Sugar, not fat, exposed as deadly villain in obesity epidemic

[alp227]

Sugar – given to children by adults, lacing our breakfast cereals and a major part of our fizzy drinks – is the real villain in the obesity epidemic, and not fat as people used to think, according to a leading US doctor who is taking on governments and the food industry.

Dr Robert Lustig, who was this month in London and Oxford for a series of talks about his research, likens sugar to controlled drugs. Cocaine and heroin are deadly because they are addictive and toxic – and so is sugar, he says. "We need to wean ourselves off. We need to de-sweeten our lives. We need to make sugar a treat, not a diet staple," he said.

"The food industry has made it into a diet staple because they know when they do you buy more. This is their hook. If some unscrupulous cereal manufacturer went out and laced your breakfast cereal with morphine to get you to buy more, what would you think of that? They do it with sugar instead."

Lustig's book, Fat Chance: The Bitter Truth About Sugar has made waves in America and has now been published in the UK by 4th Estate. As a paediatrician who specialises in treating overweight children in San Francisco, he has spent 16 years studying the effects of sugar on the central nervous system, metabolism and disease. His conclusion is that the rivers of Coca-Cola and Pepsi consumed by young people today have as much to do with obesity as the mountains of burgers.

That does not mean burgers are OK. "The play I'm making is not sugar per se, the play I'm making is insulin," he says. Foodstuffs that raise insulin levels in the body too high are the problem. He blames insulin for 75% to 80% of all obesity. Insulin is the hormone, he says, which causes energy to be stored in fat cells. Sugar energy is the most egregious of those, but there are three other categories: trans fats (which are on the way out), alcohol (which children do not drink) and dietary amino acids.

full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/mar/20/sugar-deadly-obesity-epidemic

[Purplehazed]

1. Dr Robert Atkins

was saying this in his books since 1972 yet he was labeled a quack.

[snappyturtle]

7. Absolutely. Actually our bodies need fat. Two days ago I watched

"Fat Head" on Hulu. It was made to counter "Supersize Me" the documentary slamming fat content at fast food restaurants such as McDonald's. Well worth watching. Gives a great pictorial explanation of how insulin works and said that too little fat contributes to attention deficit, memory problems and low "T" among others. Also the relationship of the grain market subsidies to playing a roll in carbohydrate consumption. The drug industry has made millions since the "Lipid" theory went into effect as THE culprit in heart disease.

edit: I think this is free...I have an account so it's hard to tell but give it a try because I do believe since it's on hulu (free) vs. hulu-plus (paid) it is free to all:



http://www.hulu.com/#!watch/196879

[RobinA]

75. So...

we're allowed to eat at McDonalds now as long as we don't get the Shamrock Shake? It's so hard to keep up. I'm just glad butter is good now and margarine is bad. I always knew that stuff was poison.

[snappyturtle]

81. Well, basically "yes" but it was stressed in "Fat Head" that Mc D's is not

a healthy diet but not nearly the bugaboo once thought. I've watched this video and done 10 second replays to get the info into my fat head! Very interesting. I spent a good part of yesterday researching collaborating studies and it seems evident that the times they are a changin'. Lots of red tape has kept the information from the public and research from develping further.

Basically, the video was based on a diet of <100 grams of carbs, no trans fats, saturated fats OK (actually raised the good lipid protein HDL!), veggies and fruits. No fries! Or I suppose one could apply them to the carb limit. I'm going to try it.

Watch "Fat Head" if you have time. Run time=1hr and about 40 min. packed full of info. It would also be a bit more enlightening if you could view "Supersize Me" as "FAt Head" was the counter to it....but not totally necessay to still get the good info.

[Cali_Democrat]

24. Gotta love the Atkins diet:

[DanTex]

38. But not the English Muffin!

[Cali_Democrat]

63. True

Gotta take out that english muffin and add 4 more strips of bacon.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

46. Note that although "Supersize Me" blamed fat for American's health problems

an often overlooked part of the movie is that when a dietician analyzed Morgan Spurlock's McDonald's-only meals, she found that he was eating a pound of sugar per day.

There's why his health deteriorated. The equivalent of a pound of sugar per day.

[Neoma]

72. Gross.

[Dorian Gray]

90. His high protein

low carb approach has SOME merit, but I don't think it's the best approach for most people. Cutting out unhealthy carbs is good. But whole grains, fruits and veggies all have carbs, and they are a healthy part of our diets.

