7 ms·

Is Sugar Really Toxic?

81 points by to_jon 13y ago

grannyg00se 13y ago
"Enzymes in the intestine split sucrose into fructose and glucose within seconds, so as far as the human body is concerned sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup are equivalent." I'm not an expert by any means, but from what I recall that point is still widely contested.
mullingitover 13y ago
Sola dosis facit venenum. I didn't pay attention to my weight for a couple years, ate a lot of sweets and drank a lot of beer. Before I knew it I'd gained 30 pounds, and had a minor freakout. I decided to do three things--weigh myself every morning, stop eating sugar except for from fruit, and stop drinking. I ended up shedding 30 pounds in 90 days, and have kept it off for a full year. I didn't exercise or count calories in any way, in fact I probably upped my overall calorie consumption but I replaced the sugars with more complex energy sources like nuts. I'm not sure if it was cutting the alcohol, cutting the sugar, or both that did the trick. However, I've been letting myself have some alcohol for the past few months (wine, not beer) and haven't gained a pound since doing so, so my gut tells me it was the sugar. I definitely feel a whole lot healthier.
- astrange 13y ago
  Most of your changes could be explained just by calories. Beer is quite high calorie since it has so many carbs, and eating nuts satiates you faster so you end up eating less. Alcohol itself doesn't affect weight much, though IIRC fat isn't metabolized well together with it. But it can improve your lifespan: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9481115 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9481115
  - brianbreslin 13y ago
    Not really. Assume he cut out 300 calories a day of beer. So a pound of fat is 3600 calories roughly. By just cutting out beer he would need 12 days to lose 1 lb. not the rate he was losing which was 1/3lb per day. Many studies have shown pure caloric deficits do not lead to rapid weight loss.
    - mullingitover 13y ago
      I figured the same thing--I definitely didn't feel like I was cutting calories in any way. I took up drinking lots of whole milk, eating bacon, and at my desk I'd eat a whole 12-ounce coffee cup full of mixed nuts (still do, in fact) each day at work. I didn't even cut carbs, I ate pizza and pasta pretty regularly. The only thing I did was aggressively eliminate refined sugars and beer from my diet. I'm curious if gut fauna could be a factor.
      - brianbreslin 13y ago
        Fat is pure energy so you were entering ketosis through the bacon and whole milk etc. nuts are High in fiber as well, so you may have also helped flush out the stuff faster? Pasta and bread I think have less insulin effect than sugars and alcohols so maybe that's all your body needed to avoid fat hoarding.
        jawilson2 13y ago
        It is hard to say based on the limited info he posted, but you only enter ketosis if you consume under 20-50 g of carbs per day. A single slice of bread, one yogurt, a bowl of cereal, or even a few carrots can take you out of it. You can't really accidentally get into ketosis without very deliberately avoiding carbs.
  - zurn 13y ago
    Blaming carbs is not a "just calories" explanation, rather the opposite.
    - astrange 13y ago
      I suppose you're suggesting the same calories+alcohol in some other form (shochu and lean meat?) would be better. Maybe so, but I don't know if there's any studies on that.
- saryant 13y ago
  I did something similar during my semester in France. Stopped eating all bread and processed carbs. Vegetables, fruit and meat plus Greek yogurt. I didn't cut out alcohol though, nor was my weight loss as drastic as yours. Lost about thirty pounds over four months (which was terrific, my girlfriend of four years dumped me the night I flew home so at least I was ready for singles' life). I won't go so far as to call sugar "toxic" but I know that cutting it out has made me much, much healthier. Also, I had a blood test a few weeks ago. My doctor actually wrote "outstanding" on my cholesterol report.
  - philwelch 13y ago
    You stopped eating bread while in France?
    - saryant 13y ago
      I was really fat.
- coldtea 13y ago
  >Sola dosis facit venenum Pedantically we might say that, but it's not really true. Sure, what makes something poisonous/dangerous is the dosage, but the dosage itself depends on more basic characteristics. It's not like we arbitrarily try high dosages of stuff. We don't go out eating small amounts of cyanide for a reason. Nice taste facits venenum -- by making us increase the dosage. Think sugar, salt, red meat, etc. Uplifting side effects facit venenum. Think heroin, alcohol, etc. Adverse withdrawal effects also facit venenum. Else we could easily quite alcohol, drugs, cigarettes with a little self restraint.
- hippich 13y ago
  I doubt excluding sugars from your diet made a difference, or excluding alcohol alone did it. Beer in general do not have that many calories, it is usually junk food accompanied beer is what adding a lot of calories and fat. ^^^ IMHO, since there is a chance you were consuming pound of sugar and six-pack of beer daily :)
  - jmduke 13y ago
    Beer usually hovers around the 150-200 calorie mark per bottle. If you're putting away a six-pack every weekend, that adds up very quickly. (Which is not to say that you'll magically lose weight if you stop drinking, or that it's impossible to lose weight if you're drinking every week.)
    - hippich 13y ago
      If you drink 6 pack in one evening - this is "overeating" already. All these extra calories will immediately start converting into fat. On the other hand if you drink 6 pack during the span of the whole week - it will hardly make a difference. So yeah - it really depends on how much beer peak usage we are talking about here.
- pvnick 13y ago
  >I ended up shedding 30 pounds in 90 days, and have kept it off for a full year >I probably upped my overall calorie consumption but I replaced the sugars with more complex energy sources like nuts Unless you started exercising, these two statements are incompatible with one another (violates the first law of thermodynamics). What's more likely is you felt "fuller" from eating healthy foods and therefore consumed less calories.
  - philwelch 13y ago
