y ago
"Having a sugar-sweetened drink with a high-protein meal may negatively affect energy balance, alter food preferences and cause the body to store more fat." Damn that's a lot of negatives. I'm glad I haven't regularly drank soda in 5 years.
gaius 9y ago
This is very interesting - like most influenced by GI theory, I had assumed that rate of absorption/avoiding an insulin spike meant that if you wanted something sweet, it would be OK or at least least-bad, if it were mixed with slow-digesting items such as protein. Guess not :-(
- CuriousSkeptic 9y ago
  GI isn't the whole story. Some proteins trigger insuline response way more than blood sugar. This site has a lot of interesting material on the subject. https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/insulin-index/ https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/insulin-index/ Couldn't find the particular text I was loooing for but apparently there was this study where they mixed pasta with milk or water and added glucose to achieve equal mixes of glucose, lactose and such. The mix with the milk had something like three times higher insulin response.
nthcolumn 9y ago
Keeping people confined for long periods affect metabolism?
ulber 9y ago
Often people are wary of new results about health, so it's worth pointing out that this paper is rigorous and the conclusion is very likely to be correct, as explained by this comment on Reddit's /r/science [1]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/6oufus/comment/dkkfh95 https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/6oufus/comment/dkk...
- 0xcde4c3db 9y ago
  > The study was pre-registered (At ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02211599), with a clear outline of the scope and methods (protocols) to be used. This avoids bias where only hypothesis-affirming data are reported and hypothesis-contradicting data are hidden or discarded. This is good to see. I wonder if unregistered studies will ever be ignored like non-peer-reviewed studies are.
- nthcolumn 9y ago
  Oh shit if its peer reviewed by reddit then hold the cola.
  - wutbrodo 9y ago
    There's a difference between "as explained by this comment" and "because this comment says so". Then again, it relies on a level of self-confidence in one's ability to understand the analysis that you probably lack if you can't tell the difference between the above statements.
    - nthcolumn 9y ago
      Ad hominem! Is that all you got? Were it anything other than utter twaddle it might be able to cite a more reputable peer than the comment section of the gutter of the internet. I lump this in with homeopathy and now also your opinion on anything.
  - Meditato 9y ago
    Sites where content and forums can be user-generated are not monoliths. There is no "reddit" as a proper singular noun.
- joveian 9y ago
  However: * the "multiply p value by ten" rule would exclude the main results (but not some well known findings) * paper does not have much discussion of context or past results * paper does not have any scatter plots or show individual data at all for the primary results; there are scatter plots under additional files for oxidation vs. lean body mass and vs. fat mass and 24 hour energy expenditure vs fat mass * there is no discussion of the possibility that the small additional calories could have had the same effect even if not sugar * there is no discussion of the possibility that gut microbial response to the non-sugar drink might cause the differences they see * a conflicting study used a different artificial sweetener * the study did not test if the same SSB vs NNSB given at non-meal times would have a similar or different effect * also all the limitations mentioned in the study * this is a basic research study, not something directly applicable to real life; if you aren't doing extensive research in the area then drawing any conclusions from this one paper is unlikely to be helpful Of course, considering the study in connection with the rest of the literature is likely to address some of these considerations and it may be a valuable contribution. Saying "very likely to be correct" does not sound accurate to me. Since fructose is suspect, comparing trehalose vs. sucrose would be interesting.
beagle3 9y ago
Note that (at least the summary indicates) this experiment refutes "calories in calories out" theory - food composition affects thermogenesis. (I am not talking about the tautological and useless thermodynamic sense in which it definitely is true; I am talking about the "measure your intake and exercise" crowd)
- astrange 9y ago
  Exercise is a bad way to increase calories out, because it's just too efficient. The conversion is something like 1 mile run = 1 tbsp peanut butter.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    And people almost always overestimate how much they've burnt, and often eat more to compensate.
    - phicoh 9y ago
