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Industry pushes sugary products, while obfuscating the health hazards

ucsf.edu

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Re: Industry pushes sugary products, while obfuscating the health hazards

#71

Post by solveit »

b_tterc_p wrote: post #61
solveit wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The link I included specifically says: > With Type 2 diabetes, though we know sugar doesn’t directly cause Type 2 diabetes, you are more likely to get it if you are overweight. You gain weight when you take in more calories than your body needs, and sugary foods and drinks contain a lot of calories. It's misleading to talk about sugar when the problem is obesity. I don't have answers to your questions as I am not an…

It’s misleading to deflect from sugar onto obesity when consumption of sugary foods is a primary driver of obesity.

Sugar consumption is a driver of obesity. It's very unclear how much it contributes because epidemiology is ridiculously hard.

The British Diabetes Association specifically states that sugar does not directly cause diabetes. It's important (and honest) to emphasize the distinction because this is the opposite of the prevailing view.

Note that I'm not saying it's fine to eat lots of sugar. Sugar is definitely terrible for your teeth and that alone should be enough to stay away. I'm just saying that the article is being intellectually dishonest, and that's wrong even if the conclusion (eat less sugar) is completely correct.

Re: Industry pushes sugary products, while obfuscating the health hazards

#72

Post by james_s_tayler »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #6
maxxxxx wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The free market can only work if everybody had perfect information and no secrets. Otherwise whoever has more information can manipulate reality.

Meaning the free market doesn't work without strict continual intervention.

I think we need a new term. Let's call it the Free Enough Market.

Re: Industry pushes sugary products, while obfuscating the health hazards

#73

Post by will_brown »

abaldwin7302 wrote: post #65
b_tterc_p wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s misleading to deflect from sugar onto obesity when consumption of sugary foods is a primary driver of obesity.

It's an important distinction though. It's possible to consume sugary foods and not be obese. See twinkie diet.

But skinny people get diabeties also...and if you follow a Twinkie diet and manage to keep your calories consistent and not gain weight you will be priming your body for obesity.

All those twinkies have triggered insulin, a side effect of which increases cell size, with significant impact on fat cells. If your fat cells are enlarged from insulin, then you are primed to become obese because your cells are ready to store more than someone who hasn’t been wrecking their body with insulin spikes from twinkies all day every day.

Re: Industry pushes sugary products, while obfuscating the health hazards

#74

Post by Gibbon1 »

chki wrote: post #35
influx wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its Amazing how much less sugar common foods in Germany have than the USA. It took us a bit to adjust but when we got back all the bakery sweets here tasted disgusting. Wish we could change the culture here to be closer to European in that aspect.

When I was about 10 years old my parents took my siblings and me on a 5 week vacation to the US (I'm from Europe). It was a lot of fun, but I distinctly remember that it was impossible for me to eat the bread that we would buy at the supermarket because it was just too sweet. And this was not because my parents just bought some bread but they actually tried to find some "normal" tasting bread and it was not possible.…

I used to eat rye bread because it was heartier than white or 'wheat' bread. Because unlike modern wheat rye still had historical ratio's of carbs to protein.

Now it's just rye flavored white bread.

And all the healthy hippie dippie bread have buttloads of hidden sugars in it.

So now I mostly avoid bread.

Re: Industry pushes sugary products, while obfuscating the health hazards

#75

Post by solveit »

will_brown wrote: post #63
solveit wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The link I included specifically says: > With Type 2 diabetes, though we know sugar doesn’t directly cause Type 2 diabetes, you are more likely to get it if you are overweight. You gain weight when you take in more calories than your body needs, and sugary foods and drinks contain a lot of calories. It's misleading to talk about sugar when the problem is obesity. I don't have answers to your questions as I am not an…

>It's misleading to talk about sugar when the problem is obesity. Really because plenty of skinny people have type 2 and plenty of obese people do not have type 2...but everyone who has type 2 has overconsumed sugar that is regulated in the blood by insulin and their bodies has stopped responding to insulin and most who have type 2 can reverse it by cutting out sugar consumption that requires insulin and making other…

I don't know enough about diabetes to conclusively respond one way or another, but my understanding is that while being diabetic means that overconsuming sugar will be bad because your body can't regulate blood sugar, a non-diabetic person consuming copious amounts of sugar will not directly cause them to develop diabetes.

