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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?"
just ask an authority on this topic, and that of health in general, for that matter: Ray Kurzweil.
Calling sugar "toxic" is probably a plot to demean the word "toxic" and make tobacco less regulated.
Either that, or he's fallen for a more subtle form of the Dihydrogen Monoxide troll, perpetrated by the chemistry of sugar itself.
Why, yes, when you shove about a metric ton of it up a lab rat's ass, yes, it's toxic.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
If Sugar is bad for you, then howcome it's food?
Having done no research on the matter apart from my own experience, I'd say it's because people who "abuse" sugar are more likely to also abuse more harmful things. I, for instance, will eat a candy bar when I'm staying up late. I'll also drink excessive caffeine and get less sleep than I should. Correlation, but not causation.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Das ist lustig
In soviet russia the government regulates the companies.
In great enough quantities. It's called "drowning".
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
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.
Fruits are loaded with sucrose, glucose, fructose, and dextrose.
Are you telling people not to eat fruit? or are you saying that crystallizing the sugars from it somehow makes sugar molecules poisonous?
MSG is just crystallized glutamate from seaweed. You get glutamate from lots of places.
All you're saying here is that people shouldn't eat food.
Now, if you want to modify it to say people shouldn't eat large quantities of something that they can only get in small quantities in nature, you might have a point. But otherwise you sound like a nutritional Chicken Little.
Sugar is definitely toxic in high concentrations for some organisms - that's why it's used as a preservative. High concentrations of sugar kill many bacteria.
There is no need, and it would be unscientific, to introduce some magical theory of "processed" foods versus "natural"foods: if the chemistry is identical, the biology is identical. The lecture is well grounded in the science of biochemistry.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. People like you who swallow facts without thinking about them at all are far more harmful than any particular substance ever could be.
None of the results for Aspartame are conclusive.
Rambling on about something being toxic does not make it so. If you wish to show something is toxic, start by applying bounds to your statement and show how it falls within them.
What you state seems less like something being addictive or toxic (sugar is addictive like water is) and more the symptom of people overeating cheap processed foods rather than any valid scientific argument. Much like Dr. Lustig's statements.
Water is toxic too, if you drink too much you die. I've never heard of people dying or having problems from ingesting a moderate amount of sugar, that's why I don't find this very credible.
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
Oh please, tell me you have a source for that statement.
If you read the article you will notice that they specifically state that HFCS is no better or worse than table sugar, and that they both get processed by your body in the same way. The difference between HFCS, white and brown table sugar (sucrose) is marginal and irrelevant.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
And what form of sugar is most popular in America? The most toxic "high fructose corn syrup" or the lease toxic cane sugar?
Just stop breathing for about 20 minutes.
You'll soon find the answer to all the radical arguments.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
[......] are you saying that crystallizing the sugars from it somehow makes sugar molecules poisonous?
Concentrating it certainly makes it more hazardous.
Normal sugar is just as bad. RTFA.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
I took radioactive water intravenously a few months ago.
Then the doctor ran a scanner around my body for several minutes, photographing the radiation density coming from my cardiac muscle.
Turns out my heart is fit as a Ferrari engine and needed no invasive intervention. Chalked the chest pains up to esophageal reflux. So now when I get one now, I eat half a Tums and immediately feel better.
Radioactive water is good for your health. So is Calcium, which not only strengthens your bones but tops off the stoichiometry of your neural and muscular depolarization channels.
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...
And I do not advocating drinking too much juice or eating too much fructose. Fructose gets processed by the liver and because of how its processed it goes directly to fat cells. It's very difficult to burn it off, and it generally high calories.
That being said you have to weigh the risks vs the benefits of the vitamins in the fruit, vs the amount of fructose you consume.
Honestly it would be better to take fruit vitamins of powdered fruit without any fructose or sugar, than to drink actual juice and get the fructose which the body generally does not need and will waste or convert to fat.
One of the most pervasive and powerful lobbies in Washington is the sugar lobby. They're worse than the oil companies going after climate research when it comes to attacking anyone who raises questions about their product.
They started the PR push back in advance of the story. Expect more in the days to come.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Basically your whole point rests upon "natural" vs. "processed" but can you even highlight how it is dangerous?
The problem seems to be, by far, quantity consumed rather than the nature of the material, unless you can present some compelling proof otherwise.
Given that glucose is what our bodies run on, I'd have to say no, sugar is NOT toxic to us. Is having too much sugar bad for you? Certainly. It's about balance. Too much of nearly anything (even water) is going to be bad for you.
Metabolism of apolipoproteins CII, CIII1, CIII2 and VLDL-B in human subjects consuming high carbohydrate diets.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6952065
etc.....
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
High blood sugar causes your body damage. It will destroy capillaries in your extremities and retinas, making you blind and gangrenous. Sounds pretty toxic to me.
Sugar is also necessary for the body to function. If you don't eat any, your body will make some. However, the amount actually required to function is very small. When blood sugar is kept at ideal levels, all is well and sugar is not killing you.
The problem is, people are eating way too much of it these days. Not just sugar, but starches that break down into sugar very quickly when eaten. This causes blood sugar spikes, provoking your metabolism to go into defense mode. That means a spike of insulin to control the blood sugar level quickly. However, this often overcompensates, leaving blood sugar low, which drives one to eat again, much sooner than is actually necessary. Plus, the excess sugar is stored as fat, and fat leads to insulin resistance over the long haul -- diabetes.
People need to eat more protein and fat, and choose carbohydrates that are absorbed into the system slowly. Keep the blood sugar on an even keel and you can break the cycle of endless hunger. You'll lose weight without having to diet, because you won't be driven to eat by the ping-ponging of your blood sugar level. And the fine structures of your body will sustain less damage from the blood sugar spikes, meaning you'll weather aging a lot better.
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
If I drink a regular soda, even half a can, I will get a migraine. If I mix a drink such as lemonade with regular old white sugar, I get a sugar high, but no migraine. Even if I drink substantially more calories from sugar in the lemonade than a half of a can of Coke, it doesn't matter.
HFCS truly is a horrible substance compared to natural or even partially processed sugars. Maybe in the land of ivory towers they are virtually identical, but down here in reality, my body treats them differently.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
HFCS is radioactive?
Almost all that we eat is converted to sugar by our own bodies. Protein is the exception. The catch is that carmelization occurs and this end product clogs our internal organs. It is one reason why older peoples eyes don't look as clear as when they were young. So yes sugar does help to kill you and there is nothing at all that you can do about it other than a mild state of starvation all your life. Prevention may extend life but it ruins the quality of life to such a degree that one almost must be perverted to maintain that degree of hunger.
Whet we are seeing are people looking for a way to get attention and make money simply by spouting nonsense. Think about the extent of this phony evangelism. How many people have made money, one way or another, by selling diets and diet products? And every one of those diets and diet products was hot air with a liberal dose of lies melted in to the alloy. Yet simply lying and stealing money with false health claims is not enough to be put in prison these days. And the suckers keep right on lining up to lose their money. Whether it's the daily miracle cure for arthritis or the miracle weight loss method it is all nonsense.
I don't know about that... My lab mouse ate 52 lbs of the stuff and I must say I do not think he lived up to to his full potential.... I mean he just didn't seem to have that sparkle in his eye afterward...
I never said I agreed with the entire article.
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/126/10/2494.full.pdf
Clinical studies have demonstrated that although
low fat diets decrease plasma HDL cholesterol concen
trations (Garg et al. 1992), increases in plasma TAG
have been observed only with concomitant intake of
simple carbohydrates (Grundy 1986).
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
The fiber in the fruit makes all the difference.
How is processed sugar chemically different from the sugar in the plant it's extracted from?
Do you know? Or do you not even consider that?
There is a precedent. Saturated fat from natural sources contains no trans-fats, but saturated fat made by hydrogenating vegetable oils has significant trans-fats (trans-fats are deformed fat molecules that a cellular system, whether vegetable or animal, wouldn't produce, but bubbling hydrogen through a vat of fat doesn't have molecular-level geometric control of the production process). Saturated fat is not bad for you but trans-fats are.
So is there something about the production of sugar in concentrated form that chemically alters it so that it has poison in it? What is the altered chemical? Has it been detected in the concentrated sugar?
Just how many people posting replies here have actually, you know-- watched the hour long presentation created by Mr. Lustig all the way through?
In the presentation, Lustig lists the metabolic pathway that fructose (The sugar he rants about) has to go through in order to be processed by the body, and explains why it is toxic in the quantities that people eat it in.
What is drawing fire here, is that lustig rightly mentions that sucrose is just a glucose and a fructose bound together by an ether bond, and metabolically speaking is practically identical to HFCS. (Something the corn refiner's association is also quick to point out.)
The real point of the presentation is to point out that the US population is eating considerably more sugar than it was 50 years ago, with a more than 300% increase in fructose consumption specifically.
He advocates reduction of fructose consumption, based on several cited studies he lists in his viral video presentation.
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. As such, throwing useless arguments like "Dihydrogen oxide poisoning" around are non-sequitors at best, and pointless mud slinging at worst.
Having seen the presentation, and seen that he cites dozens of studies that can be independently examined, (and therefor verified), I feel that his presentation is of higher quality than say, a certain celebrity's rants about immunity shots and autism are. As such, it deserves more meaty rebuttles than what I am reading here on slashdot.
I can only speak for myself, not the parent, but HFCS is far more damaging than an equivalent number of calories from white sugar. Both are processed, one far more so than the other. Anyway, HFCS elicits migraines, while regular sugar just gives me a sugar high because I don't eat much sweet food or food with much sugar in it.
I have read that the highly processed sugars such as HFCS are absorbed by the body much more readily, providing a faster, higher sugar high. When your body has to expend energy to release the sugar molecules from naturally-occurring substances, you get a more even dose. If you are injecting highly processed sugars directly into your blood (i.e. a Coke), your body barely has to work at all and is absorbing more sugar faster than it would with a natural substance (e.g. eating an orange, pulp and all).
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Fructose goes to the liver. This is why it doesn't burn off immediately like sucrose.
So fructose is worse than sucrose. High fructose corn syrup is the worst form of fructose because it keeps insulin levels high for a long period of time, it prevents the body from burning fat as well.
So if I down a cube of fiber-con with my spoonful of sugar, am I safe?
That's what "redundant" means, coward.
All sugar is Organic. It's all made of long or short chains of Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen.
Sucrose C12H22O11
Glucose C6H12O6
Fructose C6H12O6
Lactose C12H22O11
Galactose C6H12O6
Maltose C12H22O11
Can't see anything non Organic.
Well put me in the ignorant group because countless research has been spent on this subject... HFCS (55% fructose - 45% glucose) is no worse than sucrose (50% fructose - 50% glucose)... That problem is the sheer amount of calories... Also, the only reason they there is slightly more fructose than glucose is simply because they found it tastes sweeter this way. Meaning, HFCS actually has FEWER calories then a similar sweeter that uses sucrose...
> "potential organ damage from GMO corn"
I agree with Microlith: do you have a source for that? Additionally, "GMO corn" is not one thing. Are you suggesting that some are dangerous (based on individual studies of different varieties of GMO corn) or that GMO corn is dangerous simply because GMO == "Frankenfood", which would be a silly accusation to make?
take an apple, 50 calories sugar, 2 g fiber. Healthy food. Horrible fruit stipes, almost twice calories of an apple, less than half he fiber, and can be eaten endlessly.
A few bottles of coke, or fruit punch, several fuit strip snacks, basically what people think is an ok diet, and one has 2000 calories with no nutrition, and hundreds of grams of refined and concentrated sugar, much more than is healthy.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
There is no Magic. The amount of sugar, be it sucrose, fructose or glucose of dextrose in the average North American Diet is a major problem, but processed of not; fructose is fructose, sucrose is sucrose etc, the chemical does not change, nor does your bodies reaction to it.
Don't forget the fiber. The rare times I drink sugar, it is something like orange juice with extra pulp. I'm not sure what it does for sugar absorption, but I do know two things. The insoluable fiber keeps me regular. Second, the soluable fiber will bond with the carbohydrates in the juice, so the cholesterol in the food I'm eating at the same time cannot do the same and enter my bloodstream.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Sugar is toxic, but fiber is the "antidote". It causes the sugar to be released into the bloodstream more slowly so the liver can metabolize it properly. If you eat food with sugar in its natural form, for example fruit, it's absorbed more slowly. You can get a rough idea of how quickly sugar from foods is absorbed by looking at their glycemic index. Essentially, whole fruits and vegetables have a low glycemic index, and precessed foods such as sugar, white bread, and white rice have a high glycemic index. People who maintain a low-GI diet have less incidence of diabetes and heart disease.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
There is research to indicate that sugar induced hyperactivity doesn't exist. You most likely get a "sugar high" because you think you'll get a "sugar high" or perhaps an allergy to lemons.
http://www.ccmr.cornell.edu/education/ask/index.html?quid=241
Have you considered that there is more than just sugar in Coke?
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
> "High blood sugar causes your body damage. It will destroy capillaries in your extremities and retinas, making you blind and gangrenous. Sounds pretty toxic to me."
I assume you mean this happens through type-2 diabetes?
The impending chocolate shortage will not be an issue with Sugar being declared a Schedule I drug!
mod parent up, gp is an idiot
fructose is fructose, regardless of it's source.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Considering my diet consists of 88% sugar. Cookies, candy, and ice cream. My three favorite food groups.
Huh! What's the difference between fructose from corn, and fructose from other sources?
Well put me in the ignorant group because countless research has been spent on this subject... HFCS (55% fructose - 45% glucose) is no worse than sucrose (50% fructose - 50% glucose)... That problem is the sheer amount of calories
And, if Lustig is right, the stuff he talks about (which damns HFCS and sucrose equally).
