32 ms·

For some Greenlanders, eating sugar is healthy

54 points by tiahura 5y ago

1cvmask 5y ago
I can’t but help remember the Harvard study paid for by the sugar industry to blame fat: The documents show that a trade group called the Sugar Research Foundation, known today as the Sugar Association, paid three Harvard scientists the equivalent of about $50,000 in today’s dollars to publish a 1967 review of research on sugar, fat and heart disease. The studies used in the review were handpicked by the sugar group, and the article, which was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, minimized the link between sugar and heart health and cast aspersions on the role of saturated fat. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-blame-to-fat.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-in...
- vmception 5y ago
  out of curiosity, why is that particular study and publication weighed more heavily than... perhaps any other topic. to me, this is like finding any random "coffee is good/bad for you" of which there are thousands that conflict, and saying "Aha! This particular one shaped the course of humanity for the last half a century due to a major conflict of interest and prestigious publication!" were there just so many fewer studies in the 1960s? was there further collusion and influence with Congress and the FDA? did the sugar trade group fly airplanes and drop food pyramid pamphlets everywhere letting everyone know liberation was coming? From your article: > After the review was published, the debate about sugar and heart disease died down, while low-fat diets gained the endorsement of many health authorities, Dr. Glantz said. so everyone just went along with it? well, I've seen bad studies get headlines on Buzzfeed and stick in the collective conscious based on the headline alone, so stranger things have happened
  - arbitrage 5y ago
    Mid- to late-century capitalists used it as a foundational argument in their advertising. The impact of that one study was amplified many times over. People tend to chose what they want to believe first, then build a framework around that to support the decisions they wanted to do anyway.
  - dahart 5y ago
    Doesn’t the linked article explain the answer to your questions? I’m not sure I understand the snarky skepticism. Is it surprising that a scientific article with prestigious names attached has greater plausibility and weight than your example of “random” studies? Harvard backed studies as a rule seem to enjoy more support and media mentions than, say, University of Phoenix, no? There are examples of journal papers that are weighed more heavily than most, especially when the writing resonates with people emotionally. I can think of well known papers people talk about here on HN all the time as if they’re true, but aren’t. Are you sure there thousands of primary-source coffee studies that make conclusions and judgements about whether it’s good or bad for you? Are you perhaps conflating blog spam and articles for scientific papers? There are lots and lots of articles, but not as many primary sources.
  - grover35 5y ago
    I've been very confused in the last couple decades about who the experts truly are. On one hand you have government agencies that hire "experts", and on the other hand you have the New York Times, Hacker News, Reddit, and CNN. There was a time when we thought the government was best to listen to, but now with the murder of George Floyd and the election of QAnoner Donald Trump and neoliberal Joe Biden I'm not so sure that they have our best interests in mind. Plus demonizing the press is textbook fascism. In my view the real experts are writing for the New York Times, tirelessly searching for contradictions and ulterior motives in science so that the public may know the truth. Time and time again the press has shown that the real health foods are bacon, pork, and butter, and that we must avoid heart-disease causing foods such as rice, potatoes, fruit and carrots.
    - vmception 5y ago
      Careful, with that level of cognitive dissonance you might accidentally slip up and say “both sides“
      - grover35 5y ago
        Continue eating your oats and berries, QAnoner. The science speaks for itself.
        vmception 5y ago
        Whoosh, so the joke was that the centrists/independents/unaffiliated are perceiving things accurately but are ostracized by a polarized populace in every forum. But its less beneficial for me to say that directly because then others would rather debate how both sides are different instead of acknowledging the overlapping areas of concern where they are the same. Good luck with your approach of random non-sequiturs and false positives.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        5y ago
- waffle_maniac 5y ago
betwixthewires 5y ago
So much wrong with this article. First, it beats around the bush about the point of the article for quite a while, and then delivers a children's storybook version of the explanation after a while. Which is common in articles these days. > The reason for this widespread genetic variation among Greenlanders is due to a diet that has stood out from that of the rest of the world for millennia. Greenlanders haven't existed for millennia. Greenlanders have existed for just under a millennium. > "It is probably due to Greenlanders not having had very much sugar in their diet"... He adds that this has made the genetic variation frequent, as there has never been a need to absorb sugar rapidly in the bloodstream. That's not how evolution works. If this mutation gives a health or fitness advantage it would be selected for. It's selection probably ticked up after the widespread availability of sugar. But on the topic in it, I think such a mutation would be great to have. I wonder if it exists off the island or how frequent it is.