    The laws of thermodynamics do not preclude your body from ingesting something that has calories and shitting it out without actually doing anything with the calories. Your shit would just have more calories left in it, kind of like how a poorly made car might leak gasoline everywhere.
    - richcollins 13y ago
      More likely increased BMR
    - pvnick 13y ago
      Your statement is only marginally correct, but mostly misleading to the point of being practically wrong. Depending on what you eat, your body absorbs 80%-97% of calories according to the following (simplified) equation: Energy in = Energy out + Change in Body Stores [1] Where "change in body stores" is, for all intents and purposes, either muscle or fat. So while going from eating 3000 calories of pure butter to eating 3000 calories of straight fibrous vegetables will show a modest difference in caloric retention, I guarantee you that's not the case here. [1] http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance-equation.html http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance...
      - philwelch 13y ago
        The point is, don't gloss over things by making dumb statements like "it's impossible because of the laws of thermodynamics". The laws of thermodynamics don't preclude engines that either leak fuel or are fantastically inefficient in converting them to any particular form whether it be locomotion, electricity, or adipose tissue. If your point is that the human body is fantastically efficient at producing fat in ways that don't really vary, then prove that point.
amerika_blog 13y ago
I really hope not. I love sugar. It's also the only stimulant I can mete out in small doses that will keep me going without obliterating my concentration, as caffeine tends to do (disclaimer: I haven't tried cocaine).
- aethertap 13y ago
  I read about some research* regarding ego depletion and its relationship to blood glucose levels that was pretty interesting. Basically, they did a study with two groups of people. Both were asked to do some challenging problems requiring concentration, then both were given lemonade. One group's lemonade was sweetened with glucose, and the other with some artificial sweetener. The two groups were then asked to do more challenging problems. I can't recall the actual numbers, but the group that had glucose in their lemonade did significantly better on the second round than the other group, and the two groups were about the same on the first round. The implication was that the brain uses glucose in its operation, and requires a certain level of glucose to function at full capacity. At least one cause of the brain fog we get after a full day's focused work is that we're low on fuel, which happens to be easy to fix. Unfortunately, it has other effects too that we might not want so much. I've been meaning to experiment on myself a bit with some glucose tabs after a long day of code, but haven't gotten around to it yet. (*) I think that was in "Thinking, Fast and Slow" but I'm not certain now, too many similar books in between.
  - sparkie 13y ago
    This test is flawed, as it doesn't have a "neutral group" - a group that had neither sugar nor artificial sweetener. How can they conclude that the sugar made people do better, rather than the artificial sweetener making people do worse?
    - aethertap 13y ago
      Agreed, at least from my brief description, which was a summary of a summary out of a book. I'd say it's more likely that it's my own retelling that's flawed, though I haven't read the actual study. They also didn't have a group which was given the same number of calories from a different source (as far as I know) so it's possible that eating a chunk of meat would have the same effect. What I thought was interesting actually was that they were able to demonstrate beneficial effects from intake of calories directly on brain function. As I wrote that, I did remember a bit of evidence that the glucose was actually beneficial - namely that they measured performance on the problems over time. At the end of the first set, both groups were showing approximately equal degraded performance. Upon resuming on the second set, the group given glucose was back up to nearly the starting level of proficiency, while the group given no glucose was at the same level they stopped at on the first group.
wmil 13y ago
This line... > Considering that our cells depend on sugar for energy, Is dishonest. In general parlance "sugar" refers to sucrose. Sucrose is a glucose bonded to a fructose. Our bodies need glucose to live. However they do not need fructose.
- nicholas73 13y ago
  I've even heard a university nutritionist make the claim that sugar is just glucose. Some days I feel stupid; others, I feel other people are more stupid.
- donaldc 13y ago
  That line alone cost the article much of its credibility in my book. A scientific article should not lump all sugars together as metabolically equivalent.
rfnslyr 13y ago
Man. Sugar is the worst. Take it from me. I moved to the city the moment I turned 18, I didn't know much about cooking. Back in the 'burbs you'd be lucky to live within 10km of a grocery store. Downtown however, totally different story. I went NUTS with sweets and pizza. I gained over 100 lbs in just under half a year. I was eating around 10k calories a day. I then stuck to only these foods and have only been eating this the past couple years: chicken lean beef kale + other greens various fruit cheese That's it. No seasoning, nothing. I'm so much happier now. Better sleeps, better mood, better everything. My mood and days fluctuated like crazy when I didn't keep track of my diet. I'd love to hear some opinions on the following talk from fellow HNers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
- brianbreslin 13y ago
  How has your weight loss progressed since the dietary change?
  - rfnslyr 13y ago
    Back to 200 and shredded. Lean as fuck. I eat a lot of fat and protein, not really many carbs, under around 50 a day.
- pedalpete 13y ago
  I cut out most sugar years ago, I think by not 'seasoning', you may be doing yourself a dis-service. Sugar isn't the only seasoning. There are lots you can do with herbs, oils and citrus (just stay away from vinegars which are often high in sugar). For those who want to try restricting their diet to be more healty, a simple trick is to only shop on the outer isles of the grocery store. In more stores, you'll have the produce along one one, meats and fish along another, and then dairy and cheese along another. Sadly, the bakery is also along a wall, so just be smart enough to avoid that one, and don't be tricked by bread, most of it has a significant amount of sugar.
