Slashdot Mirror
Soda Pop Damages Your Cells' Telomeres
BarbaraHudson writes Those free soft drinks at your last start-up may come with a huge hidden price tag. The Toronto Sun reports that researchers at the University of California — San Francisco found study participants who drank pop daily had shorter telomeres — the protective units of DNA that cap the ends of chromosomes in cells — in white blood cells. Short telomeres have been associated with chronic aging diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and some forms of cancer. The researchers calculated daily consumption of a 20-ounce pop is associated with 4.6 years of additional biological aging. The effect on telomere length is comparable to that of smoking, they said. "This finding held regardless of age, race, income and education level," researcher Elissa Epel said in a press release.
Can they be a little more specific as to what it is that's in the soda that is causing this?
Large amounts of sugar is the usual suspect. . .
I spent a few years drinking 128oz of Mountain Dew every workday. I'm down to 24oz now of Throwback, but I'd like to know more about what I've done to myself...
I had to quit. I was starting to have heart palpitations.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Does this mean coke is ok?
Slashdot summary should have mentioned this. But, without it, you get more click-throughs?
When they get shorter you get irregular errors in DNA duplication, cancer, eventually death. Telomere shortening is a large % of what 'causes' 'aging' on a cell level.
So it's not just obesity related health risks, this is a fucking big deal. I wonder when we'll find out if it's the carbonation or the sugar or something else unexpected.
Can I have your stereo?
Sodium benzoate
I think that this one ingredient, (which is also in many juices) would explain most of this. That is why they are starting to phase it out in many pop formulations.
1) What is the name of the paper?
Found it: http://ajph.aphapublications.o...
"Soda and Cell Aging: Associations Between Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption and Leukocyte Telomere Length in Healthy Adults From the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys"
Objectives. We tested whether leukocyte telomere length maintenance, which underlies healthy cellular aging, provides a link between sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption and the risk of cardiometabolic disease.
Methods. We examined cross-sectional associations between the consumption of SSBs, diet soda, and fruit juice and telomere length in a nationally representative sample of healthy adults. The study population included 5309 US adults, aged 20 to 65 years, with no history of diabetes or cardiovascular disease, from the 1999 to 2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. Leukocyte telomere length was assayed from DNA specimens. Diet was assessed using 24-hour dietary recalls. Associations were examined using multivariate linear regression for the outcome of log-transformed telomere length.
Results. After adjustment for sociodemographic and health-related characteristics, sugar-sweetened soda consumption was associated with shorter telomeres (b=–0.010; 95% confidence interval [CI]=0.020, 0.001; P=.04). Consumption of 100% fruit juice was marginally associated with longer telomeres (b=0.016; 95% CI=0.000, 0.033; P=.05). No significant associations were observed between consumption of diet sodas or noncarbonated SSBs and telomere length.
Conclusions. Regular consumption of sugar-sweetened sodas might influence metabolic disease development through accelerated cell aging. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print October 16, 2014: e1–e7. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2014.302151)
What if it's not the soda but what people eat while drinking that soda? What if instead of the soda it's all that thai food hackers eat? Oh, and use of the word 'pop' only proves that they tested this in specific parts of the country.
Here's a link to the study: study. They performed a cross-sectional study across some 5000 adults, looking at the effect of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB), non-carbonated SSBs, diet soda, and fruit juices. They adjusted for sociodemographic and health-related characteristics, and found that SSBs are correlated with shorter telomeres (b=–0.010; 95% confidence interval [CI]=0.020, 0.001; P=.04); fruit juice with longer telomeres (b=0.016; 95% CI=0.000, 0.033; P=.05), and no difference for diet sodas and non-carbonated SSBs.
I'm not sure how to interpret the results, as the study does not explain what the effect size is, or how impactful it is to general health. If there are any biologists in the crowd who can explain this, that would be super helpful.
My bullshit meter always starts kicking into life when the hyperbole starts flowing, like the reading comprehension or random amount of payment received having a causative effect on the function of an organic process.
Well, the other things that are mentioned here were age and race, which could conceivably have biological differences that could have an effect.
I suspect that income and education level could be relevant here as a proxy for other dietary trends. People with higher incomes tend to eat better quality food overall than poor people. People with higher education levels also tend to make different dietary choices (and are probably more likely to seek out more "natural" foods or whatever the current research is pointing toward).