Also, the only reason they there is slightly more fructose than glucose is simply because they found it tastes sweeter this way. Meaning, HFCS actually has FEWER calories then a similar sweeter that uses sucrose...
If they were sweetened to the same level -- which they aren't. And that doesn't even get to the fact that HFCS is cheap enough that it's in food that would likely not have any sugar otherwise.
VLDL., triglycerides etc.. it's all down to complexity and balance:
http://www.organiclifestylemagazine.com/blog/healthy-sugar-alternatives.php
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Neither were the results on Saccharine, but that didn't stop it from being condemned in "CANCER CAUSING AGENT" hell for 25 years.
Personally, I don't like too much extra formaldehyde in my body, and regardless of what is or isn't happening on a chemical basis, a tall glass of Crystal Light with NutraSweet gives me a 5 alarm hangover headache every time - a personal causative correlation I established with about a dozen trials before hearing anything bad about Aspartame. I tried to like Crystal Light, but it was just too obvious what it was doing to me.
The wikipedia article appears heavily astroturfed from my perspective:
While one small review noted aspartame is likely one of many dietary triggers of migraines, in a list that includes "cheese, chocolate, citrus fruits, hot dogs, monosodium glutamate, aspartame, fatty foods, ice cream, caffeine withdrawal, and alcoholic drinks, especially red wine and beer,"[72] other reviews have noted conflicting studies about headaches[8][73] and still more reviews doubt a link.
Cheese, chocolate, citrus fruits, hot dogs, MSG, fatty foods and ice cream are deeply into my favorite foods list and cause me no problems, caffeine and alcohol can cause headaches if abused, but I think this is true for most people. The rest of the article goes on with a very one sided presentation that would make a marketing VP proud.
People's digestive system depends on more than their DNA, it is a symbiotic microbial colony with highly variable effects on the host depending on its composition. The colony balance depends on many things, including what you feed it. Most of the published scientific research into food safety and diet was blind to this prior to about 10 years ago.
This is covered by the hour-long presentation cited by the summary.
Also pointed out in that video is the fact that foods that switched formulas from sugar to HFCS actually INCREASED the caloric content from sugar, due to the reduced price point, and increased sweet-taste appeal it provides.
Basically, the reduction in calories from using fructose rich corn syrup are more than offset when you add twice as much corn syrup as you did sugar previously---Just because you can.
Now, go watch the video, THEN comment. K, Thnks, bye.
Please bear in mind that HFCS (in mainstream use) is either 55% Fructose/42% Glucose (used mainly in drinks) or 42% Fructose/53% Glucose (typically used in food and baked goods). Table sugar consists of Sucrose, which when absorbed by the body breaks down into 50% Fructose/50% Glucose. Any difference between the two is a matter of marketing.
A drug is "Articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals."
Sugar is a food as foods are "Any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body."
Indeed it does provide nutritional support for the body, in the form of energy. What's more you find sugar is essential to the function of a body. Glucose is a cell's primary energy storage and metabolic intermediate. Without it, your body does not function.
So sorry, it isn't a drug. Attempting to redefine it doesn't change that and is rather silly. That people eat too much of it is not relevant. Call it a drug because people east too much and you end up calling all foods drugs since people eat too much of all foods, fats, proteins, etc.
If you watch the video you will see it has nothing to do with sugar (surprise, the Slashdot headline and summary are completely off base). The presentation is about high fructose corn syrup.
According to Lustig, yes.
What is actually claimed is not that sugar (rather generic term which can mean carbohydrate) is toxic, but specifically that fructose has similar effect on the liver metabolism as alcohol (diabetics have fatty liver just like alcoholics), and fructose negative effect on the liver is worsened if caloric needs are already met. Specifically, if fructose metabolism in the liver is compared to alcohol metabolism you will see similar/same by-products of both. The claims made are verifiable, although a do require a bit biochemistry understanding.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Yes... In fact, HFCS seems to kill everyone around the 7th decade of their young pristine lives... Wow!! Brilliant Analysis!!!
Wakeup call!!! First, the US is not an agricultural nation anymore, so, we don't really have allot of peasants... Apparently John Deere got your peasants before HFCS got a chance.... Also, the average life expectancy has almost doubled from what it was before HFCS even existed....
Also, Im having a hard time linking heart disease people becoming diabetic...
Bad press.
it's not bad at all, corn syrup is whats dangerous. And besides the idea that everyone has to be supermodel thin is just preposterous. Habits in eating is more of a symbol of current financial and emotional states. Bigger people are either afforded the opportunity to consume food an a regular basis or they are so poor that McDonalds becomes a staple in their diet. But that's only relevant if you bypass the fact we all die and the condition in which we are buried or cremated is not really important at all. So when talking about whats "bad" for us it should be along the lines of moral civility decaying to the point to were we only care about narcissism....
If I drink a regular soda, even half a can, I will get a migraine. If I mix a drink such as lemonade with regular old white sugar, I get a sugar high, but no migraine ...
HFCS truly is a horrible substance compared to natural or even partially processed sugars. Maybe in the land of ivory towers they are virtually identical, but down here in reality, my body treats them differently.
How did you rule out the difference in taste, the added dyes and flavor, the acidity, and most importantly the caffeine as your migraine trigger?
"white sugar", as you call it, is a problem equal to HFCS, not less than "half the problem" as you suggest. Another "expert" that hasn't watched the presentation.
As others as already pointed out, aspertame is not proven to be a problem at all. Of all sweeteners, only sugar/HFCS is proven to be harmful.
As a person with mild fructose malabsorbtion I can say it's packaging that makes a difference too. I can eat fruit without a problem, but the same ammount of fructose in something like HFCS brings on my symptoms.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
He is the first one to link the dangers of equal amounts of dihydrogen monoxide and sugar.
Don't forget the fiber. The rare times I drink sugar, it is something like orange juice with extra pulp.
Don't think that the extra pulp gets you much fiber... even Tropicana Extra Pulp has 0g fiber listed on their nutrition facts.
http://www.biolsci.org/v05p0706.htm#headingA11
"We therefore conclude that our data strongly suggests that these GM maize varieties induce a state of hepatorenal toxicity. This can be due to the new pesticides (herbicide or insecticide) present specifically in each type of GM maize, although unintended metabolic effects due to the mutagenic properties of the GM transformation process cannot be excluded."
Took all of a minute to find that one. You might want to look for others.
For the google-impaired:
GMO corn linked to organ damage.
The jury's still out on aspartame, however it does give me an enormous headache if I consume any at all. It's also a substance which does not exist in any significant quantity in food provided by nature, so your body may or may not be able to handle it. If yours does, that's "seems to work here", not "no problem". Let me know in 20 years how well it worked for you.
Finally, belittling the idea of "GMO++Frankenfood" is idiotic. There are plenty of good, logical reasons to be very cautious and do long term testing, which has never been done. Maybe you enjoy being used as a lab rat, but not everyone is willing to stake their future quality of life on "being a good consumer" for Monsanto.
Caveat Utilitor
You never said you read the entire article, either, and it's apparent you didn't see at any of it. Otherwise you'd know there isn't any difference between "real sugar" that your "peasants" can't afford and the HFCS that's being used as a "population control" mechanism as you absurdly claim.
Yes, I am guessing glucose must be even worse....I mean EVERYONE dies, and everyone is exposed to glucose on a daily basis, so it MUST be the cause right???
In short... Have you ever wondered that it might just be the sheer amount of calories that makes junk food so bad for you???
Potential!
GMO corn potentiailly attracts aliens too.
Dammit!
Caveat Utilitor
While refined carbohydrates like white sugar and white flour are things most people do use too much of, they're not half the problem HFCS, aspartame, and the potential organ damage from GMO corn. Priorities...
I really can't tell a troll from a joke or a nutter on slashdot any more. Good thing I have no mod points.
Personally, I find that if I drink a lot of juice(ecpecially stuff with a lot of apple juice sweetener in it - Not lemon juice or orange) I'll get a canker sore. Sucrose-based soda has less of an effect(Like Hansens for instance). Regular HFCS-based products has /more/ of an effect than either of the above, and Glucose sweetened stuff, like those little sesame snaps they sell has a very small impact.
I've also found that Vitamin C seems to help deal with the problem, though I think there's another factor I'm also missing, especially when it comes to HFCS bases stuff.
Now, sure, corrilation does not imply causation, but with enough experiments with a single common element, you should be able to tell the problem - Close enough for real-world use, anyway.
I'd suggest getting a new doctor. I'd be scared of one who ordered a $2,000 MRI/cat scan before asking you to try an over-the-counter $0.12 heartburn tablet. Angina is frequently self-diagnosed as a heart problem, it's the first thing the doctor should have suggested.
This sentence no verb.
just as high fructose corn syrup is more toxic than regular sugar.
For pity sake, RTFA. HFCS only has 10% more fructose than sucrose does.
But how much sugar did your diet start with?
The Romans didn't use sugar; they sweetened their food with lead.
Point being that just because we put it in every food we eat doesn't mean it's safe or healthy.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Sounds like fresh-squeezed fruit juice is well out, too, then.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Just ask any diabetic.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Thank you for your content-free reply. I actually don't tend to give a rat's patootie about slashdot karma or moderation, so if the idea was to somehow make me feel badly you have failed. Just thought I'd let you know...
Caveat Utilitor
Radioactive water is more toxic than regular water just as high fructose corn syrup is more toxic than regular sugar.
Odd. I would've thought that radioactive water is more toxic than regular water just as radioactive sugar is more toxic than regular sugar. In that they are radioactive. That's just me though...[/troll]
HFCS is radioactive?
Only in Japan.
Also important - sucrose (ie. table sugar) is metabolised into glucose + fructose.
RTFA. "Processed sugar" is damned near identical to "natural sugar". It's a mixture of glucose and fructose.
Where to begin. We can start with the first word of your post. "Lusting" is an activity I enjoy with redheads. Lustig is a scientist.
Secondly, Aragon makes a claim that Lustig doesn't nor does the article if you manage past the first few words. HFCS and sugar are equivalent nutritionally and they're both bad. Fructose is metabolized differently however (Aragon apparently can't read as well and decided to go the whole HFCS vs sucrose thing). Vis a vis the Japanese diet, he also tries to use anecdote (even when all of the posts he cites don't even support him!) and you'd do much better just to measure per capita sugar consumption (you know, sugar made minus sugar exported (or used for non-human consumption)) divided by number of people. This actual data (as cited in the TFA that you didn't read) supports the author's assertion, whereas using the plural of anecdote as data does not. (However, I would kill to have Japanese-style soft drink machines where literally one or two things actually contain sugar. You can't even find unsweetened tea in the states except at specialty stores for the most part.)
Lastly, Aragon plays the wonderful correlation/causality card. Which works for a great number of things, but unfortunately, scientists interesting in societal behavior can't just force people to adhere to their dietary whims randomly.
I'd like to see further research done in say, a controlled environment like a school where some bureaucrat can ban sugar from products the school sells and see if children become healthier. But bringing in thermodynamics to sound smart without the vaguely inclination of what you're even referring to is merely arrogant.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Wasn't there some studies that showed that the type of carbon from Corn could be traced through the food chain? Wouldn't that make HFCS different in the isotope of Carbon provided to "natural" sources of sugar?
Swear to god, not trolling. Actually curious if this is the case.
Makes me wonder how high-pulp OJ compares.
I have read that the highly processed sugars such as HFCS are absorbed by the body much more readily, providing a faster, higher sugar high. When your body has to expend energy to release the sugar molecules from naturally-occurring substances, you get a more even dose.
Please bear in mind that HFCS (in mainstream use) is either 55% Fructose/42% Glucose (used mainly in drinks) or 42% Fructose/53% Glucose (typically used in food and baked goods). Table sugar consists of Sucrose, which when absorbed by the body breaks down into 50% Fructose/50% Glucose. Any difference between the two is a matter of marketing.
So, breaking down sugars makes glucose and fructose slower than just ingesting it, and sucrose breaks down into glucose and fructose. Sounds like sucrose is better than HFCS to me, if for no other reason than my body expends more energy (or acids) breaking it down.
In short... Have you ever wondered that it might just be the sheer amount of calories that makes junk food so bad for you???
Lustig takes some pains to both point explicit fingers at fructose, and then explains the metabolic pathways by which it accomplishes its task.
Perhaps you'd care to provide similar detail of studies implicating caloric intake instead of fructose specifically, and then describe the mechanism by which it causes diabetes?
[sarcasm]Yeah, the reason preschoolers get hyper when you feed them soda and candy is because they're brainwashed from watching so many TV documentaries, and reading so much media hype in health magazines, on the evils of sugar intake. [/sarcasm]
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
Yes, absolutely correct. I really don't know why a community of supposedly scientifcally-minded people would rush to embrace the consumption of random chemicals, just based on "it's sweet but not sugar". Well, yes I do I guess, but it's disheartening to see how quickly "I want" displaces "let's look into this". Humans have refined sugar since at least the Middle Ages, right? We know it's a problem, and we know pretty well how much of a problem. Aspartame, we have a few years experience, with almost no well-funded studies beyond those paid for by the manufacturer, for a chemical which nature does not provide in our food supply in any significant quantity.
I would think that anyone who's serious about thinking critically would have to question that...
Caveat Utilitor
No, the presentation lacks any kind of scientific rigour at all; the only thing the presentation shows is that some doctors are poor at science, scientific reasoning, logic (he committed each and every fallacy of logic) and statistics.