- beggi 13y ago
  Fatty meat and fat is healthy as well!
deleted 13y ago
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- deleted 13y ago
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jdkuepper 13y ago
A great read on this same topic: http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/is-sugar-toxic http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/is-sugar-toxic "What I find frustrating about this debate is that most people yelling and screaming don’t fully define the terms, perhaps because they don’t appreciate them (forgivable) or because they are trying to mislead others (unforgiveable). The wrong question is being asked. “Is sugar toxic?” is a silly question. Why? Because it lacks context. Is water toxic? Is oxygen toxic? These are equally silly questions, I hope you’ll appreciate. Both oxygen and water are essential for life (sugar, by the way, is not). But both oxygen and water are toxic – yes, lethal – at high enough doses."
nicholas73 13y ago
Yes sugar is toxic because of the metabolic by-products of fructose, which is similar to the by-products of alcohol. Both are known to make freshmen put on weight. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
FrankenPC 13y ago
"—a nutrition scientist at Archer Daniels Midland, a major food processing corporation—" Facepalm
- derleth 13y ago
  And you have nothing to say about the content, then?
  - donaldc 13y ago
    His comment says more about the content of the article than most of the other comments. An article about sugar funded by ADM is not an objective source of information, due to the very large conflict of interest.
    - derleth 13y ago
      Whether it's right or wrong is independent of where it comes from.
- darkarmani 13y ago
  And you'll note the link to John White is broken too. It should be this: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=63290138&authType=NAME_SEARCH&authToken=Nbjk&locale=en_US&srchid=84040261374070462799&srchindex=7&srchtotal=16&trk=vsrp_people_res_name&trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A84040261374070462799%2CVSRPtargetId%3A63290138%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=63290138&authType=NA... He's a consulting research guy for the same people that benefit from HFCS. He has a bunch of propaganda about HFCS, so he is seriously bending the conclusions as much as possible in favor of it. Here's the part where the article actually agrees that sugar is bad for you: > Even if Lustig is wrong to call fructose poisonous and saddle it with all the blame for obesity and diabetes, his most fundamental directive is sound: eat less sugar. WTF? It spent the whole article trying to show that sugar is ok, and then it concludes that?
jacques_chester 13y ago
Net caloric balance is still the best long term predictor of average body mass, regardless of dietary macronutrient composition. http://examine.com/faq/what-should-i-eat-for-weight-loss.html http://examine.com/faq/what-should-i-eat-for-weight-loss.htm... In turn, obesity is a strong predictor of many diseases, regardless of other factors. In individual cases unobservable "noise" can affect the rate of gain or loss vs the estimated rate given by subtracting an estimate (calories gleaned from an activities database) from another estimate (calories written on the side of the food packet). But when you look at population BMI vs population calorie intake, it looks suspiciously like a perfect correlation: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/calories-still-matter.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/calories-st... Which is what we would expect from a basic acceptance of freshman physics. Energy and matter are conserved. No exceptions. Singling out fructose as some kind of super-baddy doesn't work, for the simple reason that the population BMI-calories correlation appears in countries outside the USA. Only the USA has corn politics and only the USA has HFCS in the food supply in any abundance. Yet the rest of the developed world is getting fat on the same trajectory as the USA has.
- hristov 13y ago
  The problem with refined fructose is that it contributes to you eating more because the liver cannot process it properly and does not send the "i am full" signals to the brain. Thus, it is in fact the reason why people have higher net caloric intake. US style food is being exported all over the world. Sodas are sold all over the world. Obesity around the world is generally correlated to the level at which US style food culture is adopted.
  - Fargren 13y ago
    Fortunately, in most of the world sodas use sugar instead of syrup. So it's not as bad as it could be.
    - yen223 13y ago
      Isn't syrup just water with sugar? How is that worse?
greghinch 13y ago
The article takes the long winded approach to point out the rational argument about how to combat obesity that's been obvious all along: moderation. Laying the blame on sugar in general is a panacea; the problem more has to do with how efficiently sugar delivery has been engineered. Processed foods have made it so that you can eat a relatively small quantity of matter and get a huge amount of sugar (and fat). Want to get healthy and lose weight? Cut the processed foods. If it comes in a box, don't buy it. If there are ingredients you have trouble pronouncing, don't buy it. Your body has evolved to know when you've had enough food (slowing down your eating will help too). But those foods that are designed in a lab have sugar and other "bad" stuff in disproportionately high amounts, so by the time you've eaten enough to feel full, you've eaten way too much. TL;DR: stop eating so much, fatty
- hippich 13y ago
  Or instead of not eating boxed food, just do a research how much "bad stuff" in it and divide accordingly to meet your calories and nutrients target for a day.
  - grannyg00se 13y ago
    How the hell do you do that? I find this problem with a lot of diet methods. It's complicated as well as difficult. Plus, when you're consuming the "bad stuff" it's even more difficult because of their interactions within the body. If you can manage to research and control "bad stuff" in your diet and that works, go ahead. But why have them in there at all messing everything up?
