4 ms·

Is sugar toxic?

45 points by stfu 15y ago

swang 15y ago
Here is a video from Dr. Robert Lustig about sugars. It is an hour and a half long but very informative. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM After watching it, I've considerably reduced my sugar intake. I still drink soft drinks during lunch/dinner, but I am slowly weaning myself off them and onto water/tea and other better alternatives.
- jeffdavis 15y ago
  I watched that a while ago and I remember him talking about the amount of salt in a Coke, as though it were a conspiracy of some kind. But Coke has very little salt -- about 45 mg. So the rest of the talk seemed to be colored with a conspiratorial tone, from my perspective. Am I wrong to be so dismissive?
  - jared314 15y ago
    I had the same reaction when he went off on the public restriction on alcohol (52m), but the science sounded reasonable. With that in mind, I cut my sugar and carb intake. I lost fat. So, I chalk it up to his personality or a reaction to being ignored for a long period of time.
  - hristov 15y ago
    I do not know whether 45 mg is a small or large amount of salt. But his main point is that that salt is there to make you feel thirsty after drinking a soda. In my personal experience he is correct there. Soda does not quench my thirst and leaves me feeling thirsty.
    - DanBC 15y ago
      1 teaspoon is (very) approximately 5 grams. There are 1000 mg in 1 g; thus 5000 mg in 5 g. So 50 mg is 100th of a teaspoon of salt. Roughly. EDIT: This UK health advice suggests that adults should have less than 6 g of salt per day. (http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/salt.aspx http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/salt.aspx) But this Scientific American Article suggests that there's no evidence for that. (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=its-time-to-end-the-war-on-salt http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=its-time-to...)
  - eostyx 15y ago
    The coke I've drank in the past has been loaded with salt. But salt isn't really the most dangerous ingredient in coke... is it
  - Hinrik 15y ago
    >But Coke has very little salt -- about 45 mg. This tells me nothing. 45mg per 100ml? Or per serving (usually 250ml)?
    - jeffdavis 15y ago
      It's about 40mg of sodium (which is about 100mg of salt) per 12-oz can, which is 355ml. It doesn't really make much difference. It's a small amount of salt for any reasonable level of consumption unless you are really watching your salt intake.
guard-of-terra 15y ago
Life is toxic. You'll eventually die of it. Really, if you remove everything harmful to health from you life (including everything related to a computer), you'd probably die of boredom, depression and frustration real fast.
1010011010 15y ago
Yes.
nazgulnarsil 15y ago
I do a ton of review of nutrition studies and here's the conclusion I've come to: The primary concerns are the biggest killers: cancer and CVD. The main causal pathway by which carbohydrates (of which simple sugars have the largest effect) affect CVD incidence is via the simultaneous lowering of HDL and raising of blood serum triglycerides. This is much more important for predicting CVD episodes than the 'low LDL' you hear touted a lot. The connection between sugar and cancer is less well established.
- ams6110 15y ago
  Refined sugar has only been a big part of our diet for the past couple of hundred years (not even a blink of an eye on an evolutionary time scale). Breads and grain-based foods have been part of our diet for somewhat longer, but highly refined white flour is also comparatively novel in our diet. I cut all added sugar and all flour (bread, pasta, pizza, etc) and most other grains and processed food from my diet about 18 months ago. I basically went on the paleolithic diet, though I'm not really fanatical about it except for the sugar and flour. I mainly eat unprocessed meat, eggs, leafy vegetables, nuts, some fruit (try to stick to berries) and minimal dairy. I went from 215 lbs to 165 without any real effort (exercise, etc). I'm convinced that the obesity "epidemic" and the need for so many people go on Lipitor and similar drugs as they get older is directly attributable to our sugar- and flour-laden diets. I do miss freshly baked bread but on balance I think it's worth it. Will I live longer? Who knows, but I feel better eating what my body is evolved to consume.
  - baddox 15y ago
    I don't think that something being "comparatively novel in our diet" is a sufficient or even useful argument.
    - paul-woolcock 15y ago
      Definitely. However, that doesn't mean he is wrong. For more actual evidence of this stuff, The Eades' book `Protein Power'[1] and Robb Wolf's book `The Paleo Solution'[2] offer some pretty compelling evidence of how grains and related foods are detrimental to our health (among other topics). I, too, am a Paleo success story, having gone from 210 to 185 in 2 months, and feeling better than I have ever felt. All I have is anecdotal evidence for myself, though, so I always refer others to these books. [1]: http://www.amazon.com/Protein-Power-High-Protein-Carbohydrate-Health/dp/0553574752 http://www.amazon.com/Protein-Power-High-Protein-Carbohydrat... [2]: http://www.amazon.com/The-Paleo-Solution-Original-Human/dp/0982565844 http://www.amazon.com/The-Paleo-Solution-Original-Human/dp/0...
latch 15y ago
I found Dr Lustig's talk enlightening because I always thought of it simply as input -> output (sucrose -> glucose). In retrospect, it's obvious that the bio-checmial process your body uses to convert that is pretty darn important. However, as cool as it is to get re-introduced to things like ATP and Krebs Cycle, the driving message we get from experts has been a constant for a long time: avoid processed foods. It's incredibly simple advice to understand and to follow. It's also an excessively easy lifestyle to adopt. There is no lack of unprocessed foods and it isn't more expensive. I just don't understand why people don't eat better. I'd be pretty depressed if I was a health-care professional...decades of messaging and things are only getting worse.
- jrockway 15y ago