He never claims that people will gain more than they take in. He's talking about the negative effects of HFCS versus sucrose, not sucrose itself. Yet everyone is talking about it.
Barely anyone reads the articles, I'm not surprised that virtually no one here bothered to watch the 90 minute video.
"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).
If Dr. Goodstudy is well-respected in his field, why wouldn't I trust him to agree or disagree with the research of others in his field, even if he hasn't actually repeated any of the experiments himself?
If he's wrong too many times his reputation gets tarnished and I'll have every reason not to trust his opinions in the future.
I don't know Lusting from Adam but if he's a well-respected researcher in the field then it's understandable people will listen when he makes pronouncements based on others' research or even off of off-the-cuff observations related to his field.
On the other hand, if he's speaking outside his area of expertise in a way that sounds like he's an expert, then he deserves to be called on it.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
if you consume too much of it.
If you drink too much water you can die, if you eat too much chocolate you can die...
So yes if you want to get "technical" sugar is "toxic".
Type II diabetes is *correlated* with aging (first and foremost) and obesity. To jump to a conclusion about intakes of types of sugar is unsubstantiated nonsense. One of the many fallacies committed by the video is asserting the consequent, just as you are.
sugar is not used as preservative because it is 'toxic'. in high concentrations, it acts like any substance that heavily absorbs water, by drawing water from environment. that includes any kind of bacteria cell - through osmosis, it draws water from cells, and neutralizes bacteria. just like salt in high quantities.
Read radical news here
Constantly saying that HFCS is so much worse than sugar will not make it true.
Remember, he wrote Komm, süßer Tod.
Watching this silly presentation will not make one an expert, it commits each and every fallacy in logic and is without any scientific reasoning, research, or method. For example, making sweeping claims about the entire population after citing old studies of children and teens or blaming a specific type of sugar when obesity is the only controllable correlation known with diabetes (aging being the primary uncontrolled other). It's great blog fodder, and will make the health and hippy nuts jump with joy, but at its core is a load of sensationalist made-up bullshit.
what you call 'only glucose' is SUGAR. and you yourself have said, glucose is generated from ANY food available to create atp, period. you HAVE to produce sugar, if you dont have it, in order to LIVE. doesnt matter what you use to do it.
Read radical news here
HFCS is High Fructose Corn Syrup.
I don't think TFA is claiming that sugar is actually toxic, merely that it should be thought of as toxic in large quantities like anything else that is bad for you. I wouldn't drop sugar altogether, there's nothing wrong with having some now and then, naturally occurring and otherwise.
A label is a label of course and ultimately it should be up to the individual if they want to get really fat or not.
Wow. You, sir, are batshit insane. It isn't that hard to eat healthy on the cheap. Most produce around here is less than $1 per pound. Get a cookbook and you can whip up yummy, healthy food for cheaper than a lard meal at Mickey D's. Sugary, crappy food is CONVENIENT, so people stuff it down. No one forces anything down anyone's throat.
Oh, and for the billionth time, HFCS IS NO WORSE THAN REGULAR SUGAR. They're both fructose/glucose, only in marginally different quantities. I'll bet if you stuffed those rats full of regular ol' sugar they'd also wind up with diabetes.
You are a fucking lunatic.
And according to the Timecube guy, there are four days in every day.
I see no reason why we should promote lunacy, especially dietary lunacy.
Yet another raving idiot who obvious DRTFA...
He doesn't know what HFCS is but we should all take nutritional advice from him. Well, alrighty then...
Caveat Utilitor
Personally, I think aspartame is to sugar as methadone is to heroin. Still pretty harmful, but not quite as addictive.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
Radiation is relative though, bananas are radioactive but that exposure is insignificant relative to everything else.
Besides, you must state what kind of "regular sugar". Most high fructose corn syrup has 5% more fructose than cane sugar once it is digested. Cane sugar breaks down so 50% of it becomes fructose, 50% glucose. HFCS 55, is 55% fructose, 45% glucose.
Obesity and obesity-related diabetes are just as big a problem in Australia as in the US, and we make very little use of high fructose corn syrup in Australia: most of our sweet things are sweetened with sugar-cane sugar. (HFCS is cheap in the US only because of heavy subsidisation of the corn industry).
Seriously, everyone needs to shut up about the presentation and go read the Taubes article It's more reasonable, less scare tactics, calls the presentation out on the suggestive results that the presenter thinks are conclusive.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
If the sugar lobby is so powerful, why is HFCS used in everything instead? Obviously they've got nothing on the corn lobbyists.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Nowadays Type 2 diabetes is seen more frequently in younger people too, apparently due to HFCS consumption. It isn't really news, it's been known for awhile.
Caveat Utilitor
Of course, this has been appropriately modded as flamebait, so this is a little pointless. However, as a poli sci guy, I have to take issue with your use of the word "peasant". Do you know what that means? Or are you using it to make a point of some kind? Because it doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.
Also, your argument fails to account for the fact that the rate of population increase amongst those of lower incomes is higher than that of the higher income demographics. And what do corporations have to do with what you said, please? You know, you can actually submit some pretty lengthy posts here, so if you wanted to actually support that argument with logic, you've got room...
This unbiased moderation brought to you by the Porcine Aviation Group!
The push to kill sugar is really the push to make artificial sweeteners more lucrative.
I think the point is that that is a belief. It's based on wishful thinking, and the bare minimum studies to show it won't kill you immediately. Therefore, you're an example of "I want to believe".
Caveat Utilitor
The timecube guy didn't spend 90 minutes citing refereed journal articles supporting his point.
I'm not saying he's right, but to lump Lustig's presentation in with the timecube is just as crazy as the timecube guy. While there a couple rebuttals around, there's certainly nothing that has made me say "ah, this is a slam dunk, Lustig's wrong."
It definitely seems likely that there's a strong element of truth in what he says, but it's not as extreme. Compare to the anti-fat craze. Over time, we've found out that there are "good fats" and "bad fats". The "all fats are bad" mantra turned out to be wrong, but it's pretty well accepted that you should limit intake of saturated fats (and those dreaded trans fats). There's likely not something completely analogous in this situation -- I don't think there are multiple kinds of fructose, so we can't have "good fructose" and "bad fructose" -- but perhaps our understanding of the effects on the body will be refined instead. (Alternately, maybe this could be the refinement: "fructose is the bad sugar.") I dunno.
But if you want to talk about lunacy, sure, just go ahead and dismiss him out of hand...
I'd say the "toxic" teminolgy are more for dramatic effect, but it does deliver the message - sugar is not good food, not a good ingredient, and in the amounts you eat it, it's really bad for you.
It's profitable as hell in the food business though. It's cheap, doens't spoil, it actually preserves other food, people love it, and it's somewhat addictive. Sells like crazy and has a large profit margin. Hell I can see why they lobbied the whole world to say whatever was needed to sell it for decades. It's so addictive in fact that this guy can talk all he wants, there will be little effect. I'll be shocked if the sugar and candy industry lose more than 1% of their business over this. Over an extended period it may have more of an effect though.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
If you look at the now famous Lustig video you will see that the difference is fiber. He said something to the effect, that in nature wherever God put the poison he also put the antidote. The antidote is fiber. Fiber undoes most of the dangerous effects of fructose. And in nature fiber is present everywhere where you can find fructose. Thus if you eat fructose with fiber, you will be ok, and it might even be healthy for you.
The problem with "processed" sugar is that it is usually processed to get all of the fiber out. So you eat it without the fiber and you get all the dangerous effects. I suppose if you could eat a head of lettuce simultaneously with every can of coke you drink you would be ok, but nobody does that.
This is all according to Dr. Lustig of course, but it seems pretty convincing to me.
bullshit. there is no such thing known by scientific study. Your linked article only has a study in it which" Chi-Tang Ho, Ph.D., conducted chemical tests among 11 different carbonated soft drinks containing HFCS. He found 'astonishingly high' levels of reactive carbonyls in those beverages." Never mind the emotional language in the article about "suspected" this or that, not part of the study. You might be interested to know I avoid anything with HFCS, not because of caloric or sugar content, but rather because I know how it is made, I fear the residues of reagents used and some of the by-products of the process. However, I don't claim any scientific proof or study for my (and wife and kid's) avoidance. I also fear too much caloric intake of any kind, obesity is provably bad.
Chemists have a list of the Toxicity of many different things, even water is on it, and by the way, nothing has a non-toxic zero. To a chemist, everything is toxic, so just saying sugar is toxic is like saying matter has mass.
As to the article, it boils down to a simple thing: Too much of anything is bad for you.
As to the claims of Lustig that sugar is evil and poison. It looks like he's full of B.S. as there doesn't seem to be any science backing that up. Especially the claims of a basic molecule having an ethical stance of a negative type.
Compared to HFCS, sugar is as safe as water.
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
HFCS is a mixture - Sucrose is a compound. Let's try another example - Table Salt (NaCl) is a compound. You can safely eat a teaspoon of salt (I wouldn't recommend it, but it very probably won't kill you unless you have a serious case of high blood pressure. ). That's a compound. You could not possibly survive eating a half a teaspoon of pure sodium metal and washing it down with the equivalent weight in Chlorine gas. Compounds are not mixtures, and the difference between the two is often lethal, not "marketing".
Who is John Cabal?
I was on statins for about a year and a half after unsuccessfully trying to better my numbers with a "low-cholesterol low-saturated fat" diet. My doctor chalked up my numbers to genes and sent me on my way with a script.
The statins made me feel terrible (back pains, low energy, heart palpitations, general fogginess and difficulty concentrating) so I gave them up. I was a bit worried about the heart palpitations, so I had a cardiac workup done - everything checked out OK.
After reading a bunch of stuff linking sugars to high cholesterol, I decided to try a low-sugar/carb diet (Mediterranean diet). It worked amazingly well. My total cholesterol dropped from 260 before statins to 175. I was around 200 on the statins. Ratios are good as well.
The other nice side-effect of cutting out sugars - I'm 20 pounds lighter now.
-ted
If you want to do this try having a glass of OJ (high pulp or not) with a bowl of oatmeal with some cinnamon on it - lotsa fiber and good taste even without the sugar with the cinnamon. Also - not to long ago it was common for restaurants to serve juice in a small 4 ounce glass. Even Mcdonalds had it in a pre ackaged 6 ounce container. It's a recent thing to have 8 or even more commonly 16 ounce servings, which is waaay to much. Fruit juices CAN be good for you, just not in such quantities. also, one other suggestion -- orange water. juice yourself one half an orange into a big glass of water. That right there is better than any softdrink and is fairly sweet if you mostly drink water. Stop drinking anything but water or unsweetened tea or coffee for three weeks- even skim milk will taste downright sweet afterwards.
Water is not addictive, and consuming it in ever increasing quantities doesn't irrationally affect human judgment on how much we should consume.
I don't know of any cases of people who drowned because they got addicted to water.
Sugar, OTOH, is VERY addictive, and as one consumes more of it, the common sense circuitry in (some) human brains shorts out (much like with what we term 'drugs') and instructs the body to consume ever more, to the point of radically shortened lifespan, radically-decreased mobility, extreme susceptibility to illness, and all other manners of self-harm.
This is a shared trait with, let's see,
Cigarettes?
Heroin?
Alcohol?
All of the above?
So while the linguistic nazis are right and it may not be a drug by the strict definition of the word (because it very much is a nutrient), it also most definitely shares the one key characteristic with drugs - the very one that makes us consider them dangerous to society, and subsequently vigorously regulate them.
Maybe we need to coin a new term to group substances that addict us, harm our judgement, cause us to overconsume them, and are detrimental to society, that will encompass both food and drugs. Maybe "Bad adictive shit".
But since "drugs" already carries the ethical weight of "bad addictive shit", expect it to be hijacked right left and center to depict non-drug-substances too. Kinda like using that carry the ethical weight & connotation of rape, murder and pillaging on the high seas to depict violating copyright (except in the sugar case, for a somewhat nobler cause).
Besides, anyone who thinks the linguistics meta-point is more important & discussion-worthy than "America, and the world in general, has an unhealthy abusive relationship with sugar" point seriously needs to have his priority-setting gray matter looked at by a professional.
-
What's Next? BACON?!!
=:-O
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Sugar, salt, vitamins, calcium, iron, water, etc... anything is toxic/harmful if abused. Calling sugar toxic is idiotic.
Some basics.
Glucose is the primary blood sugar. Fructose, and other sugars are made into glucose eventually (sometimes in the mouth, sometimes in the intestine, sometimes in the liver). This includes starch and glycogen, which are just long chains of glucose (or glucose analogues). Glucose and other simple sugars are 6-carbon rings. Wiki glucose for a nice diagram. The thing is, the rings open up, which means one of the bonds is weak enough that it breaks, and re-connects, often. It spends about 1/4 of 1% of its time in this configuration. Which means if you take a snapshot at any point in time, 0.25% of the molecules will be in this "open" configuration.
In the open configuration, the molecule is the biologic equivalent of a ready-strike match head. It has a free O- which really wants to bind with anything it touches (like your sister, haha, but back on topic). This is *extremely* toxic, and the primary reason why you have a system in place, regulated by insulin, to keep the total amount of glucose in the blood to a minimum. Because when it's stored in long chains, as it is in the muscle or liver, it doesn't have this toxic property.
The article however talks about another type of toxicity. That being the effect of too much of one type of sugar on the liver. Since TFA and the rest of the comments are directed at this, I'll leave that part to others.
Pardon me, I think you dropped something.
Caveat Utilitor
...raised by the parent article is covered in this piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/12/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-10-12-03-the-agri-cultural-contradictions-of-obesity.html
America being a nation of fatties isn't an accident.
I did this then I clicked on this.