A diet of mostly meat can be high in saturated fats. Not always healthy.

[Purplehazed]

93. It is a common belief...

that the Atkins diet is one of mostly meat. A belief that is held by those who never read his books. The low carb craze of the early 2000's had constipated people scarfing down pounds of bacon for breakfast, ribeyes for dinner with whipped cream for desert.

The true Atkins diet severely restricts carbs for a week to ten days. After that, carbs are increased to the maximum level where one still loses weight, followed by further increases to maintain weight. The levels of carbs are determined by each person. There is no set level. Atkins promoted getting your carbohydrate intake from vegetables rather than simple, refined carbohydrates such as sugar, white flour, white rice. He was probably one of the first to use the term empty calories. Whole grains and beans are also included in the diet but not at the early stages.

[laundry_queen]

94. Yep, a common myth by people who haven't read Atkins

is that there are few vegetables. Even in the induction stage, when you do eat a lot of meat, low fat cuts are stressed, and vegetables are HUGE. I don't think I've eaten as many vegetables in my life as when I was strictly following low carb. I find it frustrating when someone mentions Atkins and invariably someone else posts a picture of bacon and steak and eggs. That's not my experience with Atkins at ALL. You will be too full from the veggies to eat much more than 1 serving of meat at each meal. (1 serving = 2 strips of bacon OR 3 oz steak. Not 'and', but 'or'. And most people don't eat those fatty cuts at every meal.)

[duffyduff]

2. What a load of garbage. There no "epidemic" of "obesity" whatever that is.

Hatred for certain body types is perfectly acceptable bigotry.

It's a bullshit article gleaned from crackpot health food sites.

Besides, sugar is a natural substance, and the body metabolizes any kind of sugar the same way.

[slackmaster]

4. You are mistaken. Both weight and body mass index of Americans has been on a long upward trend.

Last edited Wed Mar 20, 2013, 04:41 PM - Edit history (1)

Trends in Overweight and Obesity among Adults, United States, 1962–2010**

■ Overweight ■ Obesity ■ Extreme obesity



The legend doesn't translate. Here is a link to the original page:

http://win.niddk.nih.gov/statistics/

[jeff47]

9. The problem is the science behind saying this is a problem isn't quite as settled as people believe.

People who are "overweight" according to BMI have the longest lifespan. Note that's a technical term in this context - it does not mean all people who are over their supposed ideal BMI.

That would kinda imply that panic over all the people above their ideal BMI is misplaced.

Not to mention the insanity of claiming "Height-weight charts are wrong, so we're gonna use BMI to be more accurate!"

[slackmaster]

11. I agree that the problem tends to be overstated, and so is the risk of "bad" cholesterol numbers.

The over-diagnosis of Type 2 Diabetes and Pre-Diabetes is a racket.

[KurtNYC]

12. High BMI correlates with REDUCED life spans.

Pure numbers my friend -- not subjective at all. Nothing left to be settled. High BMI = lower life expectancy.

A new analysis of almost one million people from around the world has shown that obesity can trim years off life expectancy. It found that moderate obesity, which is now common, reduces life expectancy by about 3 years, and that severe obesity, which is still uncommon, can shorten a person’s life by 10 years. This 10 year loss is equal to the effects of lifelong smoking.

The analysis brought together data from 57 long-term research studies mostly based in Europe or North America. People were followed for an average of 10 to 15 years, during which 100,000 died, making it the largest ever investigation of how obesity affects mortality. It was coordinated by the Clinical Trial Service Unit (CTSU) in Oxford and the results are published online today (18 March; print version 28 March) in The Lancet.

http://www.mrc.ac.uk/Newspublications/News/MRC005722

[jeff47]

13. You may want to google the technical terms so you understand what you're talking about.

Overweight has a technical definition. It is less than obese.

Thus your study is utterly irrelevant to what I was talking about.

Study published in JAMA:
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1555137

News article describing the study (much more accessible):
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/01/02/168437030/research-a-little-extra-fat-may-help-you-live-longer

Long story short:
Being Overweight (which is above "ideal" and less than "obese&quot results in 6% reduced mortality. Or even more simply, having "a couple pounds to lose" means you live longer.

[Marr]

17. That seems more like an indication of how worthless BMI charts are than anything else.

I'm amazed that BMI continues to be such a broadly referenced measurement, even though it's so widely criticized and dismissed by dieticians and doctors.

