Live data from Hacker News

Is Sugar Killing Us?

wsj.com

171–180 of 274 posts

Re: Is Sugar Killing Us?

#171
post #124

Article is paywalled, but anecdotally, last year I inched past that magic A1C reading where the doctor tells you you are Type 2 Diabetic. I switched to a low-carb/high-fat diet ( https://reddit.com/r/keto ) and fairly rapidly lost 30 pounds while eating things like avocados, eggs, cheese, butter, coconut oil and bacon. Several months of this diet and my A1C has dipped back to almost-normal, not even "pre-diabetic" le…

You are basically guarranteeed to get a false negative A1C on keto.

Re: Is Sugar Killing Us?

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are costs to gluconeogenesis (glucose via protein catabolism), kidney issues to name one (deamination producing ammonia). The body does not synthesize glucose from fatty acids (beta-oxidation occurs producing aceytl-coA in the mitochondria, thus producing energy, but aceytl-CoA cannot be converted upwards in the pathway to glucose). A small amount of glucose can/does get created from glycerol. Nutrition recomme…

I'm always skeptical when I hear "Nutrition recommendations" because it implies some sort of authority. Nutrition recommendations from who? The USDA? It's worth reading the history of the food pyramid. Here's a quote from wikipedia: "The first chart suggested to the USDA by nutritional experts in 1992 featured fruits and vegetables as the biggest group, not breads. This chart was overturned at the hand of special int…

Skepticism is important for any advice. MyPlate/USDA dietary guidelines are updated often, based on all the research and debunking that has happened before and since 1992. As I mentioned in another comment, it's a good place to start for most people. There is going to be some influences affecting their recommendations but most people can benefit from the overall approach.

A diet with high carbs should be mostly complex carbs. There is no minimum refined carb recommendation. The only recommendation is to limit added sugars to <10% of daily kcals. That recommendation may be reduced further in later revisions.

Re: Is Sugar Killing Us?

#173
post #156
post #124

Article is paywalled, but anecdotally, last year I inched past that magic A1C reading where the doctor tells you you are Type 2 Diabetic. I switched to a low-carb/high-fat diet ( https://reddit.com/r/keto ) and fairly rapidly lost 30 pounds while eating things like avocados, eggs, cheese, butter, coconut oil and bacon. Several months of this diet and my A1C has dipped back to almost-normal, not even "pre-diabetic" le…

almost eliminating one of three macro nutrients probably led you to consume far fewer calories. the reduction is calories is what causes weight loss, this is not a magic effect of consuming less sugar. your body will not lose weight without a reduction in caloric intake, that you successfully lost weight is proof that your new diet was a caloric deficit. i'm glad you had such success, i just wanted to point out to ot…

Calorie cutting is definitely part of it, but it is not the whole picture. I've done calorie-restrictive diets that were more carb-based (low-fat) in the past and saw very minor weight loss in comparison. I think this works differently in overall healthy people versus someone like me who is predisposed/skewed towards type 2 diabetes - where the insulin response is all screwed up.

Re: Is Sugar Killing Us?

#174
post #124

Article is paywalled, but anecdotally, last year I inched past that magic A1C reading where the doctor tells you you are Type 2 Diabetic. I switched to a low-carb/high-fat diet ( https://reddit.com/r/keto ) and fairly rapidly lost 30 pounds while eating things like avocados, eggs, cheese, butter, coconut oil and bacon. Several months of this diet and my A1C has dipped back to almost-normal, not even "pre-diabetic" le…

It sounds like you're already doing the right thing (congrats!), but if you're interested in the subject "The Obesity Code" by Jason Fung is an incredibly good book. It delves into why/how of type 2 diabetes and how it can be cured/managed.

Re: Is Sugar Killing Us?

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always skeptical when I hear "Nutrition recommendations" because it implies some sort of authority. Nutrition recommendations from who? The USDA? It's worth reading the history of the food pyramid. Here's a quote from wikipedia: "The first chart suggested to the USDA by nutritional experts in 1992 featured fruits and vegetables as the biggest group, not breads. This chart was overturned at the hand of special int…

Skepticism is important for any advice. MyPlate/USDA dietary guidelines are updated often, based on all the research and debunking that has happened before and since 1992. As I mentioned in another comment, it's a good place to start for most people. There is going to be some influences affecting their recommendations but most people can benefit from the overall approach. A diet with high carbs should be mostly compl…

I think we both agree that complex carbs are better than refined ones, and there are foods that are somewhat heavy in carbohydrates that are still good for you (kale, for instance).