- arbitrage 5y ago
  > If this mutation gives a health or fitness advantage it would be selected for. This is not always the case. Be wary of assigning intent to a stochastic process like evolution. It's about probability, not certainty. See: vagus nerve
- phdelightful 5y ago
  Yeah it even starts with something not backed up by the study it's reporting on: "Imagine being able to swap out broccoli for sweets, Ben & Jerry's or some other sugary treat and achieve the same health benefits. This is fact not fantasy for about two to three percent of the Greenlandic population" The study does not say sweets confer the same health benefits as broccoli!
  - phonypc 5y ago
    It kinda does, partially and indirectly. The study indicates it's not a matter of them eating less sucrose, the benefits actually don't show up in the absence of sucrose in the diet. It essentially acts like soluble fibre. Of course the micro-nutrients that would be in the broccoli don't materialize out of nowhere.
klipt 5y ago
> "Younger carriers of the variation experience negative consequences due to their different type of sugar absorption. For them, consuming sugar causes diarrhea, abdominal pain and bloating. Our guess is that as they age, their gut bacteria gradually get used to sugar and learn how to convert it into energy" Sounds basically like lactose intolerance, but to sucrose instead of lactose. Which raises the question, if gut bacteria can solve the symptoms, why don't we have probiotics to solve lactose intolerance too?
- foob 5y ago
  Lactase is the main way that people digest lactose and it's produced by human intestinal epithelial cells rather than bacteria. It seems plausible that a bacteria to digest lactose could serve a similar role, but I don't think that's how people typically digest it.
- grardb 5y ago
  I don't have an answer to that question, but it's worth noting that lactose intolerance isn't a problem that needs solving, but rather the natural state of things for most humans on the planet and most (if not all) other mammals. There's no need for us to consume lactose after we've finished breastfeeding.
  - vorpalhex 5y ago
    You've clearly never had a good goat cheese and thyme ice cream! I kid but lactose intolerance does really hurt a lot of the food selection people are used to. Sure you can live off soylent or whatever but most people enjoy a wide variety of food including dairy.
  - fartcannon 5y ago
    Milk is in a lot of delicious things.
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  We don't have probiotics but you can buy the lactase enzyme in pills and take it with lactose containing foods and avoid symptoms (as long as you dose right and eat quickly). My wife who is very lactose intolerant can still enjoy ice cream and queso. I do have a friend who had a severe gastrointestinal issue and basically went through having his bacteria "reset" for a lack of a better term. It was pretty terrible and he was unable to eat most things before and during, but now is back to a pretty normal diet with some modifications. He was on very aggressive antibiotics followed by months long probiotic treatments.
beefman 5y ago
The paper: https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(21)04065-8/fulltext https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(21)04065-8/...
ajuc 5y ago
If the mutation makes it so kids have diarrhea every time they eat sugar - it might be possible that they learn not to eat sugar and are healthier as a result. Some of the bad consequences of sweet diet are very delayed. I wonder how they controlled for that effect.
- phonypc 5y ago
  That's addressed in the study. In fact, in their mouse model, the benefits don't show up unless they are fed sucrose.
GlenTheMachine 5y ago
My kid has an autoimmune (not genetic) version of this. It almost killed him. He is 5’ 10” and got down to 105 lbs, was severely malnourished and dehydrated. Couldn’t keep food down without significant medical intervention. He spent a month in the hospital and another month in an inpatient clinic to start to address the resultant eating disorder. Also, without insurance, the drug to treat it (sucrase) is $4000/month and is available only in a liquid form that has to be refrigerated… and you have to take it with meals. Which means you have to carry a small cryo bottle with you wherever you go. Don’t wish for this to happen to you.
- poizan42 5y ago
  That's an absolutely insane price for something used in food production. Have you looked into using food-grade sucrase instead? There's an article about using BioInvert 200 as a substitute for Sucraid here: https://ejhp.bmj.com/content/24/Suppl_1/A226.2 https://ejhp.bmj.com/content/24/Suppl_1/A226.2
- teruakohatu 5y ago
  Sounds aweful. Have you managed to find a diet that avoids the need for sucrase for every meal?
  - GlenTheMachine 5y ago
    Just about impossible in the US.