      My (entirely non-scientific) opinion is that most people exercise the wrong way. After a bit of training, muscles can store carbon-hydrates for about 1.5 hours of exercise. When these carbs a burned, muscles take new carbs directly from the blood stream. So if you exercise by burning mostly carbs and don't eat, you end up with low blood sugar levels and a very strong urge to eat. The trick is to burn fat. But to burn fat in a straight forward way you first have deplete the carb store, and basically force muscles to burn fat. This requires exercise that lasts many hours in one go. The additional benefit as far as I know is that if muscles are trained to burn fat, they will start burning more fat even when not in use. So the effect lasts a lot longer than just the actual amount of exercise. So we have a culture where exercise means to go to the gym and do exciting things there. Which mainly burns carbs. In the past when people did manual labor, they worked the same way for an entire day, burning mostly fat.
      - will_brown 9y ago
        I'm a distance runner and personally find I enjoy a high fat diet for balancing weight, performance (how I feel more than time), and physique (entirely ego driven, but can't over look the real effect of thoughts/beliefs on health). That said I have personally run on high fat (even in ketosis, and seperately eating animal products and vegan); high protein/more fairly a body builder bulking macro(including dairy protein: whey and casein); and high carb. And we all know we can find athletes of the highest level in every sport practicing various mixtures of those diets to great success. So I don't think it is fair to say people are doing it wrong by burning primarily glucose as opposed to fat. I think the most successful diets (no matter the macro nutrient philosophy) have the following in common: 1. Hydration/absorption: obviously no matter what cells must be properly hydrated and absorb micro/macro nutrients. 2. Anti-inflammatory foods: inflammation is linked to every chronic disease there is and even at the highest levels of performance do you want your cells combating inflammation or involved in the krebs cycle. 3. Anti-toxin: toxins can be eliminated from the body through the pores or excretion. Not all toxins can be sweated out and not all will naturally be excreated but certain foods can bind to toxins. So foods promoting removal of toxins from the body are important, but outside diet, exercise is important, abstaining from toxins like cigarettes is important, and probably because of the level of toxins on the modern western diet practices like juice cleanses and fastings could be important tools toward anti toxin cellular health. 4. Anti oxidants: as cells oxidize free radical can spread around the body, it's important to eliminate or isolate free radicals which can be potential causes of diseases like cancer. 5. Micro/macro nutrient: someone else mentioned maximizing micro nutrient intake to calorie ratio, that's probably a good way to put it. As I mentioned I'm starting to see macros as a personal choice based on the individual, that said I have very strong opinions to support my high fat preference (not keto though) and think so long as a person has achieved cellular health through 1-4 they too can experiment with their macros to suite their personal desire and needs. 6. Microbiome: I don't even pretend to understand what's going on here, but often hear this refered to as the second brain. While a neat phrase I'll just point to a study in equatorial Africa on twins, where it's not uncommon to have identical twins on the same diet 1 malnurished and the other not with the only difference to be found in their microbiome.
zython 9y ago
Lately I've been having this feeling that the pseudo science of nutrition (not talking about the researchers but the food and lifestyle artists on social media) makes it very hard to find out what a good diet is and what isnt. Meat ? Bad unless it isnt. Dairy and Eggs ? Even worse except when it isnt. Vegan/vegetarian nutrition ? The worst except, you guessed it, when it isnt. If you dont believe me just google any food and try to find out a general consensus about it. A lot of these sites talk about facts without sources, use terms like "toxins" without going into detail about what exactly they are etc.pp. Thoughts ?
- Swizec 9y ago
  Eat stuff, exercise, measure results, adjust. This stuff is extremely individual, unless we're talking extremes. Just do whatever makes your favorite KPI trend in the direction you want. Experiment. The rest is bullshit.
  - atopuzov 9y ago
    Exactly, find what suits you. I'm having great results with a low carb diet (been even keto for a period) but I'm not 100% sure it works for all.
    - charlesdm 9y ago
      Worked great for me too, though I didn't have to lose a massive amount of weight (8kg). Just cutting back on sugar itself already does a ton -- nothing more than an addiction. :(