I would actually expect people classified as "overweight" by the BMI measurements to be the healthiest of the lot, personally. I know triathletes and marathon runners with low bodyfat and great overall fitness who are classified as overweight or even obese by BMI charts. It's a deeply flawed measurement.

[jeff47]

18. Potentially. The point is we don't know because there has not been sufficient study.

People rattle off BMI, overweight, obese and other stats as if they are utterly settled and proven scientifically.

They haven't been. They're guesses. While the guesses are good enough for broad strokes (a 400-lb person isn't going to be healthy), guesses aren't good enough for finer-grained differences.

That requires study, which has not been done. Instead, people are climbing all over each other to release new diet books based on their interpretation of guesses. Such as the doctor in this OP.

[RobinA]

78. But You Can't Do a Study

using terms like "obese" and "overweight," which have no objective meaning without being defined. And not defined in terms of BMI, which deosn't seem to be very scientific either.

[KurtNYC]

35. But Flegel has been debunked for her flawed methodology

But, the crux of the problem with the CDC study, according to several panelists, was failure to control for "reverse causality," a theme that was echoed by several panelists. Implicit in the study's methodology was the notion that leanness can lead to death, when in fact, leanness may merely be an adverse effect of the sickness that leads to death.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/505703

Someone who claims to know science as well as you do should know the difference between correlation and causation and yet you just confused the two: Being Overweight (which is above "ideal" and less than "obese&quot results in 6% reduced mortality.

[jeff47]

71. No, that's a desperate attempt to protect the un-studied status-quo

We don't know what "ideal" weight is. Because we haven't done sufficient studies.

It could very well be that leanness can lead to death - for example a lack of calorie reserves could increase mortality due to sickness, and being slightly heavier fixes that.

The entire point of the study is to demonstrate that we do not know what is going on with any certainty. The objection you cite is based on the belief that we do know what is going on - that being thin is always good. We don't know that. What we know is being obese is not healthy. That doesn't mean being thin is healthy.

An example to move it away from weight: we know a body temperature of 120F can kill you. That doesn't mean a body temperature of 80F is healthy.

With weight, we know what "way too much" is. We don't know what "just right" is.

Someone who claims to know science as well as you do should know the difference between correlation and causation and yet you just confused the two

Considering you didn't know the difference between morbid obesity and overweight, I decided to use coloquial terms in an attempt to help you to understand. After all, you had just utterly butchered scientific terms.

Considering "result" doesn't mean what you think it means, I appear to be completely justified in that. Result is not causation when used in a scientific context. Result is what happened. It says nothing about why it happened.

[adieu]

29. This graph is

useless. What are the percentages of? I have no clue what this graph is trying to tell me.

[slackmaster]

53. The legend didn't come through. Thanks for pointing that out. Link to source page...

http://win.niddk.nih.gov/statistics/

[mainer]

56. Interesting. What happened in 1980 to explain the sudden increase?

I notice that obesity curve suddenly swung upwards right about then. Could it be related to introduction of high fructose corn syrup into so many of our foods? Or something else?

[slackmaster]

59. I would guess that an increase in use of HFCS occurred, or maybe people reduced cocaine consumption

[mainer]

60. Ah, looked it up. HCFS introduced in foods between 1975 and 1985

due to the high price of sugar tariffs. And looky what happened to US obesity rates right around 1980. Coincidence, maybe. But awfully interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup

[RobinA]

79. My Guess

would be that definitions were changed.

[RobinA]

77. Any Indication

of when the definitions of overweight and obese were changed? Or is that info indexed? I would think that a chart showing actual weight, with height changes figured in, would be more informative, as it wouldn't be skewed by ever-changng definitions.

[shanti]

6. you are incorrect

the epidemic of obesity falls right in line with the epidemic of diabetes. it has nothing to do with "hatred of certain body types" (wtf?)

[RobinA]

80. Definitions. Were. Changed.

Don't know when. I remember the diabetes numbers being changed, as well as high blood pressure being revised downward.

[Cali_Democrat]

23. You should make that an OP

[adieu]

26. Boy, you are so wrong

Humans should not be weighing in at 300+ pounds. Humans should not have 75" waists and 90" hips. Those are medically dangerous territory for humans, not an issue of body image or body types.

Lastly, natural substance or no, every substance on earth is technically natural, with the possible exception of some transuranic elements. But that doesn't mean some of them aren't toxic.