So, it's not so much that these aspects are causative as that they are indicative of perhaps a wider variety of potential dietary choices. This study seems to be based on general survey data, so it's not clear that they could rule out various confounding factors, though I'd have to read the study to know for certain.
Showing the trend is consistent is at least a step toward confronting a rather obvious objection that could come up if they only looked at poor folks whose diet is already likely to have a bunch of bad junk in it (and who probably tend to consume the most soda). If they see the same effect in rich, educated folks who drink soda, then it may not be a general "poor disease" issue. (Medical studies have often been plagued by these problems if they only have subjects who are not representative of the general population.)
I'm just guessing here, but that's one reason I could imagine for mentioning this.
The word you're looking for is "confidant". But you were awfully confident with your reply...
The actual study only applies to sugar-sweetened drinks.
Frankly, if I could just die at age 70 before my mind turns to shit and I can't control my bodily functions I'll be happy. Living for an extra 10+ years in the shadow of what you once were is not living. It's a cruel form of torture.
Keep in mind that environmental factors reducing your lifespan don't mean that you're going to remain perfectly healthy until you're 70 and then just suddenly keel over. Healthy people tend to not just die for no apparent reason -- the decay leading to death will likely just manifest itself at an earlier age and progress more rapidly too. Congratulations, now you can't control your bodily functions at 65 instead of 80.
They generally don't know that it's an organic process without controlling for those factors. You can't shove a microscope up someone's ass and just observe why a particular diet is having a particular effect.
Remember how people always like to harp on how correlation is not causation? Well, it's said too often and too zealously, but it's still true. One of the most important lessons is that you need to control for confounding factors, or the effect you observe could simply be a correlation. It's very, very hard to control for the entire set of a human's behavior, though -- which is what you'd want to do in a classic, traditional experiment.
There are a handful of confounding factors that are constantly problems -- they correlate with tons of things. Any good study about humans will control for them. Income and education level are two of them. So you will always see a paper controlling for these and, if they find an interesting effect, you will see a statement about how the effect is independent of income and education level -- because if that wasn't true, it's not a very valuable finding.
spoilt white boys often have a huge chip on their shoulder and are obsessed with denying their priviledge. it's why they make absurd strawmen and rant about them at any opportunity, regardless of whether it's relevant in context or not.
i.e. "white boys burden".
this particular spoilt white boy seems to be suffering from the idiotic meme that white males are really the oppressed victims in modern society.
You drink pop. Then you die.
No judgments.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
The point stands. These people who live life like if they do it right will live forever are in for a real shock when the reality greets them. Sure, you may live longer, but it won't be life that has any level of quality associated with it.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
or even sooner if you're the Teen Wolf high school principal.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
I want to know more of the types of Soda tested.
Real Sugar vs. Corn Syrup vs, Diet Soda vs. Carbonated water.
How about comparing it to other Junk Foods, such as Hard Candies?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It would be a huge help to the community if you would read the paper and point out where the study's methods, analysis, or computations are flawed. You lead on like you know quite a bit about this.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
The pre-dominant literature in the field ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... ) suggests that 30 is the age at which people should be recycled.
My prime suspect: Random correlation.
My second guess: the study was faulty in some way and can't be reproduced.
My third guess: people who regularly drink sugary sodas are less healthy in general, so measurements of poor health correlate to sugary soda consumption.
From their recitation of methods: "Diet was assessed using 24-hour dietary recalls."
So, in other words, they asked a bunch of people what they drank in the last 24 hours, measured their telomeres, and observed a correlation between those who remembered they consumed 20oz. of soda and white blood cells in an aged condition. Does anyone think it's possible that older people just consume more soda (as opposed to other drinks)? Does anyone think that older people just might be more likely to admit they'd consumed soda?
What if I did a study that showed that those who had eaten macaroni and cheese in the last 24 hours had younger cells. Would that prove that macaroni and cheese was good for you, or would that prove that kids prefer to eat macaroni and cheese?
Welcome to stupidity, my friends...
Exercise delays that. Plus it makes you feel better every day until then.
Correlation does not imply causation
We know that. The people who wrote the paper know that too.
Show me the causative process, please.
Why don't you show me the causative process?
Or is no-one allowed to make a scientific observation unless they can also immediately explain it, too?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
A lot of things can cause heart palpitations. One example I can think of is too much potassium in your blood, which is certainly possible if you eat a lot of potatoes, bananas, avacadoes, etc, at a faster rate than your kidneys can filter them.