  I just don't understand why people don't eat better. I understand it perfectly. The brain rewards bad diet; sugar tastes better than fiber. Couple this with food companies that need to grow 10% a year to keep their investors happy, and you have the perfect recipe for making people eat more, cheaper calories. Processed food may be the same price as unprocessed food, but it's more calorie-rich, it's more advertised, and it gets more shelf space at the store. (It is really a lot cheaper, but sold at a higher markup. So that profit buys ads and shelf space.) Hence, the path of least resistance is to buy processed food.
- lhnn 15y ago
  What is considered "unprocessed" foods at the grocer? Raw beans, rice, whole grain wheat? Is the ground beef/deli meat "unprocessed" by your definition? Serious question. My impression is that anything not cut from an animal myself is processed by some harmful additive, so I've given up.
  - latch 15y ago
    I understand that you could take this to an extreme: if it doesn't grow in my garden or die by my hand... But let's just focus on low hanging stuff for now. There are food products that are more chemical than anything. Oreos, Poptarts, CheezWhiz, pops, frozen meals, Juices "now with 10% real juice"...The list is extensive. Then you have overly refined products (white bread, white pastas). Fruits and vegetables (fresh, canned or frozen), lentiles and legumes, grains/careals (including breads and pastas), raw meat (fish/chicken/beef/pork/...) are all ok. I'm sure there's more. I don't think there's much room for confusion between eating Captin' Crunch vs oatmeal, cheetos vs a bowl of plain yogurt with strawberries.
revolvingiris 15y ago
Good message: "don't over consume and stick to unprocessed sources". It bothers me though that the word sugar is in the title since they really mean sucrose. Both fructose and glucose occur naturally (fruit, veggies, starches) and are not harmful.
- jrockway 15y ago
  Sucrose occurs naturally too. So does cyanide. Natural != good to eat.
- hristov 15y ago
  Fructose is harmful, unfortunately. Sucrose gets split by the body into one fructose and one glucose molecule. And it is the fructose that is harmful because it cannot be properly processed by the liver in large quantities. Sucrose is only harmful in as much as it produces fructose. It is true that fructose appears naturally all over the place. And that is the tricky part. The liver can actually process fructose fine if it gets a little at a time and simultaneously receives fiber. Almost everywhere fructose occurs naturally it occurs with fiber. Thus, the human body is perfectly capable of processing fructose in its natural state, but once you start concentrating it and removing the fiber the problems come about. This is why fruits and veggies are perfectly healthy but refined sugars are bad for you.
  - DanBC 15y ago
    > The liver can actually process fructose fine if it gets a little at a time and simultaneously receives fiber. Dietary fibre gets to the liver?
    - hristov 15y ago
      The liver gets nutrients from dietary fiber which help it process fructose. I believe the nutrient in question was phosphorus, but am not absolutely sure.
      - anthonyb 15y ago
Alex3917 15y ago
Is there seriously anyone left at this point who doesn't think sugar is toxic?
- pbreit 15y ago
  I think "toxic" is a strong word. Sugar occurs naturally in fruit which is relatively healthy and sugar in moderation (ie, not added) is completely fine.
  - pbreit 15y ago
    Not sure why the downvotes. I looked around a bit further and it's even clearer that sugar, sucrose, fructose, etc, by themselves are not poisons.
    - Alex3917 15y ago
      Nothing by itself is a poison. But it's pretty clear that what they are saying is that refined sugars are toxic in the level that they're being consumed by Americans today. You can try to pretend they're talking about bananas all they want, but as soon as you stop willfully misrepresenting what they're saying your argument falls apart.
meric 15y ago
Title can be improved. What is toxicity? "A central concept of toxicology is that effects are dose-dependent; even water can lead to water intoxication when taken in too many doses, whereas for even a very toxic substance such as snake venom there is a dose below which there is no detectable toxic effect. Toxicity is species-specific, lending cross-species analysis problematic. Newer paradigms and metrics are evolving to bypass animal-testing, while maintaining the concept of toxicity endpoints." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxicity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxicity
- aaronblohowiak 15y ago
  The dose makes the poison - Paracelsus
- latch 15y ago
  Dr Lustig's argument is that the amount of sucrose the average person takes is toxic. The title could be "Average person eats sucrose in doses of toxicity"...or "Sucrose is toxic" You are being pedantic.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
driverdan 15y ago
Dr Lustig has been promoting this idea for many years. The problem is that he's doing it very unscientifically. He vastly overstates his evidence and makes claims of certainty that the science doesn't support. I'm interested to see what replies his recent Nature publication receives.
- droithomme 15y ago
  Yes, here's an article promoting this from last year: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.htm... And from earlier this year: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2094812/Sugar-controlled-like-tobacco-alcohol.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2094812/Sugar-cont...
- ars 15y ago
  He starts by saying sugar and high fructose syrup are the same, then concludes by testing high fructose syrup and finding it's bad - but not testing sugar. His test does not support his conclusion.
derleth 15y ago
OK, let's try this: Is honey toxic?
- anthonyb 15y ago
  Honey has a lot more nutrients in it than sugar, so generally it's better for you, and doesn't spike your insulin so hard. Here's a round up which has some links to further research: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/is-honey-a-safer-sweetener/ http://www.marksdailyapple.com/is-honey-a-safer-sweetener/
cottonseed 15y ago
> Americans are now consuming nearly 130 pounds of added sugars per person, per year. I have always found this statistic utterly astounding, esp. considering that sugar is a new world product. In 1500 England, say, the average person consumed 0 pounds of added sugar per year.