Toxicity is never about the quality of the stuff. It's always the quantity of the stuff. Water is a necessary requirement for all life on earth. But too much and life will die.

Lastly, the body does NOT metabolize sugar in the same way. Glucose can be metabolized in the cells, and is required for the brain to function and is an energy source (hence, metabolized in all cells). Fructose is metabolized in the liver, as well as in the brain, and does not get metabolized elsewhere.

The article comes from the Guardian, which is one of the few respectable news outlets left in the world.

So, you shot zero for three with your comments. You're not a republican, are you?

[RC]

34. Sugar is not sugar.

There are different kinds of sugar. Fructose, for instance is metabolized by the liver just as alcohol is. That "beer gut" may be on a teetotaler because he has ingested too much high fructose corn syrup, causing a fatty liver.

[MattBaggins]

37. Sugar is a toxin and we as a nation are obese

[marybourg]

45. Your brain needs that "toxin" to function. In other words to sustain

life. You don't need to ingest it in its pure form; your body metabolizes it from foods. But calling the molecule that enables you to live a "toxin" seems hyperbolic at best and ignorant at worst.

[MattBaggins]

67. Not hyperbolic at all

I'm diabetic. Sugar is toxic.

[madville]

84. The human body can produce any sugar it requires

The human body does not need to ingest any form of sugar to supply the brain with glucose. Gluconeogenesis is where the liver converts amino acids like proteins into glucose for te body to use as it needs it. So ingesting sugars is actually not necessary.

[marybourg]

85. That's exactly what I said, but I was pointing out

that it's hyperbolic or just plain ignorant to chracterize a molecule that our body absolutely needs to live as a "toxin".

[madville]

86. It might be more correct to say

Ingesting sugar is toxic. When it's working correctly, the body should regulate it's own sugar production by the liver and kidneys to a balanced level so there isn't an excess converted and stored as body fat.

[marybourg]

87. Maybe the word "toxic" should just be dropped and we can

probably all agree that it's a bad idea to consume excess sugar.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

47. I have old school pictures from the 1950s and 1960s

No more than one or two kids in each class are overweight.

[Avalux]

61. Unfortunately, you are wrong.

While I will acknowledge that there is bigotry towards obese individuals; and there are some obese individuals who are healthy, obesity is a very real health problem and an epidemic which is only getting worse. Obesity is a major contributing factor for diseases such as adult onset diabetes, hypertension, osteoarthritis and heart disease.

And yes, sugar is a natural substance, but ingesting too much of it has detrimental health consequences. Ingesting too much of anything has detrimental health consequences, including fat and artifical food additives (just to clarify, I'm not totally agreeing with the study).

Here are some statistics on obesity:

http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html

[elfin]

66. I disagree - there is an "epidemic"

Ten years ago how many people did I see tooling around the grocery store in scooters simply because they were too fat to walk? none. Today - at least one or two per visit. usually loading up on sweetened cereals, cookies, soda and chips.

The country has changed - and not for the better in such habits.

[Recursion]

3. It's not as if you eat fat and your body takes it in directly

It's weird that people believed that despite the fact that a second or two of thinking about it shows how silly an idea that is. We build fat out of hydrocarbons, not out of existing fat we eat (though we can break those down into hydrocarbons, and then build fat, but fat isn't particularly better at doing that than other hydrocarbons are).

[shanti]

5. yes, he is correct

Last edited Thu Mar 21, 2013, 01:27 AM - Edit history (1)

and in the "old days", sugar was just that, a treat. however, it's really about the carbs, which translate to "sugar". we eat way too many refined carbs nowadays.

[redqueen]

8. I think you mean the simple carbs, right?

Complex carbs take longer to process so don't produce as much of a spike in blood glucose.

[jeff47]

10. Complex and refined carbs are different things

Complex carbs are starches and similar molecules.

Refined carbs refers to glucose, fructose and sucrose products, which are all simple carbohydrates.

Simple carbs are quickly digested and cause a spike in blood sugar.

Complex carbs are slow to digest (they're big), and do not cause much of a spike in blood sugar.

[Generation_Why]

14. We have medical deniers on the left, like the climate deniers on the right...

People need to stop looking at science through the prism of politics and accept facts for what they are.

It's sad, and frankly disgusting, that scientists and their hard work come under criticism.

Save that for movie stars and politicians.