Follow-up:
Apparently, though, the people who come up with Slashdot headlines don't know that:
Soda Pop Damages Your Cells' Telomeres
That's not the conclusion of the paper.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I highly doubt it's the carbonation. Carbonation is literally just CO2 compressed into the water. Your body not only already has a large quantity of CO2, but depends on it as part of your blood's buffering solution for maintaining a specific PH level. If there's too much CO2 in your blood, your kidneys will simply remove it without consequence.
My Great aunt, who donated her body to Science (Also in an Open Source way(1)) never drank any Cola, yet they were still way down when she died at the age of 115.
A search on van andel telomeres will give more detail. I have the study somewhere around here, but am not able to find it just now.
(1) Not only did she donated her body to science, she wanted the science to be used for people to learn AND have her name linked to it. To be honest, she thought she would end up on a shelf somewhere after they cut her up. She never thought it would result in so much results in research.
Also because of her, they now have proof that alzheimers is not a given with old age thus a solution is at least possible. There were no traces of Alzheimers found anywhere.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I don't mind people leaving this existence whenever they please, but let me be the judge about my own "quality of life". I'm not at all comfortable letting other people tell me when I need to die. Are you?
I'm 61 and quite healthy. My mother is a healthy 79, sees a doctor once a year, and she drives nearly everywhere. My next door neighbor is an 83 year old widow who lives by herself and drives every day. Last year I worked with a Korean War veteran who could out-walk me (had lunch with him just last week).
Then there are children and young adults in wheelchairs who will never be able to care for themselves. Would you propose killing them because their "quality of life" isn't up to some arbitrary (read: government) standard?
Everybody is different. That's what makes life so interesting. Enjoy every day you can.
As someone who has invested a fair amount of effort and money into making a machine to make his own carbonated water, because I LOVE it and drink a lot of it, I can firmly tell you any excess CO2 you might consume in beverages leaves the body one of two ways: you burp it or fart it.
The kidneys are not involved in handling food CO2 because the process of digestion will free the gas and it will then vent directly in which ever way is easiest. Even if the gas stays in solution deep into the gun, it will not be absorbed by the body in gas form so it won't enter the blood.
Further evidence of this is from normal food digestion. The microbes in the intestines are always making CO2 and other gasses as they do their thing and likewise those gas products are vented directly as gas rather than being absorbed into the intestine membranes and then into the blood. Otherwise you would not fart. And everybody does.
Now, any CO2 that IS in the blood from normal biological processes (exercise, burning calories, etc) is cleaned out by the lungs, not the kidneys. Whatever you don't burp or fart is just whisked away when you breathe. You won't notice it.
So the bottom line is that consuming CO2 in food is fine. Harmless.
Sig for hire.
Please include some reference to a proper scientific name when mentioning some class of object like Mountain Dew.
Have gnu, will travel.
Aww, really? I think everyone would like to get to the bottom of this!
I didn't know I had telomeres until about five minutes ago.
And wait a minute, when they say, "pop", are they talking about any carbonated beverage? Is the problem the carbonation or the crap they put in pop to make it sweet and neon-colored and buzz-causing and impervious to going bad for 500 years?
I need to know, because I've become enamored of my Sodastream machine, which turns water into fizzy water. I can't drink pop because I play the chromatic harmonica and any kind of drink with sugar or caramel color will foul up the reeds and valves. But fizzy water is perfect because it's refreshing, and it wets my whistle (which is important for playing the chromatic harmonica) and allows me to belch "When the Saints Go Marching In". Seriously, I love those carbonated belches. I keep them on the down-low when I'm around others, but I've scared the hell out of the cat a few times with a belch that registers 6.4 on the richter scale. It doesn't startle the dog, but she does wag her tail as if to say, "nice rip, bro".
So, does this research mean that the fizzy water I drink (no added flavor, except occasionally I'll add a little spearmint or hibiscus tea) is going to give me stubby little telomeres? And does the length of my telomeres matter as long as they have sufficient girth? I need to know right away.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I propose changing the headline, as it makes the claim that soda pop directly damages telomeres, while the study found no such causation or mechanism. It is fairly common for web articles to misrepresent and misunderstand second hand information about science studies, where authors don't link to the original study, but I had hoped that Slashdot aimed for science education, as opposed to misrepresentative sensationalism. The website of the university associated with the study paints a clearer picture: "The authors cautioned that they only compared telomere length and sugar-sweetened soda consumption for each participant at a single time point, and that an association does not demonstrate causation. Epel is co-leading a new study in which participants will be tracked for weeks in real time to look for effects of sugar-sweetened soda consumption on aspects of cellular aging. Telomere shortening has previously been associated with oxidative damage to tissue, to inflammation, and to insulin resistance." http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2014/...