Just because someone's lobbying for something doesn't mean it's wrong.
I have a theory that the geek brain requires more glucose than the average brain. This allows me to rationalize my Mt. Dew addiction and my undying devotion to Swiss Cake Rolls. Don't try to kill my buzz with facts about sugar -> glucose conversion. Little Debbie for President!
First it was eggs. "Eggs are good for you, eggs are bad for you, eggs are good for you..."
That cycle took about 20 years.
Then it was high fat diets. Then low fat diets. Then caveman diets. Everything is either good or bad for you depending on what time of day it is. The cycles are getting faster and faster too. 20 years for eggs, adkins style diets went in and out in about 5 years, and caveman diet is the "in thing" for the last several months, probably to be proven deadly tomorrow.
Now alcohol's toxic? I mean, just yesterday I was reading that alcohol was good for me. That one seems to change every day.
Maybe the reason nobody really takes anything scientists say at face value is that it all changes 3 days later when some stupid reporter covers a story as "What scientist X said last week is going to kill you, scientist Y says this week is incredibly good for you!"
Maybe I'll just keep living a life of moderation and ignore all this crap. So far all these folks are doing is making me stress about doing the same things my grandparents (who all lived into their 90's) did all their lives. I'll keep eating vegetables (you know, more people died of food related illnesses last year from eating vegetables than from eating meat?) and meat (Dead Cows and Pigs FTW) and fish (Mercury poisoning FTL) and such.
I'll probably end up getting hit by a truck or something, and then what'd all that deprivation get me?
The actual video is about the negative impact of increasing our sugar consumption on a massive scale compared to previous generations. So if vitamin D was injected into nearly every snack food and soft drink we had, vigorously marketed, and consumed on a larger scale - yeah it would be a problem. You'd have increased incidents of Vitamin D overdose. As it stands right now we have companies adding things like vitamin C and calcium into soft drinks, so it isn't so far fetched an idea.
Move out of the deep South. Unsweetened tea is common where I am, and also was common in the DC area where I grew up. It was crappy stuff, something I can't bring myself to drink because of how bad it tastes, but it is unsweetened tea. It took me years to learn how to brew tea and realize that the problem is restaurants are afraid of boiling water and thus brew black teas meant for seeping in water that is initially at a boiling temperature, at temperatures more suitable for delicate white or green teas, 140 F or less. To top it off, they don't even understand brew times up here.
Cheap amber oolong seems easy to find at those hole in the wall Chinese restaurants scattered everywhere, usually some form of teabag oolong brewed in a specialty tea brewing device that will keep a decent temperature for that tea, but don't try a black tea in those things. Those teas are never sweetened unless you add sugar at the table.
If you are looking for tea bags, most grocers I've seen have at least cheap, lousy teabags.
And yes, I buy real tea from a specialty store, but I do realize what is out there in tea, and in an emergency can make something I can at least stand to drink.
"I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend unto the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire
I have it. I am middle aged and not obese (male, 6', 170lbs).
It could have been partly caused by my sedentary coding lifestyle plus consumption of lots of fruit juice and an only averagely healthy diet partly by genetic predisposition (one relative in two previous generations). But I'm only one case so who knows.
A microbiology phd acquaintance of mine advised that insulin resistance can (inability of sugar to be taken into cells through the cell wall) can be caused by repeated over-use of the insulin system through frequent consumption of high glycemic index foods/drinks. The system basically has a certain lifetime capacity and it wears out from frequent insulin floods/shocks.
So for me now, sugar definitely IS toxic, and, since the diabetes prevents the sugar getting in and feeding my cells, it causes a craving for more quick-sugary stuff. And the craving going away when given in to feels like it releases dopamine or whatever. So potentially addictive too.
According to the diabetes education/support team at the hospital (dietitian, specialist nurse etc) we should eat a diet free from simple sugars and fluffy highly processed carbs. Sugar with lots of fiber is ok. You need your sugar, but taking it with lots of fiber (whole grains, vegetables etc) slows down (smooths out over time) the sugar metabolism and reduces insulin floods and excarbation of the problem. It also reduces incidence of high blood-sugar levels which is what kills you. High blood-sugar levels over time actually corrodes small blood vessels (you know, the ones in your organs and feet and hands and eyes. These tissues then die eventually.
So eat one fistful of carbs (preferrably complex) and one fistful of protein and as many vegetables as you want. You will probably notice that almost all restaurant meals are two fistfuls of simple carbs and a little bit of protein, lots of fat, a token vegetable. The reverse of what you need.
You can snack on more vegetables, fruit, high-protein and/or high-fibre snacks. Snacking (on these healthier things) is actually good because of the more even consumption of sugar (supply of energy) over the day.
This advice applies to everyone. Avoid diabetes and get generally healthier.
My advice based on my experience and the advice of the experts who've coached me is to think of high refined-sugar-content and high simple-carb foods as toxic. You'll probably live longer.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Once again the slashdot summary is misleading. I urge everyone to see the referenced video and read the article afterwards. They are very informative. However, I should point out that the slashdot summary makes it look like the New York Times article is kind of dismissing Lustig's video. This is not true, the article is actually mostly supportive of Lustig's theories while providing much more historical information.
That's all fair... I just have one addition. If you're going to have the OJ, why not just eat the orange? If you won't, I'm not going to try to discourage you from that 4oz glass or whatever, but if you will, that'll be better for you than the juice.
I made a few changes in my diet a year ago or so, and replacing drinking a fair bit of juice with the actual fruit instead (actually mostly grape juice to eating apples) I suspect had a big effect.
My frustration with the "scientific community" has been their consistent over-application of Occalm's Razor, explaining things in simple terms because anything more complex would be too difficult or expensive to make a sound-bite conclusion with in their research. Time and time again over the last 40 years, I have witnessed scientific dogma overturn itself with new research that, frankly, isn't much more impressive than the old research. I've gotten to where I trust it all less and less. When there's a viable alternative with millennia of human experience behind it, that's usually the alternative I will lean toward. Of course, in modern life, that's not always possible, but it often is, and when the new stuff is screwing up - the old stuff usually looks pretty workable.
I have worked with many "scientists," some good, some shills, and even the good ones will establish a personal prejudice about certain topics and be very easy to convince about things they believe, and horrible skeptics about things they don't - you can tell they're actually good when they occasionally let go of a long held prejudice when faced with convincing data. The shills are just predictable based on who pays them, and, unfortunately, in industry, I ran into more shills than good scientists. You might argue that companies hire "good scientists, who happen to agree with the company's interests" but that argument wears pretty thin when you get to know some of them, and track their reversals of opinion over time and employers.
So, when the scientific community comes out with yet another "your tiny little mind is just too feeble to understand why, but you should do as we say anyway because we know what is good for you" assertion, I do like to check their advice against history, personal experience, ulterior motives, alternative viewpoints, and just the basic smell test. Life is too short to thoroughly research every daily choice, we are all constantly developing our own set of prejudices, and I hope I continue to enjoy the freedom to make my own choices in things that matter to me like: food, water, shelter, and air to breathe.
There are days that I believe I might have to leave the United States to get that freedom.
I really think /. needs a +1 Tinhat
greed@All_Evils:~#
Wow. Oh, and for the billionth time, HFCS IS NO WORSE THAN REGULAR SUGAR. They're both fructose/glucose, only in marginally different quantities. I'll bet if you stuffed those rats full of regular ol' sugar they'd also wind up with diabetes. You are a fucking lunatic.
People keep saying that. Are you calling a 10% difference marginal? Really. I think you need to look up the definition of marginal, because a 10% difference is a tad more than marginal. There is another difference other than the ratio of fructose to glucose. Fructose and glucose molecules are not bonded together in HFCS and passes into the blood stream much faster than with sucrose.
No. The OP is exactly right. Elevated blood glucose levels are quite toxic to the body. Ask anyone with type-1 diabetes why their sense of taste is failing, and why they have to have an eyesight test for their driver's license more often than the rest of us.
In a healthy individual, insulin makes sure blood glucose doesn't stay too high for too long. This does not negate the fact that, while necessary, glucose does have the ability to seriously damage your body.
Be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted.
I'm seeing from these comments that a lot of people don't actually know what sugar is. Part of the problem is the colloquial usage of the term for when we say something like "blood sugar". What's actually being measured is serum glucose levels.
Glucose, in scientific terms is a monosaccharide. The "sugar" being described by Lustig is a disaccharide. That is to say, it is composed of two monosaccharides bound together - glucose and fructose. Glucose is NOT the problem and Lustig states this quite clearly. Thus, starchy foods like potatoes, rice, wheat, etc are NOT the problem because starch is simply made of long chains of glucose strung together. If it's in excess, glucose tends to get stored in your body as glycogen because that is the most efficient way for you body to convert it back to glucose when it is needed. However, fructose is problematic. No cell in your body can use fructose directly. Thus, the liver has to do something with it. And that's where the problems begin because one of the major biochemical pathways of fructose results in fat (among other problems described in the lecture). Since fructose is one-half of sugar (sucrose), sugar is a problem.
The only situation when fructose is not a problem is when it is taken in low quantity and is absorbed slowly. Thus, as presented in nature, it is okay to ingest in the form of fruit because of the natural fiber content that's always associated with fructose. But in modern food processing and juicing, we have greatly increased the amount, and stripped away all the fiber (for storage and cooking efficiency).
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
If you'd believe the article: nothing - you should eat as little fructose (regardless of the source) as possible.
As a scientist, I like to base my opinions on evidence wherever possible.
Lustig makes strong points which are backed up by studies (cited in his lecture) and are consistent with known biochemical pathways (which he explains).
The vast majority of responses here are complete bunkum: anecdotal evidence, true facts which sound like they are relevant ("you can drown in water!"), and misrepresentation of his central point ("our bodies *need* glucose! He's crazy!")
If you disagree with his position and have evidence to back that up, I'll listen to what you have to say.
Everyone else - you're going to get really frustrated when I don't change my opinion because of what you say.
Let's let evidence and logic have it's moment here.
Asked of a tobacco grower on cnbc.
The first thought in my head was "okay but so does booze, sugar, fatty food".
I don't smoke but if I want to smoke, or skydive, or stay up 24 hours, or drink, or eat cream smothered bacon-- get the hell out of my private life.
You need to stop them at the tobacco level- or when it falls, the next thing will be sugar and fat. In fact they are already starting on them now.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
> Wasn't there some studies that showed that the type of carbon from Corn could be traced through the food chain?
It is probably true that you can measure different concentrations of Carbon-14 in the same molecules derived from different sources. But I doubt it would vary much between corn and sugar cane, more likely between different growing regions.
Update: Wikipedia's entry for Carbon-13 suggests there is a difference in ratios based on the 'carbon fixation' method of different plants. But both sugar cane and corn use the same method so there is no difference. So I learned something today. :)
> Wouldn't that make HFCS different in the isotope of Carbon provided to "natural" sources of sugar?
As for differences in how they react in the body? Did poorly in basic physics and chemistry huh? Isotopes are only important in matters of radioactive decay and such. As far as chemistry is concerned Carbon is Carbon. Any change in the nuclus that makes it react different chemically also makes it a different element, by definition.
And again, Wikipedia says some people claim health benefits from higher concentrations of C13 but it sounds like a load of hippie crap because C13 is just as stable as C12 and I really doubt the slight difference in mass means much chemically. Chemically separating isotopes is pretty difficult to pull off, despite the note above. If it were easy they wouldn't use huge centrifuges in commercial operations.
Democrat delenda est
And Lustig says fructose is deadly, regardless of it's source. He doesn't differentiate between granulated sugar and high fructose corn syrup; he's saying you should eat as little fructose as possible, and when you do, make sure it's something with fiber.
If you filter out the pulp, pretty much. Filtered apple juice is pretty much flavored sugar water.
Also, George Soros has been buying up grain elevators and is now the third largest holder of America’s grain elevators. I think banning home gardens would probably cause too much of an uproar, but how will you get seeds for your garden?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
This is something that has been known in the diabetes circles for a long time.
http://www.joslin.org/info/how_does_fiber_affect_blood_glucose_levels.html
It's one of the basic tenants in diabetic diets and in weight training. When my (now ex) wife had some serious medical problems I had to look into some different diet programs. What Lustig is advocating is what is spelled out in the Schwartzbien Principle.
http://www.everydiet.org/diet/schwarzbein-principle
I can only say that I followed the diet and lost 60 lbs (while she remained fat until she started doing coke and I don't know whatever else but that's a different story). This shit works and it's backed by research other than Lustigs.
Calling sugar "toxic" is probably a plot to demean the word "toxic" and make tobacco less regulated.
If you introduce the "Western diet" to cultures that don't have it, those people become hypertensive, get heart disease, obese, and die earlier.
Is there a more appropriate word than 'toxic'? Is "Really bad for you" somehow more politically correct?
Maybe it's not the fructose. Maybe it's the refined starches, or the bad fats, or the lack of vegetables. But the 100+ pounds of sugar a year can't be a nutritional benefit, unless you're riding the Tour de France - your body isn't evolved for that. Like they say, eat the outside of the supermarket, stay away from the middle.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
And heroin is "just" purified and crystallized extract of a poppy plant.
Are you saying that just because something "just" comes from a plant that it's got to be good for you?
When you eat fruit, you're getting a lot more than "just" sugar. When you eat "just" sugar, you're not.
Tell you what, I'll eat a balanced diet and you live on high fructose corn syrup and water. Let's see if one is "just" the same as the other. Let's see just how "toxic" sugar can be.