Stop trying to impede science with "beliefs."

[jeff47]

19. The problem is there are no facts here.

There's hypotheses. They have not been sufficiently tested.

That's why "low fat" was a huge deal from the 80's until now. Since that hasn't turned out to be correct, they're now selecting a new target.

Very little of this is backed by actual science, because the science is extremely hard to do - health effects from diet take a long time to appear.

[adieu]

28. But that's how science works

Scientists make hypotheses, test them out, look at the evidence, revise hypotheses. The original hypothesis, which made first-glance sense, was that eating fat made people fat. Sounds plausible and "duh!". You know, the "you are what you eat" hypothesis.

But, we test the hypothesis, look at the evidence, revise hypothesis and come out with sugar is the problem, and now, we have shown the mechanism for sugar -> fat.

That's how science works. Maybe this new hypothesis, sugar = fat, may be replaced with another hypothesis in a few years, but I doubt that since the mechanism for the metabolism of sugar has been analyzed. We have a much better understand now of how sugar is metabolized, compared to 30 years ago. Our evidence and knowledge is much better. But let's say the sugar = fat hypothesis is not quite correct and is tweaked. Well, that's what science does. We shouldn't grumble, we should exalt at the power of the scientific method.

Indeed, the change of the point of view from fat = fat (the we are what we eat hypothesis) to sugar = fat (the metabolic mechanism hypothesis) is a testament to the power of the scientific method and scientists willing to confront their own views and biases.

And there are lots of facts to back up the current hypothesis.

[jeff47]

32. The problem is acting as if the study is complete as soon as the hypothesis has been made.

And there are lots of facts to back up the current hypothesis.

There were just as many facts backing up the old one.

So why did we spend the last 30 years acting as if it was proven? We switched our diet to eat a lot less fat and a lot more sugar (most low fat versions of food contain much more sugar).

We should not repeat this same mistake and leap on the latest bandwagon.

[adieu]

36. No one made that claim except you

All scientists know that no hypothesis, no theory is ever complete or final. Scientists worked on the ptolemiac theory (hypothesis) for planetary motion for over hundreds of years before it was changed. Science takes time to change. Until it's changed, the latest and best hypothesis should be the king of the hill and should dictate what we should do, in terms of policy and proper guidance. Otherwise, why learn from science?

[marybourg]

50. In my childhood, a long time ago, people seemed to know

that if you ate more than a modest amount of candy, cake, pie, cookies, sweet drinks, you got fat. I don't really think the association of sugar with being fat (few people were truly obese back then) is a sudden revelation of the 21st century.

[jeff47]

70. People aren't eating mountains of candy, cake or pie

They're eating lots of processed food, because it's much cheaper and faster-to-prepare. That processed food has a surprisingly large amount of sugar to make it palatable.

[marions ghost]

88. it is in everything

processed food manufacturers think we are hummingbirds.

[supernova]

15. It is highly refined and processesd carbs in general

that are proving to be the culprits. They all break down into sugar very quickly and provide a quick spike in blood glucose (BG).

Sugar is simply the bogey man du jour and most obvious.

All types of flours from grains and grasses (even rice flour) can produce the same blood sugar spikes. It appears to be a continuum on which people have varying degrees of tolerance for metabolizing carbohydrates. Don't have significant weight gain, esp around the middle ? Don't have a lot of GI distress? Don't feel sleepy an hour after that bowl of noodles? Then you probably don't have a problem processing carbohydrates. I'd also add a continued hunger after eating those kinds of carbs is a good tip off as well. If you can tolerate some carbs, then certainly eating whole wheat berries, or whole barley,etc. in moderation is fine.

If you do have these symptoms, then checking into using managed and lower carb nutrition is a good bet. If do have metabolic syndrome and diagnosed diabetes, then checking into very low carb nutrition >30g carbs/day) is also warranted.

For further info : Nutrition and Metabolism Society on FB https://www.facebook.com/pages/NMS-Nutrition-and-Metabolism-Society/123700251116149?fref=ts

[hedgehog]

41. The study of sugar spikes is complicated by the fact that few items are

eaten by themselves. For example, if you have sour cream on that baked potato, how does the fat affect the rise in blood sugar? What if there is a steak and green salad with it?

I'm not knocking the theory, mind you, just pointing out that the information we need for practical application is going to take some money and time to collect!