"All Fried Chicken Poisoned. Activists say minorities unfairly impacted."
There are some things that affect "everyone" and still affect some people more than others.
Learn to love Alaska
My great grandmother drank a can of A&W root beer every afternoon and ate a small bag of potato chips. Until that horrible habit cut her down at the tender young age of 101 years. Avoid sugary carbonated drinks!
it should be harmless given your description. Doesn't mean it actually is. It could change the way some foods are digested. It could promote different digestive bacteria. It could chemically react with enzymes in your stomach. I suspect that it is none of the above. People who drink soda get fat. Fat people have more cells replicating/repairing than skinny people. You would expect that to lead to smaller telomeres.
I just received an e-mail with the same subject, offering me to buy certain medications from Thailand that will enlarge my telomeres, so I can drink all the pop I want!
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
First of all "Drinking sugar-sweetened pop could take years off your life." So yeah, drinking 160 calories of sugar constantly is unhealthy. Who would have thought?
Anyway, if you're keeping score, tap water is an estrogen-filled, flouride-poisoned death sentence. Diet drinks will make you fat somehow. Non-diet is as bad as smoking. Being constantly dehydrated will shorten your life and increase risk of cancer. So basically no matter what you do, you're dead already.
Actually there have been quite a few studies regarding coffee, caffeine and health:
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd...
The general consensus is that coffee is GOOD FOR YOU unless you have specific health issues like hypertension, high blood pressure, etc. Go troll on a different subject. You'll lose on this one.
Beer! Now that's another subject. Dark and thick is the best. Just had a Left Hand Brewing Company Nitro "Wake Up Dead" Stout. It almost doesn't need a glass. Yummy.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Carbonated beverages of all kinds (diet, non-diet) tend to contribute to osteoporosis. The carbonation leaches the calcium from your bones.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
The United States uses the term "juice drink" as well, and the actual juice percentage is listed on the label next to the Nutrition Facts.
Yeah. But if that were really true, everybody would trust the results of a study like this. But no one does.
And in particular, the medical fraternity almost never believes the result from just one study. They always advise waiting for it to be confirmed.
You would be correct if this was a randomly selected study, the issue is it wasn't randomly selected. It was published. Studies that don't meet the 96% interval typically don't get published. So all we know is 1 study out of god knows how many showed this effect. If it is 1 out of 1, the 96% percent applies. But if it was 1 out of 10 it's almost certainly wrong.
Now it's published there are kudo's to be made from shooting it down. Translation: now it's published, it becomes the null hypothesis. A study showing it isn't true is a positive result and now has a chance of getting published.
In other words, the first published statistical survey showing controversial result is barely worth the paper it's written on. It's only real use is to prompt further research.
Give me a break. Since when is good science disseminated by press release?
I remember when Fleischmann and Pons pulled a similar stunt. That turned out to be bunk too.
What do we want? Evidence driven change
When do we want it? After peer review.
Consuming CO2 rapidly, as happens when drinking carbonated beverages, leads to stomach expansion. The stomach is capable of increasing in size to accommodate a large meal but if the practice is habitual the stomach will actually grow in size permanently. There is a nerve where the esophagus meets the stomach that triggers when the stomach is full. When triggered it tells the brain to stop eating (you are no longer hungry). Studies have linked an enlarged stomach to overeating and thus obesity. So while it may not have a direct link to obesity there is evidence it may be indirectly linked.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Commercial HFCS is generally either 42% or 55% fructose, and almost all glucose otherwise. Sucrose, on the other hand, is a molecule that breaks down in the first stages of digestion to 50% fructose and 50% glucose -- so, as the parent said, they are basically identical in most of digestion.
Basically identical in the sense that it's basically the same if you get 100 or 130 cents change when you exchange a dollar for a bag of pennies.
It's simple math, on top of other, less simple metabolic processes, such as human body actually producing an enzyme for breaking down sucrose instead of chugging both as a syrup, laced with CO2.