54 points by tiahura 5y ago

I can’t but help remember the Harvard study paid for by the sugar industry to blame fat: The documents show that a trade group called the Sugar Research Foundation, known today as the Sugar Association, paid three Harvard scientists the equivalent of about $50,000 in today’s dollars to publish a 1967 review of research on sugar, fat and heart disease. The studies used in the review were handpicked by the sugar group, and the article, which was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, minimized the link between sugar and heart health and cast aspersions on the role of saturated fat. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-blame-to-fat.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-in...

vmception 5y ago
out of curiosity, why is that particular study and publication weighed more heavily than... perhaps any other topic. to me, this is like finding any random "coffee is good/bad for you" of which there are thousands that conflict, and saying "Aha! This particular one shaped the course of humanity for the last half a century due to a major conflict of interest and prestigious publication!" were there just so many fewer studies in the 1960s? was there further collusion and influence with Congress and the FDA? did the sugar trade group fly airplanes and drop food pyramid pamphlets everywhere letting everyone know liberation was coming? From your article: > After the review was published, the debate about sugar and heart disease died down, while low-fat diets gained the endorsement of many health authorities, Dr. Glantz said. so everyone just went along with it? well, I've seen bad studies get headlines on Buzzfeed and stick in the collective conscious based on the headline alone, so stranger things have happened
- arbitrage 5y ago
  Mid- to late-century capitalists used it as a foundational argument in their advertising. The impact of that one study was amplified many times over. People tend to chose what they want to believe first, then build a framework around that to support the decisions they wanted to do anyway.
- dahart 5y ago
  Doesn’t the linked article explain the answer to your questions? I’m not sure I understand the snarky skepticism. Is it surprising that a scientific article with prestigious names attached has greater plausibility and weight than your example of “random” studies? Harvard backed studies as a rule seem to enjoy more support and media mentions than, say, University of Phoenix, no? There are examples of journal papers that are weighed more heavily than most, especially when the writing resonates with people emotionally. I can think of well known papers people talk about here on HN all the time as if they’re true, but aren’t. Are you sure there thousands of primary-source coffee studies that make conclusions and judgements about whether it’s good or bad for you? Are you perhaps conflating blog spam and articles for scientific papers? There are lots and lots of articles, but not as many primary sources.
- grover35 5y ago
  I've been very confused in the last couple decades about who the experts truly are. On one hand you have government agencies that hire "experts", and on the other hand you have the New York Times, Hacker News, Reddit, and CNN. There was a time when we thought the government was best to listen to, but now with the murder of George Floyd and the election of QAnoner Donald Trump and neoliberal Joe Biden I'm not so sure that they have our best interests in mind. Plus demonizing the press is textbook fascism. In my view the real experts are writing for the New York Times, tirelessly searching for contradictions and ulterior motives in science so that the public may know the truth. Time and time again the press has shown that the real health foods are bacon, pork, and butter, and that we must avoid heart-disease causing foods such as rice, potatoes, fruit and carrots.
  - vmception 5y ago
    Careful, with that level of cognitive dissonance you might accidentally slip up and say “both sides“
    - grover35 5y ago
      Continue eating your oats and berries, QAnoner. The science speaks for itself.
      - vmception 5y ago
        Whoosh, so the joke was that the centrists/independents/unaffiliated are perceiving things accurately but are ostracized by a polarized populace in every forum. But its less beneficial for me to say that directly because then others would rather debate how both sides are different instead of acknowledging the overlapping areas of concern where they are the same. Good luck with your approach of random non-sequiturs and false positives.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        5y ago
waffle_maniac 5y ago

betwixthewires 5y ago

So much wrong with this article. First, it beats around the bush about the point of the article for quite a while, and then delivers a children's storybook version of the explanation after a while. Which is common in articles these days. > The reason for this widespread genetic variation among Greenlanders is due to a diet that has stood out from that of the rest of the world for millennia. Greenlanders haven't existed for millennia. Greenlanders have existed for just under a millennium. > "It is probably due to Greenlanders not having had very much sugar in their diet"... He adds that this has made the genetic variation frequent, as there has never been a need to absorb sugar rapidly in the bloodstream. That's not how evolution works. If this mutation gives a health or fitness advantage it would be selected for. It's selection probably ticked up after the widespread availability of sugar. But on the topic in it, I think such a mutation would be great to have. I wonder if it exists off the island or how frequent it is.