  - adrianN 9y ago
    We don't have many biomarkers that can be measured cheaply and say something about your expected remaining healthspan.
    - Swizec 9y ago
      Don't weight and bodyfat% have high correlation to lifespan? You can get a good enough scale for both for pretty cheap. Fitbits and such also measure resting heart rate for cheap. As far as I've heard, that correlates well to lifespan as well.
spodek 9y ago
> The next time you tuck into a protein rich dinner, it may be a good idea to hold off on the sugary drinks. For 300,000 of human existence except the past few decades, humans drank no sugar-sweetened drinks. It is always a good idea to hold off on sugary drinks.
- gaius 9y ago
  Fruit juice? Does fructose vs sucrose make a difference?
  - derrasterpunkt 9y ago
    Not really. Sucrose is basically one part glucose and one part fructose. I think what matters is the amount of sugars, not the type of sugars.
    - chillwaves 9y ago
      The way your body metabolizes different sugars is different and certainly important/relevant. The knowledge required to explain these differences is outside the scope of a comment here, but I encourage you to do some research on how different types of sugars are processed by the body.
  - ClassyJacket 9y ago
    While I don't have any hard facts or make any claims about what it does, the idea that fruit juice = fruit is likely inaccurate. Juicing seems to leave behind the fiber and concentrate the sugar. It seems at least plausible that there's a significant difference in the digestion and metabolism of each.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 9y ago
      The fruit that they used to have probably didn't resemble what you can go out and buy these days either. However, I don't think that looking at what humans ate millennia ago is a good indication of what we should do.
maga 9y ago
I wonder how it affects muscle building. I have low carb diet and try to avoid "fast" carbs completely except when taking proteins/BCAA right after workout--I was under impression that taking protein without carbs might result in burning proteins for fuel instead of using them to restore/build muscle.
bitL 9y ago
There go protein bars... Does anyone know if artificial sweeteners hack the body to switch to "fat storage" mode as well? Like metabolism after Coke Zero with no sugar still causing excessive fat storage? Our bodies seem to use some silly heuristics all the time, like the one hacked by drinking plain water but with scent of a fruit in front of a nose, forcing brain thinking we drink juice...
- ulber 9y ago
  The control group in this study was drinking an artificially sweetened drink in place of the sugary one. Otherwise, this answer [1] refers to recent studies having shown insulin rising from artificial sweeteners, but says the research on links to actual weight gain is still ongoing (I have no idea if that answer is current). [1] http://www.health.harvard.edu/diabetes/ask-the-doctor-do-artificial-sweeteners-cause-insulin-resistance http://www.health.harvard.edu/diabetes/ask-the-doctor-do-art...
  - burger_moon 9y ago
    Do you have a subscription to that? I was only able to read the first paragraph but it mentioned resistance to insulin which I thought is different than temporarily causing your insulin levels to rise from consuming a sugary drink or eating a high carb food like rice. I'm really interested to know if drinking something with sugar alcohol,aspartame, or sucralose causes insulin level spikes like sugar does.
    - heymijo 9y ago
      In the event GP doesn't respond, I probably have the same unsatisfactory answer that the Q&A from the link does: we don't yet know. I too, have the same interest regarding insulin spikes from artificial sweeteners and spent considerable time researching. Caveat, this was about five years ago so there could be new findings. While the research is inconclusive, I personally try to cut down on artificial sweeteners. I suspect they can cause an insulin response. This is based on my understanding of the literature and my n=1 experiments.
- 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
phicoh 9y ago
So it seems that for most of our past, this would actually have been beneficial. The article says: "We found that drinking a sugar-sweetened drink with a meal significantly decreases fat use and diet-induced thermogenesis (heat production)." So if food is relatively scarce then this is a good thing. Feels a bit weird to optimize diets for couch potatoes. The article doesn't say how exercise was done, so I assume it was none.
IronBacon 9y ago
I wonder if this means ending a meal with a dessert it's considered a "no no".
- KitDuncan 9y ago
  Desserts and sodas should always be considered a big nono, if you're concerned about your health.
- dgudkov 9y ago
