Is Sugar Toxic?

a_hanso tips an article by Gary Taubes in the NYTimes Magazine that evaluates claims from Dr. Robert Lustig's virally popular lecture on the negative effects of sugar on peoples' health. (YouTube video of the lecture.) Taubes discusses the science behind the claims and the odd willingness of people to accept Lustig's arguments without further inspection. Quoting: "When I set out to interview public health authorities and researchers for this article, they would often initiate the interview with some variation of the comment 'surely you’ve spoken to Robert Lustig,' not because Lustig has done any of the key research on sugar himself, which he hasn’t, but because he’s willing to insist publicly and unambiguously, when most researchers are not, that sugar is a toxic substance that people abuse. In Lustig’s view, sugar should be thought of, like cigarettes and alcohol, as something that’s killing us. This brings us to the salient question: Can sugar possibly be as bad as Lustig says it is?"

Comments

Sugar: The Gateway Drug

[Haedrian]

It starts off with a teaspoon of sugar in your coffee...

Before long, you're eating tons of it, snorting it, injecting it into the blood.

Then you need harder stuff...

Re:Dramatic effect and scientific precision

[Anonymous Coward]

tldr;

Summary:

Instead of a spoonful of sugar in your coffee, put a potato.