[supernova]

57. It's not the fat

it's the baked potato (might as well eat 1/4 C sugar, your body will use them the same)

The sour cream (as long as you don't an intolerance to milk products, i.e. caseine) is fine as is the salad and any olive oil or nut oil based dressing. And the steak is fine too, as long as it's grass fed not grain fed. Grass-fed pastured red meats have the appropriate balance of Omega 6s:Omega 3s for humans.

[NickB79]

16. I've started cooking with my grandmother and saving her recipes

She's 85 yr old but still independent, living on the family farm by herself (though her 8 sons and 15 grandchildren stop by to visit regularly).

I started doing it as a way of saving something of her, a living memory for when she's not here that I could then pass on to my daughter when she's older. Also, because some of my fondest memories revolve around sitting down at her table and digging into a plate of her cooking

She was a child during the Great Depression, and raised 8 boys on a family farm with my grandfather after he returned from WWII Germany. They grew most of the food they ate, so she knows her way around a henhouse, a barn, a huge garden, an orchard and a kitchen. Suffice to say, she doesn't care for lowfat anything! Food is cooked with lard and butter, fatty meat is A-OK in her book, and anything processed is for people too lazy to care about quality. Of course, this is all balanced out by copious quantities of fruits and vegetables used both fresh and preserved for future use (I'm also working on expanding my home garden, henhouse and orchard to duplicate her work as well).

The crazy thing is, the more use her cooking methods, the better I feel. I'm lucky to work a job that has moderate physical demands, so I can burn 2000-3000 calories a day at times. The amount of sugar used in her cooking is surprisingly low, far lower than I thought it would be. Sure, you use cupfuls of it to make cinnamon rolls or German poundcake, but those are treats, not eaten with every meal. In contrast, sugar today is ubiquitous to so many processed foods you end up eating gobs of it even when you don't intend to.

[Arugula Latte]

21. I was going to say -- that kind of cooking/eating went along well with farm labor.

For cubicle sitting, not so much.

[RedCappedBandit]

20. Overeating is the culprit.

[Happyhippychick]

25. Absolutely!!! It's all about portion size.

[hedgehog]

40. Both portion size and contents of portion -

as an extreme example, a cup of strawberries is different than a cup of strawberry ice cream.

[RedCappedBandit]

68. Nothing wrong with a cup of ice cream.

There is zero reason to avoid simple treats so long as you are not overdoing it.

[Sophiegirl]

22. Indispensable Fact

Six years ago, I weighed 268 pounds.

I began to limit my sugar intake to less than 30 grams per day. Today, I weigh 125 pounds.

I don't count calories. I don't obsess about fat. Though I also don't snack on lard. I also don't eat meals the size that could feed a family - you know...the ones they serve in restaurants.

Do I think sugar is the primary culprit of our nation's obesity epidemic? Yes. Along with the idea that to get a good value when eating out means so much food that one could have dinner...and breakfast and lunch the next day.

Ever looked at how many grams of sugar are in a single serving of that 'oh so good for you' yogurt has? Somewhere between 25-30. But it's healthy, right?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

64. There seems to be a sentiment in Middle America that a "good" restaurant is one where

you get a lot of food for your money. The "family restaurants" have all-you-can-eat spaghetti, all-you-can-eat French fries, never anything healthy.

Restaurants that cater to rich people tend to have small portions of healthy food. A cup of soup made from garden-fresh vegetables, a salad, whole-grain bread with sweet cream butter, a small portion of meat or fish with steamed vegetables and/or a small baked potato. For dessert, a flan that wouldn't even fill a coffee cup.

[xtraxritical]

27. Like any of this is news or new science? Yawn.

[TygrBright]

30. Bacon rejoices. n/t

[flying rabbit]

69. As do I n/t

[HiPointDem]

31. people have short memories.

[Javaman]

33. HFCS. nt

[derby378]

39. Beat me to it

HFCS is not sugar. It is, at best, Frankensugar. It doesn't grow naturally; it has to be manufactured in a laboratory.

The corn lobby says, "Your body can't tell the difference." My tongue can, and my tongue is still part of my body, so what other organs react differently to HFCS instead of sugar?

[Ilsa]

42. Rec Javaman's post. It's the HFCS, not just "sugar."

HFCS works on the brain differently, but it looks like that research got buried. The corn industry wants us to believe that HFCS is the same as sugar because the calorie count is the same, but it usually causes the user to crave more sweets, not satiate the sweet tooth.