You'll say, "well of course. Everyone should eat a balanced diet." But what's passing in the industrialized groceries of 2011 as a "balanced" diet is creating a society of people who are so fat that before middle age they have to drive around on little scooters just to fill their basket with foods that have a higher concentration of "just" sugar than any civilization that ever walked the earth. And there are entire sections of town where there are absolutely no places to buy produce or simple grains and staples. None. Yet McDonalds and other purveyors of industrial food are on every other corner in those same neighborhoods. How healthy do you think the people in those neighborhoods are going to be?
Of course sugar isn't "toxic". But in the concentrations that it's currently showing up on our grocery shelves it is a major contributor to most of the diseases that are killing people (the ones that are obesity-related).
You are welcome on my lawn.
are you aware that you just have explained that anything in high quantities damages the body ?
are you aware that, that statement is way different than 'something is toxic' ?
Read radical news here
So then I did this and you are correct there is little research in humans but of those few studies there are some that show more negative side effects than 'table sugar' and some that show the same effects as 'table sugar'. I did not see one that showed less negative side effects.
:)
Tests with rats may not be proof but they can be an indicator and are not 'unrelated'. Almost all research agrees that different sugars are different even if it's just that they are sweeter. More sweet per calorie may lead to a slower metabolic response to sweets as well as gorging on sweets according to some indicators (animal testing)
I know this is not the cause and effect proof you are looking for. So far there doesn't appear to be a large well controlled study involving humans. However, for me there are indications that HFCS may have more negative side effects than 'table sugar' and little in the way that it has less negative side effects.
Hopefully, you're free to consume whatever you want.
The Fiber is the difference. Processed food has near 0% fiber, while natural sources have levels balanced to the fructose.
Maybe the reason nobody really takes anything scientists say at face value is that it all changes 3 days later
I think you are confusing scientists with popular news writers that misqoute and half quote scientists. The basic facts about metabolism and bio-chemistry haven't evolved that fast at all
Everything is toxic in the right concentration.
FIBER. Fiber is the Only difference. In modern society, our fiber intake is near 10% of it's original levels thousands of years ago. Have you watched the video? Fiber is the antidote to fructose. In natural sources, it's balanced against the fructose content. It's one of his most important points his video and research.
I've just now reviewed Alan Aragon's debunking of Lustig's claims, roundly publicized here in several comments. Including some of the cited references from that article.
Alan's rebuttal was a debate between himself and Lustig. The issues wander the landscape of unrelated factual errors (Lustig claims that the Japanese have no added fructose in their diet), cites of papers which show the data being inconclusive (specifically, he's citing absence of evidence as evidence of absence), and painting Lustig with the same brush as more "fringe" claimants.
And of course it wasn't the actual debate, but a summary of the debate, and written by Alan. He must have won the debate too - he says so in his summary.
In comparing the two positions, I find Alan's rebuttal lacking in scientific rigor. If a half-dozen or so studies can be found (or undertaken) which target Lustig's claims directly and show no evidence for the things that he says, that would counter the half-dozen or so studies that form the basis of Lustig's lecture.
Until then, I assign higher likelyhood to Lustig. I'll continue to hold this position until actual scientists chime in with conclusions based on evidence.
Does does that go? If your article can be summarized as "no", don't write it.
http://www.chaotickingdoms.com
Seriously, if sugar were toxic, HOW IN THE FUCK COULD ANY OF US HAVE SURVIVED CHILDHOOD?
Every kid I knew ate sugar laden cereal, drank sugar laden soft drinks and had candy bars with cake and ice cream for dessert.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
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/ -
Does orange juice give you a hangover? No? Because there is more methanol in that than there is in a similar serving of aspartame.
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/IMT_EndoPAT.aspx ...
"Traditional testing such as angiography and stress tests only measure blockages in the arteries and will miss non-obstructing vulnerable plaques which are the cause of the majority of heart attacks and strokes.
Intima-media thickness (IMT) scanning uses ultrasound technology and is a simple procedure that is noninvasive, painless, and free of radiation. It can predict risk of heart attack or stroke better than an angiogram. IMT is measured by taking pictures of your carotid artery using an ultrasound probe on your neck. This measurement predicts your risk of a future heart attack or stroke.
Assessing endothelial dysfunction with an EndoPAT machine is also very helpful in that it will pick up the earliest stages of cardiovascular disease. It also is simple, noninvasive, and involves no radiation. Sensors are placed on your fingers which measure the dilation of the blood vessels in your fingers while a blood pressure cuff on your arm inflates and deflates.
By using the results of these tests in combination with a medical history, physical exam and blood work physicians are able to more accurately assess risk without the risks of traditional testing methods."
See also:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/HeartDisease.aspx
http://www.drfuhrman.com/success/SuccessStory.aspx?id=143
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/cat-cardiovascular-disease.html
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
There is no other country in the planet, INCLUDING the countries which actually ARE the producers of sugar, having problems with sugar.
Its an american problem. And this much stampede is done about it, and someone finally comes up saying some BASE element that is fundamental to life, is toxic ...
You sir, are woefully misinformed.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Okay. You've obviously not read, or watched the video. So, from TFA & TFV. Fructose is chemically identical from any source. Sucrose(table sugar) & High fructose corn syrup are 50% glucose and 50% fructose(slightly more fructose in HFCS). The problem is what is left with the source. Namely the fiber. Which, according to TFA & TFV & his research & his sources, is the natural antidote to the toxic effects of fructose. So fructose is VERY bad in the quantities we consume today, multiplied by the fact that our fiber intake is down almost 90% of what it was before the processed food era. It's simple.
I mean the withdrawal symptoms for water are worse and hit quicker. Oh, and don't get me started on how bad the withdrawal from O2 is.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
The sugar lobby wants to keep the price of sugar artificially high (so Florida won't go out of business) by maintaining high tariffs on imported sugar. This maintains the price of sugar much higher than HFCS, and so HFCS is used. The sugar lobby isn't looking for people to use more sugar so much as they are trying to make sure there isn't enough if it to go around.
Your experiment seems to have a rather high number of uncontrolled variables. A can of Pepsi and a glass of sugary Lemonade have a lot more differences than sugar vs. HFCS. Maybe try your experiment with Pepsi Throwback? And to add even more validity, you could try blinding the study. i.e. you don't know which is which when you drink them.
My hypothesis is that when you control other variables, you'll find HFCS isn't nearly as different from sugar as you think it is.
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
If your body metabolized table salt by turning it into metallic sodium and Cl2, you might have a point. When you eat sucrose, the first thing your body does with it is hydrolyze it into glucose and fructose. It's then a mixture.
Sugar has a pretty interesting history of taxation, too. Now why would anybody tax sugar? Perhaps it is something we don't want to encourage.
The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.
Why is everyone parroting the trope that "everything is toxic in large quantities" without asking whether the modern Western diet is above the threshold of excess? Isn't that what we're talking about here?
I feel like the libertarians in the crowd are trying to dismiss a valid question before it's answered.
Eh...true but not in the way you think of "toxic". High sugar or salt concentrations have been used for many centuries to preserve foodstuffs. They act by producing what is called a hypertonic environment where the dissolved sugar or salts draws out water from inside a cell through the semi-permeable cell membrane. If left long enough, the cell cytoplasm will shrink and the bacteria dies or at least are inhibited from growing.
Some commenters in this thread wants to give Lustig the benefit of the doubt but I disagree. Sometimes, it is best to tar and feather cranks. Militancy has no place in science, however well intentioned because it has a tendency to blind the preacher from contradicting evidence.
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Actually, the hypothesis is that fructose is harmful, not glucose. The most widely used sweetening agents are sucrose and high fructose corn syrup, both of which are about 50% fructose.
Uhhh... are you saying that only Americans are becoming obese because of sugar intake? Or are you saying that only Americans are becoming obese? Because no scientist believes the latter. The World Health Organization recognizes obesity as a global problem, as does the International Union of Nutrition Sciences, the International Obesity Taskforce, and the International Association for the Study of Obesity.
Breakfast served all day!
Is Vitamin D toxic now?
If large quantities of vitamin D were added to food and drink that you consume throughout the day, then yes, it could well be toxic. Same thing with vitamin A. Lustig's point is that sugar is so pervasive in the American diet, in what would have been considered large doses several decades ago, that it's having toxic effects on a significant portion of the population. I don't know if he's right, but he does make a good case for his point of view.
And generally speaking, healthy people don't need to consume sugar in order to prevent hypoglycemia.
Consider Richard Dawkins: He is very popular, and considered a good speaker. Why? Because he has one issue, and he's willing to talk about it all day long. This speaker, too, is sensationalist and myopic. But he is making well-justified points, backed up by good data, and so he's worth listening to. The criticisms and "debunking" of his work on the various blogs are not refuting his claims; rather, they are arguing that fructose is one of many contributors to obesity. If the worst criticism of the 90-minute video is that it's not broad enough, then it was a worthwhile video indeed.
All I can say is watch the video and then comment. I did, was more informative than most videos Ive seen lately, and poses an excellent argument on the possible cause of increased sugar leading to obesity. I think it is something worth seriously considering if you are overweight or have the health issues stated. In the last week since I saw it I cut out most processed sugars and am actually feeling better than I have in a long while.
Watch the video, decide for yourself. Will it kill you to cut down on HFCS or processed sugar? Not at all. And could it help? quite probably, so to me its worth a try.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
OK, question answered. The question "is sugar toxic" sounds at first like a nutter one, but the TFA, and the Lustig lecture clarify what they mean, and provide real supporting evidence. Adding a post with a laundry list of unsubstantiated dietary conspiracy theories does nothing to add "content".
So evidence please - Why is TFA wrong about sucrose being (almost) as bad as HFCS? They have similar amounts of fructose, which is the suspect here. (And the others are off-topic here.)
All the problems that get blamed on HFCS, we have here in Australia, but we use sucrose instead.
You do realize there's more than one kind of HFCS, right? HFCS 55 is 55% fructose which is 5% more than sucrose and is used largely in soft drinks. HFCS 42 is 42% fructose, which is about 8% LESS than sucrose and is used in most solid sweetened foods. I don't know where you're getting that 10% number.
"white sugar", as you call it, is a problem equal to HFCS, not less than "half the problem" as you suggest. Another "expert" that hasn't watched the presentation.
Correct.
As others as already pointed out, aspertame is not proven to be a problem at all. Of all sweeteners, only sugar/HFCS is proven to be harmful.
There are conflicting studies. The studies that show it was safe were paid for by the drug companies. They're used to sponsoring ghost written research and have been caught at it many times. In fact things are so bad now about half the literature is junk. [1]
It became well known in the medical community by 1987 that aspartame shouldn't be used by people with epilepsy or migraines.
[1] http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/observations/ghosts/
Need Mercedes parts ?
I can't believe how monumentally ignorant yall are about health. So I will pull what I've been told many times by computer nerds - READ THE FUCKING MANUAL
Just read anything by Sherry A. Rogers. Go to your library and check out one of her books. They are easy reads and are well documented with pertinent research.
It isn't JUST sugar, its a lot of stuff, but yes, refined cane sugar is pretty bad for you for a variety of reasons. The whole sugar/insulin thing is what messes up diabetics. Sugar uses up your body's magnesium faster, which is a bad thing.
I don't know what this Lustig guy said but I started reading Rogers 15 years ago and SHE explains in great detail why sugar and the crap we call food today is bad for you.
It isn't about going on a diet, its more about pointing out what is bad and letting you choose what to do.
[sarcasm]Yeah, one study is absolute proof.[/sarcasm]
Remember all the studies that said tobacco wasn't harmful? Remember all the studies on both sides of the caffiene/coffee issue? How about drinking alcohol? You can get studies that say it's good for you and studies that say it's bad for you. With the billions of dollars at stake here many of the studies are meaningless. It's no harder for the sugar and hfcs industries to fund "impartial studies" saying their products aren't harmful than it is for MS to fund studies bashing Linux and praising Windows. If you don't know that, you aren't nearly as well-read or smart as you think you are.
Watching child after child, grandkid after grandkid, and all my nieces and nephews act exactly the same way after I, or their parents, have fed them lots of sugar is no reason to think that sugar makes them act that way. NOT! Feed them fruits and veggies and they're not hyper. Feed them a balanced meal and they aren't hyper. Feed them candy bars and a drink with a high sugar content, or a big bowl of icecream, and they are running around screaming, fighting, and picking at each other a short time after eating. Feeding them sugar is like turning on the bad behavior switch and I've seen this in every kid I've ever been around.
Diet makes a lot of difference in most animals. Take a mule, for instance. Feed him too rich of food and he'll act up. He won't obey. He'll be ornery with whoever is handling/training/riding him. He'll make himself hard to catch. He'll spook at shadows or rocks on the trail. Change his diet so it isn't so rich, and his bad behavior goes away in a matter of days as he becomes trainable again. Change it back and his bad behavior returns. Many mule trainers have found this to be true. Are you going to say mules are brainwashed into thinking their diet affects their behavior too?
Diet for any animal, including human beings, makes a big difference in behavior, thought patterns, aggression, ability to concentrate, etc... as it affects how you feel physically. You are what you eat....
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
It's the metabolic and endocrine impacts which Lustig and Taubes are concerned with. You're dumping a load of sucrose (triggering an insulin response) and fructose (triggering a triglyceride release from the liver) with either. If you're eating excesses of either sugar or HFCS, you're going to trigger the same effects. The effect on your taste buds is not significant to the article.
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
The sugar lobby has put its efforts into high import tariffs. The resulting high prices on cane sugar naturally led to a search for a cheaper source of sweetness, and corn sugar won.
And yes, the corn lobbyists have much more power.
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There is no Magic.
