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Is Sugar Really Toxic?

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#71

Post by pyre »

sillysaurus wrote: post #47
gohrt wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you get your pork steaks? There's plenty to feel bad about in there.

Where do you get your pork steaks? Walmart, actually. $1.99/lb. It's all I can afford. There's plenty to feel bad about in there. Yeah, I feel bad that an animal had to die for me to live. But genetically my body freaks out if I don't eat meat, and the animal's already dead anyway. Regarding fat in the pork steak, I'm not so worried about it. I try not to eat the fat, but even still, it seems like there's a decent ch…

  > But genetically my body freaks out if
  > I don't eat meat
I'm not sure what you're talking about. How does one's body 'genetically' freak out?

  > and the animal's already dead anyway.
You're still paying for it, which perpetuates the system.

  > We've been eating meat for millions of years
Our genetic ancestors diverged from the great apes 4–8 million years ago. I'm not sure we have good analysis of their diet, but I'm not an anthro-geek, so I might be out of the loop. [Toning it back to thousands of years would be more accurate.]

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#72

Post by pvnick »

philwelch wrote: post #52
pvnick wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I ended up shedding 30 pounds in 90 days, and have kept it off for a full year >I probably upped my overall calorie consumption but I replaced the sugars with more complex energy sources like nuts Unless you started exercising, these two statements are incompatible with one another (violates the first law of thermodynamics). What's more likely is you felt "fuller" from eating healthy foods and therefore consumed les…

The laws of thermodynamics do not preclude your body from ingesting something that has calories and shitting it out without actually doing anything with the calories. Your shit would just have more calories left in it, kind of like how a poorly made car might leak gasoline everywhere.

Your statement is only marginally correct, but mostly misleading to the point of being practically wrong. Depending on what you eat, your body absorbs 80%-97% of calories according to the following (simplified) equation:

Energy in = Energy out + Change in Body Stores [1]

Where "change in body stores" is, for all intents and purposes, either muscle or fat. So while going from eating 3000 calories of pure butter to eating 3000 calories of straight fibrous vegetables will show a modest difference in caloric retention, I guarantee you that's not the case here.

[1] http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance...

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#73

Post by pvnick »

hristov wrote: post #69

This article shows how the fructose industry is defending itself. Mostly by confusing the issue. The thing about fructose is that it is not by itself poisonous. The problem only comes about for refined fructose, such as that found in cane sugar and HFCS. In those cases, fructose overwhelms the liver and gets processed by wrong pathways which result in all kinds of problems. But if you eat fructose in the form of frui…

I think you pretty much restated the point of the article in slightly more condensed terms. Eat sugar in moderation and you'll be fine. Eat too much and you'll run into problems. The point you added is that sugar -> less full -> overeat, which is possible, but not the point being debated.

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#74

Post by acchow »

jacques_chester wrote: post #20

Net caloric balance is still the best long term predictor of average body mass, regardless of dietary macronutrient composition. http://examine.com/faq/what-should-i-eat-for-weight-loss.htm... In turn, obesity is a strong predictor of many diseases, regardless of other factors. In individual cases unobservable "noise" can affect the rate of gain or loss vs the estimated rate given by subtracting an estimate (calories…

Unless the paper has proper multivariate analysis, it should rightly by ignored.

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#75

Post by stevep98 »

hristov wrote: post #69

This article shows how the fructose industry is defending itself. Mostly by confusing the issue. The thing about fructose is that it is not by itself poisonous. The problem only comes about for refined fructose, such as that found in cane sugar and HFCS. In those cases, fructose overwhelms the liver and gets processed by wrong pathways which result in all kinds of problems. But if you eat fructose in the form of frui…

In one of Lustig's videos he talks about fructose from fruit juice. He says if you want fruit juice, eat fruit. The problem comes when you drink a glass of apple juice. That's the juice from about 8 apples. Now, instead of the juice, try eating 8 apples. It's just not really something someone's going to do, it's so much work to grind through all that food. But a glass of apple juice is easy.