I'm super skeptical that 45-65% of diet being carbohydrates is healthy though. Unlike proteins and fats carbohydrates don't have much nutritional value other than being useful for creating glucose. Since your body can synthesize glucose anyway, you don't really need that much. In terms of fiber, you can get that from vegetables. I don't necessarily think you have to cut out carbs completely and go on ketosis, but of all the major macronutrients carbs are the least useful, so it seems odd that they should be the vast majority of the diet, especially when we've known for at least a hundred years that carbohydrates are fattening. (I'm amused when people act like ketogenic diets are "new" -- historically high fat/low carb diets were common. And historically we didn't have an obesity problem.)

Re: Is Sugar Killing Us?

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skepticism is important for any advice. MyPlate/USDA dietary guidelines are updated often, based on all the research and debunking that has happened before and since 1992. As I mentioned in another comment, it's a good place to start for most people. There is going to be some influences affecting their recommendations but most people can benefit from the overall approach. A diet with high carbs should be mostly compl…

I think we both agree that complex carbs are better than refined ones, and there are foods that are somewhat heavy in carbohydrates that are still good for you (kale, for instance). I'm super skeptical that 45-65% of diet being carbohydrates is healthy though. Unlike proteins and fats carbohydrates don't have much nutritional value other than being useful for creating glucose. Since your body can synthesize glucose a…

"the body can synthesize glucose" is a horribly misleading statement. The body can create glucose only by destroying protein and the amount it can create is limited by the buildup of toxic waste the process leaves behind. It's absolutely not the same thing as the body synthesizing vitamin A from carotene. You will be much better off eating carbohydrates, and 45% may be still too little.

Re: Is Sugar Killing Us?

#177
post #139
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the point you made though. You specifically said that it's hard to overconsume fat and protein. It really isn't. When we look at what obese people eat they aren't just eating too much sugar. They're eating too much of everything, including fat. Cutting out the sugar would help (especially because it's often a pointless addition with a painless substitution eg soda to non-sugar soda), but it would not be en…

There's a flaw in your logic. True; obese people aren't just eating too much sugar, but also fat (and protein), but the problem is still the sugar. The sugar makes you hungry, making you able to eat more fat (which is highly calorie dense). If you cut the sugar (and other high GI/II carbs), you will eat a lot less of the rest. Sure, the problem in calorie intake is the combination, but eating just fat and protein is…

> The sugar makes you hungry, making you able to eat more fat (which is highly calorie dense). If you cut the sugar (and other high GI/II carbs), you will eat a lot less of the rest.

Do you have any credible research on this? I'd be interested to read it.

Re: Is Sugar Killing Us?

#178

What's interesting is that most of the population of this planet does not even realize that glucose is not the only source of energy and that we can be powered entirely by beta-hydroxybutyrate (which comes from fats); our carbohydrate requirement is zero because our body can synthesize all the glucose it needs. Here is a pretty good and scientific talk about what is happening (warning > 1 hour long): https://www.yout…

Yes we evolve from a common ancestor with the monkey, which used to eat mainly fruit, hence sugar.

Re: Is Sugar Killing Us?

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skepticism is important for any advice. MyPlate/USDA dietary guidelines are updated often, based on all the research and debunking that has happened before and since 1992. As I mentioned in another comment, it's a good place to start for most people. There is going to be some influences affecting their recommendations but most people can benefit from the overall approach. A diet with high carbs should be mostly compl…

I think we both agree that complex carbs are better than refined ones, and there are foods that are somewhat heavy in carbohydrates that are still good for you (kale, for instance). I'm super skeptical that 45-65% of diet being carbohydrates is healthy though. Unlike proteins and fats carbohydrates don't have much nutritional value other than being useful for creating glucose. Since your body can synthesize glucose a…

A large percentage of our dietary need is strictly for energy (via glucose). Carbohydrates are most efficient over fats or protein to fulfill this need, among other needs like fiber intake. Complex ones work best, not only for sustained energy but other benefits as well.

Yes we have needs for micronutrients, which are acquired from all of the macros. If your diet is truly varied, balanced, and adequate (in all three macro categories) on a regular basis you will likely not be significantly deficient in micros.

Re: Is Sugar Killing Us?

#180
This is not directly related to this article but I wonder if anybody has the same problem: Any kind of sugar gives me joint ache, headache and sometimes even fever. Even sugar from fruit not just added sugar. No blood tests have shown anything unusual and doctors don't seem to know this problem either.

Is anybody else experiencing this? It makes life quite difficult because it's really hard to avoid sugar totally.

Post reply on HN