Re your first sentence, plenty of smokers don't have cancer while plenty of nonsmokers do. Everything in epidemiology is bound to be confounded to hell and back, which is why I'm going with the conclusions drawn by the British Diabetes Association and not the UCSF people that "just knew" something was wrong.

Re: Industry pushes sugary products, while obfuscating the health hazards

#76

Post by jeklj »

maxxxxx wrote: post #5

It's mind boggling how much sugar is in everything. Just looked at my girlfriend's Starbucks Chai tea container. 100g sugar! She would be better off drinking a bottle of Coke. And Starbucks are supposed to be good guys . On a related note: how do they get that much sugar into these drinks? If I made a liter of Chai tea and poured 100g sugar into it I don't think it would be drinkable.

Isn’t that normal for chai? They sure do put a lot of jaggery in there.

Re: Industry pushes sugary products, while obfuscating the health hazards

#77

Post by solveit »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #64
solveit wrote: post #44

The article, while making copious allusions to damning research, is light on actual damning research and heavy on rhetoric. The linked website ( http://sugarscience.ucsf.edu ) is also full of references to studies that are suggestive but nothing conclusive. What's really worrying is the constant refrain that they just "knew" something had to be wrong. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence in their research. They then ke…

So here are some facts: Type II diabetes used to be rare. Obesity was not uncommon however the incidence was stable. Now both have become prevalent in the last 50 years. You know what I do when faced with a poorly understood system that used to behave before a bunch of changes were made but now does not? I revert back all the suspicious changes.

Yes, but you're cherrypicking changes based on what feels like should be relevant. A good deal has changed in the last 50 years, we can't (and don't want to) roll everything back, and it's unclear what should be rolled back.

Seriously, there's a reason epidemiology is a field smart people dedicate lifetimes to. This shit is difficult.

Anyway, my point wasn't that current levels of sugar consumption are fine, it's clearly not. I'm saying that the article is being dishonest which should be relevant even if their recommendations are good.

Re: Industry pushes sugary products, while obfuscating the health hazards

#78

Post by Jill_the_Pill »

jacobolus wrote: post #28
skilled wrote: post #25

The crazy part is that a lot of people would go absolutely insane if their sugar was to be cut off all of a sudden. That's the one thing we don't want to hear. And in doing so, pretend that everything is great. The same goes for canned and long shelf-life food. If you eat a healthy diet then getting naturally occuring sugars is not a problem. And I understand the argument that eating 'healthy' might not be possible f…

What’s wrong with canned food?

The plastic liners leach into acidic foods.

Re: Industry pushes sugary products, while obfuscating the health hazards

#79

Post by Gibbon1 »

jlawson wrote: post #52
maxxxxx wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The free market can only work if everybody had perfect information and no secrets. Otherwise whoever has more information can manipulate reality.

The free market can work very well if various individuals are missing a lot of information. In fact, the free market is the only system known that works so well in situations where every actor is very information-poor. Our economy is far more complex than any person or organization can understand. The information, and decision-making, are distributed. In contrast, socialism can only work if the central planners have…

> In fact, the free market is the only system known that works so well in situations where every actor is very information-poor.

cough

Re: Industry pushes sugary products, while obfuscating the health hazards

#80

Post by Puer »

will_brown wrote: post #67
Puer wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also be interested in this. Many soft drink recipes are well-established and rarely adjusted because even small, well-intentioned changes can damage the brand and customer loyalty. Furthermore, it seems counterintuitive that producers would increase sugar content by as much as 1.57 times because that would inherently cost them significantly more money over time.

Well it’s also the type of sugar. Before the 70’s HFCS didn’t exist and it didn’t hit mainstream until the early 80’s. Soft drinks are now predominately made with HFCS which includes multiple sugars, some that are broken down in the liver and others that go into the blood steam and require insulin. Keep in mind one of the reasons most foods include HFCS is because it’s subsidized and cheaper than say cane sugar, so t…

You're right, but the aforementioned "12/13" years ago was only 2006. I don't think many significant changes have been made in that period, but I may be wrong.
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