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#76

Post by astrange »

zurn wrote: post #53
astrange wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of your changes could be explained just by calories. Beer is quite high calorie since it has so many carbs, and eating nuts satiates you faster so you end up eating less. Alcohol itself doesn't affect weight much, though IIRC fat isn't metabolized well together with it. But it can improve your lifespan: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9481115

Blaming carbs is not a "just calories" explanation, rather the opposite.

I suppose you're suggesting the same calories+alcohol in some other form (shochu and lean meat?) would be better. Maybe so, but I don't know if there's any studies on that.

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#77

Post by stevep98 »

Fargren wrote: post #30
hristov wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with refined fructose is that it contributes to you eating more because the liver cannot process it properly and does not send the "i am full" signals to the brain. Thus, it is in fact the reason why people have higher net caloric intake. US style food is being exported all over the world. Sodas are sold all over the world. Obesity around the world is generally correlated to the level at which US style fo…

Fortunately, in most of the world sodas use sugar instead of syrup. So it's not as bad as it could be.

If you want to scrutinize american sodas, I think you have to look at the portion size and culture of free refills rather than the sugar type.

I don't know of anywhere else in the world that has serving sizes as big as the US. And very few places outside the US offer free refills.

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#78

Post by stevep98 »

greenyoda wrote: post #19
rfnslyr wrote: post #6

Man. Sugar is the worst. Take it from me. I moved to the city the moment I turned 18, I didn't know much about cooking. Back in the 'burbs you'd be lucky to live within 10km of a grocery store. Downtown however, totally different story. I went NUTS with sweets and pizza. I gained over 100 lbs in just under half a year. I was eating around 10k calories a day. I then stuck to only these foods and have only been eating…

The link mentioned above is Robert Lustig MD's talk entitled "Sugar: The Bitter Truth". I found it very interesting and quite convincing, but beware that it's long (1.5 hrs) and you have to be willing to sit through a lot of biochemistry, since he goes through a bunch of cellular metabolic pathways in gory detail. If you don't care about the biochemistry, the parts about how everything we "know" about nutrition is ba…

This is a great video. I watch it once in a while when I need to cut down on my ice cream.

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#79

Post by saryant »

philwelch wrote: post #50
saryant wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did something similar during my semester in France. Stopped eating all bread and processed carbs. Vegetables, fruit and meat plus Greek yogurt. I didn't cut out alcohol though, nor was my weight loss as drastic as yours. Lost about thirty pounds over four months (which was terrific, my girlfriend of four years dumped me the night I flew home so at least I was ready for singles' life). I won't go so far as to call s…

You stopped eating bread while in France ?

I was really fat.

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#80

Post by donaldc »

pvnick wrote: post #48
mullingitover wrote: post #2

Sola dosis facit venenum. I didn't pay attention to my weight for a couple years, ate a lot of sweets and drank a lot of beer. Before I knew it I'd gained 30 pounds, and had a minor freakout. I decided to do three things--weigh myself every morning, stop eating sugar except for from fruit, and stop drinking. I ended up shedding 30 pounds in 90 days, and have kept it off for a full year. I didn't exercise or count cal…

>I ended up shedding 30 pounds in 90 days, and have kept it off for a full year >I probably upped my overall calorie consumption but I replaced the sugars with more complex energy sources like nuts Unless you started exercising, these two statements are incompatible with one another (violates the first law of thermodynamics). What's more likely is you felt "fuller" from eating healthy foods and therefore consumed les…

Unless you started exercising, these two statements are incompatible with one another (violates the first law of thermodynamics). What's more likely is you felt "fuller" from eating healthy foods and therefore consumed less calories.

Another possibility is that the food eaten affects the metabolic rate. I've known multiple people who stopped having cold extremities when they cut back on their sugar intake.

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