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Is Sugar Killing Us?

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Re: Is Sugar Killing Us?

#51

Post by insulanian »

iopq wrote: post #34
kurttheviking wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to be a rare instance that violates Betteridge's Law.

It's not true, sugar is not worse for you than white bread. White bread has a higher glycemic index than sugar. Sugar does have a lot of fructose in it, but fruits have higher fructose content because they have less glucose. Reality, turns out, is more complicated than black and white.

> White bread has a higher glycemic index than sugar.

Doesn't seem to be so: http://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/glycemic-index

Re: Is Sugar Killing Us?

#52

Post by calvano915 »

Third year nutrition undergrad. Simple sugar consumption as a high percentage of carbohydrates/calories has the effect of chronic inflammation via oxidative stress, which is a factor of diabetes and other chronic disease.

This article briefly discusses inflammation and has mostly sound nutritional advice: http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/what-you-eat-c...

This lecture by Dr. Robert Lustig has been very popular on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM . Unsure of its veracity since I watched this quite a few years ago.

Many other factors should be considered as many have mentioned like micronutrient intake/absorption, physical activity, gut biome, and genetic predisposition.

Re: Is Sugar Killing Us?

#53

Post by analog31 »

kazinator wrote: post #36
iopq wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not true, sugar is not worse for you than white bread. White bread has a higher glycemic index than sugar. Sugar does have a lot of fructose in it, but fruits have higher fructose content because they have less glucose. Reality, turns out, is more complicated than black and white.

White bread is just syntactic sugar for simpler sugars, and destructures into them in your gut.

So far as i know, the same is true of sucrose. Only simple sugars pass into the bloodstream.

Re: Is Sugar Killing Us?

#54

Post by iopq »

insulanian wrote: post #51
iopq wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not true, sugar is not worse for you than white bread. White bread has a higher glycemic index than sugar. Sugar does have a lot of fructose in it, but fruits have higher fructose content because they have less glucose. Reality, turns out, is more complicated than black and white.

> White bread has a higher glycemic index than sugar. Doesn't seem to be so: http://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/glycemic-index

Your link has bread at 70 and sugar at 68. QED

Re: Is Sugar Killing Us?

#55

Post by randomdata »

iopq wrote: post #31
kumarski wrote: post #9

Increase fats? No biggie, you'll get satiated too fast to overconsume. Increase proteins? You satiate even faster. Increase sugar? You will eat a lot more and your leptin signal gets all sorts of messed up.

That's not true, some people can eat a lot of cheese. http://www.irkitated.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/eat-bloc... Things are not as simple as "don't eat sugar"

To be fair, cheese usually contains sugar.

Re: Is Sugar Killing Us?

#56

Post by mads »

mgarfias wrote: post #43

Recently diagnosed diabetic here. Yes, I'm fat, but no excessively so. When I tell people I'm diabetic they're confused as I don't look the type. What I can say is that I can see the effects of cortisol (stress) on my fasting glucose levels. When my ex does something that causes strife, my glucose levels will be 20-30 pts higher for the next few days. In general, I ate fairly decently, and didn't consume mass amounts…

Maybe there is a relationship between sugar consumption and our ability to cope with stress? I found, that when I stopped eating sugar, it wasn't exactly a big revelation, but merely a subtle change (mentally), that made me somehow less anxious and when I had irrational anxiety "attacks", I was able to suppress them better.

I don't have any better way to explain this psychological stuff, but for me there was a change for sure. A subtle one, but it made a big impact on my life long term.

The reason I stopped eating sugar was that I saw a pattern in my moods depending on what I ate. I initially thought that it my eating habits were dictated by life circumstances and that life circumstance were dictating my mood, but two things stood out, which left me to try going without sugar.

First I wanted to loose weight, so I went on a protein only diet during a very stressful time and it made me feel pretty good. Second, I was feeling even better, when I was fasting. Third, I had my worst "breakdown", when I was training for a marathon (I ran many, so it wasn't marathon stress) and ingested a lot of sugar.

Re: Is Sugar Killing Us?

#57

Post by iopq »

randomdata wrote: post #55
iopq wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true, some people can eat a lot of cheese. http://www.irkitated.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/eat-bloc... Things are not as simple as "don't eat sugar"

To be fair, cheese usually contains sugar.

Very little. Even most lactose-intolerant people can eat a little bit of cheese. Aged cheese contains only trace amounts because all of the lactose has been processed by bacteria at that point.

Re: Is Sugar Killing Us?

#58

Post by taeric »

greywolve wrote: post #21
taeric wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shifting from one culprit to the next would merely further a witch hunt. I in no way want to suppress the search for evidence in this. However, evidence is pretty high that we could cut sugar and have zero negative effects. The largest cut would be in what people are drinking nowdays. (It is truly baffling to see how much sugar the average person consumes from soda.) Consider, unless you are drinking multiple glasses…

Sugar is just an empty calorie, there's plenty of studies that also show that it has no real net negative effect. The problem is when your diet consists primarily of empty calories, then obviously you are going to have health problems, from lack of nutrients. If your diet is nutrient rich, a bit of extra sugar will not do anything bad.

And a calorie is just a proxy for energy stored. It will certainly correlate with energy related metrics. Just like kloc will correlate with code related metrics.

However, if you are in position to measure other items, I'd highly suggest it.

Re: Is Sugar Killing Us?

#59

Post by drvdevd »

mads wrote: post #56
mgarfias wrote: post #43

Recently diagnosed diabetic here. Yes, I'm fat, but no excessively so. When I tell people I'm diabetic they're confused as I don't look the type. What I can say is that I can see the effects of cortisol (stress) on my fasting glucose levels. When my ex does something that causes strife, my glucose levels will be 20-30 pts higher for the next few days. In general, I ate fairly decently, and didn't consume mass amounts…

Maybe there is a relationship between sugar consumption and our ability to cope with stress? I found, that when I stopped eating sugar, it wasn't exactly a big revelation, but merely a subtle change (mentally), that made me somehow less anxious and when I had irrational anxiety "attacks", I was able to suppress them better. I don't have any better way to explain this psychological stuff, but for me there was a change…

I'm very much of the opinion that sugar should be considered a psychotropic substance in line with Caffeine and other addictive drugs. When I crash from sugar, it feels very much like any other addictive substance - I feel my mind craving another hit.

[edit] I love caffeine btw, so I'm not saying this is inherently bad -- just something we often forget.

Re: Is Sugar Killing Us?

#60

Post by taeric »

Laforet wrote: post #20
taeric wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The verbiage "balanced diet" is begging the question. What is a balanced diet? If it is just "one that works" than this is akin to knowing how to efficiently sort a large array from the definition of "elements are in in increasing order." Well, yes, but how do we get there? That is, at best, claims of a balanced diet resort to existence statements, but never evidence ones. I am not going to claim I eat healthy, or th…

The human body have an amazing ability to adapt to the environment and we will survive as long as energy intake match energy expenditure. The only category that need some attention is protein where having too little or too much can lead to issues. An Inuit from Greenland is no more or less healthy than an American or farmer from Brazil because of what they eat.

I'm not sure I see where you were going. Which, check my history, is not too say you are wrong. Even odds I'm just missing it.

However, it seems you are assuming that we have adapted to our current diet. Possible? Surely. As an argument, though, this is appealing to the incredible nature of our bodies. I'd prefer evidence.

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