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Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes

aeon.co

91–100 of 221 posts

Re: Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes

#91
post #10

I would like to share an anecdote. In March 2016, I was weighing 96 kilograms (211.64 pounds). I made just one change during that time which is to stop having anything with sugar. I continued to take other natural sweeteners like jaggery and honey. The rest of my diet remained the same and my activity level remained the same ( I work in IT as a network engineer in a desk job) In October 2016, I was weighing 72 kilos…

Oddly enough, I can share an anecdote too. After a health scare, I decided to change my diet. I didn't think that I was self disciplined enough to count calories, so I arbitrarily eliminated certain things from my diet, most notably butter. My exercise didn't change much: Cycling to work every day. I got a new bike, but it didn't make me go that much faster. Within a few months, I went from 175 to 150 pounds (about 7…

The new bike could've made your commute more efficient.

Re: Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes

#92
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must mean "stop having anything with added sugar" because humans need sugars to survive, nearly all food has natural sugars in it, and if you ate 0 grams of sugar for more than a couple of weeks you would die. I'm being a bit pedantic because it's important to understand that moderation is the key, not trying to completely eliminate one family of molecules from your diet.

if you ate 0 grams of sugar for more than a couple of weeks you would die No you absolutely would not. Your body can synthesize glucose from protein and fat, you can survive indefinitely on zero sugar. This is called ketogenic diet.

+1

IIRC both combat divers and people with certain kinds of epilepsy benefit from carb free diets as it reduces risk of passing out (for combat divers with rebreathers) and epileptic attacks (for epileptics).

Re: Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes

#93
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you ate 0 grams of sugar for more than a couple of weeks you would die No you absolutely would not. Your body can synthesize glucose from protein and fat, you can survive indefinitely on zero sugar. This is called ketogenic diet.

Considering that many essential nutrients are provided by plants which also provide sugars, you'd have to eat synthetic 'food' in order to avoid all sugars.

I guess technically you are right, even meat has some carbs in it because muscles hold some glycogen.

The closest thing I can quote is the experiment that Vilhjalmur_Stefansson and Karsten Anderson took part in, eating only meat for a few years

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilhjalmur_Stefansson#Low-carb...

http://inhumanexperiment.blogspot.com.cy/2009/09/two-brave-m...

In the end, the one-year project stretched to four years, during which time the two men ate only the meat they could kill and the fish they could catch in the Canadian Arctic. Neither of the two men suffered any adverse after-effects from their four-year experiment. It was evident to Stefansson, as it had been to William Banting, that the body could function perfectly well, remain healthy, vigorous and slender if it used a diet in which as much food was eaten as the body required, only carbohydrate was restricted and the total number of calories was ignored.

Re: Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes

#94
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why @gras's comment in this thread is marked as dead, but I agree with them. Reposting the question from the comment: > Doesn't fat make food more satisfying, making you feel fulfilled sooner?

You can click the comment permalink (the age indicator) and on that page you have the option to vouch for the person /comment if it seems appropriate. I did so and they appear to be visible again. I've seen it take two vouch operations before though.

Ah, the vouch option seems to only be available on the comment permalink, and not on the general comments page. TIL, thanks!

Re: Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes

#95
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you ate 0 grams of sugar for more than a couple of weeks you would die No you absolutely would not. Your body can synthesize glucose from protein and fat, you can survive indefinitely on zero sugar. This is called ketogenic diet.

+1 IIRC both combat divers and people with certain kinds of epilepsy benefit from carb free diets as it reduces risk of passing out (for combat divers with rebreathers) and epileptic attacks (for epileptics).

[deleted]

Re: Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes

#96
The largest hormonal change we experience isn't puberty - it's night, under the aegis of the master hormone melatonin. Almost every hormone changes.

I was overweight and had an appetite out of control a couple decades ago. For other health reasons, I adopted a natural night (real dark, can't see you hand in front of your face) and exactly the same lights on and lights off time. My extra weight vanished. My appetite didn't just lower, it changed away from salt fat and sugar (exactly what you want when starving) towards veggies and salads.

(Ten hour nights recommended as your sleep will bifurcate.)

Recommended. Nature ain't all wrong, it turns out.

Re: Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes

#97

The largest hormonal change we experience isn't puberty - it's night, under the aegis of the master hormone melatonin. Almost every hormone changes. I was overweight and had an appetite out of control a couple decades ago. For other health reasons, I adopted a natural night (real dark, can't see you hand in front of your face) and exactly the same lights on and lights off time. My extra weight vanished. My appetite d…

This sounds very wooey. Do you have anything to show this isn't the result of you wanting to change, changing habits, and your excitement at attempting change carrying through to produce some kind of placebo effect?

I get similarly suspicious when people talk about how going on keto radically changed how they felt. Maybe it is true, but in an sea of anecdotes, it's really hard to figure out what is real. Do you notice how almost all of these turn into "this is how nature actually works"? That similar belief has led people to not get cancer treatments and then die horribly, so there's gotta be more than "this is how nature works".

Congrats on your weight loss, regardless.

Re: Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes

#98
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you ate 0 grams of sugar for more than a couple of weeks you would die No you absolutely would not. Your body can synthesize glucose from protein and fat, you can survive indefinitely on zero sugar. This is called ketogenic diet.

+1 IIRC both combat divers and people with certain kinds of epilepsy benefit from carb free diets as it reduces risk of passing out (for combat divers with rebreathers) and epileptic attacks (for epileptics).

What do you think a 'carb free' diet excludes? What does it include? I'm asking, because I'm genuinely confused by the fact that all plant (veggies, fruits, seeds/grains, all of it) matter contains sugars. Do a lot of folks really sustain themselves on meat alone? Hell, not even my 100lb german shepherd can live on only meat (IIRC carnivores frequently eat stomach contents of herbivores they kill/find to get nutrients [hint: it would include sugars])

Re: Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes

#99

Ever notice how since the 1980 the mantras changed from 'eat less, exercise more' to 'fad' diets whose one common theme was 'don't consume less, but eat different'. Subsequently obesity skyrocketed and the fat-lobby made sure that anyone who even pointed out the problem got demonized. Meanwhile 'food-scientists' silently made designer drugs out of daily consumables leading to a feeding frenzy and an obesity pandemic.

I remember 1980 and it's not clear to me that the popularity of "eat less, exercise more" as advice has increased or decreased; it seems comparable (but less justifiable since it's been so ineffective in the face of obesity taking off while exercise has increased). "Fad diets" were very much seen as such well before then. By contrast, I don't remember "fat acceptance" as a thing at all back then.

Re: Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes

#100
But why has obesity not been such a problem in the past, despite sugar being available?

One point to make from the article, though: "They suggested that the physician-authors were trying to con the obese with the fraudulent argument that they could become lean without doing the hard work of curbing their perverted appetites."

If you want to really confuse what's going on, turn to moralism. Desire to judge and to avoid being judged completely messes with incentives and people will line up to the "hard working" side while avoiding the "lazy" side, regardless of what is actually true.

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