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Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

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Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#121

Post by harpastum »

danielki wrote: post #16
mikeyouse wrote: post #3

The key results from the paper: After adjustment for sociodemographic and health-related characteristics, sugar-sweetened soda consumption was associated with shorter telomeres (b = –0.010; 95% confidence interval [CI] = −0.020, −0.001; P = .04). Consumption of 100% fruit juice was marginally associated with longer telomeres (b = 0.016; 95% CI = −0.000, 0.033; P = .05). No significant associations were observed betwe…

Did they describe how they controlled for behavioral habits? It seems like, as a group, the type of people who would drink large amounts of sugary soda would be less likely to make healthy behavioral choices in other aspects of their life, compared to people who drink fruit juice or diet soda. This could also explain the disparity between soda and non-carbonated sugar-sweetened beverages This study doesn't seem to sh…

I just looked through the study. They controlled for Smoking, Alcohol, Energy Intake, Alcohol Intake, Healthy Eating (via "Healthy Eating Index"), Body Mass Index, and Waist Circumference.

Relevant Section:

Health-related variables included smoking status (never, former, current), pack-years of smoking (0, 60), physical activity assessed from questionnaire (some activity, no activity), total energy intake, alcohol intake, and Healthy Eating Index 2005 (HEI 2005) score, which is a dietary pattern de- veloped by the USDA to measure compliance with national dietary guidelines. The HEI 2005 is scored out of 100 points and comprises 12 components: total fruit, whole fruit, total vegetables, dark green and orange vegetables and legumes, total grains, whole grains, milk, meat and beans, oils, saturated fat, sodium, and calories from solid fats, alcoholic beverages, and added sugars. We collapsed HEI 2005 scores into gender-specific quartiles: for men, the cutpoints were 42.1, 45.9, and 50.5; for women, the cutpoints were 44.4, 48.6, and 53.5. We defined alcohol intake as low (0---0.5 drinks/day for men and women), moderate (0.5---2.0 drinks/day for men; 0.5--- 1.5 drinks/day for women), and heavy ( > 2 drinks/day for men, > 1.5 drinks/day for women).

Adiposity measures included body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference. We calculated BMI from self-reported height (in meters) and weight (in kilograms squared), measured by trained personnel using a stadiometer and Toledo weight scale (Toledo Scale, Honolulu, HI). We defined BMI categories as underweight (BMI

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#122

Post by xrange »

crusso wrote: post #112
a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is for these reasons we should ban breast feeding. Human breast milk has a sugar content higher than ice cream! It is obviously unsafe for babies to be exposed to so much sugar.

Breast-fed infants don't typically have exposed teeth subject to tooth decay, do they?

Sure they do. Not when they are first born, but later on. Source: Father of four kids who were still nursing when they had teeth.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#123

Post by boydjd »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #101
boydjd wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the "fruit juice" (in America, at least) contains just as much HFCS as soda. I don't know if this is the case in the rest of the world or in this study though.

I'm fairly sure in the UK you can't legally call fruit juice with added sugar/sweeteners "juice" - it would have to be fruit drink or something

It's the same in the US ... except you can call it "juice drink" or "juice cocktail", which isn't very clear.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#124

Post by Symbiote »

mikeyouse wrote: post #110
weinzierl wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No significant associations were observed between consumption of diet sodas or noncarbonated SSBs and telomere length. I don't understand how the carbonation can have an effect. It's just CO2 and a little bit of H2CO3, neither of which is metabolized.

The results probably vary due to the different classes of beverages, it's not like they make a Coke Zero-Carbonation. I'm actually having a hard time coming up with non-carbonated sugar-sweetened beverages as I don't drink any, but I'm picturing stuff like Honest Tea or those Starbucks Frappuccino things.

> non-carbonated sugar-sweetened beverages

Bottled "tea" seems the right kind of thing.

Common in the UK are sweetened fruit juice drinks. Obvious examples are Sunny D and J2O, but there are also plenty of drinks sold in very similar packaging to pure fruit juices, which are actually diluted and sweetened (with sugar). They have to say "juice drink" on the label.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#125

Post by maxerickson »

anigbrowl wrote: post #82
a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HFCS is equal parts fructose and glucose, same as sucrose. Lustig is an obese laughing stock and derided by real nutritionists.

So you're saying that high fructose corn syrup is not in fact high in fructose? Perhaps you could address the linked study from the article, which found fructose:glucose proportions in sweetened beverages to the be in a ~60:40 ratio rather than ~50:50. The full paper is available at the link with no paywall, so feel free to point out how you consider it deficient. Also, I can see for myself that Lustig is not obese.…

The etymology of the "high" in HFCS is from a comparison to plain corn syrup, which has little or no fructose (it's processed to make HFCS, glucose is enzymatically converted to fructose).

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#126

Post by lttlrck »

novalis78 wrote: post #64
Gracana wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's the carbonation. When I realized that's the part I really enjoyed, I started drinking seltzer water (and a lot of it, because I didn't get the uncomfortable feeling that sugary soda gave me.)

the other weird thing is how hard it is to find carbonated seltzer in America... in Western Europe you basically trip over container loads of the stuff at every supermarket's entrance. Makes you wonder if carbonated seltzer is what might help change North American soda consumption habits

It's readily available in 24 packs in Massachusetts.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#127

Post by mikeyouse »

tbrownaw wrote: post #31
mikeyouse wrote: post #3

The key results from the paper: After adjustment for sociodemographic and health-related characteristics, sugar-sweetened soda consumption was associated with shorter telomeres (b = –0.010; 95% confidence interval [CI] = −0.020, −0.001; P = .04). Consumption of 100% fruit juice was marginally associated with longer telomeres (b = 0.016; 95% CI = −0.000, 0.033; P = .05). No significant associations were observed betwe…

Their confidence intervals include 0 or nearly-0, their P-values are at or near the .05 cutoff, and they tested a bunch of different things and got results on a few that don't really make sense. In related news, green jelly beans cause acne: https://xkcd.com/882/

> Their confidence intervals include 0 or nearly-0, their P-values are at or near the .05 cutoff

They ran two different models and found across all cohorts (correcting for age, race, BMI, marital status, smoking, history, physical activity levels, and education) that those who regularly consumed sugar-sweetened soda had statistically shorter telomeres -- and that this affect is correlated with the amount of consumption.

> Because of the model-based estimate in this sample of the age-associated rate of telomere shortening of 13.6 base pairs per year, this was equivalent to 1.9 additional years of aging for an 8-ounce serving of sugar-sweetened sodas. For a daily consumption of the current standard 20-ounce serving size for sugar-sweetened sodas, this corresponds to 4.6 additional years of aging.

This is good science, and treating it as less than that to set up a joke is pointless.

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#128

Post by Scientist007 »

mikeyouse wrote: post #107
Arnor wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Some of us aren't subscribers to APHA or aren't interested in spending $22 on the article. 2. Why so confrontational? If you know the answer to the question, why not summarize it? Is the answer to the question so complicated that it would take more time and energy than the two paragraphs you composed in derision?

I can address #2; > If you know the answer to the question, why not summarize it? Is the answer to the question so complicated that it would take more time and energy than the two paragraphs you composed in derision? Every science article posted on HN gets the exact same treatment where well-intentioned but scientifically ignorant posters fill the comment section with drive-by posts saying "Correlation != Causation"…

Given that most published medical research findings are false, their scepticism is well founded.

Your confidence, to the contrary, may be borne of ignorance.

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fj...

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#129

Post by anigbrowl »

DanBC wrote: post #114
anigbrowl wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Castigating someone for shilling for the sugar industry in the context of unsweetened fruit juice makes no sense. The guidelines you cite are obviously infants and toddlers. I suspect the poster above is thinking of more active older children. Accusing him/her of being a paid PR person is unjustified and unnecessary.

Do a search - the poster frequently recommends adding refined sugar to the diet; and responds to requests for cites with abuse. In this thread they've called citing your claims as "a game for retards". The poster holds a view which is so weird it may as well be shilling. (And I say this as someone who has said that Lustig advocates go too far).

I stand corrected :-/

Re: Soda May Age You as Much as Smoking

#130

Post by manicdee »

danielki wrote: post #16
mikeyouse wrote: post #3

The key results from the paper: After adjustment for sociodemographic and health-related characteristics, sugar-sweetened soda consumption was associated with shorter telomeres (b = –0.010; 95% confidence interval [CI] = −0.020, −0.001; P = .04). Consumption of 100% fruit juice was marginally associated with longer telomeres (b = 0.016; 95% CI = −0.000, 0.033; P = .05). No significant associations were observed betwe…

Did they describe how they controlled for behavioral habits? It seems like, as a group, the type of people who would drink large amounts of sugary soda would be less likely to make healthy behavioral choices in other aspects of their life, compared to people who drink fruit juice or diet soda. This could also explain the disparity between soda and non-carbonated sugar-sweetened beverages This study doesn't seem to sh…

Edited from the report:

Potential confounders included sociodemographics (participant’s age, gender, self-reported race/ethnicity (white, black, Hispanic, other), highest educational attainment, ratio of family income to poverty, and marital status.

Health-related variables included smoking status, pack-years of smoking, physical activity assessed from questionnaire (some activity, no activity), total energy intake, alcohol intake, and Healthy Eating Index 2005.

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