Is it time to treat sugar like smoking? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#101

Post by richk449 » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 6:41 PM UTC

gregmac wrote: post #60

I started eating keto over a year ago, and found that I totally lost my appetite for sugary and other carb-based foods, so have just kept it up. One thing that was eye opening to me was from paying close attention to food labels. I used to try to mostly eat "healthy", so I'd tend to buy the "low calorie" options. What surprised me was how basically they just substitute fat for sugar. Ceasar dressing normal has 1g car…

> I used to try to mostly eat "healthy", so I'd tend to buy the "low calorie" options.

It amazes me how many people make this mistake.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#102

Post by conceptme » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 6:42 PM UTC

will_brown wrote: post #52

conceptme wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No the body will convert all sugars / carbs the same. The only difference is how fast it will get in your blood.

Not all sugar is actually processed by the body the same though. Fructose gets processed in the liver whereas glucose goes into the blood stream triggering insulin response. Other very fine points are glycemic index, for example a low glycemic index food breakdown to glucose, bypassing the liver, but is absorbed into the bloodstream relatively slowly for glucose and minimizes the insulin spike/response promoting more…

Yes that's definitely true I meant they will end up as the same end result. The fast sugars will end up causing you want more of it again in a shorter amount of time so it is ofcourse better to eat veggies instead of a candy bar to get your required energy.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#103

Post by shijie » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 6:42 PM UTC

buzzerbetrayed wrote: post #72

teamski wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exercise is important especially for your brain but bad nutrition has a much higher impact than no exercise.

Out of curiosity, how did you become so knowledgeable about nutrition? This comment, and your other (now deleted) comment make it seem like you are really confident that you know more than everyone else. My biggest complaint about learning about nutrition is that everyone says opposing things, and it is really difficult for me to know what is right and what is snake oil. Any tips on learning the “right” way to be hea…

Not the person you’re replying to but I suggest listening through Chris Masterjohn’s “mastering nutrition” podcast. I am a huge fan of his evidence-based approach. He has a PHD in nutrition and while that in and of itself is not the reason I hold his opinion in high regard, at least he’s credentialed. Highly recommend.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#104

Post by bunderbunder » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

innot wrote: post #32

darkpuma wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That it doesn't work in Russia is far from proof that it couldn't work elsewhere. Edit: Prohibition on advertising is not prohibition on alcohol. I reject the relevance of this suggested equivalency. There is no risk of organized crime getting supercharged by a prohibition on alcohol advertisements .

Alcohol prohibition in the US that happened in the twenties doesn't seem to have helped as well?

I guess it depends on what you mean by "helped". I've seen a few figures, none of which indicated that it had no effect on alcohol consumption in the US, and none of which indicated that it came anywhere close to eradicating alcohol consumption, either. It's naturally hard to estimate, given that it was all done clandestinely so there aren't really any official figures to use, but I got the impression that you could say with some measure of confidence that it reduced consumption by somewhere between 30% and 70%.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#105

Post by zanny » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 6:45 PM UTC

_bxg1 wrote: post #58

It'd be much harder than cigarettes to define and enforce, and more prone to loopholes. What's a "sugary food"? Grams of sugar? They'd just sell fun-sized. Percentage mass? That could impact fruit. Added sugar? What is "non-added sugar"? Specific product categories like soda and candy? They'd just walk the line with things like "sweetened sparkling water". I support the idea in principle, and I hope they figure out a…

If I eat a strawberry thats non-added sugar. If I sprinkle sugar on the strawberry, thats added sugar.

It would be pretty easy to deduce the distinction between added and not sugars - if you put a sugar in your food and list it in the ingredients it has added sugar. If the thing as its grown has sugar then its not an added sugar.

If that leads to the GMO modification of crops even further to produce more sugars thats a lot less harmful than the status quo adding of corn syrup / cane sugar / etc to everything.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#106

Post by bunderbunder » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 6:45 PM UTC

lawl wrote: post #83

bunderbunder wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

{ "Advertising increases demand for a product.", "Banning advertising does not reduce demand for a product." } I think you really do gotta pick one there, because each implies the other's opposite. You don't really even need two different studies to demonstrate "demand is higher in the presence of advertising" and "demand is lower in the absence of advertising". It's mathematically impossible to experimentally demons…

Isn't a third option for advertising simply to increase brand awareness? It's been a while since I last watched TV, but I remember ads for laundry detergent for example. Is it reasonable to say that people wash their clothes more often because there's ads for laundry detergent on tv? I think these ads were designed to make you grab their product when you're in the super market because you've seen their brand before.…

It's a third option, but it doesn't seem all that likely to me. It's much easier to see how demand for laundry detergent would be inelastic than to see how demand for alcoholic beverages would be inelastic.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#107

Post by kazinator » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 6:46 PM UTC

I'm not harmed if I'm sitting next to a someone who is consuming sugar.

What we should have is health insurance premiums based on risk factors such as obesity, even in public systems.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#108

Post by iliaznk » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 6:46 PM UTC

moroleth wrote: post #62

umvi wrote: post #2

How about we start treating alcohol like smoking? For example ban alcohol advertising like we have with tobacco and I bet society would improve in a lot of unforeseen ways (besides the obvious reduction in alcohol related deaths and diseases and family issues).

Alcohol helps people socialize and is significantly harder to get addicted to. It's also far less harmful when consumed in moderation, no matter how many elusive studies want to push how "there is no safe alcohol dosage" because you might have 15% more risk of cancer in 30 years or something. I agree advertising is bad but you're going to have a hell of a hard time convincing billions of people that they should stop…

Alcohol helps people socialize and is significantly harder to get addicted to – the 1st part of your sentence seems to contradict the 2nd: nowadays people can't think of getting together and not drinking and that's to me exactly because they got addicted to socializing under alcohol so much they can't socialize normally without it.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#109

Post by zanny » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 6:47 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #26

darkpuma wrote: post #9

That's simply not going to happen because there is no "second hand sugar" scenario. Even alcohol, which is incredibly destructive to third parties by any measure (domestic abuse, drunk driving, etc), hasn't successfully been publicly vilified to the same extent as smoking.

It was, back in the 1920's.

It was a moral panic though, rather than a reflection on the legitimate bodily harm of consumption. The prohibitionists were not arguing to save alcoholics livers, they were arguing to ban perceived unchristian behavior.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#110

Post by moroleth » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 6:48 PM UTC

eternalny1 wrote: post #87

moroleth wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alcohol helps people socialize and is significantly harder to get addicted to. It's also far less harmful when consumed in moderation, no matter how many elusive studies want to push how "there is no safe alcohol dosage" because you might have 15% more risk of cancer in 30 years or something. I agree advertising is bad but you're going to have a hell of a hard time convincing billions of people that they should stop…

> significantly harder to get addicted to Are you sure about that? It has negatively affected millions of people in the US. "A new study published in JAMA Psychiatry this month finds that the rate of alcohol use disorder, or what's colloquially known as “alcoholism,” rose by a shocking 49 percent in the first decade of the 2000s." One in eight American adults. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullartic…

I'm talking about typical usage in a social setting. People may drink a few beers a couple days in a week for months, or even years, and quit without any issues. Hardly the same with an equivalent "social dose" in cigarettes.