8 ms·

Forgive my naivete (I have a passing knowledge about diet), but isn't 'complex polysaccharides' more or less a synonym for 'complex carbohydrates' (excluding ol

by checker 14y ago

Forgive my naivete (I have a passing knowledge about diet), but isn't 'complex polysaccharides' more or less a synonym for 'complex carbohydrates' (excluding oligosaccharides)? I feel that most readily available refined/processed food is low in complex carbs since the processing breaks them down, and because simple carbs are cheaper and taste better. Essentially my question is this: A fresh vegetarian diet is going to be high in the complex polysaccharides that you mention. So why are vegetarians statistically thinner than the average population, if these complex polysaccharides are wreaking havoc on their digestive systems? This whole question breaks down if I'm mistaken about the definition of complex polysaccharide. Thanks.

Udo 14y ago
You are correct to doubt the meaning of these words as they are being flung around for the sole reason of providing credibility. Your mistake is coming with scientific thoughts into a discussion that is utterly non-scientific and purely based on making money with buzzword-laden books by turning anything related to food into a weird cult-like experience. But at least your questions are in an area where I can maybe help out. Carbohydrates are just what the name says: carbon molecules with hydrogen and oxygen attached to them. Complexity of carbohydrates is a spectrum, with formaldehyde being at one end and ultra-complex molecules such as huge amino-saccharides or polymers on the other. Saccharides are sugars, who all belong to the carbohydrate family. As far as nutrition is concerned, most sugars are based on the glucose molecule, that's a unit with 6 carbon atoms typically wound into a ring with six or five edges. Chaining those rings together makes polysaccharides. Overly long saccharide chains only fit into our sweetness taste detectors at one point, that's one ping each from a huge number of saccharide rings. Smaller sugars (like dextrose) cause a lot more signal by fitting better into the detectors, that's why they tend to taste sweeter. Polysaccharide disassembly starts with enzymes in the saliva of the mouth, that's why some things get sweeter when you chew on them for a while. For people who don't gobble down their food to quickly, that means only small sugar molecules even arrive in the small intestine, where they are further split into monosaccharides which can finally be resorbed through the intestinal wall. The small intestine is ill-equipped to handle longer chains, though, that's why they pass into the large intestine. In itself that's not a problem, but if there is a _regular and large_ amount of this stuff in the large intestine, it will attract microbes that live off it. So if a lot of sugars regularly make it into the large intestine, chances are there will be a population of bacteria (or worse: funghi) taking advantage of that. It's not like the bacteria cause obesity as some articles suggest, their presence is itself a symptom of a nutritional problem (such as too much intake). Of course sometimes these colonies cause other problems like inflammatory reactions that eventually necessitate flushing them out. But saying those bacteria cause obesity is just the new "I'm not fat, I'm big boned", a mechanism designed to deflect the responsibility for obesity away from a person's behavior. The digestive system is designed to survive and thrive on a variety of food, but there is also a lot that can go wrong. It's not "evil complex polysaccharides" wreaking havoc and producing energy out of thin air to make people fat, it's (as always) people eating too much who are bringing this upon themselves. One good thing food cults such as the different "nutrition plans" and "strategies" can do, however, is making people reflect on their habits and generally lower their energy consumption. To make it extra clear: I don't think vegetarianism is one of these cults, but it too causes people to eat more carefully.
- aaronblohowiak 14y ago
  > It's not like the bacteria cause obesity as some articles suggest, their presence is itself a symptom of a nutritional problem (such as too much intake) this article suggests the bacteria are causing obesity, and explores it by having a flora transplant into a regularly non-obese mouse that causes obesity in that mouse.
- nitrogen 14y ago
  Thanks for the very informative comment. I also recognize that a lot of people's understanding of food is scarcely more rigorous than cargo cult rituals, but a few points seem a bit unclear to me. ...It's not like the bacteria cause obesity as some articles suggest, their presence is itself a symptom of a nutritional problem (such as too much intake).... How do you square this with the claim from the original article that giving mice a toxin produced by gut bacteria (Lipopolysaccharide endotoxin) causes obesity and insulin resistance, and that "[m]ono-association of germfree C57BL/6J mice with strain Enterobacter cloacae B29 isolated from the volunteer’s gut induced fully developed obesity and insulin resistance on a high-fat diet but not on normal chow diet, whereas the germfree control mice on a high-fat diet did not exhibit the same disease phenotypes"? It's not "evil complex polysaccharides" wreaking havoc and producing energy out of thin air to make people fat, it's (as always) people eating too much who are bringing this upon themselves. Why, then, do some people become obese when they eat as their instincts tell them, and others do not? For example, I eat whenever I'm hungry, stop when I'm full (or even overfilled), snack frequently while working (mostly nuts, dried fruits, and sometimes Fritos), and yet remain thin, while others eat carefully and remain obese. What's the difference?
  - Udo 14y ago
    > How do you square this with the claim from the original article [...] I think the article makes some dubious claims, mostly centered around a single human volunteer (!), using a mice experiment to back that up - I'll remain skeptical until it can be reproduced by another team. The inclusion of Traditional Chinese Medicine alone as playing a key role to curing the condition is a huge tipoff that something is amiss. But even taking all those doubts into consideration, let's entertain the hypothesis that this bacterium does produce signals that make a person eat more. It's possible. But you still acquire the bacterium by eating too much in the first place. It simply couldn't colonize you if you didn't. > Why, then, do some people become obese when they eat as their instincts tell them, and others do not? My personal opinion is there are two big factors. First, lifestyle. People eat too much because that's simply how they live their lives. It may be because they only have access to high-calorie food, or because everybody around them eats too much, or because they have made a habit of eating too much. The second group (which I'm a part of) is worse: for them, food is an addiction. Many of them may already eat "healthy", high-quality stuff - so moving away from fast food does nothing for them. Eating simply has the same effect on them as drugs do on other people.

