Sugar-sweetened beverage intake and serum testosterone levels in adult males (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Sugar-sweetened beverage intake and serum testosterone levels in adult males (2018)

#21

Post by knuthsat » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 6:38 PM UTC

01100011 wrote: post #14

knuthsat wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sugar is not bad. Just like meat or bacon is not bad. Why would sugar on its own be bad? Obviously it's the whole lifestyle and diet that is bad. There are cyclist that carb load by eatig raw sugar and have no metabolic issues like some of the overweight diabetics do when they drink their second gallon of sugary coca cola.

I think you can make a solid case that, for most people, fructose and therefore sucrose is bad in any significant quantity. Sure, fructose can help replenish liver energy stores if you're an athlete, but most people aren't.

This is not true. The Robert Lustig scaremongering is a big lie. In his talk he mentions the healthy Japanese but he does not mention that they eat more calories from fructose (in percentage of their consumed calories) than USA citizens yet are healthier.

Similarly how people stand against epidemiology they should stand against demonizing single ingredients.

Apple, by Lustig's opinion, is the worst fruit there is but he will never, in a scientific study, demonstrate the ill-effects of consuming apples, while another group consumes the same equivalent amount of raw fructose extract.

Re: Sugar-sweetened beverage intake and serum testosterone levels in adult males (2018)

#22

Post by Jtsummers » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 6:39 PM UTC

knuthsat wrote: post #7

Too many confounding variables that can't be removed by a mathematical magic wand. What about obesity, what about body fat percentage? Yeah, fat men have lower testosterone levels. Yeah, non-smokers have lower testosterone levels. I drink a bunch of HFCS and sugar sweetened beverages. Don't feel like it affects my weightlifting, maybe teeth mostly.

From the article:

> Other demographic and clinical variables examined as potential confounders included age, sex, race/ethnicity, poverty/income ratio, BMI, serum cotinine, heavy drinker status, and physical activity MET score. BMI (weight/height2) was measured by trained technicians at the NHANES MEC physical examination [19]. Obesity was defined as a BMI ≥30 kg/m2 according to the World Health Organization criteria [20]. Heavy drinker status was defined as respondents who reported consuming alcoholic beverages ≥4 times/week in response to the question “In the past 12 months, how often did you drink any type of alcoholic beverage”? Physical activity was estimated by summing the time spent weekly engaged in activities as reported by participants, multiplied by the metabolic equivalent of task (MET) value for that activity, which yields a MET-h index. One MET is the energy expenditure of 1 kcal/kg body weight per hours [21]. MET-min/week ≥500 was considered physically active, and I haven't finished reading it, but they do seem to have considered these other variables (body fat by using BMI as a proxy).

Re: Sugar-sweetened beverage intake and serum testosterone levels in adult males (2018)

#23

Post by genrez » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 6:39 PM UTC

ronnier wrote: post #2

> Conclusion: SSB consumption is significantly associated with low serum testosterone in men 20–39 years old in the United States.

narush points out elsewhere that this isn't a controlled experiment, so take these numbers with a grain of salt. Also I am not a statistician, so take this with another grain of salt.

That being said, if I am interpreting Table 2 correctly, the study is saying that consuming a large amount of surgery beverages causes your risk of having low-testosterone related problems to rise by 2.29 times compared to not drinking many sugary beverages. This is after correcting for age, race, BMI, alcoholism, and physical activity levels.

The risk increase before correcting for these things is 2.78 times, so that would seem to indicate that sugary beverages do have a pretty large effect compared to the confounders they choose, though it is still possible sugary beverage consumption is acting as a proxy for something else.

Re: Sugar-sweetened beverage intake and serum testosterone levels in adult males (2018)

#24

Post by skohan » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 6:40 PM UTC

01100011 wrote: post #14

knuthsat wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sugar is not bad. Just like meat or bacon is not bad. Why would sugar on its own be bad? Obviously it's the whole lifestyle and diet that is bad. There are cyclist that carb load by eatig raw sugar and have no metabolic issues like some of the overweight diabetics do when they drink their second gallon of sugary coca cola.

I think you can make a solid case that, for most people, fructose and therefore sucrose is bad in any significant quantity. Sure, fructose can help replenish liver energy stores if you're an athlete, but most people aren't.

Yes exactly. Sugar should probably be placed in the same category as alcohol in terms of health consideration. It's fine to enjoy in moderation, but fundamentally toxic. Less acutely toxic than alcohol, but more strongly habit-forming.

Re: Sugar-sweetened beverage intake and serum testosterone levels in adult males (2018)

#25

Post by knuthsat » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 6:41 PM UTC

CoastalCoder wrote: post #16

knuthsat wrote: post #7

Too many confounding variables that can't be removed by a mathematical magic wand. What about obesity, what about body fat percentage? Yeah, fat men have lower testosterone levels. Yeah, non-smokers have lower testosterone levels. I drink a bunch of HFCS and sugar sweetened beverages. Don't feel like it affects my weightlifting, maybe teeth mostly.

The study considered BMI.

Impossible to regulate with a mathematical magic wand. Removing confounding variables works for physics, not really for anything else.

Re: Sugar-sweetened beverage intake and serum testosterone levels in adult males (2018)

#26

Post by ssully » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

intergalplan wrote: post #15

klipklop wrote: post #3

Is it the sugar or BPA lined cans? Also do they mean "sugar" or high fructose corn syrup? Seems like men had higher test levels in the era of glass bottles and real sugar soda.