  I would suspect it strongly depends on the dessert size. In North America desserts are huge and that's a problem. A small two-bite dessert won't hurt and would give the same satisfaction as a big one. Also a small (and I mean really small) shot of fortified sweet wine (e.g. port or madeira) is a traditional way to finish a meal in some parts of Europe, which I suspect is healthier than a typical North American dessert.
Pica_soO 9y ago
So O-Juices and Eggs are a sin, to the holy church of body now? Well sorry, if i sin on like a old heathen, while you drive up your blood pressure in your schisms, popes and anti-popes. Seriously, fruit was a base part of our food source - since we walked out of the djungle. And we have cravings for it, wherever we go- to get some honey, some overripe mango. If somebody wants to declare that unhealthy, he is free to experiment on himself. And yes, those monkeys did binge mango eating. Binge Banana, we did alot of binge, and alot of starving, when the source of food was gone and the hunt was on again. To try to fight these instincts, with self-moderation is kind of funny.
- KitDuncan 9y ago
  There is a difference between whole fruits and juices. Juices basically don't have any fiber in them anymore and the sugar is much more concentrated. Nobody will take eating fruit or even drinking smoothies away from you. (well maybe the Keto folks will)
  - Pica_soO 9y ago
    I just wish there was- i dont know, some time-wise distance between research and application. Time for the propaganda to die and the science to survive by having repeatable results. This all is - too fast moving, to hasty, to many zealots ready to jump on any band wagon promising a longer live. Its just a guts feeling, but we had several times over by now, whole category's declared bad and then re-instated. I will keep to what i can know for certain, and that is the diet our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate. I shall keep away from processed, enriched foods as much as possible. And thats it. Everything not close or similar to the nutrition approach- no matter how demonized or declared healthy will have to ripe for ten years, before i evaluate it. Im sorry for the serious scientists, but in a field so ravaged by Replacement-Religious fanatics and Cooperate Propaganda, time is the only thing that will tell.
XiaomiFan 9y ago
Please stop posting on the internet.
- KitDuncan 9y ago
  He is correct though. OP used an appeal to nature fallacy. The conclusion is correct, the argument is stupid.
  - tentaTherapist 9y ago
    In this case an appeal to nature is not fallacious, although it lacked the appropriate justification.
    - caminante 9y ago
      No, it's still a fallacy. By providing "appropriate justification," it'd no longer be a fallacy.
      - jack9 9y ago
        Isn't a fallacy a false (baseless) justification? I'm not sure how providing justification changes a fallacy.
- sctb 9y ago
  We've banned this account for continuing to violate the guidelines after we've asked you to stop. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14832471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14832471 and marked it off-topic.
0xbear 9y ago
Does someone know of any serious "weight loss" books that are _rigorously evidence based_, without layman explanations, bad/outdated research, and bovine manure like confusing correlation with causation or relying on small, unrandomized population studies to confirm the author's preconceived notions for how things should be? I mean real, hard ass summary of today's best, most rigorous studies + some recommendations.
- ch4s3 9y ago
  I'm not aware of anything like that existing.
- Lionga 9y ago
  Eat less calories then you burn == weight loss
  - jm2721 9y ago
    Do you understand that you're commenting this on an article that literally disproves what you're saying?
  - 0xbear 9y ago
    I'm more interested in sustained weight loss over the rest of person's life. Best I can tell, that is predicated on reducing insulin resistance while not restricting calories too much. People don't stick with reduced calorie diets, and human body can (and does) reduce its metabolic rate to compensate for reduced calorie intake, thus defeating it.
- scholia 9y ago
  There's a good (old) talk where Stanford's Christopher Gardner researched different diet books with 311 women. The Battle of the Diets: Is Anyone Winning (At Losing?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eREuZEdMAVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eREuZEdMAVo The study was announced at https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2007/03/stanford-diet-study-tips-scale-in-favor-of-atkins-plan.html https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2007/03/stanford-diet...
- 9y ago
mrfusion 9y ago
This study seems like common sense to me. You're going to store more fat when you add the calories and sugar from the soda. Can someone explain what I'm missing?

