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Fructose As Culprit In the Obesity Epidemic
drewtheman writes "According to an interview with Dr. Robert Lustig, Professor of Pediatric Endocrinology from the University of California, San Francisco, fructose, once touted as diabetic-friendly because it doesn't raise insulin levels directly, could be a major culprit for the obesity epidemic, high blood pressure, and elevated blood levels of LDL in Americans and others worldwide as they adopt American-style diets. Fructose comprises 50% of table sugar and up to 90% of high-fructose corn syrup, both ingredients found in copious quantity in most American prepared foods."
Excessive quantities of anything is not good for the diet. It has been known for decades that high quantities of carbohydrates can cause weight increase. The confusion here is linking fructose as being good for diabetics (yes, and it still is in reasonable quantities) and excessive consumption of fructose leading to obesity.
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
http://www.freakonomics.com/pdf/whatmakesfoodfatte ning.pdf
The Dietary and Nutritional Survey of British Adults, Gibson (1996, p. 405) concluded that "sugars
appear to have a weak negative [italics added] association with BMI that is not totally explained
by confounders such as dieting, under-reporting or the inverse correlation between energy from
sugars and fat."
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
At least as long as Fat Land has been out, but probably a bit longer than that. The story of American obesity is the story of American corn subsidies, which is therefore the story of high-fructose corn syrup and omnipresent, cheaper-than-water soda; and the story of vending machines and fast-food restaurants, 'family-style' Applebee's-like chains that exist solely to help burn off the excess corn stock by selling almost nothing but corn and its byproducts.
Don't tell the presidential candidates though, they have to win in Iowa!
Thanks to those motherfuckers, the sugar growers, and the congresscritters, we pay about three times what the rest of the world pays for sugar. That's why we get that corn syrup crap in soft drinks, and so much of the rest of our food.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
But the smart money is still on "Burgers".
/ and no concept of portion control.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Pie is tasty and the sky will be blue tomorrow. No shit fructose is bad for us. It is pure simple sugars. The only fructose that IS good for humans is the fruit kind. And that is not simple sugar. Don't drink Soda Pop and always check the labels for High Fructose Corn Syrup. It is says it has it, don't buy it. That shit should be illegalized in most foods.
If you don't like it, you can leave. We don't need no whinny Euro-cans telling us not to devour copious amounts of corn syrup and sugars. And stop calling me an American. America is huge, I just live in the best part of it, the USA. That makes me a Citizen of the United States of America, but you can shorten that down to a CUSA. From now on when you want to badmouth the best nation on Earth, you can address us as Cusans. It's about time we had our own identity.
I think all the corn syrup has gone to my head...
This ran a few years ago and was REALLY interesting. Corn in america == money. Farmers have a corn glut to deal with. 100 years ago, they put the extra corn to work as alcohol (whiskey), and soon we had a nation of alcoholics. So then they came up with corn syrup. That hasn't worked out too well considering how fat Americans are.
Next up-- ethanol!
...but where is a link to the paper or actual report? I just don't trust an interview as easily when it comes to scientific claims as I would the scientific data and whatever fallacies it may hold.
On another note, there have been plenty of studies already demonstrating how nutritionally bad fructose is bad for an individual. Here's a compilation I found awhile back of the cons of using fructose so widely in consumables: http://curezone.com/art/read.asp?ID=32&db=6&C0=17
and the story of vending machines and fast-food restaurants,
There is something to what you write. But, here in Japan vending machines are absolutely everywhere - really, it's crazy; I walked about 3km every morning to my previous job, in a partly rural area and I realized that there was not a single spot along the route where I could not see at least one vending machine. And there has always been lots and lots of fast-food here as well as takeout meals; many traditional Japanese dishes like soba, onigiri, oden and so on are meant to eat quickly from a counter or street vendor cart, or while going from place to place, and the bento meal is ubiquitous. A traditional Japanese meal, furthermore, is an orgy in "grazing" behavior, with dozens of small dishes to eat in turn.
