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The Sugar Conspiracy

theguardian.com

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Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#41

Post by richmarr »

paulojreis wrote: post #29
richmarr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Max Planck: people have confirmation bias You: but he's a physicist, in biology things are harder to prove (the point is that people have confirmation bias even when things are 'easier' to prove)

Aren't they?

Personally I think that if 'facts' were noticably easier to prove in Physics then we wouldn't have consumed the last third of a century of physicist brainpower on String Theory (et al), blocking students of competing theories from funding/tenure, with no useful results to show for it. The stuff that's easy to prove has broadly already been proved... but... I don't think that's relevant.

People have confirmation bias regardless of being shown evidence, it's the central feature of confirmation bias that you interpret new information in a way that supports your pre-existing view. It's a human trait not a feature of the subject matter.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#42

Post by minikites »

> Eventually, he tracked down a copy after submitting a request to his university library.

Unrelated to nutrition, but libraries and inter-library lending can track down all sorts of things and your taxes already pay for this service, so take advantage of it.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#43

Post by AlgorithmicTime »

LCDninja wrote: post #34

A friend watched "That Sugar Film" and it had a profound effect - I'm told that it's very difficult to avoid sugar these days in processed food (especially in fat-free products). I was blown away to learn that even low fat milk from the supermarket contains sugar.

Of course milk contains sugars! It's got a sugar named after it - lactose.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#44

Post by nunb »

maxwelljoslyn wrote: post #8
teslabox wrote: post #2

The article is pretty good, but neglects to mention that there are more types of fatty acids than the saturated kind. Unsaturated fatty acids become more unstable as the level of unsaturation increases. The so-called "essential" fatty acids, the polyunsaturated oils, are the most unstable of all. Soybean oil is useful as biodiesel, and not much else.

What is the significance of a fatty acid's being unstable?

They get oxidized more easily. Arterial plaque is oxidized fatty acids. Fatty acids are essential to cell wall formation. Deductively, fatty acids which are more susceptible to reactive oxidation species (aka free radicals) will lead to more cell damage. It's an interesting topic and the nutritional science (PUBMED) is very far away from the popular perception (ex Time magazine).

- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16757819 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T78cJv6gi88 - http://oregonstate.edu/dept/biochem/hhmi/hhmiclasses/biochem...

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#45

Post by minikites »

> Despite requests, he cited no examples of her unprofessional behaviour. The vitriol poured over Teicholz is rarely dispensed to Gary Taubes, though they make fundamentally similar arguments.

I wonder why more women don't want to go into science.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#46

Post by snird »

chinathrow wrote: post #37
dantiberian wrote: post #31

I think it's pretty likely that in 10-20 years, the sugar companies of today will be seen in the same light as the tobacco companies of yesterday.

I do hope so. But the tobacco companies are still around and are still selling their shit.

And they should be able to do so.

We are free people (I hope). If one decide to buy tobacco, it's his own responsibility, and he should have the freedom to do so.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#47

Post by guard-of-terra »

Isn't it, like, obvious that excessive sugar is bad for you?

It tastes good, and you consume a lot of it. Kind of easy to make an inference. Doesn't require any research.

I was taugt from my childhood that excessive sugar leads to obesity and diabetes. Not that I cut down its consumption by a lot :), but at least I was aware, as everybody else around me.

Maybe it's because we're all hypochondriacs here so we assume that anything is bad for you unless proven otherwise.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#48

Post by pigpaws »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #25
paulojreis wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're quoting a physicist. Nutrition isn't a science as hard as physics. As a given science subject moves away to more complex system (human organisms, social organisms), the notion of light (or the truth ) gets rather diffuse. It's harder to define something as the light (or the truth ), because phenomena and its causality simply get harder to prove.

Yes that's true but there are still facts that can be established for nutrition or biology etc and I think his statement can still ring true for any type of science. They can all be victims to politics and other human failings. Although possibly more so for the less "hard" sciences as it's harder to prove an assertion. It's just amazing how the point that sugar causes obesity and other harms has been ridiculed for de…

People can't 'ignore' data they don't know about. It (the data) was buried and hidden (conspiracy maybe?). Now it seems things are swinging back to the other side of the pendulum and people are going ketogenic.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#49

Post by pigpaws »

tkyjonathan wrote: post #13
Synaesthesia wrote: post #3

Very interesting how people can all subscribe to an orthodoxy for so long, ignoring evidence to the contrary. Max Planck: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

The problem is that the food industry has been pumping money into research while governments have withdrawn most of it. The whole "butter is good" article in the times was funded by the US dairy industry. Gov funded research still does not agree with it.

ah, but a LOT of publicly funded research is not freely available... (yet)
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