Type 2 Diabetes and cardiovascular disease attributable to sugar beverages • Hacker News Board

Re: Type 2 Diabetes and cardiovascular disease attributable to sugar beverages

#231

Post by ifyoubuildit » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 5:14 AM UTC

thereisnospork wrote: post #193

hombre_fatal wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I can answer that. It's not always about a certain boogeyman inside it, but whether it makes it easy to overeat and whether it pays its rent in nutritional content. Consider potato chips. Even if they have zero saturated fat, the issue most people have with them is that they are hyperpalatable and low nutritional value compared to their calorie density. Combine fat and salt and certain textures, and we can't st…

Your comment kind of illustrates his point though, there's a complete lack of mechanistic empiricism[0] in the discussion of nutrition. What is the metric for 'eas[iness] to overeat and whether it pays its rent in nutritional content.'? I agree with the premise, but it is ill-defined. e.g. consider: A baked potato, with salt and butter vs. an equivalent weight of potato chips. They are essentially identical post-mast…

Re: mechanistic empiricism, I don't know if you're doing this, but it seems that some people have this mindset that if you can't tell me specifically how X is bad for you, then I have to assume it is not harmful by default, even if it's a thing that is relatively novel.

I find myself leaning heavily in the other direction these days. If it's not something that has a long history and (I'm not already dying anyway), I'll pass. If I lose out on some benefits because of that, so be it.

Re: Type 2 Diabetes and cardiovascular disease attributable to sugar beverages

#232

Post by parineum » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 5:24 AM UTC

nprateem wrote: post #230

zamadatix wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that no sugar variants of soda are exactly a shining health food staple or better than going to healthy drinks lik water but... For me I was absolutely shocked at how a soda being sugar free didn't have to imply it was like drinking horse piss. I had tried Diet Coke a few times and assumed that was what you had to deal with if you went sugar free. One day someone gave me a Coke Zero and it was actually not bad, e…

Aspartame is bad for your gut microbiome

Source

Re: Type 2 Diabetes and cardiovascular disease attributable to sugar beverages

#233

Post by TuringNYC » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 5:25 AM UTC

EasyMark wrote: post #213

znpy wrote: post #145

Tangentially related: a while ago i used to drink aspartame-sweetened drinks (sugarfree coke) but I did quit that as well after reading thst the sweet taste is still going go stimulate insulin production. Speaking with a relative eho is a medical doctor they told me that yes, that’s a thing. I’m not sure to what degree this might fit into the discussion, but just wanted to write this down. Nowadays i just drink water…

I've known multiple with glucose monitors and all of them told me they saw no increase after drink a diet soda. I think the "aspartame causes sugar spikes" is an urban legend. I never get the sugar rush from them like I do if I drink a sugary soda.

>> I've known multiple with glucose monitors and all of them told me they saw no increase after drink a diet soda. I think the "aspartame causes sugar spikes" is an urban legend. I never get the sugar rush from them like I do if I drink a sugary soda.

IANAD, but my reading of Dr. Jason Fung's book "The Obesity Code" suggests that while artificial sweeteners do not spike glucose immediately, they elicit an insulin response, which over time causes insulin resistance, which over time increases glucose.

Re: Type 2 Diabetes and cardiovascular disease attributable to sugar beverages

#234

Post by TuringNYC » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 5:26 AM UTC

snvzz wrote: post #223

EasyMark wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've known multiple with glucose monitors and all of them told me they saw no increase after drink a diet soda. I think the "aspartame causes sugar spikes" is an urban legend. I never get the sugar rush from them like I do if I drink a sugary soda.

Wouldn't the insulin w/o sugar cause a drop, instead?

>> Wouldn't the insulin w/o sugar cause a drop, instead?

In the short term, but as I understand, the constant insulin response would also cause insulin resistance over time.

Re: Type 2 Diabetes and cardiovascular disease attributable to sugar beverages

#235

Post by parineum » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 5:26 AM UTC

hattmall wrote: post #220

athenot wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 15 years ago, I stopped drinking soda. Not out of a desire to be healthy or loose weight but simply because it dawned on me that for the same amount of sugar in one soft drink that I drink without any afterthought, I could enjoy a really good pastry that I can slowly savor. I do the same for fats. The way I look at it, I want to maximize the "enjoyment per kcalorie". :) More recently, I'm starting to apply this…

In most cases you could eat multiple pastries and still have significantly less sugar than a soda.

pastries also have fat though and parent was talking about enjoyment per kcal.

Re: Type 2 Diabetes and cardiovascular disease attributable to sugar beverages

#236

Post by mohaine » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 5:27 AM UTC

nprateem wrote: post #230

zamadatix wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that no sugar variants of soda are exactly a shining health food staple or better than going to healthy drinks lik water but... For me I was absolutely shocked at how a soda being sugar free didn't have to imply it was like drinking horse piss. I had tried Diet Coke a few times and assumed that was what you had to deal with if you went sugar free. One day someone gave me a Coke Zero and it was actually not bad, e…

Aspartame is bad for your gut microbiome

Citation?

Is this a normal soda consumption levels in humans or when feeding it to rats at some obscene rate?

I'm not saying it is good for you, but we need facts not blind statements with no context.

Re: Type 2 Diabetes and cardiovascular disease attributable to sugar beverages

#237

Post by bruce511 » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 5:27 AM UTC

trod1234 wrote: post #149

hombre_fatal wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think the scientific literature has anything to say about sugar surplus or junk food surplus? Carbohydrate poisoning sounds nonsensical though. Too many potatoes and whole grains, for example, aren't poisoning you. More people should be replacing junk food with those things. It's just a fad to use "carbs" as a euphemism for "junk food" and it only further confuses the discourse about nutrition.

