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John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar

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Re: John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar

#31

Post by pvnick »

eclipxe wrote: post #23
pvnick wrote: post #18

I'm getting sick of this ignorant sugar alarmism. Sugar is not the culprit behind all the diseases listed in the article. Obesity is [5] [6]. Unless of course you're talking about cavities. Then not brushing your teeth is the culprit. The reason sugar gets such a bad rep is that high-sugar foods tend to be less-filling and lead to overeating [1]. Stay at a healthy weight by controlling caloric consumption [2]. The ar…

No, the reason sugar gets a bad rep is because of what it does to your body. The insulin response to sugar is the primary way your body stores fat and sugar itself is readily converted to fat. The glucose & fructose spikes are also source of inflammation. It is believed that this inflammation is the cause of some of the damage related to heart disease, etc.

>The insulin response to sugar is the primary way your body stores fat and sugar itself is readily converted to fat

This is a common myth, but it's wrong. Dietary fat is what is primarily stored and leads to weight gain during caloric excess; dietary carbs just decrease the amount of fat being used for energy, but can also get stored as fat tissue during overfeeding in a process called de novo lipogenesis (which is what you're describing) [1] [4]. Would you believe protein also elicits an insulin response? [2] So why not just eat butter? Well, it turns out fat can get stored without insulin at all, with the help of a little molecule called acylation stimulation protein [3].

Nutrition is harder than it seems. Again, it all comes back to calories in vs calories out.

[1] http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/74/6/707.full

[2] http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/66/5/1264.full.pdf

[3] http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/insulin-levels-and...

[4] http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/nutrition/nutrient-intake-n...

Re: John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar

#32

Post by gnusouth »

More info.

Anti-sugar: http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3821440.htm

Anti-anti-sugar: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3888657.htm

The whole thing strikes me as quite sensationalist, and I suspect that digging into the research would affirm the cholesterol heart disease link. For now, I'll trust the scientific consensus over these crackpot types.

Re: John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar

#34

Post by eclipxe »

mishkovski wrote: post #25
pvnick wrote: post #18

I'm getting sick of this ignorant sugar alarmism. Sugar is not the culprit behind all the diseases listed in the article. Obesity is [5] [6]. Unless of course you're talking about cavities. Then not brushing your teeth is the culprit. The reason sugar gets such a bad rep is that high-sugar foods tend to be less-filling and lead to overeating [1]. Stay at a healthy weight by controlling caloric consumption [2]. The ar…

Sugar is not the culprit behind all the diseases listed in the article. Obesity is And sugar is culprit behind overeating and obesity.

Precisely. Experiment: eat 500 calories of sugar (ice cream, soda, candy). Wait 15-20 minutes, how hungry are you?

Now, eat 500 calories of fat (heavy cream, bacon, pork belly, etc). Wait 15-20 minutes, how hungry are you?

I've done this experiment a few times now, and without fail, I crave more food after the sugar and can't eat another bite after the fat.

Re: John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar

#35

Post by Jun8 »

spindritf wrote: post #17
Jun8 wrote: post #13

As they say: "The dose makes the poison". Stating that sugar is toxic, as Lustig and others do, (see his talk on YouTube or http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.htm... ) to me does not make much sense in fighting against the super high levels of consumption: When you argue a position that's too far removed from most people's accepted positions, they tend to tune you out. Note that high-fructose co…

Note that high-fructose corn syrup (water+glucose+fructose) is included in this generalized definition of "sugar" I cannot imagine a narrower definition of "sugar" than glucose+fructose. It's exactly what you add to your coffee and tea, just in the form of sucrose crystals. There is no functional difference between HFCS and table sugar. If the regulators/activists force the food industry to replace HFCS with some oth…

I think when you say that there "is no functional difference between HFCS and table sugar" you mean that sucrose is broken down to 50% glucose and 50% fructose during digestion, which is correct (although HFCS is not 50-50 but close).

The move to HFCS was for price reasons, so it won't be a "minor increase in prices", this may actually be more acceptable way to curb sugar use than taxing it.