45 points by stfu 15y ago

swang 15y ago

Here is a video from Dr. Robert Lustig about sugars. It is an hour and a half long but very informative. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM After watching it, I've considerably reduced my sugar intake. I still drink soft drinks during lunch/dinner, but I am slowly weaning myself off them and onto water/tea and other better alternatives.

jeffdavis 15y ago
I watched that a while ago and I remember him talking about the amount of salt in a Coke, as though it were a conspiracy of some kind. But Coke has very little salt -- about 45 mg. So the rest of the talk seemed to be colored with a conspiratorial tone, from my perspective. Am I wrong to be so dismissive?
- jared314 15y ago
  I had the same reaction when he went off on the public restriction on alcohol (52m), but the science sounded reasonable. With that in mind, I cut my sugar and carb intake. I lost fat. So, I chalk it up to his personality or a reaction to being ignored for a long period of time.
- hristov 15y ago
  I do not know whether 45 mg is a small or large amount of salt. But his main point is that that salt is there to make you feel thirsty after drinking a soda. In my personal experience he is correct there. Soda does not quench my thirst and leaves me feeling thirsty.
  - DanBC 15y ago
    1 teaspoon is (very) approximately 5 grams. There are 1000 mg in 1 g; thus 5000 mg in 5 g. So 50 mg is 100th of a teaspoon of salt. Roughly. EDIT: This UK health advice suggests that adults should have less than 6 g of salt per day. (http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/salt.aspx http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/salt.aspx) But this Scientific American Article suggests that there's no evidence for that. (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=its-time-to-end-the-war-on-salt http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=its-time-to...)
- eostyx 15y ago
  The coke I've drank in the past has been loaded with salt. But salt isn't really the most dangerous ingredient in coke... is it
- Hinrik 15y ago
  >But Coke has very little salt -- about 45 mg. This tells me nothing. 45mg per 100ml? Or per serving (usually 250ml)?
  - jeffdavis 15y ago
    It's about 40mg of sodium (which is about 100mg of salt) per 12-oz can, which is 355ml. It doesn't really make much difference. It's a small amount of salt for any reasonable level of consumption unless you are really watching your salt intake.

guard-of-terra 15y ago

Life is toxic. You'll eventually die of it. Really, if you remove everything harmful to health from you life (including everything related to a computer), you'd probably die of boredom, depression and frustration real fast.

