Live data from Hacker News

USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

unsettledscience.substack.com

251–260 of 296 posts

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#251
post #153
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fruit (except grapes!) has enough fiber to delay the sugar absorption for long enough that your gut biome gets first crack at it. "Metabolic disorder", aka "fatty liver disease", "processed-food disease", is a product of stripping the fiber out of almost everything. Of course juice has had its fiber stripped out. The illnesses that are killing people are products of excess uric acid that the liver emits after process…

Uric acid is a metabolite of protein. All the N's in it is the giveaway since the liver is incapable of alchemical transformation. Uric acid is a byproduct of any cell metabolizing protein. Fructose, or "fruit sugar", is the main carbohydrate in fruits and vegetables. If you are on a low-carb "keto" diet (keto is <5% carbs, most low-carb diets are no where near ketogenic) you probably get more carbs from fructose tha…

The liver is not an empty vat you dump things into that products bubble out of. It is a fact that the metabolic pathway in the liver that processes fructose does emit uric acid and fat, once the glycogen store is full. The purine component of the uric acid does not, in fact, come from protein, but from the ADP consumed in the process.

Our bodies are not, in fact, tuned to "utilize" fructose, unlike for glucose. Fructose is processed only in the liver, like other toxins, most particularly alcohol, which is processed identically. The resulting fat is shipped off to fat cells after the liver is saturated. The uric acid is released into the bloodstream to be collected by the kidneys.

The normal pathway by which fructose is processed, when it comes with adequate fiber, is through the gut biome, as I noted.

Inventing a claim of "alchemical transformation" to discount facts you are wholly ignorant of is dishonest. Maybe look things up? You could learn something.

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your ancestors spent hundreds of calories a day farming those carbs in the fields. They didn't order it straight to their door via Uber Eats.

i mean even in the 70s and 80s people werent ham planets like they are now

Fats were far more prevalent in the 70s and 80s though. Many recipes called for lard, shortening, butter, or tallow. Food was also far less processed, featuring less added sugars or other carbs that have been added for appearance or shelf stability reasons.

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#253
post #142

I would be satisfied if the USDA recognized fructose as a toxin, and required labels to say how much fructose is in everything. We might then start seeing the things pumped full of sugar having glucose/dextrose instead. And, the greatest health crisis the UK and its former colonies has ever seen might then start winding down. If we can institute emergency measures for COVID-19, it seems like we ought to be able to do…

So...fruit would now be considered toxic? Fructose is naturally occurring.

Fructose in absence of fiber is not naturally occurring, with a few exceptions. (Principally honey and, oddly, grapes.)

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#254

> This amount of carbohydrates may seem quite low to the average person, but remember that for the most part, people turn to this way of eating because they’ve been diagnosed with a serious health problem, such as diabetes, which usually means that they can no longer tolerate high levels of sugars or starches. This is disingenuous, right?

(The folks downvoting me... are saying that most people they know on low-carb diets have been diagnosed with a serious health problem such as diabetes?)

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#255

As someone who has lost significant weight on a keto diet (~80lbs) I can say it works in assisting someone who is overweight lose weight which can help with their health issues. It is easy to stall out by eating too much protein and fat, you still have to go hungry to cut down calorie intake. But it's overall a fad diet that ignores a lot of valuable nutrition that will be lacking essential healthy food. My take on t…

What are the essential healthy foods that are missing?

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#256
post #170
post #160

My main issue with low carb is that humans have been eating carbs for thousands of years. The obesity epidemic is only decades old. I've seen enough evidence that low carb is working for people, so it would seem like something in the carbs we eat in particular is causing the problem... not carbs in general. We should significantly increase the science in this area in my opinion.

The big issue is probably the "hidden carbs" in snacks and the vast amounts of sugar on everything.

It's not just sugar. Shredded cheese has potato starch added to prevent clumping, which adds about 1-2 carbs per serving.

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#257
post #116
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only meat diet has some very serious downsides, though. It’s very environmentally unfriendly and because of the high cost it’s available to a very few people. That makes it rather hard to recommend, regardless of potential health upsides.

Any health-related downsides?

It may result in Gout. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/4755-gout

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#258

As someone who has lost significant weight on a keto diet (~80lbs) I can say it works in assisting someone who is overweight lose weight which can help with their health issues. It is easy to stall out by eating too much protein and fat, you still have to go hungry to cut down calorie intake. But it's overall a fad diet that ignores a lot of valuable nutrition that will be lacking essential healthy food. My take on t…

What are the essential healthy foods that are missing?

The nutrients you'll be lacking typically include Folate, Thiamin(B1), Potassium, Calcium, and Manganese. You can do a healthy Keto and incorporate all of these but a lot of people stop and think I'll just eat as much bacon, steak, and chicken as I want. Also missing are legumes which are very healthy for you.

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#259
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also have to factor in protein quality as well as quantity. Protein in animal products is generally higher quality because it has the right proportions of amino acids and is easier to digest.

Those claims seem questionable. Even if true, is having the "right proportions of amino acids" at all desirable? Human digestive systems are pretty good at extracting what they want from our diet; we don't need to measure out precise proportions. What evidence have you got that animal products are "easier to digest"?

https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11081825

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, "ignore everything and do whatever you like" is terrible and dangerous advice.

OP's point was that different people require different extreme diets (at least temporaril) to heal themselves. This is not dangerous advice: this is exprimentaion, beacuse modern medicine has obviously failed them.

Nope, it wasn't.
Post reply on HN