> You don't think the scientific literature has anything to say about sugar surplus or junk food surplus? No, I know it does, but it doesn't properly communicate the relationship with correct words, where other related subjects do. Instead it dances about with a disconnection, I would guess because of the sugar and health industry lobby. The medical definition of poisoning is generally defined as injury or death due…

I'm very much in the "reduce carbs" camp. Long-term high carb intake leads to many health issues, and reductions lead to improvements. I'm not sure that science is behind on this (there's plenty of literature on the topic) but man-in-the-street understanding seems to be behind.

The concept that sugar leads to diabetes is not exactly news at 11. But articles like this are helpful in moving the popular mindset.

Personally though I'd avoid the term "poison". Mostly because it's a very long-term effect, whereas people use "poison" in general usage more as a short term thing (rat poison versus feeding rats carbs till they get diabetes).

Secondly calling it "poison" is far outside normal understanding and so you become the "nutter" in the conversation. Which then devalues the valid points you have to make.

I say this as someone in your camp. While your body certainly needs some carbohydrates its safe to assume everyone is getting enough. Nobody needs sugar though, and removing as much of that as possible from daily diet will have big impacts in the long term.

For me that doesn't mean 'never sugar'. It means cake at celebrations, ice-cream once a month, eating "normally" when at restaurants (which is probably less than once a month) and so on.

The goal is not to be "perfect" the goal is to improve one step at a time. Coffee without sugar? Check. No daily, or weekly, sugar sodas or fruit juice? Check. And so on.

Small changes introduced slowly over time become the new normal, and that leads to sustained improvements.

Re: Type 2 Diabetes and cardiovascular disease attributable to sugar beverages

#238

Post by Melting_Harps » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 5:27 AM UTC

drivebycomment wrote: post #199

Melting_Harps wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And you didn't address that they did find modest gains to the goals in the Seattle study. I don't have much to say, other than personally I feel it's a tacit nod to the fact they found the results they wanted from this study, because it resoundingly relies on justifying a higher sales tax and this further encourages other parts of WA to adopt it and further establish it as a form of tax revenue while trying to prov…

> Which is why I defer to my anac-data, which admittedly biased illustrates that its just not effective but is entirely moot without addressing the core of the issue and principal of the matter as a whole: body autonomy. Can you explain how sugar tax is an issue about body autonomy ? As far as I can see, you are free to continue putting sugary water into your body. Is the argument that even a small increase in tax is…

> Can you explain how sugar tax is an issue about body autonomy?

Simply put, you are arbitrarily punishing those who consume these products (which I will repeat I do not purchase myself) in often high cost areas (eg Seattle, San Francisco, Boulder) to align with a specific ideology that these areas ascribe to, at least on the surface.

I feel like a boomer saying this and it seems like I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill, because it's something that on the surface makes sense to a degree--relying on the old adage of tax it and you get less of it--and even appears to be well intentioned way to make people make 'healthier' choices, but from what I've seen in practice is a bureaucratic way to modify behaviour in people's everyday lives that ultimately only causes a minor inconvenience/friction for those resolved to circumvent and the initiative's results seem dubious at best and over-reaching at worst.

I genuinely don't think in practice it's about health either as you can easily go around the other aisle and buy all the high sodium, poly-saturated chips with as much or more HFCS and MSG and countless amounts of dyes and food preservatives to your hearts content with no tax implication and are often encouraged to be purchased in bulk, so it seems perplexing that this is really the success they make it out to be.

It seems to me like a bike-shedding initiative if I have ever seen one as it avoids the much bigger issue of how un-healthy the American diet really is.

> Do you consider farm subsidies (e.g. maintaining US corn production)...

Because as you have mentioned, the obscenely lucrative farm subsides of corn for mega farms is the crux of the issue here and by extension all of the lobbying by big business that takes place for these chemicals that are actually shaping what the American diet itself is; I believe we would be better served addressing that obvious and glaring problem, and forcing producers of these products to have to do without these highly subsidized and addictive chemicals in their products and letting consumers decide whether to consume them of their own volition at actual market rates rather than this window dressing approach.

Re: Type 2 Diabetes and cardiovascular disease attributable to sugar beverages

#239

Post by parineum » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 5:34 AM UTC

bitwize wrote: post #192

loeg wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lustig is a crank with opinions well outside scientific consensus.

This is one of those areas where scientific consensus needs to catch up with the alarming facts that have been discovered. Scientific consensus was against handwashing for doctors and plate tectonics, and it still is in favor of "clearing amyloid plaques will totally fix Alzheimer's", but the facts just keep on being what they be.

You can use that exact post to reply to anything. It's devoid of information relevant to this topic.

Re: Type 2 Diabetes and cardiovascular disease attributable to sugar beverages

#240

Post by in-pursuit » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 5:39 AM UTC

musicale wrote: post #133

Hilift wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orange juice is high in sugars. Drinking any alternative beverage with a lot of sugar is bad for your health. I believe a 12 ounce glass of orange juice is 100% of maximum sugar intake for one day. If you drank orange juice the same way you drank soda with added sugar, the health effect would be equally detrimental.

I think citric acid is better than phosphoric acid (e.g. for your bones and kidneys), though both can dissolve tooth enamel. OJ also has more vitamin C than typical sodas. Milk has more calories/ounce than soda, but it also has protein, fat, and calcium. Anecdotally, I find juice more filling than soda, milk even more so.

Milk actually has a ridiculous amount of sugar. 11g per cup! That makes it hard to drink if you're trying to cut back on sugar.