3 ms·

I just want to make a statement (which I'm willing to discuss): sugar is a recreational drug, not a food. We should be having it rarely, and always with be mind

I just want to make a statement (which I'm willing to discuss): sugar is a recreational drug, not a food. We should be having it rarely, and always with be mindful that it's taxing our bodies, hence the need for breaks. Chronic usage is, in my understanding, highly associated with almost all chronic disease.

themacguffinman 5y ago
There's evidence to suggest that sugar is not a unique risk factor and it's problematic to focus on sugar as such. The main threat is simply overconsumption, which sugar can help but is not a major factor. From the conclusions of a meta-analysis [1]: > For now, we would agree with the assertion in the Dietary Guidelines for American (2010) that overconsumption of calories represents the single greatest health threat to individuals in the United States and elsewhere. This may, in part, be linked to the overall consumption patterns in what has been called the “Western” diet. Certainly, added sugars may be considered as components of this overall diet and, therefore, targets for reduction as are other energy dense components of this nutrition pattern. Singling out added sugars as major or unique culprits for metabolically based diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease appears inconsistent with modern high quality evidence and is very unlikely to yield health benefits. The reduction of these components of the diet without other reductions seems very unlikely to achieve any meaningful results. > a reasonable recommended upper limit of sugar may reside at consuming no more than 20% of calories from added sugars and then only in a hypercaloric situation. An upper limit of 20% isn't high but it's not something I'd characterize as "rare" either. I admit that I didn't read the whole paper nor do I have a strong scientific background to judge it, but I've seen this kind of finding before and it makes sense to me: sugar is not uniquely terrible but rather a cultural staple of obesity which is the real threat. Sugar as a major bogeyman is an appealing narrative concrete enough to address (eg. with a sugar tax) but is probably not the magic bullet we want it to be. It used to be fats, now it's sugars. They can both contribute significantly to obesity which is a complex factor that has consistently been found to be bad. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5133084/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5133084/
- lambdaba 5y ago
  It's more than that; sugar spiking your insulin regularly in an unnatural way (things way more sweet than our DNA is "trained" on, effects on gut microbiome, association with ultra-processed foods devoid of fiber, healthy fats and quality protein, effects on appetite, neurological / addictive effects. And so on. All intrinsic negatives of sugar in the diet, it's not about the calories as this excerpt seems to imply.
  - lambdaba 5y ago
    Sugar: the bitter truth by Dr. Robert Lustig is an informative overview of the biological and societal effects of sugar https://youtu.be/dBnniua6-oM https://youtu.be/dBnniua6-oM

themacguffinman 5y ago

There's evidence to suggest that sugar is not a unique risk factor and it's problematic to focus on sugar as such. The main threat is simply overconsumption, which sugar can help but is not a major factor. From the conclusions of a meta-analysis [1]: > For now, we would agree with the assertion in the Dietary Guidelines for American (2010) that overconsumption of calories represents the single greatest health threat to individuals in the United States and elsewhere. This may, in part, be linked to the overall consumption patterns in what has been called the “Western” diet. Certainly, added sugars may be considered as components of this overall diet and, therefore, targets for reduction as are other energy dense components of this nutrition pattern. Singling out added sugars as major or unique culprits for metabolically based diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease appears inconsistent with modern high quality evidence and is very unlikely to yield health benefits. The reduction of these components of the diet without other reductions seems very unlikely to achieve any meaningful results. > a reasonable recommended upper limit of sugar may reside at consuming no more than 20% of calories from added sugars and then only in a hypercaloric situation. An upper limit of 20% isn't high but it's not something I'd characterize as "rare" either. I admit that I didn't read the whole paper nor do I have a strong scientific background to judge it, but I've seen this kind of finding before and it makes sense to me: sugar is not uniquely terrible but rather a cultural staple of obesity which is the real threat. Sugar as a major bogeyman is an appealing narrative concrete enough to address (eg. with a sugar tax) but is probably not the magic bullet we want it to be. It used to be fats, now it's sugars. They can both contribute significantly to obesity which is a complex factor that has consistently been found to be bad. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5133084/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5133084/

lambdaba 5y ago
It's more than that; sugar spiking your insulin regularly in an unnatural way (things way more sweet than our DNA is "trained" on, effects on gut microbiome, association with ultra-processed foods devoid of fiber, healthy fats and quality protein, effects on appetite, neurological / addictive effects. And so on. All intrinsic negatives of sugar in the diet, it's not about the calories as this excerpt seems to imply.
- lambdaba 5y ago
  Sugar: the bitter truth by Dr. Robert Lustig is an informative overview of the biological and societal effects of sugar https://youtu.be/dBnniua6-oM https://youtu.be/dBnniua6-oM