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50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)

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Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)

#41

Post by _huayra_ »

pengaru wrote: post #13
Lucent wrote: post #2

And now, 13 years after Lustig's "Sugar: the Bitter Truth" totally convinced me it was sugar and not fat, and sugar consumption has decreased while obesity has increased, I'm unconvinced it's sugar either. It's some environmental contaminant. https://twitter.com/mold_time/status/1414242490404720648

Based on personal observations I find it very hard to believe sugar consumption has decreased across the US population in the last 13 years. There's a near constant line out every Starbucks drive-thru I pass. Whenever I go in one to work while caffeinated, those definitely aren't unsweetened beverages being prepared for the masses. Supposedly the whole reason Starbucks espresso is so bitter is so it works well with t…

The chart cited in that tweet seems to have a very suspicious trend. I highly doubt some consumption trend has such a sharp inflection point like that.

I would suspect that it is either both of the following:

- data is based on some food survey, and they changed how they asked the question - "sugar" in the chart is just some specific sugar (e.g. cane sugar), and there was some substitute or reclassification (e.g. fructose -> sucrose?)

Also, I find it very hard to believe that global sugar consumption has been declining, given how hard junk food countries are pushing into less regulated developing economies (e.g. Coca Cola in Chiapas MX, just look on youtube).

Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)

#42

Post by pengaru »

Fezzik wrote: post #40
pengaru wrote: post #25

Though it was annoying to read, Good Calories, Bad Calories [0] by Gary Taubes made it pretty clear bad science, for myriad reasons, poisoned the data informing US policy on nutrition. Blaming fat for all things bad, resulting in the food pyramid with carbs at the foundation. If memory serves one of the main players responsible was Ansel Keys [1], who manipulated/filtered the data of studies backing his fat-is-fatten…

Taubes is probably not a good citation for assessing scientific theories… his own initiative, NuSI, funded studies that debunked his primary dietary claims and yet he continues to peddle the same lies to this very day.

Yeah I've heard some concerning things, but part of what made Good Calorie, Bad Calorie so annoying to read is it's practically all reference-backed citations.

Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)

#43

Post by safety1st »

Lucent wrote: post #2

And now, 13 years after Lustig's "Sugar: the Bitter Truth" totally convinced me it was sugar and not fat, and sugar consumption has decreased while obesity has increased, I'm unconvinced it's sugar either. It's some environmental contaminant. https://twitter.com/mold_time/status/1414242490404720648

Why do people always make this debate so complicated?

The average American consumes 24% more calories than they did in 1961. [1]

The average American is also 24 pounds heavier than they were in 1960. [2]

Sure there may be other contributing factors, but this is the simplest explanation based on our most fundamental nutrition science.

People have eaten more calories every decade, and have gotten fatter every decade as a result.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/american-calorie-intake-last...

[2] https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/09/04/study...

Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)

#45

Post by Fezzik »

pengaru wrote: post #42
Fezzik wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taubes is probably not a good citation for assessing scientific theories… his own initiative, NuSI, funded studies that debunked his primary dietary claims and yet he continues to peddle the same lies to this very day.

Yeah I've heard some concerning things, but part of what made Good Calorie, Bad Calorie so annoying to read is it's practically all reference-backed citations.

You can read the studies here: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2673150 and here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/oby.22468

They are both thorough, easy to read, and contradict Taubes’ primary claims. A third was supposed to occur (I think) but the funding, surprisingly, was withdrawn.

Edit: there were three studies done, all of which contradict Taubes’ claims. You can read his wonky spin on how, even though the studies prove him wrong, he may just be right on his own website: http://garytaubes.com/the-dissolution-of-the-nutrition-scien...

Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)

#46

Post by pmarreck »

bfung wrote: post #36

Anecdote here, worked for me. I’m now 40+, but when I was 28, I had this bad, visible, unsightly eczema on my neck. No dermatologist could prescribe anything to make it go away and I had lived with collared shirts since. I attempted to go on keto diet, fat, proteins, and zero sugar and carbs, twice. Once when the pandemic started, and a second time in Oct 2021. I wanted to lose weight, and to prevent diabetes as a po…

> all the sweetness hits me like a truck and I need water

I think (having experimented with keto and read a bunch) that this is possibly due to the fact that your fat cells need water to store the sugar. (This is also the reason, in reverse, why you need to pee when ketosis releases that fat from the same cells.)

Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)

#47

Post by pmarreck »

safety1st wrote: post #43
Lucent wrote: post #2

And now, 13 years after Lustig's "Sugar: the Bitter Truth" totally convinced me it was sugar and not fat, and sugar consumption has decreased while obesity has increased, I'm unconvinced it's sugar either. It's some environmental contaminant. https://twitter.com/mold_time/status/1414242490404720648

Why do people always make this debate so complicated? The average American consumes 24% more calories than they did in 1961. [1] The average American is also 24 pounds heavier than they were in 1960. [2] Sure there may be other contributing factors, but this is the simplest explanation based on our most fundamental nutrition science. People have eaten more calories every decade, and have gotten fatter every decade as…

And yet willpower has not decreased in that time. So something about the food must have become more addictive or hunger-inducing.

Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)

#48

Post by pmarreck »

Lucent wrote: post #2

And now, 13 years after Lustig's "Sugar: the Bitter Truth" totally convinced me it was sugar and not fat, and sugar consumption has decreased while obesity has increased, I'm unconvinced it's sugar either. It's some environmental contaminant. https://twitter.com/mold_time/status/1414242490404720648

It's high glycemic index carbohydrates, full stop. They do not satiate hunger, they result in more hunger, they are intrinsically addictive (see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1931610/ for example; animal studies conveniently dodge "human willpower" accusations and demonstrate this nicely), and at the end of the day they result in the average person using their average motivations (i.e. not strenuously avoiding calories) to steadily gain weight.

Watch the entire 3-part series on youtube, "Nature Wants Us To Be Fat"; Dr. Richard Johnson seems to know his stuff, he's accredited, and he cites plenty of research: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAjC_BWMElk It's a little dry but fascinating- this seems to be the intellectual crowd that might be receptive to "dry but fascinating"

Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)

#49

Post by durnygbur »

The Coke and Pepsi and other drinks arrived to my country during my lifetime. It didn't take much to realize that these syrups over saturated with sugar and gas (more recently caffeine also) are hiv and aids. I don't need your fat-sugar-lifestyle "research" for this. What makes me hate you is that younger generations for whom this toxic waste is taken as granted, they are fat now.

Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)

#50

Post by pmarreck »

Fezzik wrote: post #45
pengaru wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I've heard some concerning things, but part of what made Good Calorie, Bad Calorie so annoying to read is it's practically all reference-backed citations.

You can read the studies here: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2673150 and here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/oby.22468 They are both thorough, easy to read, and contradict Taubes’ primary claims. A third was supposed to occur (I think) but the funding, surprisingly, was withdrawn. Edit: there were three studies done, all of which contradict Taubes’ claims. You can read his wonky…

Neither of those first 2 studies contradicts Taubes' claims. (What do you believe ARE Taubes' claims, anyway? That's probably important to establish, because my initial impression is that you have not read an entire Taubes book.)

Not only that, he cites far more studies than 3 to support his claims, so your cherry-picking is possibly just that.

Either that or you are a vegan or vegetarian. Whenever I encounter someone online who is vociferously anti-Taubes, it seems to be a vegan or vegetarian 90% of the time. No inherent bias there, LOL

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