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Chemists Were Wrong About Splenda

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Re: Chemists Were Wrong About Splenda

#111

Post by secstate »

fpgaminer wrote: post #75
lbenes wrote: post #47

I know HN hate anecdotal stories, but here goes anyways. 6 months ago, despite my regular exercise routine, I was about 20 pounds over my college weight and prediabetic. Instead of following my doctor’s recommendations and going on Metformin, I cut all nearly sugars out of my diet and replaced it with sucralose, fat, and fiber. Now, exactly 5 lbs sugar equivalent of sucralose later, and I’m back to my college weight.…

> While I hate the idea of artificial sweeteners Don't take this as a personal attack on your opinion, but I just don't understand this. The distinction that we make between artificial chemicals and natural chemicals seems to be whether it was invented by humans or invented by evolution. That's a fine distinction to make, but why are human invented chemicals seen as the _worse_ of the two? When evolution invents a ch…

My take? Zero-calorie sweeteners have no practical reason to exist. It is a marketer's pursuit to make us consume food in ever vaster quantities while being guilt free.

What we should be doing is reducing our sugar intake given that most of us are no longer living on the edge of caloric survival. But that's hard, and not doing it comes with guilt and health issues. So instead we create a chemical that provides all the pleasure of eating with none of the caloric benefits.

Calorie-free food is pure hedonism. Not bad in and of itself, but to the extent we in the developed world have taken it, something to be just a little bit ashamed of.

Re: Chemists Were Wrong About Splenda

#112

Post by jgamman »

koolba wrote: post #5

Nice article and I like the matter-of-fact writing style. Makes me want to study more chemistry. Any suggestions from this audience of how to get into it? Pick up a Chemistry 101 text book?

i did a lot of chemistry at uni - your question made me think. it's a little like programming - the field is so vast and fundamental that you may as well start with a topic you're interested in and then dig deep every time you find a word/phrase/assumption you don't get (heads up: there will be a lot).

i'd actually say that chem is a difficult subject to learn independently. it is one of those subjects that is best learned with other people and those that know - you learn lots of seemingly disconnected things that only slowly coalesce into a broad understanding. IME for most people, that coalescence takes the first several months of a post-grad project - there's something about being in a lab and discussing chemistry that blends all the bits together.

it's been 20 years but the text books at Uni of Auckland were McMurray for Organic chem, Atkins for physical chem and Atkins, Shriver and Langford for Inorganic. Personally I found Atkins a difficult read and would recommend hunting around for an author that you enjoy reading. read In the Pipeline regularly - it's a blog by a medicinal chemist that is quite excellent (his 'things i won't work with' posts are brilliant ;-). there's also a saying in chem that you learn it through your fingertips - pen and paper sketching structures and working with glassware. it's a strange blend of theory, practice and intuition - that's either its biggest appeal or its biggest turnoff... YMMV.

if you really are keen, drop me a note - i'm intrigued to see if i could design a curriculum using open source pubs and edX.

Re: Chemists Were Wrong About Splenda

#113

Post by fpgaminer »

secstate wrote: post #109
fpgaminer wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can certainly see that, especially the corrupt companies side of things. But the argument doesn't make sense for anyone over 30 years old. Pre-industrial humans had a lifespan of about 30-50 years (30 years in-city, 50 years outside of city for most all of human history). Those are the humans who vetted all these natural chemicals; people who died at 30. If you're over 30, you're in unknown territory when it comes…

For starters, the "people lived shorter lives long ago" argument is based on high percentages of infant mortality. While quality of life wasn't always great, the idea that folks only lived to 30 or 40 is pretty easily demonstrated to be false.

Citation needed. I found the following after a quick search: http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/life_history/age-specifi...

That seems to indicate that age specific mortality rates _have_ decreased across the board, not just infant mortality. And it also backs up that our in-city lifespans used to be ~30-35 after juveniles. To be clear, that's exactly the figure I'm interested in, not maximum lifespan. If, on average, most adults die around 30-35 2000 years ago and today most adults die around 70, then that, to me, is a clear indication that human driven engineering/science is succeeding on average compared to evolution and that our technologies (in particular, our synthetic chemicals) are more trustworthy than nature's.

> While quality of life wasn't always great

We've eliminated or nearly eliminated a great number of diseases in the modern age. These are diseases which don't reduce quality of life; they kill. You don't go from a bacterial infection to "Well, I'm alive, but my quality of life is worse". You just die. You don't get tetanus and have a sore jaw for the rest of your life; you die. You don't get diabetes and just live the rest of your life with high/low blood sugar. You pass out and die one day. These are all diseases which have existed through all of human history which by necessity of their mortality rates and incidences of occurrence must have increased the age specific mortality rates for all ages. We've cured these, and so age specific mortality rates must have decreased. If today we replaced all sugars with artificial sweeteners the same thing would happen; lower age specific mortality rates.

Re: Chemists Were Wrong About Splenda

#114

Post by fpgaminer »

dualogy wrote: post #108
fpgaminer wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can certainly see that, especially the corrupt companies side of things. But the argument doesn't make sense for anyone over 30 years old. Pre-industrial humans had a lifespan of about 30-50 years (30 years in-city, 50 years outside of city for most all of human history). Those are the humans who vetted all these natural chemicals; people who died at 30. If you're over 30, you're in unknown territory when it comes…

> Human derived chemicals and engineering have given us over 40 extra years of life. Yeah well to some degree of participation.. chiefly we have reduced maternal death rate & early childhood mortality; (re)discovered/refined/improved-upon/better-understood what compounds at what dosage made traditional/herbal/ancient antiseptic/antibiotic/antifungal tinctures actually work and how to turn them into more reliable phar…

Citation needed. All credible research I've seen indicates that age specific mortality has decreased over the ages (from city living onward) across the board, not just infant mortality.

