4 ms·

It's good to see more studies come on this but it's not exactly news. Researchers have known for quite some time now that there's an entire constellation of di

It's good to see more studies come on this but it's not exactly news. Researchers have known for quite some time now that there's an entire constellation of diseases (diabetes, stroke, certain cancers, fatty liver disease, heart disease, etc, etc) known as metabolic syndrome that are all caused by diet and lifestyle.

lithocarpus 2y ago
What's new to me is that it's becoming newsworthy, more people are talking about it. To my current understanding, metabolic syndrome caused by sugar / glucose spikes is by far the biggest root cause of physical health issue in the US. Most people I know personally who are suffering from physical ailments, it's most likely metabolic syndrome at the root of it. How to shift culture on this? When I'm in civilization in the US I'm constantly confronted with foods I have to turn down. It doesn't have to be that way. Furthermore, because of what is in my opinion bad science and propaganda, a lot of people still think they need to stay away from saturated fat, which pushes them toward processed high glycemic index foods. Sure, you can eat a low saturated fat and low glycemic diet but it's not so easy. I'm serious it's shocking the number of people suffering from metabolic syndrome / diabetes who have told me they are trying to stay away from saturated fat but are eating crazy amounts of sugar. I hope this continues to be talked about more and more so the people I love can turn down sugar without feeling like they're radical and countercultural. Partly I think there's a taboo on talking about health and diet, that would be good to shift. I'm not about fat shaming but diabetes is really just bad, and preventable and reversible, and I'd like for that to be widely agreed on and talked about. Will also be interesting to see how lawsuits like this play out: https://chat.google.com/dm/wQTk3gAAAAE/WPNwzCxw9sI/WPNwzCxw9sI https://chat.google.com/dm/wQTk3gAAAAE/WPNwzCxw9sI/WPNwzCxw9...
- Mistletoe 2y ago
  It's not propaganda. Saturated fat is bad. That's a common internet belief that runs rampant because saturated fat tastes good and it sounds awesome to believe some conspiracy against it. https://www.heart.org/en/news/2019/10/21/advisory-replacing-saturated-fat-with-healthier-fat-could-lower-cardiovascular-risks https://www.heart.org/en/news/2019/10/21/advisory-replacing-... Most of it always tracks back to Nina Teicholz. I wonder how many people she is sending to the grave? https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)31886-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
  - lithocarpus 2y ago
    I know it's hotly debated and I don't imagine I could convince you :). This is my opinion. If I read right, you're saying that an entire food group that people have been eating for eons is simply "bad", specifically, meat, dairy, and eggs, in their unprocessed form. The argument I've seen is that it's better to eat a new kind of food that people have only begun eating in quantity within the last hundred ish years requiring industrial technology. (Specifically, oils extracted from plant material using solvents like hexane.) I'm open minded but this is a really serious claim and I'd need really solid evidence which I haven't seen, and I've looked. There are a lot of studies; those that I've looked into have too many confounding variables for me to take their conclusions at face value. I could also see the possibility that saturated fat in someone who already has metabolic syndrome might increase their risk of heart disease, and maybe be considered the proximate cause, in cases where the root cause is the metabolic syndrome caused by sugar in the first place. There's also the question of there being different kinds of LDL cholesterol and it perhaps actually serving a function in the body that isn't categorically bad, even if in some circumstances the metric correlates with atherosclerosis.
interestica 2y ago
> It's good to see more studies come on this but it's not exactly news. Researchers have known for quite some time now A growing body of studies signals consensus - that’s newsworthy. This ties two specific factors together rather than any general metabolic syndrome.
arcticbull 2y ago
Just to clarify metabolic syndrome isn't the umbrella term for all of these things. Metabolic syndrome is when you have 3 or more of: central adiposity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high triglycerides and low HDL. You can have any of these independently, it becomes metabolic syndrome when you hit the bingo.
- dantodor 2y ago
  Those are the most obvious and easy to spot signs. Metabolic syndrome is dysfunction at the mitochondrial level.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - arcticbull 2y ago
    > Metabolic syndrome is dysfunction at the mitochondrial level. It might or might not be involved. At this point, it's not clear. Obesity and insulin resistance are the most likely proximate causes.
toomuchtodo 2y ago
Also good that GLP-1s have been found to help people patch the reward center around unhealthy diet demand signals. We know these things are bad, we know will power isn't a solution, and we have a fix we can deploy at scale relatively inexpensively. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41988285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41988285 ("HN: GLP-1 for Everything") https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42579445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42579445 ("HN: Weight loss drugs seem to be driving down grocery bills") https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5073929 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5073929 | https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5073929 https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5073929 ("The No-Hunger Games: How GLP-1 Medication Adoption is Changing Consumer Food Purchases")
- bitmasher9 2y ago
  Saying will power isn’t a solution is insulting to everyone that successfully made lifestyle and diet changes to become healthier without pharmaceutical intervention. It may not work for everyone all the time, but I know a lot of people that have made these changes.
  - lazyasciiart 2y ago
    Their willpower doesn’t appear to have solved the issue on a societal level, and it is not an insult to say that.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - hombre_fatal 2y ago
    This is just an uncharitable / strawman interpretation of what they said. They are concerned with all the people left over once you remove the people that just had to muster up "willpower". And they are concerned for the people who weren't dealt the same hand of traits that us fit people have.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    If one is insulted, they should revisit their mental model and emotional state. There is no gold star for will power because someone lucked out with genetics and brain chemistry/structure. “Be more lucky” is not actionable for the body you are issued. We can patch bugs in the human, and we should whenever possible and desired by the person. This helps them make their own luck.
ericmcer 2y ago
That is true but I think emphasizing liquid sugar is particularly important. When I was young I tried to bulk (for sports) several times and ate an obscene amount of carbohydrates and protein, think like 8 hot dogs and half a gallon of milk for lunch... roughly 4k calories a day of carbs/protein/fat. I never got past 220. I would get terrible heartburn and bloating and be too full to eat enough, 220 seemed to be about the max my body could obtain without severe discomfort. It always made me wonder how people get up into the 300+ range. Liquified sugar seems like the only food that your body can process efficiently enough to get you into those massive weight categories.
tasty_freeze 2y ago
The study quantifies the effect. The paper doesn't just say "Drinking too much sugar is bad for you." Say one group drinks six cans of coke a day per person vs another group drink only water. Overall they have similar caloric intake and expenditures. What is the increase in type 2 diabetes for the first group vs the second? Yes, it is not surprising it would be higher, but is it 5%? 10%? 50%? 100%? more?