I have a very large collection of cards that would like to disagree with you. Also some wizards who are from some coast.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
First - his main beef is with fructose.
Second - the chemistry of the body breaks refined sugar (sucrose) into its component parts fructose and glucose, hence his phrase "all sugar is bad for you"
Third - chemically the body treats fructose in the exact same way as ethanol (alcohol).
Fourth - If you are going to disagree with someone read their statements or watch the videos.
Fifth - Statistics don't lie, only interpreters do. Fat consumption has gone down; heart disease, diabetes and other forms of "metabolic disorders" have gone up.
Sixth - Come on people, we know the government is in bed with corporations. If those two entities are in agreement against something someone is saying it most likely is the truth.
The only reason to come against it is because we don't want to give up something in our personal lifestyle. We live in America though, we can know it's bad and not give a crap. Enjoy your Pepsi, I do. Just not as often.
Lastly, who among the doubters are going to say with honesty, and integrity that soda, donuts, cookies and such things are actually healthy for us?
---- Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.
the toxicity of sugar (sucrose, glucose, fructose, etc) is one of things that almost no researcher in the know dares to mention publicly because it would be career (and funding) suicide. the processed food industry is far too powerful a lobby group.
but the researchers know. check medline. almost every research article on diabetes begins with words to the effect of "fed the rats sugar until they developed diabetes". feeding rats sugar is THE consistently reproducible method of inducing diabetes.
and this is what the processed food lobby is doing to consumers every day with sugar in absofuckinglutely everything. even things you think wouldn't have sugar because they're supposed to be salty or sour or savoury or anything-else-but-sweet have sugar in them. because it's cheap, it's addictive (esp. to children and adults with poor impulse control - i.e. most of the population), and it's a preservative.
sugar in our diet isn't bad when it's rare and unrefined (as it is in fruits and vegetables etc. and in our natural pre-agriculture diet it WAS rare, but it was a huge amount of easily absorbed energy which is why we evolved the ability to taste sweetness...and why we also evolved to *like* it). even when humans first discovered processed sugar from sugar cane a few hundred years ago it wasn't a huge problem because it was very expensive (like all spices were) - only the rich could afford it.
even the improvement of refinery processes that made sugar became extremely refined and extremely cheap wasn't that bad....it was only when "food" factories started putting it in *everything* so that it became almost impossible to avoid eating far too much of the stuff that it became a problem.
and this, btw, is also why the poor (and the time-poor) suffer from diabetes more than the rich do - the rich can afford to eat well. the poor can't (money-wise AND time-wise).
I did this then I clicked on this.
Why do so many posters want us to know of their pervisions? Shouldn't such actions be done in private?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
I nearly stopped listening to the Dr. Lustig after he said "Rossini, you know, La Gazza Ladra, The Marriage of Figaro..." It's being pedantic, but, UGH.
The problem seems to be, by far, quantity consumed rather than the nature of the material, unless you can present some compelling proof otherwise.
Quite so - but then that is the case for anything: even things like strychnin can have beneficial effects if the dose is small enough. And on the other hand, oxygen is quite toxic too.
I haven't bothered reading the article, the subject seemed too sensationalistic, but as they say: everything is good in moderation. It is a question of finding the right balance, eating just enough and learning to enjoy the things that are beneficial to your health.
That last part often surprises people: that you can learn to enjoy something that you think you don't like, and that you can learn not to like the things you crave. However, my own, personal experience is exactly that. I used to shovel down sugary/fatty food like cake, large steaks, pizzas etc. Now I am practically a vegetarian; I find that I more and more prefer to avoid meat, not for ideological reasons, just because it isn't so satisfying, it feels heavy in the stomach - and there are so many really delicious ways of cooking vegetables. Same thing with sugar - I recently bought a Coke, and I had to throw it out because it was so sickeningly sweet.
But most importantly, stuff made with "real sugar" doesn't taste like it used to when they use HFCS instead, and you wind up consuming more because it isn't as satisfying.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Too much of many different kinds of things can be toxic. Hell, too much water can be toxic (no, really, it can. look up overhydration, also commonly known as water intoxication). People eat sugar all the time without severe negative effects. Like many things though, it's the people who go overboard with it that run in to problems.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
The fact that we use HFCS is evidence of the sugar lobby. If we didn't have such high sugar import tariffs we would never use HFCS. Nobody else uses HFCS in quantity except Japan. We've been using it so long that people create fanciful excuses, like it's easier to transport, blah blah blah. But clearly none of those are sufficient reasons because no country with unimpeded trade access to cane sugar actually uses HFCS.
The sugar lobby in this country makes a lot of money. Although HFCS is omnipresent, there's more cane sugar demand than can be supplied domestically. This is why HFCS exists; import supply couldn't meet demand. Couple the artificial suppression of cane sugar supply with corn subsidies and only then is HFCS economical.
I'm not an anti-HFCS fanatic. There's no evidence that the 55/45 fructose/glucose ratio is significantly different, health wise, than sucrose from cane sugar. But I prefer the taste profile of cane sugar. (I won't drag out the Mexican Coke example because that's unfair. Most people who drink Mexican Coke drink it from a glass bottle. Soda in a glass bottle has a higher CO2 content than from plastic, because plastic leaks too much. A lot of what makes Mexican Coke preferable is the higher carbonation.)
How is processed sugar chemically different from the sugar in the plant it's extracted from?
It's not. In crystallized form, it is usually (at least in Europe) one of the disaccharids, usually sucrose, but as dissolving breaks it back down to fructose and glucose, I fail to see how it could impact anything.
Do you know? Or do you not even consider that?
I used to dabble in chemistry, and I have considered it.
There is a precedent. Saturated fat from natural sources contains no trans-fats, but saturated fat made by hydrogenating vegetable oils has significant trans-fats (trans-fats are deformed fat molecules that a cellular system, whether vegetable or animal, wouldn't produce, but bubbling hydrogen through a vat of fat doesn't have molecular-level geometric control of the production process). Saturated fat is not bad for you but trans-fats are.
Trans-fat are not deformed, it's just different. And unhealthy, I agree. Though now that there is focus on it, I believe that particular problem has been fixed.
So is there something about the production of sugar in concentrated form that chemically alters it so that it has poison in it? What is the altered chemical? Has it been detected in the concentrated sugar?
Around here, sugar is mostly extracted from sugar canes or sugar roes (sorry if I mistranslated that). And that is a simple extraction process, which doesn't alter anything except concentration. It's just cooked, and the sugar concentrated.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
I hope you are aware that you're comparing lavoir with pissoir, yes? On one hand you have a disaccharide which is essentially two monosaccharides linked by an oxygen atom. On the other hand you have the difference between iodized atoms forming a crystal compared to the MUCH more reactive pure compounds. And while I'm not a Chemist, even I noticed that the ions of certain atoms behave radically different from their non-ionized form.
In other words, I would not take even minimal amounts of Fluorine in its pure, gas form lightly, while my teeth wouldn't enjoy their stay without some Fluoride.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Angina is a heart problem. Heartburn is something completely different.
You do realize there's more than one kind of HFCS, right? HFCS 55 is 55% fructose which is 5% more than sucrose and is used largely in soft drinks. HFCS 42 is 42% fructose, which is about 8% LESS than sucrose and is used in most solid sweetened foods. I don't know where you're getting that 10% number.
You do realize that HFCS 55 has 10% more fructose than sucrose?
So, essentially, the message is that it's dangerous to eat too much of one thing while neglecting the other thing that would be present in our natural diet?
Gee, who would have thought? I thought we know that for a while now.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Type II diabetes is *correlated* with aging (first and foremost) and obesity. To jump to a conclusion about intakes of types of sugar is unsubstantiated nonsense. One of the many fallacies committed by the video is asserting the consequent, just as you are.
Every time you load a lot of sugar in easily accessible form into your body, your pancreas goes on overdrive producing insulin. Your cells work overtime to get rid of the sugar, and then they have a short break. Next time a load of sugar arrives, the same thing happens. It's no problem for a while, but eventually your body gives up. Yes, it takes years. That's why it is strongly correlated to age. And eating too much sugar makes you fat. That's why it is strongly correlated to being overweight.
I don't really care about _your_ health at all. But if you start having problems with your eyes (blurred vision in the morning) then you should have some tests to check if you have diabetes. And if you suddenly start losing weight without any visible reason then you should really act; that is your liver and kidney having to step in to remove sugar from your blood, and it will damage them and eventually kill you.
Sugar does nothing beneficial to you. You shouldn't take more than 90 grams per day; you probably get 30 grams in invisible form, leaving 60 grams. Sugar content is especially high in foods with reduced fat content - so people trying to eat healthy by avoiding fat get hit worst. So if you have a wife or girlfriend who is obsessive about avoiding fat: If they consciously avoid foods with high sugar content and pick foods with less sugar, and ignore fast contents completely, they will lose weight. And live healthier. And save money. And eat better tasting food.
Wow. As others have already addressed the incredible wrongness of the "no other country" bit, I'll take on the other half:
ATP can be generated from fatty acids. Eating sucrose, or glucose, is not a fundamental necessity of life. Your heart and skeletal muscles actually prefer fatty acids over glucose as a source for producing ATP.
As many other people have said, glucose and sugar are not the same thing. Sugar contains glucose and fructose. You are right about glucose, just completely wrong about sugar. He claims fructose is bad, not glucose.
Before you go all high and mighty on the poor guy regarding your presumed superiority in "basic chemistry", you might want to read on the kinetic isotope effect. The grandparent's question is wholly legitimate - yes there is a difference in chemical reactivity between the isotopes of carbon, but the reaction rates differ only by about 4%, so it is mostly negligible. Isotope effects are stronger where the mass difference is bigger - markedly between 1H and 2H.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Taube's article is pretty long. It's still much faster to read it than to watch Lustig's whole presentation. If you can, do both, of course. If you can't or won't WTFV, then RTFA. If you can't or won't RTFA, then here's a summary.
Yes, too much of anything is toxic. Duh. That's not what Lustig or Taube are talking about. They're also not talking about "empty calories" -- the consumption of lots of sugar without other nutrients, meaning your overall calorie intake is higher, so you get fat and have obesity-related problems.
What they're talking about is the question of whether fructose directly causes health problems of its own accord -- namely, things like fatty liver and insulin resistance, things which may in turn raise the risk of diabetes and cancer independent of whether you get fat.
What Taube will tell you, that Lustig won't, is that the research is not conclusive. It all shows very strong correlation, but that of course isn't causation. And that's caused all these disputes of what the real problem is, particularly whether it's fat or sugar that's responsible.
Taube says that we should be considering the possibility that it's both; or at least, abandoning the idea that it must be either-or. Similarly, on the question of whether it's sucrose or HFCS that's worse, he suggests that they're so similar (both are glucose-fructose mixtures in nearly equal proportions) that they're probably both just as bad as each other.
Too much of anything is toxic; but (Taube says) because the research is inconclusive, nobody can say how much fructose is "too much". It's an established fact that short-term, high-dose fructose intake causes these problems (fatty liver et al.), but it's not known what long-term intake at the levels currently typical in the US will do.
The circumstantial evidence suggests that it will cause the same problems, eventually. And of course various people (like Lustig) have seized on this circumstantial stuff as damning evidence. But just because they're overstating the case, doesn't mean they're wrong, says Taube.
>
I can only speak for myself, not the parent, but HFCS is far more damaging than an equivalent number of calories from white sugar.
...and you back up that assertion with ... what?
No sig today...
+3 Very informative - the poison is in the dosage.
No sig today...
Eh. At best carbohydrates (which include all sugars) are neutral at best. When they're buffered by water and fiber and in low quantities sugar has little effect on system inflammation, and does supply energy... However, sugar does cause inflammation. In everyone. This means lower immune system function, feeling ill, etc. Most of the time it is asymptomatic, though sometimes it can even cause noticeable symptoms such as tonsillitis or sinusitis Obesity is very much linked to high GI foods chock full of carbs (I'm looking at you, potatoes and grains). These foods have incredible caloric density, and do not have the fiber or water content in place to buffer it into the bloodstream. It is absorbed quickly, then negative feedback loop takes effect and insulin stores excess as fat; but, it stores TOO much. And now blood sugar levels are low again. This creates a tired feeling and more hunger. It's a vicious cycle. That said, there are diets that induce ketosis, and so carbohydrate intake, if at all, is negligible. As far as I know, there aren't any cases of this causing any sort of health problems (at least in people with working gall bladders). TL;DR: More steak and green things. Less donuts. Stuff face. Go fight bear.
Yeah, the reason preschoolers get hyper when you feed them soda and candy
Um, in any well controlled experiment they don't (get hyper).
OTOH hand if you show one group of parents a table full of fruit and a second group a table full of cake/candy they'll report that their kids were hyper/not even if you switch the kids around and give them the opposite of what the parents saw.
ie. It's a myth, yes.
No sig today...
Of course sugar isn't toxic. Next silly question. Then again some people want to label CO2 toxic. Maybe the problem is just that some people are not willing to try to make the distinction between something that can be harmful, must be used responsibly, and something which is toxic, and should be avoided to whatever extent possible (with April 20th approaching, I seem to find myself arguing with these people more and more). Some people prefer to simply ban everything that can be harmful, so that they don't have to think too much about what they're doing.
If the sugar lobby is so powerful, why is HFCS used in everything instead?
Actually, the sugar lobby is directly to blame for the popularity of HFCS in American food.