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - hippich 13y ago
      by "bad stuff" i meant fructose, sugars, fat, etc. (i hope proteins are not blamed) Americans are lucky to have all of it stated on the packaging, which allows very precise control of nutrients consumption. So if you bought box of Devil Hole (which are delicious!) and read, that one hole comes with 120 calories - eat just one! That simple. Now... if you can't stop on one, this is completely different issue.
wnevets 13y ago
is sugar toxic? Maybe, maybe not. I dont know. What I do know is a diet low in sugar reduces cravings by a lot. Its a lot easier to lose weight when you don't feel hungry all the time.
13lur 13y ago
The ironic part about the hour and a half talk "Sugar: The Bitter Truth" is that all the people who it could help the most all have sugar-induced ADD and won't be able to sit through it to understand it... Anyways I hope this recent bump from HN allows Dr. Lustig to make the talk-show rounds again.
pvnick 13y ago
Everytime a nutrition-related article gets posted, people always submit stories regarding their own personal unscientific weight-loss successes. Most of the time I don't even think they've read the article. That being said, I found the article interesting, but, as a biochem major, fairly unsurprising. Fructose and glucose are fundamental elements of our body's metabolism, and metabolism is a fundamental element to life. It's what gives your cells energy to do every single thing they do. That sucrose, a compound made up of a single fructose molecule bonded to a glucose molecule, is not detrimental to your health given reasonable consumption reaches "duh" levels of obviousness. Same is true of high fructose corn syrup, which actually just contains 55% fructose and 42% glucose, a negligible difference. So it seems the only detriment to your health posed by HFCS over sucrose is the anxiety you'll get by worrying about it. Like someone else said "TL;DR: stop eating so much, fatty." In more practical terms, eat reasonably and lift weights and you'll be fine. Edit: Here's some science for you: Energy in = Energy out + Change in Body Stores (fat or muscle) Where "energy" is measured in calories. Laws of thermodynamics ain't nothin' to f with! [1] [1] http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance-equation.html http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance...
patrickg_zill 13y ago
I have found that reduced-carb and reduced-sugar diets are the best way to lose weight. I have been on "6 small servings with lots of lean protein and yogurt" and on keto-style diets (lots of animal fats, butter, and, almost 0 carbs). Both have resulted in significant loss of weight. I find that the keto-style diet gives me a very even energy throughout the day (probably because the body is slowly burning fat and there are no insulin spikes).
gilgoomesh 13y ago
Betteridge's Law of Headlines at work. > any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word "no." The article directly answers the headline in the negative. > our cells depend on sugar for energy The rest of the article is more intelligent but it's undermined by the link-baiting headline.
wissler 13y ago
Fructose (as in HFCS) goes through the same metabolic pathway as alcohol, so it's important to differentiate between fructose and glucose. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
hristov 13y ago
This article shows how the fructose industry is defending itself. Mostly by confusing the issue. The thing about fructose is that it is not by itself poisonous. The problem only comes about for refined fructose, such as that found in cane sugar and HFCS. In those cases, fructose overwhelms the liver and gets processed by wrong pathways which result in all kinds of problems. But if you eat fructose in the form of fruits and vegetables, your body has to take a while to break the fructose out of the fruit and vegetable cells. Thus, your liver only gets a steady trickle of fructose instead of a flood of it. As a result, the liver can process the fructose correctly. Furthermore, if you eat fructose with fiber, molecules from the fiber help the liver process more fructose correctly. Knowing this, it is not difficult to construct an experiment that shows that fructose is not harmful. All you have to do is feed your subjects the correct form of fructose (i.e., fruits and vegetables). The experiment where subjects ate large numbers of apples and were perfectly ok was quite telling. The other defense of the sugar industry is that it is not the sugar, it is the overeating. However, refined sugar causes the overeating. One of the results of processing fructose the wrong way is that the liver does not produce the hormones that are supposed to inform the brain that you are full. Thus, refined fructose causes overeating of sugar and anything else you happen to be eating with your sugar. Personally I know I eat much more fries if I eat them with ketchup and I will eat much more steak if I eat it with steak sauce. The fat people and diabetics are being blamed for eating too much and lacking willpower. They may be partially to blame, but it is very hard to make the correct decision when your brain's own sensory mechanisms are being hijacked and tricked. It is very hard to stop eating when you are constantly hungry. But if you cut down on the sugar you will not be constantly hungry, and then you may find that you do not even need that much will power to cut down on your calories.
- pvnick 13y ago
  I think you pretty much restated the point of the article in slightly more condensed terms. Eat sugar in moderation and you'll be fine. Eat too much and you'll run into problems. The point you added is that sugar -> less full -> overeat, which is possible, but not the point being debated.
  - dredmorbius 13y ago
nmerouze 13y ago
I am amazed by the number of people here claiming sugar is bad. I've been eating fruits, fruit juices, milk and sodas as the main part of my diet for a few months now. I've lost weight and I feel really really good (I was in a low carb diet before and always craving carbs and feeling awful). I've been like you in the past. But instead believing in Lustig and others, I've kept reading scientific studies and the work of Ray Peat is much more consistent.

