4 ms·

It's not nonsense and you're not addressing the main point: overuse. A glass of wine is harmless. A bottle of hard spirit will poison and potentially kill you.

by kjksf 2y ago

It's not nonsense and you're not addressing the main point: overuse. A glass of wine is harmless. A bottle of hard spirit will poison and potentially kill you. Your body can nullify small amounts of alcohol. But if you drink more toxin than what your body can neutralize it poisons you. Sugar and carbs rise glucose level in your blood. When it's small amount your blood will re-distribute it to cells as fuel. But if you eat enough sugar and carbs that your body cannot absorb all the glucose, you become fat and develop diabetes. So yeah, sugar is fuel and tastes good but in modern food products it's used everywhere which makes moderate use very hard to achieve. That's why 99 million of Americans are overweight, 70 million are obese. 29 million have diagnosed diabetes, 10 million estimated undiagnosed diabetes and 115 million pre-diabetes.

iamacyborg 2y ago
You're confusing sugar and carbs with excess calories. Excess calories are harmful, sugar and carbs are not.
- germinalphrase 2y ago
  Sugar and carbs are very calorie dense, so it’s a distinction without a difference on a practical level.
  - wathef 2y ago
    A carbohydrate and protein have the same calorie content, around 4kcal per gram. Fat is 9kcal per gram.
    - germinalphrase 2y ago
      Again, on a practical level - what’s easier to over consume? Carbs and sugars or fats?
  - hawk_ 2y ago
    It's perhaps more accurate to say sugars and simple carbs are easy to absorb whereas fats and complex carbs are harder to absorb. A single gram fat is the most calorie dense substance by weight that we can consume I think. It's just in practice it's hard to become fat by consuming only excess fat.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- nradov 2y ago
  High blood glucose levels are literally toxic. This will damage every cell in your body. Your body can buffer sugar intake to an extent in order to maintain homeostasis but over time this tends to cause insulin resistance. A little sugar is fine but larger amounts are poisonous. The exact limit depends on a number of factors such as muscle mass and liver glucagon level.
  - layla5alive 2y ago
    And proportion of visceral fat stores, genetics, epigenetics, etc.
- GivinStatic 2y ago
  Calories are pretty much meaningless. The kind of food, proportions of carbohydrates, and other components is very critical. Nutrition =/= filling gas in a car.
  - iamacyborg 2y ago
    > Calories are pretty much meaningless. I think you'll have to expand on what you're trying to say here as taking it at face value is clearly untrue.
    - GivinStatic 2y ago
      There are calorie dense foods that are nutrition poor foods, and vice versa. In living things, it's not about energy only, the contents that help keep the body processing and regulating matter by a lot. The quality of calories matters a lot too.
- francisofascii 2y ago
  Sugar calories are not equal to say, calories in nuts. The sugar calories are indeed worse. One reason for this is the caloric energy in nuts are not fully absorbed like with sugar. So even though nuts are energy dense, they won’t cause obesity like sugar.
- dcow 2y ago
  calories in / calories out is a foolproof way to track weight gain/loss over extended periods of time. So people tend to oversimplify nutrition and diet to this one number. But it is indisputable that your body processes carbs, protein, and fat in very different ways. If you only eat donuts and bacon and candy consistently, in normal caloric levels, then you will likely develop type 2 diabetes (or more precisely insulin resistance). Glucose in your blood is toxic. Are you really going to argue that this diet is perfectly safe?
  - iamacyborg 2y ago
    > Are you really going to argue that this diet is perfectly safe? I'm not sure that I ever claimed it was? All I'm saying is there's no point in vilifying those food types as they can be part of a perfectly healthy diet.
    - dcow 2y ago
      There is (and let’s not bey coy: arguing all calories are equal implies a sugar diet is perfectly healthy). People literally don’t understand how bad excessive sugar intake is because it’s not vilified enough. A mature adult understands that everyone has vices and all things are usually fine in moderation, and that’s how we should approach sugar. I strongly believe in 20 years sugar will be seen similar to tobacco. And that’s okay. You and I can still enjoy an occasional donut.

by kjksf 2y ago

iamacyborg 2y ago

You're confusing sugar and carbs with excess calories. Excess calories are harmful, sugar and carbs are not.

germinalphrase 2y ago
Sugar and carbs are very calorie dense, so it’s a distinction without a difference on a practical level.
- wathef 2y ago
  A carbohydrate and protein have the same calorie content, around 4kcal per gram. Fat is 9kcal per gram.
  - germinalphrase 2y ago
    Again, on a practical level - what’s easier to over consume? Carbs and sugars or fats?
- hawk_ 2y ago
  It's perhaps more accurate to say sugars and simple carbs are easy to absorb whereas fats and complex carbs are harder to absorb. A single gram fat is the most calorie dense substance by weight that we can consume I think. It's just in practice it's hard to become fat by consuming only excess fat.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
nradov 2y ago
High blood glucose levels are literally toxic. This will damage every cell in your body. Your body can buffer sugar intake to an extent in order to maintain homeostasis but over time this tends to cause insulin resistance. A little sugar is fine but larger amounts are poisonous. The exact limit depends on a number of factors such as muscle mass and liver glucagon level.
- layla5alive 2y ago
  And proportion of visceral fat stores, genetics, epigenetics, etc.
GivinStatic 2y ago
Calories are pretty much meaningless. The kind of food, proportions of carbohydrates, and other components is very critical. Nutrition =/= filling gas in a car.
- iamacyborg 2y ago
  > Calories are pretty much meaningless. I think you'll have to expand on what you're trying to say here as taking it at face value is clearly untrue.
  - GivinStatic 2y ago
    There are calorie dense foods that are nutrition poor foods, and vice versa. In living things, it's not about energy only, the contents that help keep the body processing and regulating matter by a lot. The quality of calories matters a lot too.
francisofascii 2y ago
Sugar calories are not equal to say, calories in nuts. The sugar calories are indeed worse. One reason for this is the caloric energy in nuts are not fully absorbed like with sugar. So even though nuts are energy dense, they won’t cause obesity like sugar.
dcow 2y ago
calories in / calories out is a foolproof way to track weight gain/loss over extended periods of time. So people tend to oversimplify nutrition and diet to this one number. But it is indisputable that your body processes carbs, protein, and fat in very different ways. If you only eat donuts and bacon and candy consistently, in normal caloric levels, then you will likely develop type 2 diabetes (or more precisely insulin resistance). Glucose in your blood is toxic. Are you really going to argue that this diet is perfectly safe?
- iamacyborg 2y ago
  > Are you really going to argue that this diet is perfectly safe? I'm not sure that I ever claimed it was? All I'm saying is there's no point in vilifying those food types as they can be part of a perfectly healthy diet.
  - dcow 2y ago
    There is (and let’s not bey coy: arguing all calories are equal implies a sugar diet is perfectly healthy). People literally don’t understand how bad excessive sugar intake is because it’s not vilified enough. A mature adult understands that everyone has vices and all things are usually fine in moderation, and that’s how we should approach sugar. I strongly believe in 20 years sugar will be seen similar to tobacco. And that’s okay. You and I can still enjoy an occasional donut.