lithocarpus 2y ago

What's new to me is that it's becoming newsworthy, more people are talking about it. To my current understanding, metabolic syndrome caused by sugar / glucose spikes is by far the biggest root cause of physical health issue in the US. Most people I know personally who are suffering from physical ailments, it's most likely metabolic syndrome at the root of it. How to shift culture on this? When I'm in civilization in the US I'm constantly confronted with foods I have to turn down. It doesn't have to be that way. Furthermore, because of what is in my opinion bad science and propaganda, a lot of people still think they need to stay away from saturated fat, which pushes them toward processed high glycemic index foods. Sure, you can eat a low saturated fat and low glycemic diet but it's not so easy. I'm serious it's shocking the number of people suffering from metabolic syndrome / diabetes who have told me they are trying to stay away from saturated fat but are eating crazy amounts of sugar. I hope this continues to be talked about more and more so the people I love can turn down sugar without feeling like they're radical and countercultural. Partly I think there's a taboo on talking about health and diet, that would be good to shift. I'm not about fat shaming but diabetes is really just bad, and preventable and reversible, and I'd like for that to be widely agreed on and talked about. Will also be interesting to see how lawsuits like this play out: https://chat.google.com/dm/wQTk3gAAAAE/WPNwzCxw9sI/WPNwzCxw9sI https://chat.google.com/dm/wQTk3gAAAAE/WPNwzCxw9sI/WPNwzCxw9...