Let's say you have a craving for sugar.
I.e. Your body needs quick energy cause your GLUCOSE levels are down. That sugar which is used throughout your body, no conversion needed.
So, you have some level of glucose craving which will be satisfied when your glucose satisfaction reaches 100% at which point your body will say "OK. I'm fine. Stop eating sugar."
So, for 100% glucose satisfaction level you need some 100 units of glucose.
And since sucrose holds 50 units of glucose for 100 units of sucrose, that means you need 2 units of sucrose for your body to say "Stop!"
At the same time, you will ingest 100 units of fructose, which you can't digest directly, which does not activate the satiety signal, and which ends up as fat.
So, 100 units of sucrose equals to 100 units of glucose and 100 units of fructose. And then you stop, as you've reached 100% of your glucose satisfaction.
Sucrose:
[F][F][F][F][F]-[G][G][G][G][G]
Satiety reached at:
[F][F][F][F][F]-[F][F][F][F][F]
[G][G][G][G][G]-[G][G][G][G][G]
ON THE OTHER HAND...
55 fructose + 42 glucose HFCS, used in sodas, means that to reach the same level of glucose satisfaction, you need to ingest 2.38 units of HFCS.
Meaning that for every 100 units of glucose, you are ingesting 130.9 units of fructose. And THEN your brain says "Stop."
HFCS(55-42):
[F][F][F][F][F]-[G][G][G][G]
Satiety reached at:
[F][F][F][F][F]-[F][F][F][F][F]-[F][F][F]
[G][G][G][G][G]-[G][G][G][G][G]
You're getting 30% more of fat producing fructose from HFCS for the same dose of glucose if you were using sucrose.
130 cents on a dollar.
So every 3 dollars you're "basically" getting 4 dollars in change.
Basically the same. Virtually identical. There is practically almost no difference.
Where's that exchange? I have a cunning plan regarding my retirement and a small island somewhere warm.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
There's a difference: HFCs means "hydrofluorocarbons", while "HFCS" means "high-fructose corn syrup".
Perhaps it might have something to do with the fact that juice from concentrate counts as 100% juice. Might they have been reconstituting it with HFCS water instead of plain water? I looked on Skeptics Stack Exchange but they couldn't turn up the lawsuit either.
People with shorter telomeres drink more sodas.
Are you really that obtuse? Does it physically hurt?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
...that horrible habit cut her down at the tender young age of 101 years.
How do you know she wasn't supposed to live to 130?
The key question here, is what is the mechanism that causes shortening of your life?
If, for instance, high fructose corn syrup is the culprit, well soda only started getting HFCS recently (old time soda was made with sugar).
Then again, maybe the mechanism is only for excessive use? The same way that how someone who drinks a beer a day is fine (maybe even healthier than someone who doesn't drink), and someone who drinks a gallon of beer a day ends up dead at 40 of cirrhosis?
Or is it something genetic? Perhaps some people have a gene that causes soda to lop off their telomeres quickly?
In summary: while the results are interesting, we're no where any where close to actually understanding the ramifications (if they're in fact true).
leaves the body one of two ways: you burp it or fart it.
What happens with the energy in a system with the increase of pressure or heat, i.e. by pumping in gas?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
Which, when released from a carbonated liquid, heats up and expands further, thus increasing the pressure, speeding up the reaction (digestion) AND expanding the walls of the organs - which absorb nutrients from the food.
There's a reason why it takes longer for caffeine from coffee to "give you a kick" than it takes for caffeine in soda.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I wrote "spoilt" and i meant "spoilt'.
spoilt
adj 1: having the character or disposition harmed by pampering
or oversolicitous attention; "a spoiled child" [syn: {spoiled}, {spoilt}]
if you're going to be a spelling nazi, at least get a fucking clue first.
and WTF is this "Juan" shit? is that some lame attempt at a coded racist slur, implying i'm mexican or spanish or something? i don't even live in the police-state shithole known as the USA, i live in australia - mexicans are extremely rare here.
you know, only spoilt white boys defending their priviledge talk about "reverse" racism or sexism.
it's self-serving bullshit that means "oh no! woe is me! there's a risk that someone else might get the scraps left over after white boys like me take nearly everything".
people. As a dentist I often treat people who drink soda even though their teeth are turning black with decay. If people are able to ignore such an obvious sign of a problem, "shorter telomeres" isn't going to mean anything to them.