131 points by nreece 9y ago

"Having a sugar-sweetened drink with a high-protein meal may negatively affect energy balance, alter food preferences and cause the body to store more fat." Damn that's a lot of negatives. I'm glad I haven't regularly drank soda in 5 years.

gaius 9y ago

This is very interesting - like most influenced by GI theory, I had assumed that rate of absorption/avoiding an insulin spike meant that if you wanted something sweet, it would be OK or at least least-bad, if it were mixed with slow-digesting items such as protein. Guess not :-(

CuriousSkeptic 9y ago
GI isn't the whole story. Some proteins trigger insuline response way more than blood sugar. This site has a lot of interesting material on the subject. https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/insulin-index/ https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/insulin-index/ Couldn't find the particular text I was loooing for but apparently there was this study where they mixed pasta with milk or water and added glucose to achieve equal mixes of glucose, lactose and such. The mix with the milk had something like three times higher insulin response.

nthcolumn 9y ago

Keeping people confined for long periods affect metabolism?

ulber 9y ago

Often people are wary of new results about health, so it's worth pointing out that this paper is rigorous and the conclusion is very likely to be correct, as explained by this comment on Reddit's /r/science [1]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/6oufus/comment/dkkfh95 https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/6oufus/comment/dkk...

0xcde4c3db 9y ago
> The study was pre-registered (At ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02211599), with a clear outline of the scope and methods (protocols) to be used. This avoids bias where only hypothesis-affirming data are reported and hypothesis-contradicting data are hidden or discarded. This is good to see. I wonder if unregistered studies will ever be ignored like non-peer-reviewed studies are.
nthcolumn 9y ago
Oh shit if its peer reviewed by reddit then hold the cola.
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  There's a difference between "as explained by this comment" and "because this comment says so". Then again, it relies on a level of self-confidence in one's ability to understand the analysis that you probably lack if you can't tell the difference between the above statements.
  - nthcolumn 9y ago
    Ad hominem! Is that all you got? Were it anything other than utter twaddle it might be able to cite a more reputable peer than the comment section of the gutter of the internet. I lump this in with homeopathy and now also your opinion on anything.
- Meditato 9y ago
  Sites where content and forums can be user-generated are not monoliths. There is no "reddit" as a proper singular noun.
joveian 9y ago
However: * the "multiply p value by ten" rule would exclude the main results (but not some well known findings) * paper does not have much discussion of context or past results * paper does not have any scatter plots or show individual data at all for the primary results; there are scatter plots under additional files for oxidation vs. lean body mass and vs. fat mass and 24 hour energy expenditure vs fat mass * there is no discussion of the possibility that the small additional calories could have had the same effect even if not sugar * there is no discussion of the possibility that gut microbial response to the non-sugar drink might cause the differences they see * a conflicting study used a different artificial sweetener * the study did not test if the same SSB vs NNSB given at non-meal times would have a similar or different effect * also all the limitations mentioned in the study * this is a basic research study, not something directly applicable to real life; if you aren't doing extensive research in the area then drawing any conclusions from this one paper is unlikely to be helpful Of course, considering the study in connection with the rest of the literature is likely to address some of these considerations and it may be a valuable contribution. Saying "very likely to be correct" does not sound accurate to me. Since fructose is suspect, comparing trehalose vs. sucrose would be interesting.

beagle3 9y ago

Note that (at least the summary indicates) this experiment refutes "calories in calories out" theory - food composition affects thermogenesis. (I am not talking about the tautological and useless thermodynamic sense in which it definitely is true; I am talking about the "measure your intake and exercise" crowd)