81 points by to_jon 13y ago

"Enzymes in the intestine split sucrose into fructose and glucose within seconds, so as far as the human body is concerned sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup are equivalent." I'm not an expert by any means, but from what I recall that point is still widely contested.

mullingitover 13y ago

Sola dosis facit venenum. I didn't pay attention to my weight for a couple years, ate a lot of sweets and drank a lot of beer. Before I knew it I'd gained 30 pounds, and had a minor freakout. I decided to do three things--weigh myself every morning, stop eating sugar except for from fruit, and stop drinking. I ended up shedding 30 pounds in 90 days, and have kept it off for a full year. I didn't exercise or count calories in any way, in fact I probably upped my overall calorie consumption but I replaced the sugars with more complex energy sources like nuts. I'm not sure if it was cutting the alcohol, cutting the sugar, or both that did the trick. However, I've been letting myself have some alcohol for the past few months (wine, not beer) and haven't gained a pound since doing so, so my gut tells me it was the sugar. I definitely feel a whole lot healthier.

astrange 13y ago
Most of your changes could be explained just by calories. Beer is quite high calorie since it has so many carbs, and eating nuts satiates you faster so you end up eating less. Alcohol itself doesn't affect weight much, though IIRC fat isn't metabolized well together with it. But it can improve your lifespan: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9481115 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9481115
- brianbreslin 13y ago
  Not really. Assume he cut out 300 calories a day of beer. So a pound of fat is 3600 calories roughly. By just cutting out beer he would need 12 days to lose 1 lb. not the rate he was losing which was 1/3lb per day. Many studies have shown pure caloric deficits do not lead to rapid weight loss.
  - mullingitover 13y ago
    I figured the same thing--I definitely didn't feel like I was cutting calories in any way. I took up drinking lots of whole milk, eating bacon, and at my desk I'd eat a whole 12-ounce coffee cup full of mixed nuts (still do, in fact) each day at work. I didn't even cut carbs, I ate pizza and pasta pretty regularly. The only thing I did was aggressively eliminate refined sugars and beer from my diet. I'm curious if gut fauna could be a factor.
    - brianbreslin 13y ago
      Fat is pure energy so you were entering ketosis through the bacon and whole milk etc. nuts are High in fiber as well, so you may have also helped flush out the stuff faster? Pasta and bread I think have less insulin effect than sugars and alcohols so maybe that's all your body needed to avoid fat hoarding.
      - jawilson2 13y ago
        It is hard to say based on the limited info he posted, but you only enter ketosis if you consume under 20-50 g of carbs per day. A single slice of bread, one yogurt, a bowl of cereal, or even a few carrots can take you out of it. You can't really accidentally get into ketosis without very deliberately avoiding carbs.
- zurn 13y ago
  Blaming carbs is not a "just calories" explanation, rather the opposite.
  - astrange 13y ago
    I suppose you're suggesting the same calories+alcohol in some other form (shochu and lean meat?) would be better. Maybe so, but I don't know if there's any studies on that.
saryant 13y ago
I did something similar during my semester in France. Stopped eating all bread and processed carbs. Vegetables, fruit and meat plus Greek yogurt. I didn't cut out alcohol though, nor was my weight loss as drastic as yours. Lost about thirty pounds over four months (which was terrific, my girlfriend of four years dumped me the night I flew home so at least I was ready for singles' life). I won't go so far as to call sugar "toxic" but I know that cutting it out has made me much, much healthier. Also, I had a blood test a few weeks ago. My doctor actually wrote "outstanding" on my cholesterol report.
- philwelch 13y ago
  You stopped eating bread while in France?
  - saryant 13y ago
    I was really fat.
coldtea 13y ago
>Sola dosis facit venenum Pedantically we might say that, but it's not really true. Sure, what makes something poisonous/dangerous is the dosage, but the dosage itself depends on more basic characteristics. It's not like we arbitrarily try high dosages of stuff. We don't go out eating small amounts of cyanide for a reason. Nice taste facits venenum -- by making us increase the dosage. Think sugar, salt, red meat, etc. Uplifting side effects facit venenum. Think heroin, alcohol, etc. Adverse withdrawal effects also facit venenum. Else we could easily quite alcohol, drugs, cigarettes with a little self restraint.
hippich 13y ago
I doubt excluding sugars from your diet made a difference, or excluding alcohol alone did it. Beer in general do not have that many calories, it is usually junk food accompanied beer is what adding a lot of calories and fat. ^^^ IMHO, since there is a chance you were consuming pound of sugar and six-pack of beer daily :)
- jmduke 13y ago
  Beer usually hovers around the 150-200 calorie mark per bottle. If you're putting away a six-pack every weekend, that adds up very quickly. (Which is not to say that you'll magically lose weight if you stop drinking, or that it's impossible to lose weight if you're drinking every week.)
  - hippich 13y ago
    If you drink 6 pack in one evening - this is "overeating" already. All these extra calories will immediately start converting into fat. On the other hand if you drink 6 pack during the span of the whole week - it will hardly make a difference. So yeah - it really depends on how much beer peak usage we are talking about here.
pvnick 13y ago
>I ended up shedding 30 pounds in 90 days, and have kept it off for a full year >I probably upped my overall calorie consumption but I replaced the sugars with more complex energy sources like nuts Unless you started exercising, these two statements are incompatible with one another (violates the first law of thermodynamics). What's more likely is you felt "fuller" from eating healthy foods and therefore consumed less calories.
- philwelch 13y ago
  The laws of thermodynamics do not preclude your body from ingesting something that has calories and shitting it out without actually doing anything with the calories. Your shit would just have more calories left in it, kind of like how a poorly made car might leak gasoline everywhere.
  - richcollins 13y ago
    More likely increased BMR
  - pvnick 13y ago
    Your statement is only marginally correct, but mostly misleading to the point of being practically wrong. Depending on what you eat, your body absorbs 80%-97% of calories according to the following (simplified) equation: Energy in = Energy out + Change in Body Stores [1] Where "change in body stores" is, for all intents and purposes, either muscle or fat. So while going from eating 3000 calories of pure butter to eating 3000 calories of straight fibrous vegetables will show a modest difference in caloric retention, I guarantee you that's not the case here. [1] http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance-equation.html http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance...
    - philwelch 13y ago
      The point is, don't gloss over things by making dumb statements like "it's impossible because of the laws of thermodynamics". The laws of thermodynamics don't preclude engines that either leak fuel or are fantastically inefficient in converting them to any particular form whether it be locomotion, electricity, or adipose tissue. If your point is that the human body is fantastically efficient at producing fat in ways that don't really vary, then prove that point.