In the era of glass bottles and real-sugar soda, we drank a hell of a lot less soda. The era of free refills on sodas not just existing but being expected, and 32-ounce "medium" size soft drinks is quite recent. Also, I'm unconvinced a small difference in the balance between glucose and fructose is worth treating HFCS as different from beet or cane sugar. Its effect on the price of sugar is a different matter, howeve…

This is what I was thinking. Rate of consumption between then and now has to heavily skew towards now. I've worked with multiple people who would come to work with a 64oz of soda (diet, if that matters) in the morning, finish it by lunch time, and come back from lunch with it refilled. I assume these people are extreme cases, but even average soda consumption has to be on the high end.

Re: Sugar-sweetened beverage intake and serum testosterone levels in adult males (2018)

#27

Post by knuthsat » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 6:43 PM UTC

Jtsummers wrote: post #22

knuthsat wrote: post #7

Too many confounding variables that can't be removed by a mathematical magic wand. What about obesity, what about body fat percentage? Yeah, fat men have lower testosterone levels. Yeah, non-smokers have lower testosterone levels. I drink a bunch of HFCS and sugar sweetened beverages. Don't feel like it affects my weightlifting, maybe teeth mostly.

From the article: > Other demographic and clinical variables examined as potential confounders included age, sex, race/ethnicity, poverty/income ratio, BMI, serum cotinine, heavy drinker status, and physical activity MET score. BMI (weight/height2) was measured by trained technicians at the NHANES MEC physical examination [19]. Obesity was defined as a BMI ≥30 kg/m2 according to the World Health Organization criteria…

I know that they are considering it but the variables are so noisy that the mathematics won't work. It never works when it comes to epidemiology. It works for physics.

Re: Sugar-sweetened beverage intake and serum testosterone levels in adult males (2018)

#28

Post by baq » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

knuthsat wrote: post #9

narush wrote: post #5

For anyone wondering, this is not an experiment, it's an epidemiological study. I've commented about it on HN before [1], but nutritional epidemiology is in its own league of shady science. If you didn't know, 80% of things you eat give you cancer [2]. That being said, sugar is bad. Main-lining sugar by drinking it in huge concentrations seems even worse! Edit: that being said, if you are doing nutritional epidemiolo…

Sugar is not bad. Just like meat or bacon is not bad. Why would sugar on its own be bad? Obviously it's the whole lifestyle and diet that is bad. There are cyclist that carb load by eatig raw sugar and have no metabolic issues like some of the overweight diabetics do when they drink their second gallon of sugary coca cola.

Nice trolling, I hope, because it’s terrifying if you’re serious. Sugar basically doesn’t exist in nature without fiber. Animals have not evolved to consume significant quantities of it. Bacterial flora in your gut is different when you have sugar and not enough fiber.

Re: Sugar-sweetened beverage intake and serum testosterone levels in adult males (2018)

#29

Post by stryan » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

jack9 wrote: post #13

knuthsat wrote: post #7

Too many confounding variables that can't be removed by a mathematical magic wand. What about obesity, what about body fat percentage? Yeah, fat men have lower testosterone levels. Yeah, non-smokers have lower testosterone levels. I drink a bunch of HFCS and sugar sweetened beverages. Don't feel like it affects my weightlifting, maybe teeth mostly.

If you stick to fountain sodas, it won't wreck your teeth for decades. The acid in the can (and 2liters, small bottles, etc) is very hard on them.

Is there a study about that? I'd love to see more info on difference in health effects between fountain soda vs bottled/canned.

Re: Sugar-sweetened beverage intake and serum testosterone levels in adult males (2018)

#30

Post by PragmaticPulp » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

knuthsat wrote: post #9

narush wrote: post #5

For anyone wondering, this is not an experiment, it's an epidemiological study. I've commented about it on HN before [1], but nutritional epidemiology is in its own league of shady science. If you didn't know, 80% of things you eat give you cancer [2]. That being said, sugar is bad. Main-lining sugar by drinking it in huge concentrations seems even worse! Edit: that being said, if you are doing nutritional epidemiolo…

Sugar is not bad. Just like meat or bacon is not bad. Why would sugar on its own be bad? Obviously it's the whole lifestyle and diet that is bad. There are cyclist that carb load by eatig raw sugar and have no metabolic issues like some of the overweight diabetics do when they drink their second gallon of sugary coca cola.

> Obviously it's the whole lifestyle and diet that is bad

Of course, we all recognize that eating small amounts of sugar is not the problem.

The reality is that most of us are consuming reasonable amounts of sugar in our normal diets before we even start introducing refined sugar products like sweetened beverages or candies. When people say "sugar is bad" it's over-simplified, yes, but they're not literally suggesting that glucose is inherently evil. The point is that sweets and treats where refined sugar is present in unreasonable quantities are not good for you, as is clearly the topic in this study about sweetened beverages.

> There are cyclist that carb load by eatig raw sugar

Not at all relevant for anyone except elite athletes preparing for an extreme exertion. That said, there are some concerns about ingesting a bolus of refined sugar outside of the context of a meal, which is a glycemic stimulus so intense that it's virtually impossible to achieve during ordinary diets. Even athletes prefer to pace their glucose ingestion and/or ingest carbohydrates as part of a meal with fiber and other mass that slows absorption. Chugging raw sugar is an edge case.