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Is Sugar Really Toxic?

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#61

Post by lukifer »

greghinch wrote: post #28

The article takes the long winded approach to point out the rational argument about how to combat obesity that's been obvious all along: moderation. Laying the blame on sugar in general is a panacea; the problem more has to do with how efficiently sugar delivery has been engineered. Processed foods have made it so that you can eat a relatively small quantity of matter and get a huge amount of sugar (and fat). Want to…

Willpower requires an expenditure of glucose in the brain [1]. When one is used to a high-sugar diet, the blood sugar burns off quickly, despite being slowed by insulin response, and the body craves more, with the brain being glucose-depleted to resist the impulse. This is not to absolve anyone of personal responsibility, but like gambling, it is a losing proposition over time.

The fact is, we're all wired a little differently. Some who drink too much can simple moderate; some find the need to temporarily or permanently quit drinking altogether. Anyone trapped in the "metabolic syndrome" of a sugary diet will probably be more successful doing the latter.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Willpower-Rediscovering-Greatest-Human...

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#62

Post by pyre »

throwit1979 wrote: post #46
Fargren wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately, in most of the world sodas use sugar instead of syrup. So it's not as bad as it could be.

Except it takes about 5 seconds for sucrase in your small intestine to hydrolyze sugar into exactly the same substances present in HFCS. So it doesn't matter. At all.

Most HFCS in use today is a mixture of 45% glucose / 55% fructose. Sucrose is 1 glucose molecule and 1 fructose molecule bonded together. If fructose is really the 'bad' thing here, then HFCS has more of it.

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#63

Post by jacques_chester »

hristov wrote: post #60
jacques_chester wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only the USA has an unusually high supply of fructose. Everyone else uses cane sugar because it's cheaper. People are getting fat because they like the taste of dense foods and those foods are cheaper and more available than ever before in history.

Did you read the article? Cane sugar is sucrose. The sucrose molecule gets broken up into a fructose and glucose molecule by the gut. Thus, cane sugar is for all intents and purposes 50% fructose. This is very similar to HFCS, which is 55% fructose.

I'm aware of that; it's the other reason why the HFCS hypothesis is broken. But it's much easier to draw the international comparisons.

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#64

Post by sliverstorm »

greghinch wrote: post #28

The article takes the long winded approach to point out the rational argument about how to combat obesity that's been obvious all along: moderation. Laying the blame on sugar in general is a panacea; the problem more has to do with how efficiently sugar delivery has been engineered. Processed foods have made it so that you can eat a relatively small quantity of matter and get a huge amount of sugar (and fat). Want to…

If it comes in a box, don't buy it.

Personally I think this is pretty extreme/bad advice. Plenty of over-processed foods don't come in boxes, and plenty of perfectly acceptable foods do come in boxes.

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#65

Post by jacques_chester »

nitrogen wrote: post #51
jacques_chester wrote: post #20

Net caloric balance is still the best long term predictor of average body mass, regardless of dietary macronutrient composition. http://examine.com/faq/what-should-i-eat-for-weight-loss.htm... In turn, obesity is a strong predictor of many diseases, regardless of other factors. In individual cases unobservable "noise" can affect the rate of gain or loss vs the estimated rate given by subtracting an estimate (calories…

The correlation you want isn't BMI calories, it's food type calories. The question to be answered is whether some types of food make it easier or harder to maintain a caloric balance.

Which is a question of satiety. The tl;dr is: eat protein and stop drinking sugary liquids.

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#66

Post by lukifer »

sillysaurus wrote: post #42
greghinch wrote: post #28

The article takes the long winded approach to point out the rational argument about how to combat obesity that's been obvious all along: moderation. Laying the blame on sugar in general is a panacea; the problem more has to do with how efficiently sugar delivery has been engineered. Processed foods have made it so that you can eat a relatively small quantity of matter and get a huge amount of sugar (and fat). Want to…

Cut the processed foods. If it comes in a box, don't buy it. If there are ingredients you have trouble pronouncing, don't buy it. I've reduced my diet to the following: apples, canned pineapple, pork steaks, canned corn, and tap water. The advantage is that none of those contain anything artificial (except the tap water). The disadvantage is that probably no one else would be content eating only those things. But I'v…

Corn is very starchy and low-nutrient. I'd suggest swapping them with something green, like canned peas.

