How the sugar industry shaped key government research about your teeth • Hacker News Board

Re: How the sugar industry shaped key government research about your teeth

#11

Post by Alex3917 » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 12:44 PM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #5

Has anyone here closely investigated the research that led to recommendations to brush teeth after every meal or at least two times a day, as e.g. suggested on toothpaste containers, and to floss frequently, etc.? Any idea how well designed / how complete the relevant studies were? Have there been more recent improved studies? In the last few years I’ve heard second-hand some alternative recommendations to brush befo…

> Has anyone here closely investigated the research that led to recommendations to brush teeth after every meal or at least two times a day, as e.g. suggested on toothpaste containers, and to floss frequently, etc.?

http://www.cochrane.org/CD009857/ORAL_cleaning-between-the-t...

http://www.cochrane.org/CD008829/ORAL_flossing-to-reduce-gum...

http://www.cochrane.org/CD002281/ORAL_poweredelectric-toothb...

Re: How the sugar industry shaped key government research about your teeth

#12

Post by mironathetin » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 12:54 PM UTC

bcg1 wrote: post #6

Sort of reminds me of Huxley's "Brave New World" when they traumatized the young children to recoil at nature so that when they grow up they never want to take trips out to the country, and so that they would spend all of their money on expensive sports equipment for recreation instead.

yes, we are already there. And instead of reading books like that one, we entertain ourselves with tv series.

Re: How the sugar industry shaped key government research about your teeth

#13

Post by aethertap » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 12:56 PM UTC

crusso wrote: post #7

pizza234 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, not so simple. The industry shapes the culture, but worse, the law and the market. Very typical example is the corn lobby group, whose result on the market is to cause junk food to be much cheaper than nutritious food, thanks to perverse subsidization. In turn this makes much more difficult for a relatively large part of the population to eat correctly - practically difficult.

The industry shapes the culture, but worse, the law and the market. As you say, it's not so simple. Industry is just a part of a cycle of perversion of the goal of effective government. Industry isn't forcing politicians to create or execute bad legislation. Industry isn't forcing voters to ignore the voting records of politicians who demonstrate poor integrity. Ultimately, the driver of everything in a democratic re…

This is true, but I think it glosses over a bunch of important structure in society that isn't obviously connected to the voter. An analogy might be to say that ultimately, all of your behaviors come down to the neuron. While technically true, it ignores brain structures, hormones, emotional state, etc that are almost always more important in actual treatment than any attempt to deal with individual neurons.

Society is an enormously complex thing with all kinds of hidden influences and imbalances, and I think that saying "it's all the voter" tends to shut down thinking about the real alternatives for fixing problems. I'm not saying that I know what those alternatives are, just that they are likely to exist because we live in a society with structure. Since they're likely to exist, I think we should be looking for them and trying to address them in order to treat this kind of problem.

Re: How the sugar industry shaped key government research about your teeth

#14

Post by TeMPOraL » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 1:21 PM UTC

mcbetz wrote: post #4

pizza234 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, not so simple. The industry shapes the culture, but worse, the law and the market. Very typical example is the corn lobby group, whose result on the market is to cause junk food to be much cheaper than nutritious food, thanks to perverse subsidization. In turn this makes much more difficult for a relatively large part of the population to eat correctly - practically difficult.

Very good elaboration. Most of the times, objective science has way fewer resources to spread the word than industry groups. One can only imagine how our society would look like if power and money was distributed more evenly and information was freely available to anyone.

Information is pretty much freely available to everyone already. The value of that information, however, has dropped to near-zero from the point of view of uninitiated - as various groups with agendas publish lies which then get regurgitated by clueless people, we have enough freely available information on any topic to confirm any biases you started with.

So for example, you love GMOs because they're cool and futuristic. So here, read that study on this new plant that is safe and abundant in vitamins and can save a million of children a year from blindness. Or maybe, you hate GMOs because they're unnatural and a product of humans messing up with what God has perfectly made - ok, here, have those 10 papers that have words "GMO", "rats" and "cancer" in them.

What we need is a system that doesn't incentivize people to lie and cheat as much as the current does.

Re: How the sugar industry shaped key government research about your teeth

#15

Post by lgp171188 » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 1:25 PM UTC

mcbetz wrote: post #2

Listening excessively to one lobby group is as hazardous as eating excessively exactly one staple - be it sugar or wheat. Moderation is important, both in politics and nutrition.

Yes, totally agree with that. I am a type-1 diabetic and I eat everything in moderation and I am absolutely healthy. :)

Re: How the sugar industry shaped key government research about your teeth

#16

Post by mhb » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 1:38 PM UTC

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #9

pizza234 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, not so simple. The industry shapes the culture, but worse, the law and the market. Very typical example is the corn lobby group, whose result on the market is to cause junk food to be much cheaper than nutritious food, thanks to perverse subsidization. In turn this makes much more difficult for a relatively large part of the population to eat correctly - practically difficult.

This is one of the more bizarre artifacts of our system. And it took the concentrated efforts of almost everyone involved to make it this way. But in a way , cheaper is always better. Nutritious food is also cheap, relatively, unless the "nutritiousness" of it is also a price differentiator. Frozen veggies are pretty easy to get, IMO - but it seems there usually has to be a largish supermarket to buy them in. And tha…

Whole Foods is kinda creepy to me to shop in. I can't say exactly why.

Namaste: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-maclean/surviving-whole-...

Re: How the sugar industry shaped key government research about your teeth

#17

Post by refurb » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 2:31 PM UTC

pizza234 wrote: post #3

mcbetz wrote: post #2

Listening excessively to one lobby group is as hazardous as eating excessively exactly one staple - be it sugar or wheat. Moderation is important, both in politics and nutrition.

In general, not so simple. The industry shapes the culture, but worse, the law and the market. Very typical example is the corn lobby group, whose result on the market is to cause junk food to be much cheaper than nutritious food, thanks to perverse subsidization. In turn this makes much more difficult for a relatively large part of the population to eat correctly - practically difficult.

If I follow your logic right, you're saying that offering people a cheaper (and less nutritious) alternative prevents them from buying healthy food?

Re: How the sugar industry shaped key government research about your teeth

#18

Post by ccvannorman » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 2:42 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #17

pizza234 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, not so simple. The industry shapes the culture, but worse, the law and the market. Very typical example is the corn lobby group, whose result on the market is to cause junk food to be much cheaper than nutritious food, thanks to perverse subsidization. In turn this makes much more difficult for a relatively large part of the population to eat correctly - practically difficult.

If I follow your logic right, you're saying that offering people a cheaper (and less nutritious) alternative prevents them from buying healthy food?

At scale, I would agree with this, although I wouldn't say "prevents", I would say "discourages". You should definitely notice large effects at scale in any economy, in this case, people definitely do buy more junk food because it's cheaper

(I even do this, and I prefer healthy foods when possible! But at your typical gas station, junk:healthy::10:1, which is not quite the same problem)

Re: How the sugar industry shaped key government research about your teeth

#19

Post by jonlucc » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 2:46 PM UTC

mironathetin wrote: post #12

bcg1 wrote: post #6

Sort of reminds me of Huxley's "Brave New World" when they traumatized the young children to recoil at nature so that when they grow up they never want to take trips out to the country, and so that they would spend all of their money on expensive sports equipment for recreation instead.

yes, we are already there. And instead of reading books like that one, we entertain ourselves with tv series.

Not me, I watch the travel channel so I can see the beautiful outdoors. Oh...

Re: How the sugar industry shaped key government research about your teeth

#20

Post by refurb » Fri, Mar 13, 2015, 2:56 PM UTC

ccvannorman wrote: post #18

refurb wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I follow your logic right, you're saying that offering people a cheaper (and less nutritious) alternative prevents them from buying healthy food?

At scale, I would agree with this, although I wouldn't say "prevents", I would say "discourages". You should definitely notice large effects at scale in any economy, in this case, people definitely do buy more junk food because it's cheaper (I even do this, and I prefer healthy foods when possible! But at your typical gas station, junk:healthy::10:1, which is not quite the same problem)

vegatables, and fruit to a lesser extend, is much cheaper than junk food. Why isn't that encouraging healthy eating?

I believe junk food is like smoking. Everyone knows it's not a healthy choise, but they do it anyways. People are choosing to eat unhealthy food because they want to, it tastes good.