The battle against ignorance has to be fought with 2x4s, not more information.
Describing white males as "spoilt white boys" (disparaging and infantilizing a group based on gender and skin color) isn't really helping your argument that white men aren't oppressed in modern society.
It appears that you are suffering from the idiotic meme that white men never get discriminated against (treated differently based on aspects out of their control, such as race and gender), and that justifies discriminating against them.
So maybe they also worked 10-20 hours a week longer than the control group? Maybe they ate different things? Maybe they lived in a more urban environment?
There have been so many of this sort of researches carried out that came to the wrong conclusion that while this is worrying, I doubt that there's actually any scientific value in this at all.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
That's not entirely correct. Yes, your lungs do play a big role, but not in this regard. I have CKD, so I have to pay attention to this.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medline...
I actually take sodium bicarb daily to treat high CO2 levels in my blood.
You say that now...
Korma: Good
Also Claritin-D. (Apparently it's the D part which is Sudafed). It works well on my sinuses but also gives me palpitations.
I spent a few years drinking 6 or more free coca-colas a day (through two employers with free soda) and wound up with an ulcer, which went away in short order when I stopped. There's many reasons not to drink sugarwater in a can. I just had an argument about this with my lady, my contention was that soda fountains were a great thing but that soda in a can is a monkey on society's back. She thought it was all bad :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Great that people are finding out more about what shortens telomeres. But with all that data, can we also find out a way to repair them?
Somehow, I don't think somebody drinking an entire gallon of sweetened MD every day was suffering from an excess of fruit and vegetable consumption.
And assuming you have normal kidney function, you shouldn't have any difficult disposing of any excess dietary potassium obtained from fruits and veggies. About the only way to develop hyperkalemia via oral intake is WAAAYYY overdoing it with salt substitute (which is potassium chloride.)
Having spent several thousand dollars in co-pay for dental work in my lifetime, this is why I don't drink sodas anymore--the carbonation in the soda actually accentuates the highly corrosive quality of the sugar in the carbonated drink. That's why I drink mostly iced tea nowadays on hot summer days.
If one smokes while drinking soda I suppose that less life savings will be required for retirement. But I do think there may be issues not yet discovered such as which sodas are the worst for your health. Is my orange pop as deadly as my RC Cola or Dr. Pepper?
I know one thing for sure... HFCS doesn't taste exactly the same as regular cane sugar. It was the mid-80s when most of the major sodas converted to using HFCS and those of us who lived through that remember that it tasted different. In fact, I have recently discovered Mexican Coca-Cola (in glass bottles!) made with cane sugar instead of HFCS and it has totally won me over. I feel like I am drinking a soda again from 1984. Unless there is more going on in that formula in Mexico, it shows me that sugar tastes better than HFCS... no doubt about it.
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
I suspect that income and education level could be relevant here as a proxy for other dietary trends. People with higher incomes tend to eat better quality food overall than poor people. People with higher education levels also tend to make different dietary choices (and are probably more likely to seek out more "natural" foods or whatever the current research is pointing toward).
You can always tell a dingbat by how much Mountain Dew they drink.
I've been telling my friends that drink it(in large quantities) that they are better off drinking coffee for their stim fix(caffeine) than that disgustingly over-sugared green goo. It's common knowledge that sugar in large quantities(and sugar is pretty much every processed food in the US) is really the reason for most First World health problems.
Sugar, in all it's forms(HFCS. et al) is the post Tobacco Tobacco...
The real question is whether the health community will be able to unseat Big Sugar from it's control over the American Diet.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Me too, through much of my 20s and 30s. (Not MD . . Pepsi . . but metabolically basically the same thing.) Then I had a family, and needed life insurance, and couldn't get it, because of metabolic syndrome (obesity, high blood pressure, high blood glucose, the whole works). I decided, this past summer, to make what I hope will be permanent lifestyle changes to try to reverse this damage. I'm now mostly soda-free, HFCS-free, still addicted to some other sweets (and other high-glycemic carbs which are almost as bad), but working on it. Trying to exercise more and to eat mostly nutrient-dense rather than calorie-dense foods. I look and feel better already, but BP and other numbers are still bad. I expect to have to lose much of the fat I gained before they improve enough for me to represent a decent risk to a life insurance company, and, by then, I may well be in my mid-50s, so it will still be expensive, but it will be possible. I wish I could go back in time and change this nasty habit, perhaps by educating myself better about what it would ultimately entail, not just for me but much more importantly for the people I love. You may very well have some manifestations of metabolic syndrome, not all of which are outwardly apparent. If you have access to decent healthcare, get yourself checked out, even if you feel and look otherwise healthy. But be aware that most doctors will want to prescribe drugs, which will treat some of the symptoms but possibly at the expense of causing or exacerbating others. What you really want instead is to eliminate the cause, which most nutritionists believe to be consumption of sugars and high-glycemic carbs, which trigger insulin and leptin surges, resistance to these and other hunger-related hormones over time, and a positive feedback loop eventually leading to high blood pressure, heart and artery disease, diabetes, obesity, and a high risk of death from stroke, heart attack, or renal failure. Most people who have not yet been hospitalized for one or more of these ailments - and even some who have - have been able to reverse them through proper nutrition and exercise.