1010011010 15y ago

Yes.

nazgulnarsil 15y ago

I do a ton of review of nutrition studies and here's the conclusion I've come to: The primary concerns are the biggest killers: cancer and CVD. The main causal pathway by which carbohydrates (of which simple sugars have the largest effect) affect CVD incidence is via the simultaneous lowering of HDL and raising of blood serum triglycerides. This is much more important for predicting CVD episodes than the 'low LDL' you hear touted a lot. The connection between sugar and cancer is less well established.

ams6110 15y ago
Refined sugar has only been a big part of our diet for the past couple of hundred years (not even a blink of an eye on an evolutionary time scale). Breads and grain-based foods have been part of our diet for somewhat longer, but highly refined white flour is also comparatively novel in our diet. I cut all added sugar and all flour (bread, pasta, pizza, etc) and most other grains and processed food from my diet about 18 months ago. I basically went on the paleolithic diet, though I'm not really fanatical about it except for the sugar and flour. I mainly eat unprocessed meat, eggs, leafy vegetables, nuts, some fruit (try to stick to berries) and minimal dairy. I went from 215 lbs to 165 without any real effort (exercise, etc). I'm convinced that the obesity "epidemic" and the need for so many people go on Lipitor and similar drugs as they get older is directly attributable to our sugar- and flour-laden diets. I do miss freshly baked bread but on balance I think it's worth it. Will I live longer? Who knows, but I feel better eating what my body is evolved to consume.
- baddox 15y ago
  I don't think that something being "comparatively novel in our diet" is a sufficient or even useful argument.
  - paul-woolcock 15y ago
    Definitely. However, that doesn't mean he is wrong. For more actual evidence of this stuff, The Eades' book `Protein Power'[1] and Robb Wolf's book `The Paleo Solution'[2] offer some pretty compelling evidence of how grains and related foods are detrimental to our health (among other topics). I, too, am a Paleo success story, having gone from 210 to 185 in 2 months, and feeling better than I have ever felt. All I have is anecdotal evidence for myself, though, so I always refer others to these books. [1]: http://www.amazon.com/Protein-Power-High-Protein-Carbohydrate-Health/dp/0553574752 http://www.amazon.com/Protein-Power-High-Protein-Carbohydrat... [2]: http://www.amazon.com/The-Paleo-Solution-Original-Human/dp/0982565844 http://www.amazon.com/The-Paleo-Solution-Original-Human/dp/0...

latch 15y ago

I found Dr Lustig's talk enlightening because I always thought of it simply as input -> output (sucrose -> glucose). In retrospect, it's obvious that the bio-checmial process your body uses to convert that is pretty darn important. However, as cool as it is to get re-introduced to things like ATP and Krebs Cycle, the driving message we get from experts has been a constant for a long time: avoid processed foods. It's incredibly simple advice to understand and to follow. It's also an excessively easy lifestyle to adopt. There is no lack of unprocessed foods and it isn't more expensive. I just don't understand why people don't eat better. I'd be pretty depressed if I was a health-care professional...decades of messaging and things are only getting worse.

jrockway 15y ago
I just don't understand why people don't eat better. I understand it perfectly. The brain rewards bad diet; sugar tastes better than fiber. Couple this with food companies that need to grow 10% a year to keep their investors happy, and you have the perfect recipe for making people eat more, cheaper calories. Processed food may be the same price as unprocessed food, but it's more calorie-rich, it's more advertised, and it gets more shelf space at the store. (It is really a lot cheaper, but sold at a higher markup. So that profit buys ads and shelf space.) Hence, the path of least resistance is to buy processed food.
lhnn 15y ago
What is considered "unprocessed" foods at the grocer? Raw beans, rice, whole grain wheat? Is the ground beef/deli meat "unprocessed" by your definition? Serious question. My impression is that anything not cut from an animal myself is processed by some harmful additive, so I've given up.
- latch 15y ago
  I understand that you could take this to an extreme: if it doesn't grow in my garden or die by my hand... But let's just focus on low hanging stuff for now. There are food products that are more chemical than anything. Oreos, Poptarts, CheezWhiz, pops, frozen meals, Juices "now with 10% real juice"...The list is extensive. Then you have overly refined products (white bread, white pastas). Fruits and vegetables (fresh, canned or frozen), lentiles and legumes, grains/careals (including breads and pastas), raw meat (fish/chicken/beef/pork/...) are all ok. I'm sure there's more. I don't think there's much room for confusion between eating Captin' Crunch vs oatmeal, cheetos vs a bowl of plain yogurt with strawberries.