Re: John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar

#36

Post by pvnick »

PakG1 wrote: post #28
pvnick wrote: post #18

I'm getting sick of this ignorant sugar alarmism. Sugar is not the culprit behind all the diseases listed in the article. Obesity is [5] [6]. Unless of course you're talking about cavities. Then not brushing your teeth is the culprit. The reason sugar gets such a bad rep is that high-sugar foods tend to be less-filling and lead to overeating [1]. Stay at a healthy weight by controlling caloric consumption [2]. The ar…

I'd like for you to actually explain how it's wrong to say that replacing a fat-heavy diet with a sugar-heavy diet is bad for health. You dismiss their premises and conclusions by saying they're looking at the wrong culprit for health problems. I'd prefer if you dealt with their premises and conclusions by falsifying said premises and conclusions.

I advocate moderation and balance. Consume reasonable calorie and macronutrient (protein, fat, carbohydrate) quantities. Eat what allows you to do that. For me, those carbs come from doughnuts and candy but also from brown rice and pasta. Just like my meats include both lean meats (chicken breast) and fatty, delicious meats (bacon). Combine this with exercise and all you'll avoid all the scary things the article talks about.

Re: John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar

#37

Post by CEyzaguirre »

PakG1 wrote: post #28
pvnick wrote: post #18

I'm getting sick of this ignorant sugar alarmism. Sugar is not the culprit behind all the diseases listed in the article. Obesity is [5] [6]. Unless of course you're talking about cavities. Then not brushing your teeth is the culprit. The reason sugar gets such a bad rep is that high-sugar foods tend to be less-filling and lead to overeating [1]. Stay at a healthy weight by controlling caloric consumption [2]. The ar…

I'd like for you to actually explain how it's wrong to say that replacing a fat-heavy diet with a sugar-heavy diet is bad for health. You dismiss their premises and conclusions by saying they're looking at the wrong culprit for health problems. I'd prefer if you dealt with their premises and conclusions by falsifying said premises and conclusions.

Your assumptions about a high fat diet are a function of the "greatest health scam of the century":

“Somehow we have been led to believe that dietary fat will raise our cholesterol, which will in turn increase our risk for heart attacks and strokes. This notion continues to prevail despite research from nineteen years ago that proved otherwise. In 1994, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a trial that compared older adults with high cholesterol (levels above 240 mg/dl) to those with normal levels (below 200 mg/dl).9 Over the course of four years, researchers at Yale University measured total cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) in almost one thousand participants; they also tracked hospitalizations for heart attack and unstable angina and the rates of death from heart disease and from any other cause. No differences were found between the two groups. People with low total cholesterol had as many heart attacks and died just as frequently as those with high total cholesterol. And reviews of multiple large studies have routinely failed to find correlation between cholesterol levels and heart disease.10 Mounting research like this has prompted Dr. George Mann, a researcher with the Framingham Heart Study, to go on record stating: The diet heart hypothesis that suggests that a high intake “of fat or cholesterol causes heart disease has been repeatedly shown to be wrong, and yet, for complicated reasons of pride, profit, and prejudice, the hypothesis continues to be exploited by scientists, fund-raising enterprise, food companies, and even governmental agencies. The public is being deceived by the greatest health scam of the century.11”

9. H. M. Krumholz, et al., “Lack of Association Between Cholesterol and Coronary Heart Disease Mortality and Morbidity and All-cause Mortality in Persons Older Than 70 Years,” JAMA 272, no. 17 (November 2, 1994): 1335–40.

10. H. Petousis-Harris, “Saturated Fat Has Been Unfairly Demonised: Yes,” Primary Health Care 3, no. 4 (December 1, 2011): 317–19.

11. http://www.survivediabetes.com/lowfat.html.”