by checker 14y ago

Udo 14y ago

You are correct to doubt the meaning of these words as they are being flung around for the sole reason of providing credibility. Your mistake is coming with scientific thoughts into a discussion that is utterly non-scientific and purely based on making money with buzzword-laden books by turning anything related to food into a weird cult-like experience. But at least your questions are in an area where I can maybe help out. Carbohydrates are just what the name says: carbon molecules with hydrogen and oxygen attached to them. Complexity of carbohydrates is a spectrum, with formaldehyde being at one end and ultra-complex molecules such as huge amino-saccharides or polymers on the other. Saccharides are sugars, who all belong to the carbohydrate family. As far as nutrition is concerned, most sugars are based on the glucose molecule, that's a unit with 6 carbon atoms typically wound into a ring with six or five edges. Chaining those rings together makes polysaccharides. Overly long saccharide chains only fit into our sweetness taste detectors at one point, that's one ping each from a huge number of saccharide rings. Smaller sugars (like dextrose) cause a lot more signal by fitting better into the detectors, that's why they tend to taste sweeter. Polysaccharide disassembly starts with enzymes in the saliva of the mouth, that's why some things get sweeter when you chew on them for a while. For people who don't gobble down their food to quickly, that means only small sugar molecules even arrive in the small intestine, where they are further split into monosaccharides which can finally be resorbed through the intestinal wall. The small intestine is ill-equipped to handle longer chains, though, that's why they pass into the large intestine. In itself that's not a problem, but if there is a _regular and large_ amount of this stuff in the large intestine, it will attract microbes that live off it. So if a lot of sugars regularly make it into the large intestine, chances are there will be a population of bacteria (or worse: funghi) taking advantage of that. It's not like the bacteria cause obesity as some articles suggest, their presence is itself a symptom of a nutritional problem (such as too much intake). Of course sometimes these colonies cause other problems like inflammatory reactions that eventually necessitate flushing them out. But saying those bacteria cause obesity is just the new "I'm not fat, I'm big boned", a mechanism designed to deflect the responsibility for obesity away from a person's behavior. The digestive system is designed to survive and thrive on a variety of food, but there is also a lot that can go wrong. It's not "evil complex polysaccharides" wreaking havoc and producing energy out of thin air to make people fat, it's (as always) people eating too much who are bringing this upon themselves. One good thing food cults such as the different "nutrition plans" and "strategies" can do, however, is making people reflect on their habits and generally lower their energy consumption. To make it extra clear: I don't think vegetarianism is one of these cults, but it too causes people to eat more carefully.

aaronblohowiak 14y ago
> It's not like the bacteria cause obesity as some articles suggest, their presence is itself a symptom of a nutritional problem (such as too much intake) this article suggests the bacteria are causing obesity, and explores it by having a flora transplant into a regularly non-obese mouse that causes obesity in that mouse.
nitrogen 14y ago
Thanks for the very informative comment. I also recognize that a lot of people's understanding of food is scarcely more rigorous than cargo cult rituals, but a few points seem a bit unclear to me. ...It's not like the bacteria cause obesity as some articles suggest, their presence is itself a symptom of a nutritional problem (such as too much intake).... How do you square this with the claim from the original article that giving mice a toxin produced by gut bacteria (Lipopolysaccharide endotoxin) causes obesity and insulin resistance, and that "[m]ono-association of germfree C57BL/6J mice with strain Enterobacter cloacae B29 isolated from the volunteer’s gut induced fully developed obesity and insulin resistance on a high-fat diet but not on normal chow diet, whereas the germfree control mice on a high-fat diet did not exhibit the same disease phenotypes"? It's not "evil complex polysaccharides" wreaking havoc and producing energy out of thin air to make people fat, it's (as always) people eating too much who are bringing this upon themselves. Why, then, do some people become obese when they eat as their instincts tell them, and others do not? For example, I eat whenever I'm hungry, stop when I'm full (or even overfilled), snack frequently while working (mostly nuts, dried fruits, and sometimes Fritos), and yet remain thin, while others eat carefully and remain obese. What's the difference?
- Udo 14y ago
  > How do you square this with the claim from the original article [...] I think the article makes some dubious claims, mostly centered around a single human volunteer (!), using a mice experiment to back that up - I'll remain skeptical until it can be reproduced by another team. The inclusion of Traditional Chinese Medicine alone as playing a key role to curing the condition is a huge tipoff that something is amiss. But even taking all those doubts into consideration, let's entertain the hypothesis that this bacterium does produce signals that make a person eat more. It's possible. But you still acquire the bacterium by eating too much in the first place. It simply couldn't colonize you if you didn't. > Why, then, do some people become obese when they eat as their instincts tell them, and others do not? My personal opinion is there are two big factors. First, lifestyle. People eat too much because that's simply how they live their lives. It may be because they only have access to high-calorie food, or because everybody around them eats too much, or because they have made a habit of eating too much. The second group (which I'm a part of) is worse: for them, food is an addiction. Many of them may already eat "healthy", high-quality stuff - so moving away from fast food does nothing for them. Eating simply has the same effect on them as drugs do on other people.