revolvingiris 15y ago

Good message: "don't over consume and stick to unprocessed sources". It bothers me though that the word sugar is in the title since they really mean sucrose. Both fructose and glucose occur naturally (fruit, veggies, starches) and are not harmful.

jrockway 15y ago
Sucrose occurs naturally too. So does cyanide. Natural != good to eat.
hristov 15y ago
Fructose is harmful, unfortunately. Sucrose gets split by the body into one fructose and one glucose molecule. And it is the fructose that is harmful because it cannot be properly processed by the liver in large quantities. Sucrose is only harmful in as much as it produces fructose. It is true that fructose appears naturally all over the place. And that is the tricky part. The liver can actually process fructose fine if it gets a little at a time and simultaneously receives fiber. Almost everywhere fructose occurs naturally it occurs with fiber. Thus, the human body is perfectly capable of processing fructose in its natural state, but once you start concentrating it and removing the fiber the problems come about. This is why fruits and veggies are perfectly healthy but refined sugars are bad for you.
- DanBC 15y ago
  > The liver can actually process fructose fine if it gets a little at a time and simultaneously receives fiber. Dietary fibre gets to the liver?
  - hristov 15y ago
    The liver gets nutrients from dietary fiber which help it process fructose. I believe the nutrient in question was phosphorus, but am not absolutely sure.
    - anthonyb 15y ago

Alex3917 15y ago

Is there seriously anyone left at this point who doesn't think sugar is toxic?

pbreit 15y ago
I think "toxic" is a strong word. Sugar occurs naturally in fruit which is relatively healthy and sugar in moderation (ie, not added) is completely fine.
- pbreit 15y ago
  Not sure why the downvotes. I looked around a bit further and it's even clearer that sugar, sucrose, fructose, etc, by themselves are not poisons.
  - Alex3917 15y ago
    Nothing by itself is a poison. But it's pretty clear that what they are saying is that refined sugars are toxic in the level that they're being consumed by Americans today. You can try to pretend they're talking about bananas all they want, but as soon as you stop willfully misrepresenting what they're saying your argument falls apart.

meric 15y ago

Title can be improved. What is toxicity? "A central concept of toxicology is that effects are dose-dependent; even water can lead to water intoxication when taken in too many doses, whereas for even a very toxic substance such as snake venom there is a dose below which there is no detectable toxic effect. Toxicity is species-specific, lending cross-species analysis problematic. Newer paradigms and metrics are evolving to bypass animal-testing, while maintaining the concept of toxicity endpoints." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxicity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxicity

aaronblohowiak 15y ago
The dose makes the poison - Paracelsus
latch 15y ago
Dr Lustig's argument is that the amount of sucrose the average person takes is toxic. The title could be "Average person eats sucrose in doses of toxicity"...or "Sucrose is toxic" You are being pedantic.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

driverdan 15y ago

Dr Lustig has been promoting this idea for many years. The problem is that he's doing it very unscientifically. He vastly overstates his evidence and makes claims of certainty that the science doesn't support. I'm interested to see what replies his recent Nature publication receives.

droithomme 15y ago
Yes, here's an article promoting this from last year: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.htm... And from earlier this year: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2094812/Sugar-controlled-like-tobacco-alcohol.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2094812/Sugar-cont...
ars 15y ago
He starts by saying sugar and high fructose syrup are the same, then concludes by testing high fructose syrup and finding it's bad - but not testing sugar. His test does not support his conclusion.

derleth 15y ago

OK, let's try this: Is honey toxic?

anthonyb 15y ago
Honey has a lot more nutrients in it than sugar, so generally it's better for you, and doesn't spike your insulin so hard. Here's a round up which has some links to further research: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/is-honey-a-safer-sweetener/ http://www.marksdailyapple.com/is-honey-a-safer-sweetener/

cottonseed 15y ago

> Americans are now consuming nearly 130 pounds of added sugars per person, per year. I have always found this statistic utterly astounding, esp. considering that sugar is a new world product. In 1500 England, say, the average person consumed 0 pounds of added sugar per year.