Re: John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar

#38

Post by ynniv »

jimeuxx wrote: post #19

Lustig could no doubt write some great posts here about growth hacking and selling your product, but if there's one thing he's proven about nutrition, it's that he's no one to be taken seriously when talking about it. One taste of what Joe Public doesn't see in his unintended hyperbole is here: http://sweetenerstudies.com/sites/default/files/resources/fi... Blaming sugar for everything is no better than what the fat-…

Wow, thanks for linking a really awful rebuttal. Not only does "Mark Kern, PHD, RD, CSSD, Professor of Exercise and Nutritional Sciences" start off by saying that Lustig is inherently biased by selling a book "Even if all proceeds are being donated to charity", he later goes on to drop such gems as:

The key for preventing obesity and metabolic syndrome is to avoid consuming excessive energy (Calories)

Maybe this is still debated in the (surely non-profit) exercise world, but I see no evidence that eating too many calories of lean meat would cause metabolic syndrome, or that limiting daily intake to 2000 calories of soda would cause one to become healthier.

Much of Kern's lengthy rebuttal are technical points that are beyond me to evaluate, but I suspect that the book is intended for a non academic medical audience. In fact Kern says

It is possible that the author’s intent was to simplify these processes for the reader, but doing so inaccurately calls into question his knowledge of metabolism, upon which he bases much of his book.

Perhaps one could use other material he has authored for a technical audience. And Kern is pedantic with quotes like "real food doesn’t have or need a Nutrition Facts Label". A casual reader would understand that a mango does not have a complicated ingredient list, Kern says:

While it is true that labels do not need to appear on unpackaged foods such as a produce, the Code of Federal Regulations is clear regarding nutrient labeling for these types of foods. The regulation from the Federal government is that nutrition facts must voluntarily be posted for at least 90% of fresh food items in a conspicuous place by at least 60% of companies that sell food.

Perhaps Kern doesn't understand who the audience of a trade book is. Kern also cites many studies that I'm not going to track down and evaluate for their own biases.

Giving talks, writing papers and selling books is how our world works. If that's the only thing Lustig is doing wrong, then he's doing alright by me.

but if there's one thing he's proven about nutrition, it's that he's no one to be taken seriously when talking about it

If you're going to grind your axe here, please make better arguments.

Re: John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar

#39

Post by eclipxe »

pvnick wrote: post #31
eclipxe wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the reason sugar gets a bad rep is because of what it does to your body. The insulin response to sugar is the primary way your body stores fat and sugar itself is readily converted to fat. The glucose & fructose spikes are also source of inflammation. It is believed that this inflammation is the cause of some of the damage related to heart disease, etc.

>The insulin response to sugar is the primary way your body stores fat and sugar itself is readily converted to fat This is a common myth, but it's wrong. Dietary fat is what is primarily stored and leads to weight gain during caloric excess; dietary carbs just decrease the amount of fat being used for energy, but can also get stored as fat tissue during overfeeding in a process called de novo lipogenesis (which is w…

We can go back and forth on this, but HN isn't the place. I've had this debate many times and it ends nowhere. Bottom line, calories-in vs calories-out is a fine and dandy statement, but tells us nothing of value about the cause of increased calorie consumption. I agree with you that for weight gain to occur, there must be a greater energy intake than burn, but what causes more caloric intake?

Re: John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar

#40

Post by eclipxe »

pvnick wrote: post #36
PakG1 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like for you to actually explain how it's wrong to say that replacing a fat-heavy diet with a sugar-heavy diet is bad for health. You dismiss their premises and conclusions by saying they're looking at the wrong culprit for health problems. I'd prefer if you dealt with their premises and conclusions by falsifying said premises and conclusions.

I advocate moderation and balance. Consume reasonable calorie and macronutrient (protein, fat, carbohydrate) quantities. Eat what allows you to do that. For me, those carbs come from doughnuts and candy but also from brown rice and pasta. Just like my meats include both lean meats (chicken breast) and fatty, delicious meats (bacon). Combine this with exercise and all you'll avoid all the scary things the article talk…

Moderation and balance, based on what precisely? Who defines what balanced is? Who pays to have their product a bigger portion of a balanced diet?
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