Nonaggression works!
I just had an argument about this with my lady, my contention was that soda fountains were a great thing but that soda in a can is a monkey on society's back.
I can't speak to old-fashioned soda fountains (with a soda jerk, etc), but modern American-style self-serve soda fountains might be a problem as well -- in my experience at least, when a person can walk up and pour himself another refill "for free" without even having to ask for it, the amount of soda consumed in a single sitting tends to double or triple.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
In short...
The 55% fructose content of HFCS is by weight, not by moles.
Yup.
Density of fructose is 1.67, while density of glucose is 1.54, so the HFCS-55 actually contains 50.7% fructose and 49.3% glucose by moles. This is almost the same as sucrose.
Nope.
You're taking a shortcut, imagining that both HFCS and sucrose are just piles of glucose and fructose, measured by volume.
Hint - molar mass of BOTH fructose and glucose is 180.16 g/mol - i.e. THAT is the molar mass of HFCS.
It's density is 0.88 g/cm3 for dry mass.
http://www.adm.com/_layouts/Pr...
For sucrose molar mass is 342.30 g/mol. With density of 1.587 g/cm3.
See where this is going? How it is NOT "almost the same"?
In long... and sorry if I'm repeating myself.
I explicitly stated "some 100 units of glucose".
So, if you are taking grams of glucose mixed inside HFCS - you compare it to grams of glucose trapped in sucrose. Same for fructose in the mix.
If you are taking cubic centimeters of glucose from HFCS - you compare it to cubic centimeters OF glucose FROM sucrose, along with attached fructose.
If you are taking glucose from lengths of strips of paper dipped into 50% HFCS solution... etc.
You are weighing, measuring, counting, drinking, biting... HFCS and sucrose - NOT glucose OR fructose.
It's about COMPARISON of same quantities of glucose-fructose compounds/mixes and the satiety THOSE COMPOUNDS/MIXES produce.
Except only one part of the mix does that.
Think drinking coffee or tea and sweetening it.
You are not measuring spoons of glucose and fructose. You can't take one or the other from the mix.
You are taking spoons of sucrose or HFCS - until it is sweet enough.
That's the 100% you're looking for. 100% sweet enough.
From the one or the other mix or compound of BOTH glucose and fructose together.
Now substitute "sweet enough" with "energizing enough" - i.e. enough of glucose, with fructose coming along for the ride.
Whether it is 55-42 or 50-50.
BTW... you are confusing density, molar mass, and how fructose and glucose are measured in HFCS
I.e. Mass per volume of substance - kilograms and meters, 1.694 g/cm3 and 1.54 g/cm3.
And mass DIVIDED by amount of actual substance in atoms - grams of substance times number of atoms in molecule of substance times atomic mass of the element, 180.16 g/mol AND 180.16 g/mol.
Molar mass for fructose AND glucose is EXACTLY THE SAME - 180.16 g/mol.
Just like their chemical formulas are the same - C6H12O6.
Meanwhile... HFCS 55-42 and 42-53 are measured by DRY MASS.
Nobody cares about moles or volume when making that mix.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
Now, OUT OF THAT MIX get the same level of blood sugar as you would get from sucrose.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
You:
Except that you're assuming that all HFCS is the variety with more fructose than glucose;
And what I said:
ON THE OTHER HAND...
55 fructose + 42 glucose HFCS, used in sodas
To quote you again... "not correct".
By your logic we should switch all sucrose to the "healthy" HFCS, as it has LESS fructose than either.
Nope. That's you again. I never made such a statement.