Re: Chemists Were Wrong About Splenda

#115

Post by DougWebb »

theophrastus wrote: post #79
DougWebb wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always taken the "natural is better" argument to be based on what else is in the product. The drug industry has a long history of taking a complex natural product and isolating out specific chemicals, then patenting a manufacturing process for those chemicals to sell them as drugs. Sometimes that's fine, but there are many cases where the drugs have side-effects that the natural product doesn't have and that's d…

no... my analogy would be fundamentally a different analogy if i compared a bottle of vitamin C to a whole piece of fruit (quite "apples and oranges" in fact). I wanted to underscore that two pure substances, one synthetic and one extracted from nature are indistinguishable . When i teach biochemistry i'm always struck by the resistance to the pivotal biochemical scientific experiment of Friedrich Wöhler who synthesi…

I agree with you that the two chemicals are indistinguishable; I just think that that's not really the issue when people prefer 'natural' products. Now, most people also don't get the distinction you're making, because they're not chemists. What they see, and what they're reacting to, goes more like this:

Joe Public> I have a headache.

Folk Medicine Dr> Here, drink some willowbark tea.

DrugCo Chemist> No, take this aspirin. It's chemically identical to the active substance in willowbark tea, but much more convenient!

Joe Public> My headache is better, but now my stomach hurts. That never happened with the tea.

DrugCo Chemist> Oh, you have an ulcer. You're a sick person. Take this antacid medicine!

Joe Public> My stomach feels better, but now I'm constipated.

DrugCo Chemist> Wow, you're really sick... here, take this laxative!

Folk Medicine Dr> All these unnatural drugs are killing you. You should really just take the tea.

Joe Public> Yeah, I think you're right. Natural is better.

Re: Chemists Were Wrong About Splenda

#116

Post by maxerickson »

jklinger410 wrote: post #101
finnh wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm reading you correctly, you eat nearly a pound of sugar per month? And your doctor recommended something called "Metformin" instead of saying "don't eat so much sugar"? Maybe you need a new doctor to go along with your new sweetener =)

>you eat nearly a pound of sugar per month? You don't?

Not raw sugar added to food, which is sort of implied in the ggp comment. It's at least not clear if they mean a 5 pound bag of sweetener or 5 pounds net.

Re: Chemists Were Wrong About Splenda

#117

Post by theophrastus »

DougWebb wrote: post #115
theophrastus wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no... my analogy would be fundamentally a different analogy if i compared a bottle of vitamin C to a whole piece of fruit (quite "apples and oranges" in fact). I wanted to underscore that two pure substances, one synthetic and one extracted from nature are indistinguishable . When i teach biochemistry i'm always struck by the resistance to the pivotal biochemical scientific experiment of Friedrich Wöhler who synthesi…

I agree with you that the two chemicals are indistinguishable; I just think that that's not really the issue when people prefer 'natural' products. Now, most people also don't get the distinction you're making, because they're not chemists. What they see, and what they're reacting to, goes more like this: Joe Public> I have a headache. Folk Medicine Dr> Here, drink some willowbark tea. DrugCo Chemist> No, take this a…

yes, and the relative merits of well defined substances versus macerated hot water plant extracts will be discussed to the end of time. just don't ascribe magical 'vital' properties to either one. by the bye, drink enough willowbark "tea" and you might succumb to salicin poisoning. it's said to have shortened Beethoven's life. (next up: homeopathy doesn't cause any side effects)

Re: Chemists Were Wrong About Splenda

#118

Post by DougWebb »

theophrastus wrote: post #117
DougWebb wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you that the two chemicals are indistinguishable; I just think that that's not really the issue when people prefer 'natural' products. Now, most people also don't get the distinction you're making, because they're not chemists. What they see, and what they're reacting to, goes more like this: Joe Public> I have a headache. Folk Medicine Dr> Here, drink some willowbark tea. DrugCo Chemist> No, take this a…

yes, and the relative merits of well defined substances versus macerated hot water plant extracts will be discussed to the end of time. just don't ascribe magical 'vital' properties to either one. by the bye, drink enough willowbark "tea" and you might succumb to salicin poisoning. it's said to have shortened Beethoven's life. (next up: homeopathy doesn't cause any side effects)

You seem to think I'm arguing with you. I'm not. I'm trying to explain why people claim that "natural is better", even if they understand that the active components are the same.

Also, you're the one talking about magical vital properties, not me. It's a well-established fact that substances in combination can have a different overall effect than they do in isolation. There's nothing magical about it.

Homeopathy is an absolute scam. And yes, there are scammers who take advantage of the 'natural is better' idea to sell useless products.

Re: Chemists Were Wrong About Splenda

#119

Post by bunderbunder »

RealCasually wrote: post #59
nilkn wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll admit that I do enjoy the occasional sugary soda, but I try to keep that to a minimum. I find that I prefer flavored sparkling water like La Croix (which does not contain any sweetener) over diet soda. I still don't find La Croix in restaurants hardly ever, but it's becoming more and more common in grocery stores.

Discovering La Croix has changed my life. The Cherry Lemon one (which seems to only be available at Target?) is incredible.

Sacrilege! Pamplemousse forever.

Re: Chemists Were Wrong About Splenda

#120

Post by mixmastamyk »

ajmurmann wrote: post #62
mixmastamyk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero also has less caffeine.

Thanks for this! This was a huge shocker and I immediately had to go confirm it. Because of the way the branding is, I had assumed that Zero would have more caffeine.

Yep, if I have a coke at lunch I'll pick zero if I got a large amount of caffeine in the morning, otherwise diet.
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