Mistletoe 2y ago
It's not propaganda. Saturated fat is bad. That's a common internet belief that runs rampant because saturated fat tastes good and it sounds awesome to believe some conspiracy against it. https://www.heart.org/en/news/2019/10/21/advisory-replacing-saturated-fat-with-healthier-fat-could-lower-cardiovascular-risks https://www.heart.org/en/news/2019/10/21/advisory-replacing-... Most of it always tracks back to Nina Teicholz. I wonder how many people she is sending to the grave? https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)31886-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
- lithocarpus 2y ago
  I know it's hotly debated and I don't imagine I could convince you :). This is my opinion. If I read right, you're saying that an entire food group that people have been eating for eons is simply "bad", specifically, meat, dairy, and eggs, in their unprocessed form. The argument I've seen is that it's better to eat a new kind of food that people have only begun eating in quantity within the last hundred ish years requiring industrial technology. (Specifically, oils extracted from plant material using solvents like hexane.) I'm open minded but this is a really serious claim and I'd need really solid evidence which I haven't seen, and I've looked. There are a lot of studies; those that I've looked into have too many confounding variables for me to take their conclusions at face value. I could also see the possibility that saturated fat in someone who already has metabolic syndrome might increase their risk of heart disease, and maybe be considered the proximate cause, in cases where the root cause is the metabolic syndrome caused by sugar in the first place. There's also the question of there being different kinds of LDL cholesterol and it perhaps actually serving a function in the body that isn't categorically bad, even if in some circumstances the metric correlates with atherosclerosis.

interestica 2y ago

> It's good to see more studies come on this but it's not exactly news. Researchers have known for quite some time now A growing body of studies signals consensus - that’s newsworthy. This ties two specific factors together rather than any general metabolic syndrome.

arcticbull 2y ago

Just to clarify metabolic syndrome isn't the umbrella term for all of these things. Metabolic syndrome is when you have 3 or more of: central adiposity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high triglycerides and low HDL. You can have any of these independently, it becomes metabolic syndrome when you hit the bingo.

dantodor 2y ago
Those are the most obvious and easy to spot signs. Metabolic syndrome is dysfunction at the mitochondrial level.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- arcticbull 2y ago
  > Metabolic syndrome is dysfunction at the mitochondrial level. It might or might not be involved. At this point, it's not clear. Obesity and insulin resistance are the most likely proximate causes.

toomuchtodo 2y ago

Also good that GLP-1s have been found to help people patch the reward center around unhealthy diet demand signals. We know these things are bad, we know will power isn't a solution, and we have a fix we can deploy at scale relatively inexpensively. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41988285 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41988285 ("HN: GLP-1 for Everything") https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42579445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42579445 ("HN: Weight loss drugs seem to be driving down grocery bills") https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5073929 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5073929 | https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5073929 https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5073929 ("The No-Hunger Games: How GLP-1 Medication Adoption is Changing Consumer Food Purchases")

bitmasher9 2y ago
Saying will power isn’t a solution is insulting to everyone that successfully made lifestyle and diet changes to become healthier without pharmaceutical intervention. It may not work for everyone all the time, but I know a lot of people that have made these changes.
- lazyasciiart 2y ago
  Their willpower doesn’t appear to have solved the issue on a societal level, and it is not an insult to say that.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- hombre_fatal 2y ago
  This is just an uncharitable / strawman interpretation of what they said. They are concerned with all the people left over once you remove the people that just had to muster up "willpower". And they are concerned for the people who weren't dealt the same hand of traits that us fit people have.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  If one is insulted, they should revisit their mental model and emotional state. There is no gold star for will power because someone lucked out with genetics and brain chemistry/structure. “Be more lucky” is not actionable for the body you are issued. We can patch bugs in the human, and we should whenever possible and desired by the person. This helps them make their own luck.

ericmcer 2y ago

That is true but I think emphasizing liquid sugar is particularly important. When I was young I tried to bulk (for sports) several times and ate an obscene amount of carbohydrates and protein, think like 8 hot dogs and half a gallon of milk for lunch... roughly 4k calories a day of carbs/protein/fat. I never got past 220. I would get terrible heartburn and bloating and be too full to eat enough, 220 seemed to be about the max my body could obtain without severe discomfort. It always made me wonder how people get up into the 300+ range. Liquified sugar seems like the only food that your body can process efficiently enough to get you into those massive weight categories.

tasty_freeze 2y ago

The study quantifies the effect. The paper doesn't just say "Drinking too much sugar is bad for you." Say one group drinks six cans of coke a day per person vs another group drink only water. Overall they have similar caloric intake and expenditures. What is the increase in type 2 diabetes for the first group vs the second? Yes, it is not surprising it would be higher, but is it 5%? 10%? 50%? 100%? more?