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> Also, fructose is almost as bad for your liver as alcohol. Soda or beer. Same difference to the liver.

This is flat-out false. Lustig has an axe to grind and books to sell. He cherry-picks his data to paint a misleading picture of sugar in the diet, I wouldn't trust him any further than I could throw his book.

I wouldn't trust Lustig any farther than I could throw him. He has demonstrated a stout determination to ignore facts in his crusade to sell more books. He cherry-picks data like nobody's business.

Read the comments on this debate, where Lustig gets his ass handed to him:

http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-the-fructose-alarmism-debate/

It really looks like HFCS shouldn't be significantly different than sugar (and since it's sweeter than sucrose, it should be slightly lower Kcal). But then there's credible evidence that it's far more harmful.

That's the thing - there's pretty good evidence that very high fructose intake is harmful, but the studies backing that up involve fructose in isolation, at levels much higher than the average human consumes it. Dosage is everything. On close inspection, the notion that HFCS is inherently harmful, or worse than sucrose in any way, evaporates like a fart in the wind.

This discussion is by far the best in-depth debate over the evidence that I have found, by people who know how to analyze it.

First off, thanks for your links. It's nice to have informed discussion.

There is a good analysis and discussion of this issue here:
http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/

There's a lot of text about dose-dependent, but the problem is clearly in the dosage, as Lustig says in his talk. For example:

"In the single human study I'm aware of that linked fructose to a greater next-day appetite in a subset of the subjects, 30% of total daily energy intake was in the form of free fructose [12]. This amounts to 135 grams, which is the equivalent of 6-7 nondiet soft drinks. Is it really that groundbreaking to think that polishing off a half-dozen soft drinks per day is not a good idea? Demonizing fructose without mentioning the dose-dependent nature of its effects is intellectually dishonest. Like anything else, fructose consumed in gross chronic excess can lead to problems, while moderate amounts are neutral, and in some cases beneficial [13-15]."

My answer to his question is, yes, it is groundbreaking when you compare the mechanisms of fructose to that of alcohol. We know it's not good to binge on alcohol, yet parents think nothing about feeding their kids sodas or fruit juices, sugary cereals, and dessert as part of a day's meal. We've put vending machines that serve sugary junk food in our schools.

All this while what used to be known as adult-onset diabetes is now commonly found in young people. Chalking this up as a lack of exercise and excess calories when their is a clear metabolic mechanism that is dose dependent, just like alcohol, sounds dangerously naive and stubborn.

Prof Jennie Brand-Miller, one of the leading researchers on the relationhips between diet and diabetes has expressed great dismay at Lustig's claims:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/war-over-sweet-nothings/story-e6frg8y6-1226261140744

I can't access it. It looks to be pay-walled, or at least login-walled and bugmenot doesn't work.

As for correlations(which a lot of the anti-sugar and anti-HFCS crowd place emphasis on), here's an interesting paper showing sugar consumption has declined during the past three decades in Australia and yet there has been a similar rise in metabolic problems as seen in the U.S.:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22254107

Interesting. I'll have to look at it in more detail, but one thing that strikes me right off the bat is that they don't talk about the rates of diabetes or metabolic syndrome, only obesity.

Lusting has been extensively debunked by Alan Aragon http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-the-fructose-alarmism-debate/ and James Krieger, amongst others; and Gary Taubes' carb hypothesis requires that obese individuals are capable of violating the laws of thermodynamics and the laws of conservation of mass so he's just reaching for something, anything that can vaguely support his bullshit claims.

You obviously did not listen to his lecture. He specifically points out that no one violates the 1st law of thermodynamics (which is conservation of mass), but instead sugar tricks the body into thinking it needs more energy by imparing the negative feedback loop of hunger, and as such any person will naturally consume more energy to avoid the feeling of starvation.

Yeah, like this

Lusting has been extensively debunked by Alan Aragon http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-the-fructose-alarmism-debate/ and James Krieger, amongst others; and Gary Taubes' carb hypothesis requires that obese individuals are capable of violating the laws of thermodynamics and the laws of conservation of mass so he's just reaching for something, anything that can vaguely support his bullshit claims.

No such think. I read it, it's a post facto set of arguents. What Lustig has on his side is he explains what the molecules do and what the metabolic pathways are. You can argue stats but you can't argue chemical reactions, they are what they are and so what they do no matter what you think. And it appears the bad cholesterols is made from fluctose (Lustig explains how in the video). We already know sugars role in cancer, cancer feeds directly off sugar, the more you have the more likely cancer will be a problem for you.

Type II diabetes is cause by a corruption of the cellular membranes with too many animal and trans fat molecules replacing the phospholipids that are supposed to be there. The latter are flexible and have all those wonderful carbon links and are J shaped. The former are I shaped, inflexible and crowd the neurotransmitter receptors so they can't operate properly. So you have enough insulin (or serotonin, or estrogen, what have you) but the cell can't absorb it, Or "the body can't use it" as they say. Remediate with flax oil and stop eating crap. In about 3 mos it should have gone away.

Aragon,Bsc, Ms,= Alan is a continuing education provider for the Commission on Dietetic Registration, National Academy of Sports Medicine, American Council on Exercise, and National Strength & Conditioning Association and guest lectures at various universities: http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2011/02/23/ive-had-my-hands-full/ -

"That said, armchair nerd pundits like us have no place to try to debunk such claims, since as far as I know none of us are licensed dieticians or physicians."

The old "If you don't do X you can't criticize what they say!" By that logic, none of us can criticize the president since none of us are leaders of a nation.

People very well can look for errors, even if they don't do a given thing. What's more, bringing their particular knowledge to bear on a subject may be useful. Someone gifted in statistics might look at a study and understand nothing of what was being claimed, but be able to look at the data and say "You've made math errors here."

Also if you want a more detailed rebuttal, someone else linked http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-the-fructose-alarmism-debate/ which has a bunch of information and links to more. Also please remember by your logic you cannot rebut any of that unless:

1) You read ALL of it, everything linked, through and through and

2) You have a Master of Science in Nutrition or similar credentials (as the author does).

Lusting has been extensively debunked by Alan Aragon http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-the-fructose-alarmism-debate/ and James Krieger, amongst others; and Gary Taubes' carb hypothesis requires that obese individuals are capable of violating the laws of thermodynamics and the laws of conservation of mass so he's just reaching for something, anything that can vaguely support his bullshit claims.

Suggest anyone that watches that lecture also read independent critique.

A couple of links for starters:

http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/ including comments and response from Dr. Lustig
http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-the-fructose-alarmism-debate/

Suggest anyone that watches that lecture also read independent critique.

A couple of links for starters:

http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/ including comments and response from Dr. Lustig
http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-the-fructose-alarmism-debate/

The guys at ArsTechinca say that a review of the actual publication shows much more questionable results, with contradictory findings between different groups (12hr and 24hr access to HFCS)and variations between repeated tests cycles. HFCS might be bad, but this research is apparently not the smoking gun. Try not to drink a gallon of softdrinks a day and you'll probably be just fine.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/03/does-high-fructose-corn-syrup-make-you-fatter.ars

Also, some doctors are over hyping the evidence.

http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/