[hedgehog]

48. I don't know if it effects the brain differently, but at the very least,

liquid HFCS is different mechanically and physically from granular sugar. It's not a simple case of calories, but how the body disassembles the food to get at the calories.

HFCS has a different aftertaste than sugar, suggesting the presence of chemicals not found in refined cane sugar.

[Ilsa]

52. About five years ago,

A scientist discovered that HFCS would tell an enzyme in the brain to turn itself off or block it from doing its job, which was to stimulate something else which gives us the feeling of being satisfied. Actual refined sugar, allows the message of feeling satisfied, to get through.

I don't know if anyone had the money to replicate that research. Suspect it was squashed.

[Javaman]

62. Yup, what HFCS effects are the lipids in you system.

Lipids to a great extent control how one feels "full" after eating a meal.

The HFCS suppressed that sensation.

We as a nation have to remember what the concept of being "full" is after a meal. I have lost over 30 pounds, not through some miracle diet, but just by listening to my body. Knowing when I felt full and stopped eating.

[hedgehog]

43. I honestly believe that people are gaining weight for multiple reasons:

Some just plain eat too much

Some eat too much sugar, especially in the form of sugared beverages

These people can change their eating habits and drop the pounds.

I also think other people are reacting to chemicals in the environment that mimic hormones. These people will have great difficulty losing weight until that problem is addressed.

[Javaman]

55. simpler than that: nutrition.

A person can be grossly over weight and still die of malnutrition.

The reason why, generally speaking, obesity strikes the poor is two reasons, cheap food and the concept of food deserts.

cheap food is high in calories very very low on nutrition.

food deserts are just that low income impoverished areas of the nation are bereft of healthier choices when it comes to food. the miles needed to travel to a supermarket for fresh vegetables and fruits are almost insurmountable due to the price of gas, lack of public transportation price of getting that produce.

Many markets will not put stores into what they consider "high crime" areas for fear of robbery or stolen goods.

Oddly, an experiment was done 2 years ago in Brooklyn, NY in one of the poorest, highest crime areas: Bed Sty. A fruit and vegetable seller set up a stand to see if he could sell any of his produce. It was stocked with all kinds of stuff. He hoped at best to break even. The result, he was sold out in under an hour.

People want food. they want fresh food. But if you don't have any choice or way to get to it, you don't.

my personal conspiracy theory is: the crap food sellers maintain a lock on those areas as their own gold mines to sell their garbage. Sort of their "bread and butter" market. Making sure that any market of any size selling real food is kept out.

The urban gardening movement is making some inroads, but face an uphill climb against various real estate agencies who prevent vacant lots from being used for gardens.

A classic example of this was the now famous garden war in East L.A. that was made into a documentary featuring Darryl Hannah. The plot of land had been vacant for years and so the surrounding community decided to use it for a community garden. They did this for a number of years without issue. Suddenly the owner drops from the sky and demands his land back. Lawsuits ensued and the people lost. What happened to the land after the garden was cleared out? Nothing. It still stands empty to this day now with a chain-link fence around it.

[Silent3]

44. "...not a case of eradicating sugar... just getting it down to LEVELS that are not toxic"

Emphasis mine.

I just want to reiterate this for all of the people who can't seem to process this sort of information in anything but a fanatical, black-or-white way. As is often the case, the poison is in the dosage.

Just because a lot of something is bad doesn't mean that a little of that thing has got to be at least a little bit bad. A little can be PERFECTLY FINE. Sugar is a nutrient, a useful fuel, and it's only because we have the advantage of living in a culture that surrounds us with an excess of cheap calories that we forget that some calories are good, some are needed.

It's not intrinsically bad for a few of the calories we need to come from sugar. It's just way too easy for us to get too many of our calories from sugar.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

49. I began limiting sugar about 15 years ago

When I keep the amounts in moderation, I maintain my weight.

When I give it up, I lose weight.

When I eat a lot of it (say I eat it at a birthday party and find myself with cravings for it in subsequent days), I get pains in my joints and gain weight.

This seems to be irrespective of what I eat otherwise.

[Autumn]

51. Sugar and HFCS are not the same. Where is the study on HFCS?

You have to really look for fizzy drinks that contain real sugar. I smell a bullshit study.

[Javaman]

58. Of course it's BS...

I wouldn't be surprised if this "study" was underwritten by the corn industry.

HFCP, like oil, is in everything we eat.

