3 ms·

I think that this is probably a combination of spurious correlation and a food additive whose name implies things about it that aren't necessarily true. High f

I think that this is probably a combination of spurious correlation and a food additive whose name implies things about it that aren't necessarily true. High fructose corn syrup is, from a nutritional standpoint, pretty much equivalent to table sugar. The most substantive difference between the two is a hydrogen bond that is easily broken by even fairly weak acids - it doesn't last long at all once it hits your stomach, so what actually hits your bloodstream is (typically) a 42/58 fructose/glucose mix for solid foods with HFCS, a 50/50 mix for table sugar, and a 55/45 mix for HFCS-sweetened beverages. Those numbers also imply that, unless you just guzzle soft drinks, the industry replacing sucrose with HFCS presumably actually tilts the fructose/glucose mix in your sugar intake away from fructose. And if you do guzzle soft drinks, blaming HFCS for your metabolic situation seems just a bit dissonant. I think we should be looking first at the big picture: Overall calorie consumption over the past 50 years is way up. If you break that down, fat, having nearly doubled, comes in first, followed by complex carbohydrates (up by about 1/3), and sugar is comparatively a quite small portion of what's changed. Over the same time period, caloric expenditure from physical activity has gone way down, too. To me, that picture doesn't imply, "Nabisco changing the sugar they put in my Wheat Thins is ruining my health." It implies, "Driving my car to the supermarket and coming home with a back seat full of Wheat Thins is ruining my health." FWIW, the word "additive" also has a tendency to be a bit of a weasel word in this context. The glycemic index for starches and sugars is typically about the same, and your metabolism doesn't care that the starches are typically considered the food itself while the little bit of sweetener that's added for flavor is just an additive.

porknubbins 7y ago
I wonder where is all that extra fat coming from? Very counter to my expectations that carbs were most of the increase. I thought in the past people ate slightly more meat, esp. red meat, full fat dairy etc. I suppose it could reflect the shift from home to restaurant/snack food because when you put a chunk of butter in something you can tell how much it is, but already baked in it tastes like much less.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  Insulin causes cells to convert glucose to fat. Liver can convert fructose to fat. Also the amount of glucose in you blood is highly regulated and the amount is 'less than you would assume'. Least as I understand. Probably consuming even moderate amounts of sugar sets off a desperate attempt by the body to stash glucose as fat to keep glucose blood levels normal.
- mumblemumble 7y ago
  Supposedly it's mostly in the form of vegetable oils. (Consumption of animal origin fats, including butter, is actually down.) Based on that, I could hazard a few guesses: My first would be that a lot of it is that increases in the availability of vegetable fats that are solid at room temperature (originally thanks to hydrogenation, now thanks to more refined palm and coconut oils) means that it's easy for food manufacturers to add more fat to packaged foods without them seeming greasy. There's also the whole "Mediterranean diet" thing fueling the perception that olive oil is a health food and making us feel comfortable drizzling it all over everything we eat. It's perhaps relatively healthy compared to other fats, but it's still darn near the most calorie-dense food possible. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the amount of french fries that get piled on one's plate as a side at restaurants has doubled over the past 50 years. Heck, even avocado toast. Avocados are way more available than they used to be. Everyone thinks of them as a healthy food, but they're chock full of fat.
heymijo 7y ago
Like I said, hypothesis! The glycemic index is problematic for lots of reasons. If by "a little bit of sweetener" you're referring to HFCS in packaged foods, I disagree. HFCS prevalence seems much much larger than that. You're right on that sucrose (table sugar) is not much different than HFCS. Fructose != starches. The body metabolizes the two differently (See below). A bit of knowledge about fructose rumbling around my brain... 1) Fructose is metabolized differently than glucose. All fructose has to be metabolized by the liver and go through the portal vein. This is not the case for glucose or other non-fructose carbohydrates. 2) Metabolizing fructose via the liver, especially in excess leads to fatty liver. Think foie gras but in humans. Non-alocholic fatty liver disease is now a huge thing, happening even in children. In prior decades if you saw a fatty liver it was because the person was an alcoholic. 3) Fructose is unique in that it short-circuits your bodies methods of letting you know you are full and to stop eating. Human bodies, metabolism, and our food supplies are all complex dynamic systems so, it's unlikely that one single thing can answer the obesity epidemic. Nonetheless, if I had to pick one place to start, I'd begin at fructose and see what kind of web is woven around it. Two places to check out if you're interested in some of what has informed my thinking. 1) Dr. Rick Johnson--seems to know more about fructose than anyone else https://peterattiamd.com/rickjohnson/ https://peterattiamd.com/rickjohnson/ 2) Dr. Robert Lustig--sees himself as a public advocate so have to wade through some of that to get to his ideas: http://sugarscience.ucsf.edu/robert-h.-lustig.html http://sugarscience.ucsf.edu/robert-h.-lustig.html https://robertlustig.com/ https://robertlustig.com/ https://peterattiamd.com/roblustig/ https://peterattiamd.com/roblustig/
- mumblemumble 7y ago
  All of that is fine and well. The source of my skepticism is that I think there's a big leap to make between, "studies that are laser focused on the metabolic effects of fructose find that it's metabolized differently from glucose", and "fructose consumption is the primary cause of a major public health event." There's a whole chain of cause and effect that needs to be established to get there. The first link in that chain might be very strong indeed, but the rest of the links seem to be, judging by the information I'm aware of, somewhere between weak and nonexistent. Here's a good satirical paper aimed at illustrating the dangers of trying to extrapolate large-scale effects from a constellation of individual metabolic effects: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3001541/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3001541/

porknubbins 7y ago

I wonder where is all that extra fat coming from? Very counter to my expectations that carbs were most of the increase. I thought in the past people ate slightly more meat, esp. red meat, full fat dairy etc. I suppose it could reflect the shift from home to restaurant/snack food because when you put a chunk of butter in something you can tell how much it is, but already baked in it tastes like much less.

Gibbon1 7y ago
Insulin causes cells to convert glucose to fat. Liver can convert fructose to fat. Also the amount of glucose in you blood is highly regulated and the amount is 'less than you would assume'. Least as I understand. Probably consuming even moderate amounts of sugar sets off a desperate attempt by the body to stash glucose as fat to keep glucose blood levels normal.
mumblemumble 7y ago
Supposedly it's mostly in the form of vegetable oils. (Consumption of animal origin fats, including butter, is actually down.) Based on that, I could hazard a few guesses: My first would be that a lot of it is that increases in the availability of vegetable fats that are solid at room temperature (originally thanks to hydrogenation, now thanks to more refined palm and coconut oils) means that it's easy for food manufacturers to add more fat to packaged foods without them seeming greasy. There's also the whole "Mediterranean diet" thing fueling the perception that olive oil is a health food and making us feel comfortable drizzling it all over everything we eat. It's perhaps relatively healthy compared to other fats, but it's still darn near the most calorie-dense food possible. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the amount of french fries that get piled on one's plate as a side at restaurants has doubled over the past 50 years. Heck, even avocado toast. Avocados are way more available than they used to be. Everyone thinks of them as a healthy food, but they're chock full of fat.

heymijo 7y ago

Like I said, hypothesis! The glycemic index is problematic for lots of reasons. If by "a little bit of sweetener" you're referring to HFCS in packaged foods, I disagree. HFCS prevalence seems much much larger than that. You're right on that sucrose (table sugar) is not much different than HFCS. Fructose != starches. The body metabolizes the two differently (See below). A bit of knowledge about fructose rumbling around my brain... 1) Fructose is metabolized differently than glucose. All fructose has to be metabolized by the liver and go through the portal vein. This is not the case for glucose or other non-fructose carbohydrates. 2) Metabolizing fructose via the liver, especially in excess leads to fatty liver. Think foie gras but in humans. Non-alocholic fatty liver disease is now a huge thing, happening even in children. In prior decades if you saw a fatty liver it was because the person was an alcoholic. 3) Fructose is unique in that it short-circuits your bodies methods of letting you know you are full and to stop eating. Human bodies, metabolism, and our food supplies are all complex dynamic systems so, it's unlikely that one single thing can answer the obesity epidemic. Nonetheless, if I had to pick one place to start, I'd begin at fructose and see what kind of web is woven around it. Two places to check out if you're interested in some of what has informed my thinking. 1) Dr. Rick Johnson--seems to know more about fructose than anyone else https://peterattiamd.com/rickjohnson/ https://peterattiamd.com/rickjohnson/ 2) Dr. Robert Lustig--sees himself as a public advocate so have to wade through some of that to get to his ideas: http://sugarscience.ucsf.edu/robert-h.-lustig.html http://sugarscience.ucsf.edu/robert-h.-lustig.html https://robertlustig.com/ https://robertlustig.com/ https://peterattiamd.com/roblustig/ https://peterattiamd.com/roblustig/

mumblemumble 7y ago
All of that is fine and well. The source of my skepticism is that I think there's a big leap to make between, "studies that are laser focused on the metabolic effects of fructose find that it's metabolized differently from glucose", and "fructose consumption is the primary cause of a major public health event." There's a whole chain of cause and effect that needs to be established to get there. The first link in that chain might be very strong indeed, but the rest of the links seem to be, judging by the information I'm aware of, somewhere between weak and nonexistent. Here's a good satirical paper aimed at illustrating the dangers of trying to extrapolate large-scale effects from a constellation of individual metabolic effects: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3001541/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3001541/