They lobby for protectionist tariffs to keep sugar prices artificially high. As a result, sugar costs about twice as much inside the USA. And that's a big reason why we end up eating so much HFCS.
informative link: http://www.benzinga.com/105260/sugar-tariffs-cost-americans-2-5-billion-in-2009
There are things wrong with that "rebuttal", but it is irrelevant anyway. Sucrose, glucose, fructose, and HFCS have little nutritional value. There is no benefit and no reason for consuming large quantities of them. Unless you're accustomed to the taste, it doesn't even taste good. And it's clear that if you consume them in cold drinks, ice cream, etc. you can consume far too many calories in this form without noticing. So, just lay off the sugar, period.
You obviously didn't watch the presentation. For the body, HFCS and sugar are basically equivalent. Both are bad.
In Lustig’s view, sugar should be thought of, like cigarettes and alcohol, as something that’s killing us.
Time is something that's killing us. You have to decide if you want to live to reach the 100 or if you want to live to live.
if anything it is to set the stage so new categories are open for class action suit by irresponsible sugar using industries. It could also be used as an opening for politicians to tax products containing sugar.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
"MSG is just crystallized glutamate from seaweed."
It might be natural but it gives me a headache for 3 days and I free awful otherwise. Maybe it is the concentration used, but now I do not trust Chinese food. Even if I ask them, I'll never know if they lied until it is too late and I'm out of commission for 3 days.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's the dose that does the damage. Anything is toxic in large enough quantities.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
MSG appears whenever you put salt to a natural glutamin source.
The main glutaminsource for us is veal (35% of the amino acids in veal is glutamic acid), followed by cured mackerel (30%) and chicken (20%). That's why one uses veal, cured fish or chicken to make a broth. Pork for instance with only about 10% glutamic acid just doesn't make a good broth.
Of course you can use cheaper ways to get glutamic acid, you can extract it from wheat, seaweed or yeast.
So if you consider MSG to be a risk to your health, avoid veal, mackerel and chicken at all cost!
(Glutamic acid is not toxic per se, the problem is that glutamate is a neurotransmitter.)
means that most did not watch the video. The "Coca Cola conspiracy", as Lustig terms it, is a compelling argument explaining much of teenage and adult obesity in first-world countries, while the the baby food data he presented are the most horrid thing I learned in 2011.
because they're 5-year-olds.
Saturated fat from animals has trans-fat, too, just not nearly as much.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat#Presence_in_food
"Baking shortenings, in general, contain 30% trans fats compared to their total fats, whereas animal fats from ruminants such as butter contain up to 4%."
Just looked at the Timecube site. My head hurts. Dr. Ray has some serious ranting issues. At least there is no small-font light gray text on white background to deal with.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
If you are taking insulin shots, hypoglycemic can be an issue. If you are not taking insulin shots, you can eat *only* fat and some protein and be just fine. You body will split the protein chains up into ketones and sugar on demand, if it needs sugar for anything. There is no reason for our food to be full of it. The modern American diet is killing off the native population!
leather-dog muksihs
Blog: @muksihs
The big difference is that the sugar in fruit has less of an impact on ones glycemic level. In addiction, it's full of fiber that slows the absorption. Although it's loaded with sugars, it stays at a level that ones liver can keep up with processing. Refined sugar is another issue. It's the quickest sugar to be absorbed to the blood stream and there's rarely any fiber along with it to keep it from spiking your blood sugar and sending your liver into overdrive.
I was a sugar junkie for years. Cutting refined sugars out of my diet made a world of difference to my general well being as well as my complexion. I think that refined sugars (although I try to use better sugar sources, such as agave nectar or turbinado when I really need granulated sugar) can be incorporated into a healthy lifestyle, but sugar definitely is addictive. And there is definitely such a thing as a sugar hangover...
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
The rest of the world does not pump fructose into absolutely everything you eat. If you go to a typical American grocery store, you will not be able to buy anything there that does not have fructose in it, except raw meat and nuts/unprocessed grains (which are hard to find). But buy anything that's wasn't killed yesterday and still bleeding and it will have fructose added to it. The biggest offenders are pop sodas, ice cream, baked goods (and not just deserts but something innocuous looking as bread), etc and it will have fructose load. The reason for this is that fructose overproduction is subsidized by the government (just like corn production) and it's so ultra cheap that it is added to everything (fructose also adds to food stability, it absorbs moisture just like it does in intestines and keeps food looking fresh longer), so manufacturers just love it. Funny thing is that high fructose corn syrup (major source of fructose in food) is not a natural product. When you process corn you get glucose, but glucose simply doesn't taste as sweet, so it's chemically transformed to 100% fructose, but that's too sweet, so it's diluted down to usually 65/35 split of fructose/glucose. Cane sugar (regular sucrose knows as white sugar) is too expensive in North America and is not used in any commercial food production. Hence all the rave about "regular" coke in the USA that's made with regular white sugar that people elsewhere in the world enjoy every day. Average American ends up eating up to 150 grams of fructose. If we were hunter gatherers, you would have to eat 100 kg of fruit to get that much fructose naturally, so that's a real problem here. 15 grams or less of fructose a day are perfectly fine, but it's hard to get that little fructose in North America when virtually anything you eat has it added. So, the real evil here is as usually not the substance, but economy that made it so cheap and readily available.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
If the sugar lobby is so powerful, why is HFCS used in everything instead? Obviously they've got nothing on the corn lobbyists.
Didn't you hear? It's "corn sugar" now. And, despite all the evidence to the contrary, it's just like cane sugar.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Eating one grain of table sugar at every meal will probably not harm you in the slightest.
Eating 1 kilo at every meal probably will.
Figuring out the balance is the tricky part.
That is life.
Koans and fables for the software engineer
I've found it's less about taste and more about "texture". The mountain dew and pepsi throwback cans are "smoother", and I drink fewer of them.
I hate to be that guy, but define "sugar"?
Like most omnivores we require carbohydrates (*cough*,*cough*SUGAR!) to produce energy, protein to help us heal and build muscles, and cellulose and other vegetable matter to help with digestive processes.
So, what do you mean, Dr. Lustig, by "sugar is toxic"? High fructose corn syrup is indeed toxic to the body in large amounts, just like just about any other item we inhale or ingest. Like that? Or, any carbohydrate? I got news for ya. We need those and they are *nothing* analogous to cigarettes or alcohol (*cough*,*cough*SUGAR!).
"Correlation is not causation". Don't people like saying that a lot around here?
[...] an excellent argument on the possible cause of increased sugar leading to obesity.
Increased sugar does not lead to obesity. Increased sitting-on-your-ass leads to obesity. The problem isn't the substance, it's the behavior!
Fruits are loaded with sucrose, glucose, fructose, and dextrose.
Are you telling people not to eat fruit?
- and if you and those who moderated your comment watched the video, you would have known that consuming sugar in form of fruits is fine, because with fruits you consume fiber, which moderates sugar intake.
Your comment should be moderated 'ignorant', not 'informative'.
You can't handle the truth.
The fucking article is about fructose. You know why it's spelled with F-R-U-C-T and not G-L-U-C? Because it's not fucking glucose, irrespective of Dr. Lustig's claims validity.
If you like aspartame, olestra, or extacy, that's cool - put whatever you want in your body and enjoy the effects.
Just don't spout off that it's "perfectly safe for everyone" and slip it into foods without clear labeling.
"Digestible" isn't a boolean value. For instance, as we all know, most adults can't digest lactose. Most white adults can, because they have the right enzyme. However the range of the amount of enzyme available from individual to individual must be quite large. I doubt that those in the lower end of the range get as much energy from drinking the same large amount of milk as those on the higher end.
And as a rule I don't eat at Chinese places because they are nasty usually, one place in my city of 100k people is clean enough for me to eat there.
I do most of the Chinese places because the other companies in town refuse to do their work because of issues of payment and translation.
Glucose is a powerful oxidizer. In sufficient quantities it can oxidatively damage the mitochondrial DNA of cells. The quantities involved are not high.
According to the video extreme amounts of glucose are not harmful. In fact it points to deceases which cause this but which are not lethal. (Just annoying because it bloats your liver.) Other sugars however are a different story.
Before it was fat that was dangerous, now it's sugar but not fat.
Why does all these forget that in correct balance it's all for the good. Unbalanced it's for the bad.
I know there is a forum pun in there somewhere. Anyway, as the subject suggests it is all about balance.
The difficulty is due to the types of modern food we eat, it is VERY hard to moderate many of the things we should, such as fat, sugar, and salt.
Pretty much any processed food is loaded with all three. If fact a lot of food that people might consider healthy is in fact not. Canned vegetables and soup for example is just loaded with salt. Sugar, or HFCS, or added glucose in some why shape or form is added to just about everything, particularly drinks.
So I think the fact the guy is likely trying to make is that the amount that is commonly ingested is toxic to the human body, and results in all sorts of health problems like obesity, heart problems, diabetes, etc...
This is directly the problem with a largely unregulated food industry which has a very large lobby to prevent it from ever becoming so. The best a regular person can do is to try an regulate these substances buy avoiding processed food whenever possible, and buying local fresh good from farmers markets and the like. However for most people deck is really stacked against them.
The big thing about sugar is not only the intake, but how fast your body burns them. As a rule of thumb the more refined the faster you burn, and the worse it is for you. Try to use sugar that has some fiber attached to it, this will slow absorption and allow you body to handle it better. Of course if you still eat a ton of it this wont help either. Even stuff people normal associate with health like juice is horrible for you in this regard. You are much better off just eating an actual piece of fruit, as it contains all the fiber and structure of the material that you have to break down before getting at all the sugar it contains. Anyway of the three, fat, salt, and sugar I probably try and regulate sugar and salt the most.
I haven't heard of this either. I have heard of genetic modifications making corn more allergenic. But that's mostly because both my wife and daughter have bad reactions to corn. So my research is therefore biased. But it isn't that hard to google and find people complaining of corn giving them reflux or reflux-like symptoms. (In this case, we think it's causing tissue inflammation of the stomach, forcing acid into the esophagus.)
but then Billy Mays wouldn't be a celebrity of sorts.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Who is this someone? The video confirms your statements about glucose and ATP. Did you watch?
Something similar has been done. I don't recall exactly where. Perhaps North Carolina. Anyhow, I saw it on the Discovery Channel, and they had interviews with kids and stuff. There was a highschool where the lunch menu was replaced with healthy stuff like a salad bar, etc. Behavioral problems declined, absenteeism declined, grades improved, etc. Instead of pizza and McDonalds, the kids ate healthier, and lo and behold, they felt better.
....and it helps cure a bad case of the lobstermonstrosities!
I think therefore I can't be ~TTNH
Actually, one part of the reason HFCS is so widespread is the sugar lobby. The US has few sugar growers, but thanks to their lobbyists, there are tariffs on imported sugar. The US pays a much higher price for "real sugar" than most of the rest of the world.
The other part is, as you mentioned, the corn lobbyists and the huge corn subsidies they pull in. Because corn prices are artificially low, and sugar prices artificially high, it's cheaper to use HFCS in everything.
Redundancy is good And also good.
Then that's some really good self-diagnosis.
As usual on Slashdot people post without actually RTFA at all... His point is that Fructose is 10x worse than Glucose, because it inhibits satiation response meaning you eat more, as well as cross linking compounds in the liver (sclerosis) leading to liver failure. Also that compared to glucose; 10x more fructose reaches the liver that needs to be processed, and that because of the specifics of fructose processing reaction - It isn't processed, leading to build up, generation of high density LDL protein (heart attacks), insulin resistance, diabetes. Its a toxin! Simple! And much more toxic than water.
IMHO, every time some human decides that something we've been eating for centuries is bad for you I'm forced to ask what their real motivation is.
They said sucrose is bad for you and substituted it with HFCS which turns out to be worse. They said saturated fat is bad for you but trans fat is worse. They said that CFCs were destroying the ozone layer. Now that appears to be bogus and the Antarctic ozone hole seems to grow and shrink on its own. Global Warming? Yeah, not so much especially since they were all worried about global cooling back in the 70s. I've got it! We'll call it Global Climate Change so we can claim every anomaly to be the result of using fossil fuels and therefore we can tax them. Vaccines cause autism!!! Umm...nope. That was all bullsh*t too. Nuclear Winter? That turns out to be a scare tactic created by the KGB and the SVR to discourage the placement of nukes in western Europe (read the book "Comrade J"). Cow's milk is bad for you, drink soy milk instead. Oh, did we mention that soy increases estrogen production in men? Don't serve chocolate milk to kids in school! Oh, did we mention that by pulling the chocolate milk, milk consumption dropped dramatically? Never mind the fact that chocolate has lots of antioxidants.
Enough, goddammit! I will eat whatever the hell I want to eat.
Here's a theory: Muslim extremists would be much happier people if they ate bacon on a regular basis. Bacon makes most people happy. I propose a multi-million dollar study to test my theory. Who's with me?
If you are familiar with American presidential politics, then you are aware of the outsized influence that Iowa* has on the outcome of elections. It's not any surprise that the famers there constantly get more attention than they would otherwise probably deserve. This manifests itself not only in HFCS but also in subsidies for ethanol.
*For those not familiar with American agriculture, Iowa is famous for growing corn.
You really should watch the presentation all the way through. He deliberately states that there are good (neutral) and bad forms of sugar. It is the manner in which the different sugars are metabolised that determines its health risk. Glucose can be used by any cell in the body, but fructose needs to be metabolised by the liver. Fructose doesn't have the short term effects of alcohol, but it is metabolised by the liver in essentially the same way and causes the same health problems.
The problem here is when people say "sugar" is toxic, they specifically mean the ingredient used to sweeten many of our foods (table sugar, high fructose corn syrup). You don't say, I'd like two lumps of sucrose for my coffee, you just say "sugar".
I understand that there is a lot of crap diets and unverified "science" out there, but this doesn't seem to be the case if you actually listen to what he says.