astrange 9y ago
Exercise is a bad way to increase calories out, because it's just too efficient. The conversion is something like 1 mile run = 1 tbsp peanut butter.
- DanBC 9y ago
  And people almost always overestimate how much they've burnt, and often eat more to compensate.
  - phicoh 9y ago
    My (entirely non-scientific) opinion is that most people exercise the wrong way. After a bit of training, muscles can store carbon-hydrates for about 1.5 hours of exercise. When these carbs a burned, muscles take new carbs directly from the blood stream. So if you exercise by burning mostly carbs and don't eat, you end up with low blood sugar levels and a very strong urge to eat. The trick is to burn fat. But to burn fat in a straight forward way you first have deplete the carb store, and basically force muscles to burn fat. This requires exercise that lasts many hours in one go. The additional benefit as far as I know is that if muscles are trained to burn fat, they will start burning more fat even when not in use. So the effect lasts a lot longer than just the actual amount of exercise. So we have a culture where exercise means to go to the gym and do exciting things there. Which mainly burns carbs. In the past when people did manual labor, they worked the same way for an entire day, burning mostly fat.
    - will_brown 9y ago
      I'm a distance runner and personally find I enjoy a high fat diet for balancing weight, performance (how I feel more than time), and physique (entirely ego driven, but can't over look the real effect of thoughts/beliefs on health). That said I have personally run on high fat (even in ketosis, and seperately eating animal products and vegan); high protein/more fairly a body builder bulking macro(including dairy protein: whey and casein); and high carb. And we all know we can find athletes of the highest level in every sport practicing various mixtures of those diets to great success. So I don't think it is fair to say people are doing it wrong by burning primarily glucose as opposed to fat. I think the most successful diets (no matter the macro nutrient philosophy) have the following in common: 1. Hydration/absorption: obviously no matter what cells must be properly hydrated and absorb micro/macro nutrients. 2. Anti-inflammatory foods: inflammation is linked to every chronic disease there is and even at the highest levels of performance do you want your cells combating inflammation or involved in the krebs cycle. 3. Anti-toxin: toxins can be eliminated from the body through the pores or excretion. Not all toxins can be sweated out and not all will naturally be excreated but certain foods can bind to toxins. So foods promoting removal of toxins from the body are important, but outside diet, exercise is important, abstaining from toxins like cigarettes is important, and probably because of the level of toxins on the modern western diet practices like juice cleanses and fastings could be important tools toward anti toxin cellular health. 4. Anti oxidants: as cells oxidize free radical can spread around the body, it's important to eliminate or isolate free radicals which can be potential causes of diseases like cancer. 5. Micro/macro nutrient: someone else mentioned maximizing micro nutrient intake to calorie ratio, that's probably a good way to put it. As I mentioned I'm starting to see macros as a personal choice based on the individual, that said I have very strong opinions to support my high fat preference (not keto though) and think so long as a person has achieved cellular health through 1-4 they too can experiment with their macros to suite their personal desire and needs. 6. Microbiome: I don't even pretend to understand what's going on here, but often hear this refered to as the second brain. While a neat phrase I'll just point to a study in equatorial Africa on twins, where it's not uncommon to have identical twins on the same diet 1 malnurished and the other not with the only difference to be found in their microbiome.

zython 9y ago

Lately I've been having this feeling that the pseudo science of nutrition (not talking about the researchers but the food and lifestyle artists on social media) makes it very hard to find out what a good diet is and what isnt. Meat ? Bad unless it isnt. Dairy and Eggs ? Even worse except when it isnt. Vegan/vegetarian nutrition ? The worst except, you guessed it, when it isnt. If you dont believe me just google any food and try to find out a general consensus about it. A lot of these sites talk about facts without sources, use terms like "toxins" without going into detail about what exactly they are etc.pp. Thoughts ?

Swizec 9y ago
Eat stuff, exercise, measure results, adjust. This stuff is extremely individual, unless we're talking extremes. Just do whatever makes your favorite KPI trend in the direction you want. Experiment. The rest is bullshit.
- atopuzov 9y ago
  Exactly, find what suits you. I'm having great results with a low carb diet (been even keto for a period) but I'm not 100% sure it works for all.
  - charlesdm 9y ago
    Worked great for me too, though I didn't have to lose a massive amount of weight (8kg). Just cutting back on sugar itself already does a ton -- nothing more than an addiction. :(
- adrianN 9y ago
  We don't have many biomarkers that can be measured cheaply and say something about your expected remaining healthspan.
  - Swizec 9y ago
    Don't weight and bodyfat% have high correlation to lifespan? You can get a good enough scale for both for pretty cheap. Fitbits and such also measure resting heart rate for cheap. As far as I've heard, that correlates well to lifespan as well.