Still, I applaud your approach. I've been on paleo for about a year, lost a bunch of weight, and for a while I was basically eating the same 12 foods on a loop (eggs, bacon, coffee, lamb, shrimp, fish, broccoli, spinach, carrots, raspberries, dark chocolate, almonds).

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#67

Post by sillysaurus »

lukifer wrote: post #66
sillysaurus wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cut the processed foods. If it comes in a box, don't buy it. If there are ingredients you have trouble pronouncing, don't buy it. I've reduced my diet to the following: apples, canned pineapple, pork steaks, canned corn, and tap water. The advantage is that none of those contain anything artificial (except the tap water). The disadvantage is that probably no one else would be content eating only those things. But I'v…

Corn is very starchy and low-nutrient. I'd suggest swapping them with something green, like canned peas. Still, I applaud your approach. I've been on paleo for about a year, lost a bunch of weight, and for a while I was basically eating the same 12 foods on a loop (eggs, bacon, coffee, lamb, shrimp, fish, broccoli, spinach, carrots, raspberries, dark chocolate, almonds).

It's almost impossible to find canned peas without added sugar, sadly.

Thanks for the list of paleo-safe foods!

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#68

Post by m_eiman »

sillysaurus wrote: post #47
gohrt wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you get your pork steaks? There's plenty to feel bad about in there.

Where do you get your pork steaks? Walmart, actually. $1.99/lb. It's all I can afford. There's plenty to feel bad about in there. Yeah, I feel bad that an animal had to die for me to live. But genetically my body freaks out if I don't eat meat, and the animal's already dead anyway. Regarding fat in the pork steak, I'm not so worried about it. I try not to eat the fat, but even still, it seems like there's a decent ch…

I would be more worried about the amount of medicine residues in the meat than the stuff that's actually "supposed" to be there :P

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#69

Post by hristov »

This article shows how the fructose industry is defending itself. Mostly by confusing the issue.

The thing about fructose is that it is not by itself poisonous. The problem only comes about for refined fructose, such as that found in cane sugar and HFCS. In those cases, fructose overwhelms the liver and gets processed by wrong pathways which result in all kinds of problems. But if you eat fructose in the form of fruits and vegetables, your body has to take a while to break the fructose out of the fruit and vegetable cells. Thus, your liver only gets a steady trickle of fructose instead of a flood of it. As a result, the liver can process the fructose correctly. Furthermore, if you eat fructose with fiber, molecules from the fiber help the liver process more fructose correctly.

Knowing this, it is not difficult to construct an experiment that shows that fructose is not harmful. All you have to do is feed your subjects the correct form of fructose (i.e., fruits and vegetables). The experiment where subjects ate large numbers of apples and were perfectly ok was quite telling.

The other defense of the sugar industry is that it is not the sugar, it is the overeating. However, refined sugar causes the overeating. One of the results of processing fructose the wrong way is that the liver does not produce the hormones that are supposed to inform the brain that you are full. Thus, refined fructose causes overeating of sugar and anything else you happen to be eating with your sugar. Personally I know I eat much more fries if I eat them with ketchup and I will eat much more steak if I eat it with steak sauce.

The fat people and diabetics are being blamed for eating too much and lacking willpower. They may be partially to blame, but it is very hard to make the correct decision when your brain's own sensory mechanisms are being hijacked and tricked. It is very hard to stop eating when you are constantly hungry. But if you cut down on the sugar you will not be constantly hungry, and then you may find that you do not even need that much will power to cut down on your calories.

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#70

Post by richcollins »

philwelch wrote: post #52
pvnick wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I ended up shedding 30 pounds in 90 days, and have kept it off for a full year >I probably upped my overall calorie consumption but I replaced the sugars with more complex energy sources like nuts Unless you started exercising, these two statements are incompatible with one another (violates the first law of thermodynamics). What's more likely is you felt "fuller" from eating healthy foods and therefore consumed les…

The laws of thermodynamics do not preclude your body from ingesting something that has calories and shitting it out without actually doing anything with the calories. Your shit would just have more calories left in it, kind of like how a poorly made car might leak gasoline everywhere.

More likely increased BMR
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