Well, I just moved back to America from England. US influence is evidently creeping across the pond, as England and other Western European countries begin to battle their own obesity problems.
Granted nothing on the scale we have here in the US, but alarming nonetheless.
Yes, but they also have about double the amount of sugar per serving. I like them better myself but I did actually compare the labels and they use about half as much HFCS as they do "real" sugar.
The problem with "processed" sugar is that it is usually processed to get all of the fiber out.
So, what you are saying is that there is no "problem" with sugar (of any kind), only that there may be problems with a diet that doesn't balance sugar intake with fiber intake. Wow, common-sense saves the day again. The substance itself isn't toxic (or by this definition, every substance is toxic), only the diet as a whole can be considered toxic if not balanced properly. I know this won't be taken well by the masses as it means they actually have to take responsibility for their entire diet instead of just avoiding "danger" foods.
Do you have a source explaining this difference in raw vs pasteurized honey? Or what makes honey ok to begin with? I don't understand how honey, which is high fructose, is somehow more ok than other high fructose sources.
No, I followed the discussion just fine. Were the parts you quoted supposed to prove something beyond your ability to read words that weren't there?
HFCS is used everywhere because the sugar lobby has successfully received a low sugar import quota, causing sugar prices to be high, making HFCS look cheap.
I'm just going to stare at you until you realize that HFCS is sugar.
Who eats poppy plants?
Have you isolated your problem to the MSG? It's available as a seasoning in the store, you could try that and see.
Except for candy, foods are not made of pure sugar. The GI of sugar is always moderated when it's mixed with things that have a lower GI.
The guy doesn't really have an argument against HFCS, he's got an argument against a low-fiber diet.
You'll note I wasn't responding to the video, I was responding to the person to whose post I was responding.
The word organic has more than one meanig. And to say that fructose is fructose seems to be missing the point. The source is important.
If sugar is so prevalent, and so incredibly deadly, our life expectancy should be dropping as refined sugars become more available. Let's see if that's true:
Life expectancy in the United States, the most sugar-fortified country on Earth, for the past 200 years (click "play")
NO.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
The chemical doesn't change, but the way it is processed by the body is different. The way your body ends up receiving sugar via an apple or a HFCS soda seems to be just as important as the amount. We evolved to eat whole fruit, not to drink HFCS.
And, more specifically, dosage over time.
I don't care about the presentation, and no I didn't watch it. Anything is bad in significant quantities, even water. Would they say water is bad for you? Then they can stuff they're sensationalism. Sugar is natural and your body needs it. It doesn't need corn syrup.
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
No, because the compounds have been separated already.
Well, okay. Some people have phenylketonuria, too, which is an inability to break down phenylalanine - a component of aspartame (among other things).
To be fair, almost nothing we eat is actually natural. Bananas don't exist in nature. Almonds have toxic levels of cyanide in nature. Corn is basically inedible in nature. Tomatoes are unrecognizable. http://deforestationanditseffects.blogspot.com/2010/03/artificial-selection-in-plants-and.html Nature was never interested in creating safe, edible foods for us to eat. It's only through thousands of years of selective breeding that we can eat "natural" food. The main difference, of course, is that we have a longer track-record with "natural" foods, so they're obviously not super-toxic. If any of those natural foods had a mild toxicity, I'm pretty sure we couldn't figure it out without a big study to discover those effects.
If demand is outstripping supply to the point where the market is choosing cheaper alternatives, then the market is not operating at it's most efficient point. The sugar lobby needs to let more sugar in, so that everyone sells more sugar. As it is, they are pricing themselves out of the market.
I've never had Mexican coke, so I can't speak to that, except to say that fountain coke is carbonated right at the dispenser, so the plastic vs glass CO2 argument doesn't hold water.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Note: Coke is available with either cane sugar or HFCS. But perhaps there are greater differences in the recipes of each than just the type of sweetener used.
See there you go with that magic stuff again. Fructose is Fructose no matter where it came from. Here is a quote from a recent study to help back me up: But even when weight was factored out, women who drank lots of fruit juice still had an elevated risk—a higher risk even than the soda drinkers. Possible reason: Empty calories don’t satisfy, even while they wreak havoc with blood sugar. from DIETARY FACTORS APPEAR TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH DIABETES RISK from the July 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.
Well poop. There goes all the old classical chemistry.
Thankfully it doesn't look like a route to enrich any of the fissile elements so there is that. The Mad Mullahs are still stuck with centrifuges.
Democrat delenda est
Nice way to spin the article in exactly the opposite direction as the author intended. (http://careers.foxnews.com/)
Corn syrup is a mixture of 55% fructose, and 45% glucose. Sugar is 50% fructose and 50% glucose. Almost identical.
Sugar in the form of pure sucrose is not natural at all. Sugar cane and beetroots are not pure, because they contains lots of fiber to slow down absorption. Starches are glucose polymers and don't contain fructose. Natural high fructose foods, such as fruits also contains lots of fiber. A soft drink contains no fiber, and lots of fructose. Something not found in nature at all. Your body doesn't need sugar. It needs carbohydrates, but they can be supplied in many different (and healthy) ways, such as starches and glucose.
The rat study you point to is not a fair comparison, because the rats could choose how much they eat, and that depends not only on the metabolic processes, but also on the flavor. Everybody agrees HFCS and sugar don't taste the same, even though the metabolic process is virtually identical. For starters, HFCS tastes sweeter than the same concentration of sugar.
Yup. Worthless on the fissile stuff, as the isotopic effect on atoms that heavy should be in the promille or lower range. You really see it in biochemical systems when you try to do deuterium labeling - about doubling the weight of your hydrogen isotope can really mess with some enzymes. Regarding the classical chemistry, it actually fits in quite well - I mean, for example, to break an atomic bond you have to put in energy. One way is to pump up the vibrational modes for example. Just think of a semi classical point-mass and spring model for a diatomic bond - there you got your mass term for bonding energy that gives you the isotopic effect. (Simplified, very simplified, ofc).
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Oh, and just a small addendum - the 13C-is-healthy crowd is indeed crackpot in all likelihood. I used to do a lot of 13C labeling - the isotope is spin 1/2, so you need it to get NMR-active carbon in your proteins. The bacteria I fed with 13C-glucose didn't particularly like it, usually they grew worse than in unlabeled medium. Besides, 13C is expensive as hell. If they wanna pay kilobucks for a pack of sugar, well, I got a bridge to sell em, too. And some magnetized water in convenient freeze-dried form...
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
...or oil company analogy?
Crude (fructose, sucrose) is cracked into fuel (glucose) in a refinery (liver). The oil reserves (western diet) far exceeds refining capacity. Middle management is completely automated by a system called "insulin" which orders fuel tankers (fat cells) to fill up when there's an excess of petrochemicals (fructose, glucose, sucrose) at the refinery. Upper management calls in a nerdy slashdotter (health expert) when things start going wrong : orders for fuel aren't getting filled, and customers (in cars ;) are screaming (appetite is not being satisfied) no matter how much extra crude upper management commands to be pumped. Things got really serious when reports of damaged equipment also started coming in.
The problem is a bug in how the automated middle management (insulin system) works... it SHOULD only look at fuel (ie. glucose) levels, but it sees ALL petrochemicals the same. This wasn't a problem when the system was designed (evolved ;) because the refinery used to easily keep up with inputs, but now the system is telling tankers to spend all of their time being filled rather than delivering fuel and overfilling is causing damage to tankers, pumps etc... etc...
As replacing the insulin system is not at option for the forseeable future the only alternative is to control the pumping of crude so as not to overwhelm the refinery, and outsourcing refining (ie. consuming pure glucose) instead.
I'm sorry, you appear to have misunderstood my point.
The poster to whom I was responding claimed something couldn't be dangerous because it "just" came from a plant. My point was that obviously, some very dangerous stuff "just" comes from plants.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Any regular soda, not just Coke (I used it as an example but I said "regular soda"), triggers migraines. If I drink diet soda, with caffeine, no migraine. "Regular" sodas with cane sugar, no migraine. Lemonade made with cane sugar, no migraine.
I actually did discuss this with a physician (granted just a GP, not one specializing in diet and nutrition), and she agreed that HFCS was the most likely culprit based on the drinks I tried along with the results.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
I don't drink Tropicana. I prefer the no-name brands, they actually tend to be healthier. The big name fruit juice brands add sweeteners and remove the good stuff like fiber, because most Americans want sweet crap that is unhealthy. That is why white bread sells so well: most people want the taste (or lack thereof) and texture, health effects be damned.
For a relatively healthy fruit juice, try drinking almost anything that says "not from concentrate." I like the Simply Apple, for example. It tastes much better than the typical "from concentrate" crap and it is healthier.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
But when you eat an apple, you don't simply ingest only liquid sugar. You wouldn't pour oil shale into your petrol tank and say it's the same as filling it with refined petrol, would you?
They did two test, one let them eat all they wanted. As the first sentence of the summary states.. ""In an experiment conducted by a Princeton University team, 'Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same." So yes, it was a fair comparison. Sounds like it is about as "virtually" identical, as the taste. That happens a lot in chemistry...
Your body does need sugar.... although not processed. Glucose is a sugar. You need it. Starches and carbs also break down into smaller sugars, changing your blood sugar, which can affect how you eat and how hungry you are.
I watched the first part of the video, haven't had time to watch it all yet. He made some good points so far, but I haven't seen where he has proved fructose is a poison. I do agree with the soda thing, as I have recently thought about new coke as a kid and what the difference was since before Pepsi debuted their throwbacks. If I drink a soda, it is a "Mexican" Coke with real sugar. I know I don't crave it like I did coke when they came out with the classic that had HFCS, and was different to me than the old coke,the first time I tried it. It sucked. Now I know a little more why it was done.
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
Wow. You, sir, are batshit insane. It isn't that hard to eat healthy on the cheap. Most produce around here is less than $1 per pound. Get a cookbook and you can whip up yummy, healthy food for cheaper than a lard meal at Mickey D's. Sugary, crappy food is CONVENIENT, so people stuff it down. No one forces anything down anyone's throat.
Not everyone has a kitchen they can use to "whip up yummy, healthy food". Not everyone lives in areas like yours in which fresh produce is readily available at reasonable prices. In particular, most of the US urban poor do not have access to shops selling fresh produce, and if they do it's a lot more expensive than cheap crap, and many of them don't have the facilities to prepare meals with it anyway. A lot of the working poor also lack the time to actually prepare meals, between working long hours, the time it takes to travel to and from work via public transport, having to do their laundry in public laundrettes, etc...
Doh! I cut-and-paste edited that sentence into idiocy. It originally started as "Although heartburn is a symptom of angina, it is frequently self-diagnosed as a heart problem, it's the first thing the doctor should have suggested." I managed to replace "it" with "angina" instead of "heartburn" when removing the first phrase.
And now the preview button is just staring at me, laughing.
This sentence no verb.
One thing I have noticed about sugar, is that it is addictive.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Exactly, there is no magic. Octane is Octane, Sugar is Sugar. The difference is everything else in the diet.
The big name fruit juice brands add sweeteners...
Um, maybe some do; Tropicana doesn't.
I like the Simply Apple, for example. It tastes much better than the typical "from concentrate" crap and it is healthier.
Simply Orange "Grove Made" (high pulp) also has 0 fiber too. (Simply Apple as well, but that's more obvious.)
Sucrose is one glucose molecule and one fructose molecule. Unless you're measuring by atomic weight instead of ratio, it's 50/50 each.
You might have missed this, but HFCS just so happens to be a form of sugar!?!
But since they aren't as satisfying, you drink twice as much and enjoy it less.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I'm not quite convinced, but I have to give you props for basing your belief on something akin to experimentation and peer review. Well done.
Yeah, I could make my own. In fact I did this morning. I typically walk in the morning to pick up breakfast (banana at the gas station or a veggie sandwich from Jimmy John's), but while there's numerous teas in the gas station, there's no unsweetened. And I live in Houston (I don't consider it the deep south...we do have an openly lesbian mayor after all). As I stated in my original comment, if our soft drink dispensers had the same stuff the Japanese ones did (cold unsweetened green tea, hot green tea...two carbonated beverage options -- never diet), I'd be happier. We're talking about going from putting quarters in the machine to driving to a store to buy tea, boiling water, letting the tea steep, refrigerating it, and then viola, an hour later, I have tea. Maybe I am a lazy American, but I just don't have the energy to do that in the morning;)
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Interesting. Should have posted the article;) The idea that eating healthier is better for you seems like a no-brainer and why children ought to be able to skip vegetables because they don't like them makes about as much sense as a child being able to skip math class because they don't like that. School is for teaching good habits after all.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
And here it takes me nine minutes to get tea. One minute to find a mug and put water in it and start microwaving it. Two minutes to microwave, six minutes to steep. Enjoy hot. My wife's tea is faster (three minute brew). Brew time depends on the type of tea of course. If you really want ice tea, use twice as much tea for the volume, and then double the volume using ice (standard recipe I was taught from cook books and better tea shops).
I've seen unsweetened tea dispensers at plenty of restaurants in my area and where I grew up, and yes, I do consider anything in Texas the Deep South. It may not seem so politically, but the cuisine has distinctive southern aspects, such as beverage choices.
Most green teas I've had are just as bad as the lousy cheap tea available in restaurants here. Brewed at the wrong temperature, the wrong strength, the wrong time, using the cheapest possible tea fannings (dust). I've had good tea at restaurants, but it doesn't come from a soda style dispenser. When I go into a tea shop to sample their teas, I can tell when a tea has been sitting for too long by the flavor.
"I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend unto the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire