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Sugar is not bad. Just like meat or bacon is not bad. Why would sugar on its own be bad? Obviously it's the whole lifestyle and diet that is bad. There are cyc

Sugar is not bad. Just like meat or bacon is not bad. Why would sugar on its own be bad? Obviously it's the whole lifestyle and diet that is bad. There are cyclist that carb load by eatig raw sugar and have no metabolic issues like some of the overweight diabetics do when they drink their second gallon of sugary coca cola.

01100011 5y ago
I think you can make a solid case that, for most people, fructose and therefore sucrose is bad in any significant quantity. Sure, fructose can help replenish liver energy stores if you're an athlete, but most people aren't.
- renewiltord 5y ago
  This always confused me. Why does the WHO only have guidelines on "added sugar", why not all sugar? Based on a naive reading of things, I removed fruit from my diet as well, but that's against WHO guidelines: I used to eat like 3 Fuji/Envy a day (haha).
  - bellyfullofbac 5y ago
    I remember reading a news story that an international organization (in my memory it was the UN) wanted to issue a warning about all sugar, but the US government representatives lobbied hard for the wording to be changed, because of the US food industry. Sadly I once tried to refind this story by googling but couldn't find it again, so I might as well be screaming, "the second coming is nigh!"
    - renewiltord 5y ago
      It's got to be either this or some sort of absorption mechanism with fiber+fructose, right? I've heard the following few, but I have no evidence: * The lobbying thing * That fiber gets you full so you don't eat as much fructose * That fiber modifies the absorption process
      - andi999 5y ago
        Then juice, especially orange juice should be as bad as sugar (which I think it is).
      - nextos 5y ago
        It's really well known that fiber interacts with the gut microbiome and the immune system. There's at least a decade of mainstream publications backing up that fiber helps inducing regulatory T cells. These are needed to avoid inflammation.
- knuthsat 5y ago
  This is not true. The Robert Lustig scaremongering is a big lie. In his talk he mentions the healthy Japanese but he does not mention that they eat more calories from fructose (in percentage of their consumed calories) than USA citizens yet are healthier. Similarly how people stand against epidemiology they should stand against demonizing single ingredients. Apple, by Lustig's opinion, is the worst fruit there is but he will never, in a scientific study, demonstrate the ill-effects of consuming apples, while another group consumes the same equivalent amount of raw fructose extract.
  - fnord77 5y ago
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338016768/figure/fig2/AS:839228233613324@1577099011826/Association-between-high-fructose-corn-syrup-and-obesity-in-the-United-States-69.png https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338016768/figure/fi...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - cycrutchfield 5y ago
    Why are you mischaracterizing Lustig's position? https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/making-the-case-for-eating-fruit/ https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/making-the-case-fo... >Another nutrition expert, Dr. Robert Lustig, a professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, who has called sugar “toxic” at high doses and fructose the most “actionable” problem in our diet, is still a fan of fruit. “As far as I’m concerned, fiber is the reason to eat fruit,” since it promotes satiety and the slow release of sugar.
    - knuthsat 5y ago
      I'm not. Fruit isn't apple. Apple is fruit with massive amounts of fructose.
  - deepnotderp 5y ago
    Fruits are metabolized very differently than their extracted sugar content though
- skohan 5y ago
  Yes exactly. Sugar should probably be placed in the same category as alcohol in terms of health consideration. It's fine to enjoy in moderation, but fundamentally toxic. Less acutely toxic than alcohol, but more strongly habit-forming.
  - sachdevap 5y ago
    Sugar is not fundamentally toxic. This is a very poor conclusion to draw, and even more so when, as someone else suggested, expanding this to all carbs. Glucose is used in IV drips, and in emergency conditions, providing someone with glucose and electrolytes can prevent them from passing out.
    - cycrutchfield 5y ago
      When people say sugar they are generally referring to sucrose. When they say that sugar is toxic, it's not because it's broken down into glucose, it's because it is also broken down into fructose. The metabolism of fructose is somewhat analogous to that of ethanol. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3649103/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3649103/
      - parineum 5y ago
        > The metabolism of fructose is somewhat analogous to that of ethanol. Does that mean it's toxic?
        knuthsat 5y ago
        Of course not, because that study analyzes concentrates and not natural source of fructose. Eating the equivalent amount of fructose used in those studies in fruit will never get you similar effects to ethanol. These studies are interesting but vacuous.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I would go ahead and throw all carbs in there with the level of inactivity among most of the population.
baq 5y ago
Nice trolling, I hope, because it’s terrifying if you’re serious. Sugar basically doesn’t exist in nature without fiber. Animals have not evolved to consume significant quantities of it. Bacterial flora in your gut is different when you have sugar and not enough fiber.
- tansey 5y ago
  > Sugar basically doesn’t exist in nature without fiber Honey?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ASalazarMX 5y ago
    Yes, dear? Jokes aside, there are a few natural sugar sources without fiber, like sugar cane (it has fiber, but we just spit it). I think we can all agree that eating too much honey or sugar cane juice would be bad for our health. There's also sugars like inulin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inulin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inulin), which are actually classified as soluble fiber because we can't digest them, so the bacteria in our digestive system does it for us. Inulin is a prebiotic, so it's actually healthy to eat in moderation.
    - phonypc 5y ago
      Inulins just aren't sugars. As you say, they're categorized as soluble fiber. Any definition of sugar that included inulins would include all soluble fibers.
  - mixmastamyk 5y ago
    Would you take on a hive of bees with "caveman technology?"
    - Jtsummers 5y ago
      Does caveman technology include fire and the ability to produce smoke?
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> Obviously it's the whole lifestyle and diet that is bad Of course, we all recognize that eating small amounts of sugar is not the problem. The reality is that most of us are consuming reasonable amounts of sugar in our normal diets before we even start introducing refined sugar products like sweetened beverages or candies. When people say "sugar is bad" it's over-simplified, yes, but they're not literally suggesting that glucose is inherently evil. The point is that sweets and treats where refined sugar is present in unreasonable quantities are not good for you, as is clearly the topic in this study about sweetened beverages. > There are cyclist that carb load by eatig raw sugar Not at all relevant for anyone except elite athletes preparing for an extreme exertion. That said, there are some concerns about ingesting a bolus of refined sugar outside of the context of a meal, which is a glycemic stimulus so intense that it's virtually impossible to achieve during ordinary diets. Even athletes prefer to pace their glucose ingestion and/or ingest carbohydrates as part of a meal with fiber and other mass that slows absorption. Chugging raw sugar is an edge case.
pizza 5y ago
For every person who can control their sugar intake enough to use it as a tool there are like 10 who can't, so I think its normal to expect people to have trouble with it
brian_cunnie 5y ago
I ate more sugar than anyone I knew, and in 2011 I was diagnosed with type II diabetes. I had no family history of diabetes, I was never overweight, and was always athletic. Admittedly, this is a sample set of 1, but I remain convinced that my voracious appetite for sugar played into my diagnosis. I no longer eat sugar (with the exception of fruit).
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  One of the interviews in the "Sugar Coated" documentary was about a pair of athletes that faced the same trouble.
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
  Could prediabetes have caused your craving for sweets? It happens even without family history.
  - brian_cunnie 5y ago
    I doubt that pre-diabetes caused my craving because I always loved sweets. As a kid I would sometimes eat raw sugar. I was only diagnosed pre-diabetic (fasting glucose > 100) the last year before I blossomed into a full-blown diabetic. My parents were pretty strict about sweets, but once I was on my own my diet quickly spiraled into an orgy of chocolate & sugar.
Shorel 5y ago
That line of thinking has brought the worst obesity epidemic in history to our world. Please go and read all of Gary Taubes books to see the politics and bad science behind this propaganda.

01100011 5y ago

I think you can make a solid case that, for most people, fructose and therefore sucrose is bad in any significant quantity. Sure, fructose can help replenish liver energy stores if you're an athlete, but most people aren't.

renewiltord 5y ago
This always confused me. Why does the WHO only have guidelines on "added sugar", why not all sugar? Based on a naive reading of things, I removed fruit from my diet as well, but that's against WHO guidelines: I used to eat like 3 Fuji/Envy a day (haha).
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  I remember reading a news story that an international organization (in my memory it was the UN) wanted to issue a warning about all sugar, but the US government representatives lobbied hard for the wording to be changed, because of the US food industry. Sadly I once tried to refind this story by googling but couldn't find it again, so I might as well be screaming, "the second coming is nigh!"
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    It's got to be either this or some sort of absorption mechanism with fiber+fructose, right? I've heard the following few, but I have no evidence: * The lobbying thing * That fiber gets you full so you don't eat as much fructose * That fiber modifies the absorption process
    - andi999 5y ago
      Then juice, especially orange juice should be as bad as sugar (which I think it is).
    - nextos 5y ago
      It's really well known that fiber interacts with the gut microbiome and the immune system. There's at least a decade of mainstream publications backing up that fiber helps inducing regulatory T cells. These are needed to avoid inflammation.
knuthsat 5y ago
This is not true. The Robert Lustig scaremongering is a big lie. In his talk he mentions the healthy Japanese but he does not mention that they eat more calories from fructose (in percentage of their consumed calories) than USA citizens yet are healthier. Similarly how people stand against epidemiology they should stand against demonizing single ingredients. Apple, by Lustig's opinion, is the worst fruit there is but he will never, in a scientific study, demonstrate the ill-effects of consuming apples, while another group consumes the same equivalent amount of raw fructose extract.
- fnord77 5y ago
  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338016768/figure/fig2/AS:839228233613324@1577099011826/Association-between-high-fructose-corn-syrup-and-obesity-in-the-United-States-69.png https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338016768/figure/fi...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- cycrutchfield 5y ago
  Why are you mischaracterizing Lustig's position? https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/making-the-case-for-eating-fruit/ https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/making-the-case-fo... >Another nutrition expert, Dr. Robert Lustig, a professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, who has called sugar “toxic” at high doses and fructose the most “actionable” problem in our diet, is still a fan of fruit. “As far as I’m concerned, fiber is the reason to eat fruit,” since it promotes satiety and the slow release of sugar.
  - knuthsat 5y ago
    I'm not. Fruit isn't apple. Apple is fruit with massive amounts of fructose.
- deepnotderp 5y ago
  Fruits are metabolized very differently than their extracted sugar content though
skohan 5y ago
Yes exactly. Sugar should probably be placed in the same category as alcohol in terms of health consideration. It's fine to enjoy in moderation, but fundamentally toxic. Less acutely toxic than alcohol, but more strongly habit-forming.
- sachdevap 5y ago
  Sugar is not fundamentally toxic. This is a very poor conclusion to draw, and even more so when, as someone else suggested, expanding this to all carbs. Glucose is used in IV drips, and in emergency conditions, providing someone with glucose and electrolytes can prevent them from passing out.
  - cycrutchfield 5y ago
    When people say sugar they are generally referring to sucrose. When they say that sugar is toxic, it's not because it's broken down into glucose, it's because it is also broken down into fructose. The metabolism of fructose is somewhat analogous to that of ethanol. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3649103/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3649103/
    - parineum 5y ago
      > The metabolism of fructose is somewhat analogous to that of ethanol. Does that mean it's toxic?
      - knuthsat 5y ago
        Of course not, because that study analyzes concentrates and not natural source of fructose. Eating the equivalent amount of fructose used in those studies in fruit will never get you similar effects to ethanol. These studies are interesting but vacuous.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I would go ahead and throw all carbs in there with the level of inactivity among most of the population.

baq 5y ago

Nice trolling, I hope, because it’s terrifying if you’re serious. Sugar basically doesn’t exist in nature without fiber. Animals have not evolved to consume significant quantities of it. Bacterial flora in your gut is different when you have sugar and not enough fiber.

tansey 5y ago
> Sugar basically doesn’t exist in nature without fiber Honey?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
  Yes, dear? Jokes aside, there are a few natural sugar sources without fiber, like sugar cane (it has fiber, but we just spit it). I think we can all agree that eating too much honey or sugar cane juice would be bad for our health. There's also sugars like inulin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inulin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inulin), which are actually classified as soluble fiber because we can't digest them, so the bacteria in our digestive system does it for us. Inulin is a prebiotic, so it's actually healthy to eat in moderation.
  - phonypc 5y ago
    Inulins just aren't sugars. As you say, they're categorized as soluble fiber. Any definition of sugar that included inulins would include all soluble fibers.
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  Would you take on a hive of bees with "caveman technology?"
  - Jtsummers 5y ago
    Does caveman technology include fire and the ability to produce smoke?

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> Obviously it's the whole lifestyle and diet that is bad Of course, we all recognize that eating small amounts of sugar is not the problem. The reality is that most of us are consuming reasonable amounts of sugar in our normal diets before we even start introducing refined sugar products like sweetened beverages or candies. When people say "sugar is bad" it's over-simplified, yes, but they're not literally suggesting that glucose is inherently evil. The point is that sweets and treats where refined sugar is present in unreasonable quantities are not good for you, as is clearly the topic in this study about sweetened beverages. > There are cyclist that carb load by eatig raw sugar Not at all relevant for anyone except elite athletes preparing for an extreme exertion. That said, there are some concerns about ingesting a bolus of refined sugar outside of the context of a meal, which is a glycemic stimulus so intense that it's virtually impossible to achieve during ordinary diets. Even athletes prefer to pace their glucose ingestion and/or ingest carbohydrates as part of a meal with fiber and other mass that slows absorption. Chugging raw sugar is an edge case.

pizza 5y ago

For every person who can control their sugar intake enough to use it as a tool there are like 10 who can't, so I think its normal to expect people to have trouble with it

brian_cunnie 5y ago

I ate more sugar than anyone I knew, and in 2011 I was diagnosed with type II diabetes. I had no family history of diabetes, I was never overweight, and was always athletic. Admittedly, this is a sample set of 1, but I remain convinced that my voracious appetite for sugar played into my diagnosis. I no longer eat sugar (with the exception of fruit).

mixmastamyk 5y ago
One of the interviews in the "Sugar Coated" documentary was about a pair of athletes that faced the same trouble.
ASalazarMX 5y ago
Could prediabetes have caused your craving for sweets? It happens even without family history.
- brian_cunnie 5y ago
  I doubt that pre-diabetes caused my craving because I always loved sweets. As a kid I would sometimes eat raw sugar. I was only diagnosed pre-diabetic (fasting glucose > 100) the last year before I blossomed into a full-blown diabetic. My parents were pretty strict about sweets, but once I was on my own my diet quickly spiraled into an orgy of chocolate & sugar.

Shorel 5y ago

That line of thinking has brought the worst obesity epidemic in history to our world. Please go and read all of Gary Taubes books to see the politics and bad science behind this propaganda.