Live data from Hacker News

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

aeon.co

201–210 of 221 posts

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

#201
post #72
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…

More anecdata: * I did the same at the beginning of the summer, cutting out most processed sugar (glucose) and corn syrup while increasing fruit intake (but not by much). * I also starting skipping meals/moving meal times around, and eating less at dinner, but otherwise did not change the things that I ate. * I am exercising a lot less than before, owing to a foot injury in the middle of the summer. I've dropped near…

Consider maybe cutting out your kids' sugar as well. No need for them to be eating all those sugary foods if you've found it to be unhealthy (and it is).

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

#202
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…

Are you referring to 'sugar' or carbs?

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

#203
post #102
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, butter makes the other stuff more delicious, making you eat just a little more each time.

I find a great substitute is olive oil where I'd use butter for non-cooking (eg. instead of butter on pasta or instead of butter on bread). It's not quite as tasty but still a huge improvement over dry, and it's healthier. For cooking, I understand olive oil is unhealthy (I think you create carcinogens as a side-effect), as are many other oils, but that coconut oil doesn't do this because of its different melting tem…

I encourage you to try some top-shelf olive oil, if you haven't already -- I find that it blows butter out of the water in most cases.

I initially felt the same way as you wrt tastiness, but had a friend bring me back a tin of oil from Italy recently and whoooo boy it's just the most phenomenal thing. Add a bit of salt & pepper to a shallow bowl of oil for dipping bread.

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

#204
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's definitely not related to what I'm talking about. I don't believe I've ever seen any good evidence related to the notion of "alkaline" and "acidic" foods. The top result for "dissociated diet" doesn't sound credible at all, to me. (Sure, it offers reasonable advice, like "eat lots of vegetables", but its reasoning is completely made up, as far as I can tell.) And, the example meal plan on the same first re…

Sorry, IIRC it was called alimentación disociada in Spanish. I tried the probable translation, made a search and assumed the links were pointing to the same thing. I just browsed the book 20 years ago and it said nothing about ph, but about avoiding certain mixes of proteins, carbs and fats. The owner of the book said it had helped him a lot, but I didn't take much interest because that guy was not exactly thin and l…

Ah, thanks for clarifying. I've got several friends who believe in various forms of the pH diet. They also tend to be folks who believe in a lot of other woo, so I'm a bit trigger happy in shooting down pH-based diet theories (those diets are particularly ridiculous because they often categorize quite acidic foods into the alkaline category and vice versa). If there's ever been a good study about it, I'd certainly read it.

I think there's a lot of superstition in general, but one could certainly have independently noticed that eating sugar or fat alone (say butter or honey) is somewhat self-regulating. You get sick of it pretty quick. But, put them together in a pie or pastry or donut or something and suddenly it gets really easy to eat hundreds of calories worth of sugar and fat in a few quick bites.

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

#205
post #151

I'm lean and I eat a lot of sugar. Sugar is not a toxin. It's a source of energy. I'll eat some sugar and go to the gym. I'll come back and eat more sugar to replace the glycogen I drained. What happens to overweight people has NOTHING to do with lean people who exercise.

Sugar is a drug that is addictive and releases dopamine when consumed which is why you feel good when you eat it and have cravings for it.

Sugar doesn't meet the medical criteria to be considered an addictive drug.

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

#206

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 avoi…

Sugar was not readily available until relatively recently.

Sugar was available in boatloads in the 70's in Europe. Liters of soda and candy were consumed by kids, yet fat kids were a rarity. 'Normal' food didn't have all the hidden sugars, and was far less 'designed'. Also, meals were 3 a day, and 'sncking' frowned upon by parents. Another big difference was that kids and even adults naturally excersized all day, running, cycling, playing outside. The 80's made the streets unsafe to play do to the massive increase in car traffic, and those same cars made sure adults remained seated all day. The food industry had breakthrough successes in finding out ways to get people to eat more and more without reducing the hunger/craving, and started campaigning for 'snacking'. The resulting obesity crisis also needed to be social engineered so that people wouldn't stop overeating because of the unavoidable effects on body and health. So the fat-pride movement was nudged into existence, and even discussing the subject outside of the well controlled message of 'you don't get fat from eating' made taboo, while installing a victim culture externalizing all factors.

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

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I remember reading a study that indicated that simple carbs combined with fat are worse than either fat or simple carbs alone. I can't find the study at the moment, but the gist of it was that a high fat, high sugar, meal will be metabolized differently than either in isolation and also that it triggers cravings for more fat and sugar. So, a keto diet is fine. Eating bread every now and then is fine. But, something l…

I haven't seen a specific study but I have read assertions along the same lines: either low-fat or low-carb can work.

I believe the insulin-centric explanation (I'm a low carb eater and this is the perspective I tend to see) would be something like:

- Low carb and high fat: The fat goes to your fat cells (that is, whatever fat you don't burn for fuel immediately after eating), but since your insulin is low the fat is readily burned off relatively soon.

- Low fat and high carb: The carbs cause an insulin spike, and insulin inhibits fat burning, BUT since you haven't stuffed much fat into your fat cells, there isn't much to burn off when your insulin eventually comes back down. You need to be relatively insulin sensitive, so that your insulin level does come back down. Even if you're insulin resistant, this diet might still work if you eat only a tiny amount of fat.

- High fat and high carb: Fat goes to your fat cells and insulin levels are high, which inhibits fat burning, so you gain fat faster than you burn it.

(Edits: I thought Markdown lists would work but they didn't.)

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

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fiber has 0 calories, which implies people in the US in general barely eat fruit and vegetables. No one overdosed on fiber. It's quite silly to claim that 2000kcal of legume carbohydrate (more than 300 grams of carbs) will alter my hormones or metabolism in a negative way, so demonizing a macronutrient is bad science.

> Fiber has 0 calories, which implies people in the US in general barely eat fruit and vegetables This is true. The vast majority of Americans do not eat sufficient fruit and vegetables. This 2015 CDC study [1] concluded that only 13.1% of the population consumes enough fruit, and only 8.9% eat enough veggies. > It's quite silly to claim that 2000kcal of legume carbohydrate (more than 300 grams of carbs) will alter m…

Commenter above me equated sugar with carbs, and hinted a government conspiracy theory of how its recommendation influenced people to overeat sugar and become sick.

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

#209

The recent demonization of sugar substitutes hasn't helped either. The problem with studies that link them to weight gain is that they confuse correlation and caution then make some wild unsubstantiated stab at causation by guessing that maybe they cause insulin issues. I went looking for information on that, and found and excellent article by a diabetic site summarizing the evidence and treating each substitute as i…

Dude you need to read up about sweetners

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

#210
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cut thirty pounds in four weeks (yes, thirty pounds in four weeks, the first twenty of which were gone in two) by making no change in my behavior or diet other than cutting out the sugar I was putting in my coffee. I drink coffee all day long as a programmer, and used quite a ton of sugar. Double or triple what you're thinking. Anyway, the only change I made was cutting out that sugar, and I dropped thirty pounds i…

Good for you! You should know, though, that this is primarily water weight lost, and it's common when first starting a diet. 30lbs of fat lost would be a caloric deficit of around 100k calories. Don't get discouraged if you can't replicate that result with further time. What's the change in your waist size been like?

Well, I didn't start a diet. All I did was cut sugar. I did and still do run a couple of miles and lift weights a few times per week, and ate the same meals every day (because I buy in bulk and prepare them ahead of time). I track all my food and water intake and exercise activity with my Fitbit (unintentional plug). It was an environment with tightly controlled variables. Nothing in my routine changed except the subtraction of sugar from the coffee I was drinking.
Post reply on HN