spodek 9y ago

> The next time you tuck into a protein rich dinner, it may be a good idea to hold off on the sugary drinks. For 300,000 of human existence except the past few decades, humans drank no sugar-sweetened drinks. It is always a good idea to hold off on sugary drinks.

gaius 9y ago
Fruit juice? Does fructose vs sucrose make a difference?
- derrasterpunkt 9y ago
  Not really. Sucrose is basically one part glucose and one part fructose. I think what matters is the amount of sugars, not the type of sugars.
  - chillwaves 9y ago
    The way your body metabolizes different sugars is different and certainly important/relevant. The knowledge required to explain these differences is outside the scope of a comment here, but I encourage you to do some research on how different types of sugars are processed by the body.
- ClassyJacket 9y ago
  While I don't have any hard facts or make any claims about what it does, the idea that fruit juice = fruit is likely inaccurate. Juicing seems to leave behind the fiber and concentrate the sugar. It seems at least plausible that there's a significant difference in the digestion and metabolism of each.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 9y ago
    The fruit that they used to have probably didn't resemble what you can go out and buy these days either. However, I don't think that looking at what humans ate millennia ago is a good indication of what we should do.

maga 9y ago

I wonder how it affects muscle building. I have low carb diet and try to avoid "fast" carbs completely except when taking proteins/BCAA right after workout--I was under impression that taking protein without carbs might result in burning proteins for fuel instead of using them to restore/build muscle.

bitL 9y ago

There go protein bars... Does anyone know if artificial sweeteners hack the body to switch to "fat storage" mode as well? Like metabolism after Coke Zero with no sugar still causing excessive fat storage? Our bodies seem to use some silly heuristics all the time, like the one hacked by drinking plain water but with scent of a fruit in front of a nose, forcing brain thinking we drink juice...

ulber 9y ago
The control group in this study was drinking an artificially sweetened drink in place of the sugary one. Otherwise, this answer [1] refers to recent studies having shown insulin rising from artificial sweeteners, but says the research on links to actual weight gain is still ongoing (I have no idea if that answer is current). [1] http://www.health.harvard.edu/diabetes/ask-the-doctor-do-artificial-sweeteners-cause-insulin-resistance http://www.health.harvard.edu/diabetes/ask-the-doctor-do-art...
- burger_moon 9y ago
  Do you have a subscription to that? I was only able to read the first paragraph but it mentioned resistance to insulin which I thought is different than temporarily causing your insulin levels to rise from consuming a sugary drink or eating a high carb food like rice. I'm really interested to know if drinking something with sugar alcohol,aspartame, or sucralose causes insulin level spikes like sugar does.
  - heymijo 9y ago
    In the event GP doesn't respond, I probably have the same unsatisfactory answer that the Q&A from the link does: we don't yet know. I too, have the same interest regarding insulin spikes from artificial sweeteners and spent considerable time researching. Caveat, this was about five years ago so there could be new findings. While the research is inconclusive, I personally try to cut down on artificial sweeteners. I suspect they can cause an insulin response. This is based on my understanding of the literature and my n=1 experiments.
9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

phicoh 9y ago

So it seems that for most of our past, this would actually have been beneficial. The article says: "We found that drinking a sugar-sweetened drink with a meal significantly decreases fat use and diet-induced thermogenesis (heat production)." So if food is relatively scarce then this is a good thing. Feels a bit weird to optimize diets for couch potatoes. The article doesn't say how exercise was done, so I assume it was none.

IronBacon 9y ago

I wonder if this means ending a meal with a dessert it's considered a "no no".

