50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)
1–10 of 86 posts
Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)
#2And 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.
Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)
#3And 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
Probably sugar consumption has gone down because people have replaced it with artificial sweeteners, which have similar metabolic effects in the body to what Lustig has attributed to sugar. It'd be nice to see a combined graph of sugar + artificial sweeteners.
Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)
#4And 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
Starch.
Sugar consumption may have decreased, but starch converts to sugar in our stomach acid, and with the Amylase in our saliva.
Yup. The largest part of the food pyramid: Grains.
Noodles, potatoes, porridge, bread... It's all sugar.
Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)
#5[2016]
This news had a big impact on me, but I was wondering how they actually did it. It's like carbon credits, or the snake breeding or whatever, you can't pay people enough to not do something.
Per the article, it sounds like maybe
1. There actually is published research linking sugar to heart health
2. The sugar lobby paid $50k for a single review study that omitted/downplayed 1 and emphasized other papers related to fat and heart health
3. Policymakers used this single study to shape policy
I'm left with a lot of questions though. The article talks about the sugar lobby doing this for 50 years... what did they do in the rest of the 50 years? And $50k isn't a lot!
Do journalists only look at review papers? That doesn't sound right, there's a constant barrage of journalists jumping on a single paper with minor findings and sensationalizing it, I can't believe they'd as a whole completely ignore sugar research. Public discourse also completely ignored sugar, somehow.
Did other industries (meat? butter? oil?) not fight back about this?
Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)
#6And 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
Starch. Sugar consumption may have decreased, but starch converts to sugar in our stomach acid, and with the Amylase in our saliva. Yup. The largest part of the food pyramid: Grains. Noodles, potatoes, porridge, bread... It's all sugar.
Starch converts to glucose, which is processed VERY differently from table sugar, sucrose, or the type of sugar found in fruit, fructose.
So, sugar is not all sugar. I believe Lustig has argued that the latter two are much worse than the former.
I agree overeating of carbs is not good, but is the reason why America is so fat because we just magically eat more bread, noodles, and potatoes than comparable countries? Probably not.
Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)
#7And 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
Processed foods, HFCS, fruit juices are also sugar
Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)
#8And 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 can't it be both?
Also, the consumption of sucrose in the developed world may or may not have appreciably decreased in the period since Lustig's lecture came out, but the pandemic and corresponding spike in inflation have forced many people to seek out cheaper sources of food. And what are those cheaper sources of food loaded with? Yep: sugar and salt.
Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)
#9And 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
Now I’m just a person who has remained the same approximate weight for the past 3 decades so I don’t know anything about substantial weight loss or gain.
But is it at all possible it’s just calories in calories out? I know it isn’t a sexy theory but it works like hell for me.
Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)
#10And 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
Agreed - all of the things said below, plus: depression; less activity due to cars, sitting at desks all day, and other non-active activities; the absolute contant confusion about what foods are healthy and aren't; the complete confusion over what "food" actually is (Michael Pollan has done some great writing there).
It's a combination of all of these - and many other - variables, which have different influences on different people. For every morbidly obese person dealing with all of the health, societal, and metal affects, I can just as easily find at least one unhealthy "healthy" person who obsesses WAY too much over this stuff. Both have eating disorders for pretty much the same reasons, but with different results. And there are more than enough folks who continue to take advantage of all of this confusion to make money at both ends who see no reason to stop it and prefer to prolong it.
Who is there left to trust here?