I tell people if they want to lose weight, simple rule of thumb: don't eat anything that comes in a precooked package (this includes fast food), cut out anything "refined" and lastly stop drinking soda.

Make more meals at home. Eat more vegetables and know where your meat is sourced from.

Also, if you eat meat, look at the fat. If the fat is pearl white don't eat it. All healthy fat should be yellow due to beta-carotene in the animals diet. Ideally get your meat from a grass fed rancher, but not everyone has that option.

[Autumn]

65. I think you are correct on each point you made.

[ananda]

54. This should not be news to anyone.

..

[Hekate]

73. Duh. Ever read the label on "fat free" so-called "yogurt"?

They remove the milk fat, thus making a tasty product sour and in some cases chalky, they they make up for it by adding a bunch of fruity sugary jelly at the bottom. Mmmm, good.

And so it goes in fine-print label land.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

74. The ones that creep me out are "fat-free sour cream" and "fat-free whipping cream"

I haven't looked at the labels. I'm scared to see what they've done to products where the fat is the whole point of the product.

[Laelth]

76. Duh! Atkins was right. Fat is good. Sugar is bad. n/t

-Laelth

[pipi_k]

82. I think it's a mistake to

take just one thing and make it the all-purpose villain.

Someone above said s/he had photos of schoolkids from the 50s and 60s.

I was a kid back then, and I also remember that there wasn't more than one fat kid per classroom. Some had none at all. Now we're lucky to have a handful of thin kids per classroom.

As a child, and as a teenager, I was very thin. Almost painfully so.

We ate sugary stuff all the time. Candy. Soda. Sweetened cereals. Pudding. Cake. Cookies. Ice cream.


BUT...we got up off our asses and moved.

[theophilus]

83. Sugar is part of the problem. Carbs and Wheat (the super carb) are very much to blame

as well. The insulin problem is THE problem, imo. I read the Wheat Belly book by Dr. Davis (roundly panned by many here on D.U. and have proceeded to lose 40 lbs. in less than four months. I have actually tried to reduce my loss of late to not lose too fast. I have not started an exercise regimen of any kind and have plenty of choices of what to eat. I have NOT cut out carbs, just reduced them so as not to spike my blood sugar. I weigh less now than I have is thirty years and never thought I could accomplish this. Cutting out wheat has allowed me to be satisfied with much less food. I don't have ANY serious cravings and I can go without for longer periods if I need to and actually have more energy. ALLS I KNOW IS THAT IT WORKED FOR ME.

Wheat is a super carb that raises blood sugar like no other and it is also an appetite stimulant. I make my own bread from "heirloom" flour and it does not cause the problems of modern wheat. Go figure. Insulin is the key but we need carbs and fat. An understanding of the system really helps.

[Dorian Gray]

89. Too much sugar

too much fat... to much of anything is bad for you. But if you eat healthy fats (nuts, avocadoes, etc) in moderation, it's good for you. Cutting out all fat in our diet is not healthy. It's better to watch intake of calories.

[Bigmack]

91. My doc....

... a cardiologist... got tired of telling his patients to "exercise and watch your diet", because it did no good.

Now he says "sugar is addictive, it should be a controlled substance like heroin" He gets lots better results.

He convinced me, so I went off (added) sugar completely. Fruits only. Well, maybe some honey in my coffee.

I've always been extremely physically active, so no change there.

I had withdrawal symptoms and cravings you would not believe. After two weeks, the cravings went away.

No extra sugar, no white wheat products...

Lost 50 lbs. I now weigh 12 lbs more than I did when I got home from Vietnam! I have fought my weight my whole life, but the "no sugar" thing works for me.

It's easy, too. Once the withdrawal cravings are gone, you taste things differently, too. I used to drink diet soda... obsessively. Now... iced tea is perfect.

The weight has been off more than a year... haven't gained a pound... so I hope it's permanent.

I do know that I don't want to go thru withdrawal again, so that keeps me honest.

Different things for different people, but it sure worked for me.

[sendero]

92. See why.

... I don't pay any attention whatsoever to all of the medical "science" that we are constantly exposed to? Oh sure, I avoid HFCS because it is clearly not food. And nobody would argue that we could all eat more vegetables and less refined carb based on our diet throughout the centuries.

But every time you turn around a sacred cow (it's the FAT!!!), an admonition that wasn't based on any science to begin with, is slain. It's pathetic.