Live data from Hacker News

Type 2 Diabetes and cardiovascular disease attributable to sugar beverages

nature.com

311–320 of 397 posts

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

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First you should take a few long minutes and think hard about why you drink this shit in the first place.

Cuz it tastes good? Because I’m addicted? Because the caffeine is great. Because I hate the taste of coffee. Because I can? I dunno.

The human experience is all about controlling your urges. I also like to eat until I feel stuffed and sleep 12 hours a day, but I don't because I value my long term health above short term pleasures. Sadly for us modern life is all about short term pleasures and convenience, if you're not careful you can lose yourself real quick

Try sparkling water, home made water kefir, herbal teas, &c.

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

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why you switched from grams to cans when compared to Dr Pepper? A can of Dr Pepper is 350 ml, so about 350 g. Therefore: 100 g of Dr. Pepper has 11g of sugar

Because no one eats 1 pound of mango. People drink 10 cans of Dr. Pepper.

[deleted]

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

#313
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with peers. Doesn’t Keto (for part of the year) worked for millennia for our ancestors?

Some of our ancestors might have done keto some times, but I'm not sure most of them did most of the time? Humans are decidedly omnivorous, and most of them would eat whatever they could get their hands on, including plants and mushrooms (and sometimes honey!) etc.

iirc the inuit had a diet mostly consisting of meat and fish, but - according to wikipedia - not even they were usually in ketosis.

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

#314

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.

I've noticed that people who want to deny that the extremely high carbohydrate content of the typical western diet is the major factor for runaway rates of diabetes and cardiovascular disease like to label the "bad" food as "junk food" or "ultra-processed food." But we never get an explanation from them as to what exactly is IN the junk food or ultra-processed food that causes the disease.

It isn't extremely high. I have no idea what you imagine that people used to eat. The typical pre 20th century diet was near 100% carbohydrate based, most people ate meat once a weak, if at all, and fat was scarce. The now typical meat-with-every-dish diet is a post WW2 development.

But we never get an explanation from them as to what exactly is IN the junk food or ultra-processed food that causes the disease.

You don't get it, because 1. there is something VERY CLEARLY wrong with it, and 2. what is wrong with it is at odds with what is hammered into them over and over.

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

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

>if you can't tell me specifically how X is bad for youthen I have to assume it is not harmful by default Speaking for myself, its a matter of how my brain works. Setting aside rational considerations like cost-benefit analysis or Bayesian likelihoods: if there isn't a generalizable logic to 'what (is harmful)' and 'how (it is)' I just get a 404. It's not that I don't (or do) believe potatoes chips are harmful it's t…

> As such, any attempt to incorporate that information[0] into my decision making process goes nowhere: I can't categorize a food as to it's degree of ultra processed-ness nor can I assess whether another foods/foods/etc might cause harm like UPF's are purported to do. Ergo: no basis for a behavioral modification, no new pros or cons to weigh.

So I guess my question is what are your defaults? What is your unmodified behavior?

There is a package on the shelf, you only know what it says on the box, what you've seen on commercials, and maybe you've seen/heard of other people eating its contents. What's the decision tree for this scenario?

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

#316
post #84

There is almost nothing* like sugar drinks in the natural world our bodies evolved in. Sugar drinks are about as different as tea leaves and pure cocaine. It's is no coincidence that both are refined white powders. *honey

Most of our animal relatives obtain the vast majority of their calories from fruit, that is, sugar. The tarsier is the closest one that doesn't.

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

#317
post #94
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you not buy more or less as unhealthy products in countries with universal healthcare as in US? e.g. smoking rate is considerably higher in France or even in Spain Sugar consumption isn't relatively that high either compared to most European countries: https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/indicators/indicator-detai...

That isn't the argument I made. Processed food industries actively block healthcare reforms because they fear being regulated for the now obvious public good.

Perhaps. But I don't think that's the public consensus. So it's hard to accept such arguments without any evidence.

AFAIK in Europe most food safety regulation is coming from the EU directly and not the national governments. Also it's not like all countries in Europe have public tax funded healthcare systems.

Fundamentally some are inherently not that different from the one in the US (i.e. semi-private or even entirely privatized) it's just that they much better regulated and much more efficient.

Even if we exclude private spending the US government already spends more per capita on healthcare than most other countries so why would anything change if e.g. Medicare was extended to a higher proportion of the population?

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

#318
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many alternatives, but what is important here isn't what you recommend, it is what people choose.

> what is important here isn't what you recommend, it is what people choose Do we have any evidence soda drinkers sub Coke for alcohol? I'd have guessed artifically-sweetened soft drinks would have been the substitute.

I wasn't intending to imply that is what would happen. That is the worst substitute I can think of. If high sugar coffee would also be counted as soda for the laws - something that isn't a given - this seems even more likely.

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

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good for you. I think for meat especially, there's a difference between the stuff people talk about (like premium steaks they almost never eat) and the reality of what ends up on their plates which is a lot less glamorous. A typical fast food burger just isn't that great in terms of texture, taste, looks, etc. and IMHO almost always disappointingly unsatisfying and slightly uncomfortable afterwards. I'll eat that onc…

Man, as an Indian, this is hard to read. You're spreading a lot of misinformation about Indian food. > Which is possibly also a reason why vegan food is popular in India. First, while there are a lot of tasty Indian vegetarian dishes, vegan food is decidedly not a cultural thing. We use butter and ghee pretty commonly in food: definitely not vegan. India is the world's largest milk producer; also not vegan. That dal…

I'm actually well aware of this and didn't mean to offend people. And 30% is actually quite a large percentage.

I actually make ghee myself sometimes from butter (easy and a lot cheaper than buying it from the super market).

A lot of (british) indian restaurants use cooking oil instead and I'm well aware that that's not the same as what people in India would consider Indian food and that something like a Tikka Massala is not actually a thing you'd find in a proper restaurant in India; which is a country I've never been to and would love to go to to experience the food.

But anyway, a lot of these restaurants use cooking oil because it's cheaper and because it makes everything they cook with that vegan by default. Which at least in places with a lot of vegans is a nice feature.

Here in Berlin, finding decent Indian food is a bit of a challenge in any case. Germans are hopeless with spicy food. And I know only a few Indian places that add more than homeopathic amounts of chili. Most of the Indian restaurants in the more touristy spots are owned by one family and those aren't great. I've gotten some tips from Indian colleagues over the years for better options.

Anyway a lot of dals indeed don't use a lot of spices or flavoring. And that's just sidestepping all the different regions and food styles. Which are a thing as well of course.

As for Malaysian/Indonesian style cuisine; I'm Dutch and got exposed to a lot of the Dutch Indonesian food which, similar to British Indian food is not really that authentic. Lots of meat in there indeed. And quite spicy.

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

#320
I'm from latam. I never saw anyone drink water growing up. Anytime you try to drink water, people label you as boring, even your parents. Whenever we go to a restaurant, the first thing you ask the waiter is "what sodas do you have?". If you're not feeling like drinking soda and want something "healthier", you ask what kinds of fruit juices they have. If you don't like the options, you settle on a hyper-sweetened tea.

I frequently ask my parents to drink more water, and they get defensive saying they drink a lot of water but I just don't see it. The truth is they only drink half a small cup in the middle of the night...

Post reply on HN