arbitrage 5y ago
> If this mutation gives a health or fitness advantage it would be selected for. This is not always the case. Be wary of assigning intent to a stochastic process like evolution. It's about probability, not certainty. See: vagus nerve
phdelightful 5y ago
Yeah it even starts with something not backed up by the study it's reporting on: "Imagine being able to swap out broccoli for sweets, Ben & Jerry's or some other sugary treat and achieve the same health benefits. This is fact not fantasy for about two to three percent of the Greenlandic population" The study does not say sweets confer the same health benefits as broccoli!
- phonypc 5y ago
  It kinda does, partially and indirectly. The study indicates it's not a matter of them eating less sucrose, the benefits actually don't show up in the absence of sucrose in the diet. It essentially acts like soluble fibre. Of course the micro-nutrients that would be in the broccoli don't materialize out of nowhere.

klipt 5y ago

> "Younger carriers of the variation experience negative consequences due to their different type of sugar absorption. For them, consuming sugar causes diarrhea, abdominal pain and bloating. Our guess is that as they age, their gut bacteria gradually get used to sugar and learn how to convert it into energy" Sounds basically like lactose intolerance, but to sucrose instead of lactose. Which raises the question, if gut bacteria can solve the symptoms, why don't we have probiotics to solve lactose intolerance too?

foob 5y ago
Lactase is the main way that people digest lactose and it's produced by human intestinal epithelial cells rather than bacteria. It seems plausible that a bacteria to digest lactose could serve a similar role, but I don't think that's how people typically digest it.
grardb 5y ago
I don't have an answer to that question, but it's worth noting that lactose intolerance isn't a problem that needs solving, but rather the natural state of things for most humans on the planet and most (if not all) other mammals. There's no need for us to consume lactose after we've finished breastfeeding.
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  You've clearly never had a good goat cheese and thyme ice cream! I kid but lactose intolerance does really hurt a lot of the food selection people are used to. Sure you can live off soylent or whatever but most people enjoy a wide variety of food including dairy.
- fartcannon 5y ago
  Milk is in a lot of delicious things.
vorpalhex 5y ago
We don't have probiotics but you can buy the lactase enzyme in pills and take it with lactose containing foods and avoid symptoms (as long as you dose right and eat quickly). My wife who is very lactose intolerant can still enjoy ice cream and queso. I do have a friend who had a severe gastrointestinal issue and basically went through having his bacteria "reset" for a lack of a better term. It was pretty terrible and he was unable to eat most things before and during, but now is back to a pretty normal diet with some modifications. He was on very aggressive antibiotics followed by months long probiotic treatments.

beefman 5y ago

The paper: https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(21)04065-8/fulltext https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(21)04065-8/...

ajuc 5y ago

If the mutation makes it so kids have diarrhea every time they eat sugar - it might be possible that they learn not to eat sugar and are healthier as a result. Some of the bad consequences of sweet diet are very delayed. I wonder how they controlled for that effect.

phonypc 5y ago
That's addressed in the study. In fact, in their mouse model, the benefits don't show up unless they are fed sucrose.

GlenTheMachine 5y ago

My kid has an autoimmune (not genetic) version of this. It almost killed him. He is 5’ 10” and got down to 105 lbs, was severely malnourished and dehydrated. Couldn’t keep food down without significant medical intervention. He spent a month in the hospital and another month in an inpatient clinic to start to address the resultant eating disorder. Also, without insurance, the drug to treat it (sucrase) is $4000/month and is available only in a liquid form that has to be refrigerated… and you have to take it with meals. Which means you have to carry a small cryo bottle with you wherever you go. Don’t wish for this to happen to you.

poizan42 5y ago
That's an absolutely insane price for something used in food production. Have you looked into using food-grade sucrase instead? There's an article about using BioInvert 200 as a substitute for Sucraid here: https://ejhp.bmj.com/content/24/Suppl_1/A226.2 https://ejhp.bmj.com/content/24/Suppl_1/A226.2
teruakohatu 5y ago
Sounds aweful. Have you managed to find a diet that avoids the need for sucrase for every meal?
- GlenTheMachine 5y ago
  Just about impossible in the US.