amerika_blog 13y ago

I really hope not. I love sugar. It's also the only stimulant I can mete out in small doses that will keep me going without obliterating my concentration, as caffeine tends to do (disclaimer: I haven't tried cocaine).

aethertap 13y ago
I read about some research* regarding ego depletion and its relationship to blood glucose levels that was pretty interesting. Basically, they did a study with two groups of people. Both were asked to do some challenging problems requiring concentration, then both were given lemonade. One group's lemonade was sweetened with glucose, and the other with some artificial sweetener. The two groups were then asked to do more challenging problems. I can't recall the actual numbers, but the group that had glucose in their lemonade did significantly better on the second round than the other group, and the two groups were about the same on the first round. The implication was that the brain uses glucose in its operation, and requires a certain level of glucose to function at full capacity. At least one cause of the brain fog we get after a full day's focused work is that we're low on fuel, which happens to be easy to fix. Unfortunately, it has other effects too that we might not want so much. I've been meaning to experiment on myself a bit with some glucose tabs after a long day of code, but haven't gotten around to it yet. (*) I think that was in "Thinking, Fast and Slow" but I'm not certain now, too many similar books in between.
- sparkie 13y ago
  This test is flawed, as it doesn't have a "neutral group" - a group that had neither sugar nor artificial sweetener. How can they conclude that the sugar made people do better, rather than the artificial sweetener making people do worse?
  - aethertap 13y ago
    Agreed, at least from my brief description, which was a summary of a summary out of a book. I'd say it's more likely that it's my own retelling that's flawed, though I haven't read the actual study. They also didn't have a group which was given the same number of calories from a different source (as far as I know) so it's possible that eating a chunk of meat would have the same effect. What I thought was interesting actually was that they were able to demonstrate beneficial effects from intake of calories directly on brain function. As I wrote that, I did remember a bit of evidence that the glucose was actually beneficial - namely that they measured performance on the problems over time. At the end of the first set, both groups were showing approximately equal degraded performance. Upon resuming on the second set, the group given glucose was back up to nearly the starting level of proficiency, while the group given no glucose was at the same level they stopped at on the first group.

wmil 13y ago

This line... > Considering that our cells depend on sugar for energy, Is dishonest. In general parlance "sugar" refers to sucrose. Sucrose is a glucose bonded to a fructose. Our bodies need glucose to live. However they do not need fructose.

nicholas73 13y ago
I've even heard a university nutritionist make the claim that sugar is just glucose. Some days I feel stupid; others, I feel other people are more stupid.
donaldc 13y ago
That line alone cost the article much of its credibility in my book. A scientific article should not lump all sugars together as metabolically equivalent.

rfnslyr 13y ago

Man. Sugar is the worst. Take it from me. I moved to the city the moment I turned 18, I didn't know much about cooking. Back in the 'burbs you'd be lucky to live within 10km of a grocery store. Downtown however, totally different story. I went NUTS with sweets and pizza. I gained over 100 lbs in just under half a year. I was eating around 10k calories a day. I then stuck to only these foods and have only been eating this the past couple years: chicken lean beef kale + other greens various fruit cheese That's it. No seasoning, nothing. I'm so much happier now. Better sleeps, better mood, better everything. My mood and days fluctuated like crazy when I didn't keep track of my diet. I'd love to hear some opinions on the following talk from fellow HNers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

brianbreslin 13y ago
How has your weight loss progressed since the dietary change?
- rfnslyr 13y ago
  Back to 200 and shredded. Lean as fuck. I eat a lot of fat and protein, not really many carbs, under around 50 a day.
pedalpete 13y ago
I cut out most sugar years ago, I think by not 'seasoning', you may be doing yourself a dis-service. Sugar isn't the only seasoning. There are lots you can do with herbs, oils and citrus (just stay away from vinegars which are often high in sugar). For those who want to try restricting their diet to be more healty, a simple trick is to only shop on the outer isles of the grocery store. In more stores, you'll have the produce along one one, meats and fish along another, and then dairy and cheese along another. Sadly, the bakery is also along a wall, so just be smart enough to avoid that one, and don't be tricked by bread, most of it has a significant amount of sugar.
beggi 13y ago
Fatty meat and fat is healthy as well!

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jdkuepper 13y ago

A great read on this same topic: http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/is-sugar-toxic http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/is-sugar-toxic "What I find frustrating about this debate is that most people yelling and screaming don’t fully define the terms, perhaps because they don’t appreciate them (forgivable) or because they are trying to mislead others (unforgiveable). The wrong question is being asked. “Is sugar toxic?” is a silly question. Why? Because it lacks context. Is water toxic? Is oxygen toxic? These are equally silly questions, I hope you’ll appreciate. Both oxygen and water are essential for life (sugar, by the way, is not). But both oxygen and water are toxic – yes, lethal – at high enough doses."

nicholas73 13y ago

Yes sugar is toxic because of the metabolic by-products of fructose, which is similar to the by-products of alcohol. Both are known to make freshmen put on weight. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

FrankenPC 13y ago

"—a nutrition scientist at Archer Daniels Midland, a major food processing corporation—" Facepalm

derleth 13y ago
And you have nothing to say about the content, then?
- donaldc 13y ago
  His comment says more about the content of the article than most of the other comments. An article about sugar funded by ADM is not an objective source of information, due to the very large conflict of interest.
  - derleth 13y ago
    Whether it's right or wrong is independent of where it comes from.
darkarmani 13y ago
And you'll note the link to John White is broken too. It should be this: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=63290138&authType=NAME_SEARCH&authToken=Nbjk&locale=en_US&srchid=84040261374070462799&srchindex=7&srchtotal=16&trk=vsrp_people_res_name&trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A84040261374070462799%2CVSRPtargetId%3A63290138%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=63290138&authType=NA... He's a consulting research guy for the same people that benefit from HFCS. He has a bunch of propaganda about HFCS, so he is seriously bending the conclusions as much as possible in favor of it. Here's the part where the article actually agrees that sugar is bad for you: > Even if Lustig is wrong to call fructose poisonous and saddle it with all the blame for obesity and diabetes, his most fundamental directive is sound: eat less sugar. WTF? It spent the whole article trying to show that sugar is ok, and then it concludes that?

jacques_chester 13y ago

Net caloric balance is still the best long term predictor of average body mass, regardless of dietary macronutrient composition. http://examine.com/faq/what-should-i-eat-for-weight-loss.html http://examine.com/faq/what-should-i-eat-for-weight-loss.htm... In turn, obesity is a strong predictor of many diseases, regardless of other factors. In individual cases unobservable "noise" can affect the rate of gain or loss vs the estimated rate given by subtracting an estimate (calories gleaned from an activities database) from another estimate (calories written on the side of the food packet). But when you look at population BMI vs population calorie intake, it looks suspiciously like a perfect correlation: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/calories-still-matter.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/calories-st... Which is what we would expect from a basic acceptance of freshman physics. Energy and matter are conserved. No exceptions. Singling out fructose as some kind of super-baddy doesn't work, for the simple reason that the population BMI-calories correlation appears in countries outside the USA. Only the USA has corn politics and only the USA has HFCS in the food supply in any abundance. Yet the rest of the developed world is getting fat on the same trajectory as the USA has.

hristov 13y ago
The problem with refined fructose is that it contributes to you eating more because the liver cannot process it properly and does not send the "i am full" signals to the brain. Thus, it is in fact the reason why people have higher net caloric intake. US style food is being exported all over the world. Sodas are sold all over the world. Obesity around the world is generally correlated to the level at which US style food culture is adopted.
- Fargren 13y ago
  Fortunately, in most of the world sodas use sugar instead of syrup. So it's not as bad as it could be.
  - yen223 13y ago
    Isn't syrup just water with sugar? How is that worse?

greghinch 13y ago

The article takes the long winded approach to point out the rational argument about how to combat obesity that's been obvious all along: moderation. Laying the blame on sugar in general is a panacea; the problem more has to do with how efficiently sugar delivery has been engineered. Processed foods have made it so that you can eat a relatively small quantity of matter and get a huge amount of sugar (and fat). Want to get healthy and lose weight? Cut the processed foods. If it comes in a box, don't buy it. If there are ingredients you have trouble pronouncing, don't buy it. Your body has evolved to know when you've had enough food (slowing down your eating will help too). But those foods that are designed in a lab have sugar and other "bad" stuff in disproportionately high amounts, so by the time you've eaten enough to feel full, you've eaten way too much. TL;DR: stop eating so much, fatty

hippich 13y ago
Or instead of not eating boxed food, just do a research how much "bad stuff" in it and divide accordingly to meet your calories and nutrients target for a day.
- grannyg00se 13y ago
  How the hell do you do that? I find this problem with a lot of diet methods. It's complicated as well as difficult. Plus, when you're consuming the "bad stuff" it's even more difficult because of their interactions within the body. If you can manage to research and control "bad stuff" in your diet and that works, go ahead. But why have them in there at all messing everything up?
  - deleted 13y ago
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  - hippich 13y ago
    by "bad stuff" i meant fructose, sugars, fat, etc. (i hope proteins are not blamed) Americans are lucky to have all of it stated on the packaging, which allows very precise control of nutrients consumption. So if you bought box of Devil Hole (which are delicious!) and read, that one hole comes with 120 calories - eat just one! That simple. Now... if you can't stop on one, this is completely different issue.

wnevets 13y ago

is sugar toxic? Maybe, maybe not. I dont know. What I do know is a diet low in sugar reduces cravings by a lot. Its a lot easier to lose weight when you don't feel hungry all the time.