No, while "fast-food" style serving may contribute to creating bad habits, the main culprit is still what people eat, and how much of it, not how you eat it. Most Japanese meals just aren't very fattening; while you often have some part of the meal that is fatty or calorie-rich, you don't get much of it, while you often do get large amounts of vegetables, pickles and other lean stuff. A steak, for instance, may be 100 grams or so, and be just one dish of a dozen you get for your meal.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I hate articles like this. The reader should not be blaming a single food as a CAUSE for obesity. The cause is that the consumer should not be eating large quantities of anything. Personally if anything is to blame then its the consumer for not getting off their ass and actually preparing food, going for a bike ride, or doing some running. Simple exercise like washing up has now been replaced with a dish washer, we mow lawns with electric/petrol mowers, and we don't even write letters by hand either, soon voice recognition will replace keyboard work. When will the world learn that as physical creatures we depend on a good, fresh diet and plenty of exercise.
Why UNIX?
First of all, you walked about 6 times the distance that might be considered the maximum for an American before getting into a car and driving :) . But yeah, of course, it's what is in the vending machines that counts. Next time you're in the States, see if you can buy something from a vending machine without some type of corn or corn-syrup or corn-byproduct as a major ingredient (sometimes it's even in 'diet' products, which have their own set of health threats). I won't say it's impossible, but it's not easy either. The stuff is cheap as dirt to produce, and has long been known to be extremely efficient for conversion and storage as fat.
Fast-food in the States is essentially cheap food. It's there because its corn-syrup ingredients are so cheap to produce and easy to maintain and transport (bonus: it doubles as a preservative). Most of this vending-machine / fast-food / suburban-feed-bag (TGIFriday's et al.) industry is built around this cheapness and ease. They are symptoms. I would guess that vending machines in Japan are the result of a different economic cause.
But yeah, of course, it's what is in the vending machines that counts. Next time you're in the States, see if you can buy something from a vending machine without some type of corn or corn-syrup or corn-byproduct as a major ingredient (sometimes it's even in 'diet' products, which have their own set of health threats).
Yes, the contents are rather different. In most drink vending machines, most drinks are cold or hot green teas and coffee, with a smaller amount of juices, water and sports drinks. Actual carbonated soda is very rare; it's not that unusual to see even Coca Cola vending machines that don't actually sell cola.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Heinz finally makes an "organic" ketchup that uses cane sugar instead of HFCS for sweetener. It actually tastes a lot better - like I remember it tasting as a kid. I've also seen other brands of ketchup that use regular sugar as well.
I personally gave up HFCS and MSG to the best of my ability about 9 months ago. I'm still too fat (probably all the beer I still drink) but I do feel much much better. That near continuous run-down feeling is gone now. So is that all to frequent feeling after lunch like a bad flu was coming (buzzing in my head, hot flash, sweating, tightness in the chest, congested feeling).
I'm sure someone will respond saying there's no scientific proof that MSG and HFSC are bad for me and that I'm a fool for trying to not consume them. That's just fine... call me a fool. I feel better not eating them and that's reason enough - placebo effect or not.
"There are 11 types of people in the world, those who know binaries and those who don't."
Ok so you don't, I do, but who is in the 3th group?
The Japanese meal you describe sounds somewhat healthier than the American fast food diet of:
Two beef patties slathered with carbohydrate-rich condiments sandwiched between carbohydrate-rich bread, served with a side of carbohydrate-rich french fries and a 32 oz. cup of high fructose corn syrup. All super-sized because the marginal cost of the ingredients is so low, it is profitable for the restaurants to offer extra portions for a premium.
The innocuous-seeming bun, even, is so loaded with refined carbohydrates that you might as well be eating your hamburger in the middle of a donut sliced in half.
