Two conspiracy theories about cola • Hacker News Board

Re: Two conspiracy theories about cola

#21

Post by AnotherGoodName » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

ncmncm wrote: post #15

There is nothing harmless about liquid fructose, or liquid sugar (which is half fructose). The people who know the most about fructose blame it for the huge public health crisis that the US (and UK, Pakistan, India, and some other countries) are suffering, manifested as insulin resistance and type #2 diabetes, "metabolic syndrome". It kills way more than COVID. Specifically: fructose is mostly processed only by the l…

>and UK, Pakistan, India, and some other countries

But isn't fructose pretty much only a US based sweetener due to corn subsidies?

The rest of the world uses sugar in coke which is a better mixture of sucrose and fructose.

Re: Two conspiracy theories about cola

#22

Post by vetinari » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

ncmncm wrote: post #15

There is nothing harmless about liquid fructose, or liquid sugar (which is half fructose). The people who know the most about fructose blame it for the huge public health crisis that the US (and UK, Pakistan, India, and some other countries) are suffering, manifested as insulin resistance and type #2 diabetes, "metabolic syndrome". It kills way more than COVID. Specifically: fructose is mostly processed only by the l…

I think that the first who was talking about this was Gary Taubes. His talks and books are worth a look.

Re: Two conspiracy theories about cola

#23

Post by H8crilA » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

Pretty much all sweet drinks, including natural juices, have approx 10% sugar(s) in it. Pretty cool fact that there's a universal sweet spot for sugar (pun!).

Re: Two conspiracy theories about cola

#24

Post by charbonneau2 » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

philipkglass wrote: post #16

ncmncm wrote: post #15

There is nothing harmless about liquid fructose, or liquid sugar (which is half fructose). The people who know the most about fructose blame it for the huge public health crisis that the US (and UK, Pakistan, India, and some other countries) are suffering, manifested as insulin resistance and type #2 diabetes, "metabolic syndrome". It kills way more than COVID. Specifically: fructose is mostly processed only by the l…

I don't know about the rest of this, but fructose cannot be turned into uric acid. Uric acid is a nitrogen compound and there is no nitrogen in fructose.

> Fructose is known to induce uric acid production by increasing ATP degradation to AMP, a uric acid precursor (85, 93, 94) and thus, within minutes after fructose infusion, serum uric acid levels rise (94).

The Epidemiology of Uric Acid and Fructose - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3197219/

Re: Two conspiracy theories about cola

#25

Post by giantg2 » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 5:24 PM UTC

jrmg wrote: post #13

giantg2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? One could say that about any duration, right?

Totally. And it would be more probable as time goes on, since you couldn’t really go on vomiting for ever (unless the illness was way more serious!) 8 hours seems pretty ‘normal’ from the few times I’ve been ill like this though - would basically feel like ‘most of a day’ or ‘most of a night’.

I think we are thinking of different things. Continuously vomiting every 5-15 minutes for 8 hours to the point of just green bile coming up is pretty serious (dehydration is a huge concern), in my opinion. This sort of vomiting seems to be an uncontrollable involuntary response.

Re: Two conspiracy theories about cola

#26

Post by ncmncm » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 5:25 PM UTC

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #21

ncmncm wrote: post #15

There is nothing harmless about liquid fructose, or liquid sugar (which is half fructose). The people who know the most about fructose blame it for the huge public health crisis that the US (and UK, Pakistan, India, and some other countries) are suffering, manifested as insulin resistance and type #2 diabetes, "metabolic syndrome". It kills way more than COVID. Specifically: fructose is mostly processed only by the l…

>and UK, Pakistan, India, and some other countries But isn't fructose pretty much only a US based sweetener due to corn subsidies? The rest of the world uses sugar in coke which is a better mixture of sucrose and fructose.

They are the same, metabolically. It is a fact that UK, India, and Pakistan are also suffering from epidemic levels of metabolic syndrome, traceable to sugar. The US suffers worst because sugar is massively subsidized in the US.

The notion that sugar is less harmful than fructose corn syrup is sugar company propaganda. Both are identically harmful. As noted in TFA, sucrose gets split into fructose and glucose before it gets into the can.

Re: Two conspiracy theories about cola

#27

Post by smnrchrds » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 5:25 PM UTC

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #14

You can use Coca Cola for jail breaks: see this article about a recent jail break in Israel, where the inmates used cola to get through eight inches of concrete floors. So much for the acids that they put into this 'soft drink'... https://www.timesofisrael.com/captured-fugitives-from-gilboa... https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3222116/palestinian-...

Acids are certainly bad for teeth, but is it bad for anything else? I imagine stomach acid is more powerful than any soft drink and the drink ends up there a second after being swallowed. Is there any risk of downstream harm from food acids?

Re: Two conspiracy theories about cola

#28

Post by Blikkentrekker » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 5:26 PM UTC

Neither of which involve an alleged conspiracy.

I must say that I find the word “conspiracy theory” to have rather odd usage in common parlance that does not seem to have much to do with conspiracies but I'm not sure what the actual definition is either.

If anything, perhaps it's actual semantics are little more than “allegations of wrongdoing the speaker considers to be false”.

Re: Two conspiracy theories about cola

#29

Post by pirate787 » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 5:26 PM UTC

For context on the Mexican cola, US cola had sugar as well until the mid 1980s. The US sugar program restricts imports and keeps the domestic price for sugar high, which created a new market for milling corn into HFCS. HFCS is uniquely an American invention that's the result of massive government subsidies for corn and price support for sugar. If the government did not intervene in American sugar markets, cola would still be made with sugar imported from outside the United States.

Re: Two conspiracy theories about cola

#30

Post by antonzabirko » Sun, Oct 24, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

Dynm, i can tell the difference between hfcs and non-hfcs soda. I get blockage near the vocal cords about 5 - 15 minutes after consuming it, so there's definitely something worse than sugar about it.