KitDuncan 9y ago
Desserts and sodas should always be considered a big nono, if you're concerned about your health.
dgudkov 9y ago
I would suspect it strongly depends on the dessert size. In North America desserts are huge and that's a problem. A small two-bite dessert won't hurt and would give the same satisfaction as a big one. Also a small (and I mean really small) shot of fortified sweet wine (e.g. port or madeira) is a traditional way to finish a meal in some parts of Europe, which I suspect is healthier than a typical North American dessert.

Pica_soO 9y ago

So O-Juices and Eggs are a sin, to the holy church of body now? Well sorry, if i sin on like a old heathen, while you drive up your blood pressure in your schisms, popes and anti-popes. Seriously, fruit was a base part of our food source - since we walked out of the djungle. And we have cravings for it, wherever we go- to get some honey, some overripe mango. If somebody wants to declare that unhealthy, he is free to experiment on himself. And yes, those monkeys did binge mango eating. Binge Banana, we did alot of binge, and alot of starving, when the source of food was gone and the hunt was on again. To try to fight these instincts, with self-moderation is kind of funny.

KitDuncan 9y ago
There is a difference between whole fruits and juices. Juices basically don't have any fiber in them anymore and the sugar is much more concentrated. Nobody will take eating fruit or even drinking smoothies away from you. (well maybe the Keto folks will)
- Pica_soO 9y ago
  I just wish there was- i dont know, some time-wise distance between research and application. Time for the propaganda to die and the science to survive by having repeatable results. This all is - too fast moving, to hasty, to many zealots ready to jump on any band wagon promising a longer live. Its just a guts feeling, but we had several times over by now, whole category's declared bad and then re-instated. I will keep to what i can know for certain, and that is the diet our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate. I shall keep away from processed, enriched foods as much as possible. And thats it. Everything not close or similar to the nutrition approach- no matter how demonized or declared healthy will have to ripe for ten years, before i evaluate it. Im sorry for the serious scientists, but in a field so ravaged by Replacement-Religious fanatics and Cooperate Propaganda, time is the only thing that will tell.

XiaomiFan 9y ago

Please stop posting on the internet.

KitDuncan 9y ago
He is correct though. OP used an appeal to nature fallacy. The conclusion is correct, the argument is stupid.
- tentaTherapist 9y ago
  In this case an appeal to nature is not fallacious, although it lacked the appropriate justification.
  - caminante 9y ago
    No, it's still a fallacy. By providing "appropriate justification," it'd no longer be a fallacy.
    - jack9 9y ago
      Isn't a fallacy a false (baseless) justification? I'm not sure how providing justification changes a fallacy.
sctb 9y ago
We've banned this account for continuing to violate the guidelines after we've asked you to stop. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14832471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14832471 and marked it off-topic.

0xbear 9y ago

Does someone know of any serious "weight loss" books that are _rigorously evidence based_, without layman explanations, bad/outdated research, and bovine manure like confusing correlation with causation or relying on small, unrandomized population studies to confirm the author's preconceived notions for how things should be? I mean real, hard ass summary of today's best, most rigorous studies + some recommendations.

ch4s3 9y ago
I'm not aware of anything like that existing.
Lionga 9y ago
Eat less calories then you burn == weight loss
- jm2721 9y ago
  Do you understand that you're commenting this on an article that literally disproves what you're saying?
- 0xbear 9y ago
  I'm more interested in sustained weight loss over the rest of person's life. Best I can tell, that is predicated on reducing insulin resistance while not restricting calories too much. People don't stick with reduced calorie diets, and human body can (and does) reduce its metabolic rate to compensate for reduced calorie intake, thus defeating it.
scholia 9y ago
There's a good (old) talk where Stanford's Christopher Gardner researched different diet books with 311 women. The Battle of the Diets: Is Anyone Winning (At Losing?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eREuZEdMAVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eREuZEdMAVo The study was announced at https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2007/03/stanford-diet-study-tips-scale-in-favor-of-atkins-plan.html https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2007/03/stanford-diet...
9y ago

mrfusion 9y ago

This study seems like common sense to me. You're going to store more fat when you add the calories and sugar from the soda. Can someone explain what I'm missing?