When I asked what happens if people don't have enough change on them, I was told that generally they pay a bit more the next time they ride. I'd love to have a system like that here, since it would save a lot of time with people buying bus tickets when they got on at each stop, but I can't imagine it working with the average British person, who would just see it as a way to avoid paying for the service. It seems to be not so much an issue of how law-abiding the Japanese are as the culture of respect.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
A few years ago I became aware of HFCS, and was amazed at how pervasive it is. With the birth of my son I needed to lose weight, and was starting to really be aware of what I ate. I changed two things about my lifestyle. I eliminated almost all HFCS (mostly sodas), and started exercising more regularly. I lost 60 pounds, and have kept it off. I don't know about any of the scientific arguments, but my experience tells me HFCS has a big role to play in out society's weight issues. There are other factors, including exercise which I mentioned. But if you want to get creeped out, go to a convenience store and try to find something without corn syrup in some form. Perhaps the weight loss can party be credited to the fact that I eat better foods and drink more water by avoiding HFCS. But the bottom line is this. For me, getting rid of HFCS either caused me to lose weight directly, or forced me to eat healthier by avoiding it.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a difficult battle. - Plato
Use rice syrup, which contains no fructose. You can substitute it 1:1 for corn syrup.
I use it to make all sorts of treats, including marshmallows.
Clearly people aren't taking the time to read the article (I'm shocked), so here's a summary of the fructose info...
Our consumption of fructose has gone from less than half a pound per year in 1970 to 56 pounds per year in 2003.
high fructose corn syrup came on the market after it was invented in Japan in 1966, and started finding its way into American foods in 1975. In 1980 the soft drink companies started introducing it into soft drinks and you can actually trace the prevalence of childhood obesity, and the rise, to 1980 when this change was made.
it's not the calories that are different it's the fact that the only organ in your body that can take up fructose is your liver. Glucose, the standard sugar, can be taken up by every organ in the body, only 20% of glucose load ends up at your liver. So let's take 120 calories of glucose, that's two slices of white bread as an example, only 24 of those 120 calories will be metabolised by the liver, the rest of it will be metabolised by your muscles, by your brain, by your kidneys, by your heart etc.. Now let's take 120 calories of orange juice. Same 120 calories but now 60 of those calories are going to be fructose because fructose is half of sucrose and sucrose is what's in orange juice. So it's going to be all the fructose, that's 60 calories, plus 20% of the glucose, so that's another 12 out of 60 -- so in other words 72 out of the 120 calories will hit the liver, three times the substrate as when it was just glucose alone.
fructose [does] three things that are particularly bad in the liver. The first is this uric acid pathway that I just mentioned, the second is that fructose initiates what's known as de novo lipogenesis...Which is fat production...Excess fat production and so VLDL [the bad form of cholesterol], very low density lipoproteins end up being manufactured when you consume this large bolus of fructose in a way that glucose does not, and so that leads to dyslipidaemia.
And then the last thing that fructose does in the liver is it initiates an enzyme called Junk one, ...and when you initiate Junk one what happens is that your insulin receptor in your liver stops working...that means your insulin levels all over your body have to rise.
put all of this together and basically you've got a feed forward system of increased insulin, increased liver fat, liver deposition of fat, increased inflammation -- you end up with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. You end up with your inability to see your leptin [**leptin tells your brain you are full**] and so you consume more fructose and you've now got a viscious cycle out of control.
In fact fructose, because of the way it's metabolised, is actually damaging your liver the same way alcohol is. In fact it's the exact same pathway, in fact fructose is alcohol without the buzz.
I took organic chemistry so I understand what the ingredient are (at least on the basic structural level) and can pronunce them very well ;).
Anyway the argument is a bad one (and remind me of the argument of people saying "oh god they are adding chemicals in our food") If you took normal organic growing food and we told you the list of stuff inside it, you would not understand half of it, still that would not make it more or less dangerous. 2-oxo-L-threo-hexono-1,4- lactone-2,3-enediol is an example of it. Naturally I could call it L-ascorbate too. Or maybe vitamin C. The problem are not that people don't understand what the smallest ingredient part in ppm or milli% of their food composition is, the problem is that people ignore totally the composition of the main ingredient, like fat, and refuse to do sport, and eat a lot during the day way way more than is necessary for their activities, and not equilibrated. It is a LIFESTYLE problem. It ain't one signle factor but a combination of many. And no, the ingredient you can't pronunce without having being in university ain't the problem.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
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Less about respect, and more about fear of being ostracized. Sure you'll get away with it a few times, but not too many times. People have eyes, and you really never get to hear what other people say about you in Japan. Pretty important stuff when you generally end up getting to know your community better since your on foot allot more, and on public transportation. Once you are caught, and have a black mark for doing something bad, you'll spend a damn long time clawing your way outa that hole if you ever can. It's easy to sluff off personal guilt in other countries, but in one thats so entrenched with the idea of personal guilt...it's hard to have it not rub off on you after a while. Theres others, but thats a big one I've noticed.