13lur 13y ago

The ironic part about the hour and a half talk "Sugar: The Bitter Truth" is that all the people who it could help the most all have sugar-induced ADD and won't be able to sit through it to understand it... Anyways I hope this recent bump from HN allows Dr. Lustig to make the talk-show rounds again.

pvnick 13y ago

Everytime a nutrition-related article gets posted, people always submit stories regarding their own personal unscientific weight-loss successes. Most of the time I don't even think they've read the article. That being said, I found the article interesting, but, as a biochem major, fairly unsurprising. Fructose and glucose are fundamental elements of our body's metabolism, and metabolism is a fundamental element to life. It's what gives your cells energy to do every single thing they do. That sucrose, a compound made up of a single fructose molecule bonded to a glucose molecule, is not detrimental to your health given reasonable consumption reaches "duh" levels of obviousness. Same is true of high fructose corn syrup, which actually just contains 55% fructose and 42% glucose, a negligible difference. So it seems the only detriment to your health posed by HFCS over sucrose is the anxiety you'll get by worrying about it. Like someone else said "TL;DR: stop eating so much, fatty." In more practical terms, eat reasonably and lift weights and you'll be fine. Edit: Here's some science for you: Energy in = Energy out + Change in Body Stores (fat or muscle) Where "energy" is measured in calories. Laws of thermodynamics ain't nothin' to f with! [1] [1] http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance-equation.html http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance...

patrickg_zill 13y ago

I have found that reduced-carb and reduced-sugar diets are the best way to lose weight. I have been on "6 small servings with lots of lean protein and yogurt" and on keto-style diets (lots of animal fats, butter, and, almost 0 carbs). Both have resulted in significant loss of weight. I find that the keto-style diet gives me a very even energy throughout the day (probably because the body is slowly burning fat and there are no insulin spikes).

gilgoomesh 13y ago

Betteridge's Law of Headlines at work. > any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word "no." The article directly answers the headline in the negative. > our cells depend on sugar for energy The rest of the article is more intelligent but it's undermined by the link-baiting headline.

wissler 13y ago

Fructose (as in HFCS) goes through the same metabolic pathway as alcohol, so it's important to differentiate between fructose and glucose. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

hristov 13y ago

This article shows how the fructose industry is defending itself. Mostly by confusing the issue. The thing about fructose is that it is not by itself poisonous. The problem only comes about for refined fructose, such as that found in cane sugar and HFCS. In those cases, fructose overwhelms the liver and gets processed by wrong pathways which result in all kinds of problems. But if you eat fructose in the form of fruits and vegetables, your body has to take a while to break the fructose out of the fruit and vegetable cells. Thus, your liver only gets a steady trickle of fructose instead of a flood of it. As a result, the liver can process the fructose correctly. Furthermore, if you eat fructose with fiber, molecules from the fiber help the liver process more fructose correctly. Knowing this, it is not difficult to construct an experiment that shows that fructose is not harmful. All you have to do is feed your subjects the correct form of fructose (i.e., fruits and vegetables). The experiment where subjects ate large numbers of apples and were perfectly ok was quite telling. The other defense of the sugar industry is that it is not the sugar, it is the overeating. However, refined sugar causes the overeating. One of the results of processing fructose the wrong way is that the liver does not produce the hormones that are supposed to inform the brain that you are full. Thus, refined fructose causes overeating of sugar and anything else you happen to be eating with your sugar. Personally I know I eat much more fries if I eat them with ketchup and I will eat much more steak if I eat it with steak sauce. The fat people and diabetics are being blamed for eating too much and lacking willpower. They may be partially to blame, but it is very hard to make the correct decision when your brain's own sensory mechanisms are being hijacked and tricked. It is very hard to stop eating when you are constantly hungry. But if you cut down on the sugar you will not be constantly hungry, and then you may find that you do not even need that much will power to cut down on your calories.

pvnick 13y ago
I think you pretty much restated the point of the article in slightly more condensed terms. Eat sugar in moderation and you'll be fine. Eat too much and you'll run into problems. The point you added is that sugar -> less full -> overeat, which is possible, but not the point being debated.
- dredmorbius 13y ago

nmerouze 13y ago

I am amazed by the number of people here claiming sugar is bad. I've been eating fruits, fruit juices, milk and sodas as the main part of my diet for a few months now. I've lost weight and I feel really really good (I was in a low carb diet before and always craving carbs and feeling awful). I've been like you in the past. But instead believing in Lustig and others, I've kept reading scientific studies and the work of Ray Peat is much more consistent.