Besides... It would not work. Particularly in sodas which would taste horrible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
55-42 mix is needed so they would be drinkable. Fructose makes glucose taste sweeter.
42-53 mix is actually the original product of getting fructose out of glucose, out of corn starch.
BUT... since that is not as sweet as sucrose, it gets refined to 90% fructose, then mixed into 42-53 to make it sweet enough.
42-53 can replace sugar only in foods where there are additional sugars or fat - which is why it is used for cookies and similar processed foods which contain fat and its own starch.
Take a look at fruit yogurts some time. Those being marketed as "healthy" and "with real fruit".
Lot's of green leaves and similar nonsense on the packaging.
You'll never find strawberry flavored yogurt without additional fructose.
BUT... you might find "berries" or "wild fruits" mix-flavors which contain strawberries - but without additional fructose.
FROM THE SAME COMPANY AND BRAND. Same nutritional value. Same weight, packaging, price...
Why? Blueberries. Twice the sugar of strawberries and blackberries.
Meaning that for 3 parts of fruit, you get 4 parts of sugar.
Cherries might squeeze by as well. Apricots too.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
It's simple math, on top of other, less simple metabolic processes, such as human body actually producing an enzyme for breaking down sucrose instead of chugging both as a syrup, laced with CO2.
That part of math is simple.
The whole process of digestion is far more complex.
And ultimately not that relevant as I am postulating that the delivery system (HFCS) of the components is at fault - not the body itself.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Reading the article summary made me want to go get a cold 20-ounce soda from the vending machine.
So I guess they will pry a Coke can from my cold dead fingers
The article was written by a news service reporter who took a complex issue and boiled it down into 156 words. Such articles routinely garble the information, partly in an attempt to make it sexier. The original in the American Journal of Medicine is behind a paywall. of course, but no such article showed up in their search results. No doubt it's somewhere, safely hidden from the public who are affected by the issue. The use of the word sugar is misleading, because there are different kinds of sugar. The kind alleged to be the most damaging is fructose, which your body is unable to metabolize properly. Fructose is said to be linked to diabetes, alzheimers and a wide variety of other diseases. Fructose is in just about all processed foods now, (I found it listed on a can of cat food). There's a good chance that the sugar industry will eventually find themselves in the same boat as the tobacco industry, but it will likely take decades .
"Luekemia is not cancer of white blood cells, it's cancer of red blood cells. Lymphoma is cancer of white blood cells." ROFL. Look it up. There are 7 types of leukemia, only one of them has to do with the red blood cell line. Lymphoma is another kettle of fish altogether.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Not quite. You're converting "ounces" as a measure of weight. The "20 ounces" referring to soda is a measure of liquid volume.
Roughly, 1 gallon of water weighs 8.34 pounds. There are 64 fluid ounces in 1 gallon and 454 g in 1 lb.
(8.34 lb * 454 g/lb) * (20 oz / 64 oz/gal) = 1174 g.
(of course that should have read "8.34lb/gal" for the units to work out correctly)
If you can tolerate it, 5 minutes of running a day will bring down your blood pressure substantially in a month.
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The CO2 makes sodas quite acidic, and the sugar frequently encourages the stomach to produce HCl. The combination can be a problem, particularly when it's habitual. Think esophageal cancer, for instance.
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For most people it probably will. I was not so fortunate, at least not yet. My research leads me to believe that in as extreme a case as mine, there is a lot of arterial damage already, and BP won't come down much until that is reversed. I will say that my cardio endurance has improved a great deal . . . I went from not being able to walk a mile without pain, to being able to run 4, albeit at a fairly gentle pace (13-15 minute miles), in just under 2 months, although since that time I keep injuring my calf, rendering me unable to run although I still walk and bike an hour a day when possible. So my heart, liver, and kidneys are probably still serviceable, but I'll need time for the arteries to become more flexible. Interval training is said to be better for this purpose than pure cardio, and I'm looking into how I can do some without continually re-injuring my legs.
Nonaggression works!
I did research on that a while back, and it is only problematic if you have acid reflux disease.
But then again, under that same argument, any kind of juice that contains citrus is worse for you than carbonated water, along with chocolate, alcohol, eating large meals, eating while laying on your back, and a list of other things I can't recall at the moment.
ha! humans can't live to 130, only one human in history is known to live past 119.
dying is programmed into the genome of humans, did you know there are immortal animals?