Personally, I can't stand all the corn syrup the Americans seem to have in everything they eat. Maybe this is my body's way of saying "get the hell out of this silly country before you become one of them!"?
Personally, I'm an American, but I hate American food. If I could afford it, I'd just shop at the international shops and bring home 50lbs of Japanese snacks. Of course I'm sure your not supposed to eat that in large quantities either, but for some reason pocky and ramen never makes me feel fat.
But more seriously, I think the problem is more cultural than anything else. Most popular American foods are deep fried (Mmmm... Onion Rings) and probably not meant for human consumption (Mmmmm... Pulled Pork Sandwhiches) and that the reason for obesity in America is that we haven't really scaled our fatty foods to match our supply.
As in... These were good for you in the 1920's when the lack of food was an issue for most Americans, but now... Not so good.
We need to focus on just not cooking foods in fat or deep fry them. Plenty of good stuff out there that you can eat a lot of and still not get fat.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Largely because they seem to have made no attempt to really buy cheap foods. The biggest one would be rice. You can get an amazing amount of calories from rice and that shit is dirt cheap. It is also soaks up flavours really well so you can season it easily, and cheaply. You should be able to get rice in a 50 pound bag for around $14. Now given that you get about 220 calories per cup and a cup weighs 7 oz or so that's about 25,000 calories per bag, or a while weeks worth of calories for one large person.
Using that as a staple, you find that you now have more to spend on other things. You also will discover that rice is quite healthy.
Now please don't think I'm arguing that people should have to live off of a couple bucks a day for food, but realise that these congress people aren't doing it right. When it comes to really cutting food budget, you don't go to White Castle. You concentrate on materials which are cheap and have good calorie content. Rice is essentially the unbeatable champ in that area and hence forms your staple (it is not such a coincidence that it often forms the staple of diets for people more poor than is even conceivable in the US). Beans also work well, especially when purchased bagged and not canned, and they supply protein. Beans and rice, though not glorious, are just about enough on their own to sustain you.
If they are serious about seeing how to live on an extremely low budget for food, they should at least make an honest effort.
It's funny with people: you threaten to take away their donuts and their soda, and they get all riled up, but you take away their civil liberties, and they don't seem to care very much.
Most people who smugly criticize America from abroad are European. If they angrily criticize America for what it did to their country, they're from South America or the Middle East. If they laugh at how much money they make off stupid Americans, they're from Asia.
The one exception is that Britons seem to have some understanding that their food is scarcely better than ours.
Actual carbonated soda is very rare; it's not that unusual to see even Coca Cola vending machines that don't actually sell cola.
4 -2006/jihanki.jpg
m ini_en/pic_mini/life031.jpg
Carbonated soda is not "very rare". And Coca Cola machines without soda only exist when other Coca Cola machines *with* soda sit right next to them.
Japanese vending machines almost always exist in multiple units - it's actually uncommon to see a single vending machine by itself. In the event that you *do*, that vending machine will *always* have at least one, and usually two or more flavors of carbonated soda. When vending machines are paired together, they have one particular kind of drink in each, so yes, of course you will only find carbonated drinks in one out of the four or five machines in any given spot. But they're always there.
This is a typical single-unit Suntory machine installation:
http://www.japonophile.com/wp-content/uploads/200
And the same for Coke:
http://z.about.com/d/gojapan/1/0/8/2/machine2.gif
This is a more common multi-machine installation:
http://www.tjf.or.jp/deai_korea/contents/teacher/
(I know the url says "korea", but that's Japan. Here is the original page it's from.)
It is true that Japan has much more variety of drink types in their vending machines than we do. But I disagree that their drinks are all that much healthier. Their vending machines contain drinks of the following types:
a) Canned iced coffee - always sweetened
b) Soda
c) Beer
d) Sweetened, processed juice drinks (their equivalent to "Sunny Delight")
e) Iced tea (unsweetened)
Of those, only tea is even remotely healthy and calorie-free. And it's true that it's usually available for those who want it. But then, diet soda is always available at vending machines here too; not as healthy as tea, but at least calorie-free and non-obesity forming. Most people choose something else, in both countries.
Our problem is portion control. The standard bottle size in vending machines here is 20oz. A Japanese canned coffee is I think 7oz. Big difference. We're drinking almost three times the sugar in our sugar drinks as they are, just because we're drinking a lot more of it. (This extends beyond vending machines too; go to McDonald's there and the "large" drink is the same size as a "small" here.)
Combined with the rest of their diet, which is a lot less fatty and rich in calories, and with a lot smaller portions, and of course they're in better shape. Though with the rise of fast food there, they're fattening up now just like we already have. (Most articles on this are a bit alarmist, IMO - it's still obvious that they're in pretty good shape, but obesity rates are rising.)
It's really not rocket science why we're all getting fat. Too many calories, too big portions. It drives me crazy how people read stuff like "fructose makes you fat!" and think they can just cut out fructose and lose weight. Meanwhile, they're still eating double quarter pounders with cheese, a large fries and two apple pies for lunch and wondering why they're still getting fat. The culprit to gaining weight is calories. That's it. Simple laws of physics. All of these foods that supposedly "cause" obesity do so because they are high in calories and low in nutrients. That includes fructose. The bottom line is you need to control your calorie intake, which means both controlling the types of food you eat as well as the amounts.
Somewhat related to a number of the comments....
A book was published about a year ago, "Mindless Eating". It discussed the various factors that cause us to overeat and undereat. (The latter is a serious problem in combat situations in the military. It's one thing for a civilian to lose 20 pounds of fat, it's another thing for a fighting soldier to lose 20 pounds of muscle.)
It's easy to say "eat less/eat healthier", but that requires far more attention than you realize. Marketers are NOT trying to get you to eat poorly, they just want you to buy from them instead of the competitor. If everyone wanted broccoli, there would be broccoli stands on every corner.
Most people want something fast, cheap and filling. Chains have tried introducing healthier fare periodically (e.g., Taco Bell had 'lite' choices for awhile), but they weren't popular enough to be economically viable. But offer a larger standard drink or more fries and your sales climb, so you get a downward spiral that results in a pound of french fries and people drinking 64 ounces of soda.
Worse, this "renormalizes" what people expect. Did you know that coke bottles were originally 8 fl oz? Then pepsi introduced a standard 10 fl oz bottle as a marketing gimmick. Vending machines stabilized things at 12 oz for a while (since you had to stay at the standard size to be sold in the machine), but fast food restaurants competed with each other with larger and larger cups, free refills, etc. You could always buy a smaller size but that's psychologically hard when you get half as much drink but pay nearly the same price.
Ditto coffee. It used to be a cup or two in the morning, perhaps with a bit of cream. Then Starbucks came into the market and the sizes have not only increased, the amount of fat and sugar has exploded. People who would never consider drinking a milk shake every day (or even twice a day!) do this without thinking twice when it's a fancy Starbucks drink. If you want a cup (8 oz) of black coffee... good luck!
I think the most telling story was some guy at a yard sale(?) who asked if the seller had any more dinner plates in a set from the 40s. He was holding a serving platter. Historically dinner plates were around 8", but now they're usually 12" (iirc), or over twice as much area. People tend to fill their plates so we're eating a lot more food without thinking about it. Now look at sit-down restaurant chains (Chili's, Olive Garden, etc.) They're selling presentation so they use larger plates than you have at home, and they fill those plates. It's not an exaggeration to say that they serve 3 or 4 solid servings, nutritionally speaking.
This is gradual enough that most people aren't aware that it's happening, but we are eating a lot more food and finding it harder to eat the correct portions. How often have you seen a 6'+ adult order from the child's menu?
Does this excuse people from TRYING? No, of course not. But arrogant "people should know better" tirades don't help since changes requires us to be aware of the subtle changes that have lead us to the current selections and portion sizes.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken