Guest Essay by Kip Hansen
Prologue: This is the third in a series of several essays that will discuss ongoing scientific controversies, a specific type of which are often referred to in the science press and elsewhere as “Wars” – for instance, this essay covers the War on Sugar. Kahan, in his recent “On the Sources of Ordinary Science Knowledge and Extrarodinary Science Ignorance”, refers to such controversies as “the Science Communication Problem” characterized by their “signature form of persistent contestation”. For the record, I admire Kahan’s analysis, but do not agree with it. The purpose of the series is to illuminate the similarities and differences involved in each of these controversies. I will share my analysis in an essay at the end of the series. Earlier essays in this series are here and here.
Warning: This is not a short essay. Dig in when you have time to read a longer piece.
“Our bodies need one type of sugar, called glucose, to survive. ‘Glucose is the number one food for the brain, and it’s an extremely important source of fuel throughout the body,’ says Dr. Kristina Rother, an NIH pediatrician and expert on sweeteners. But there’s no need to add glucose to your diet, because your body can make the glucose it needs by breaking down food molecules like carbohydrates, proteins, and fats.
“Some sugars are found naturally in foods, such as fruits, vegetables, and milk. ‘These are healthful additions to your diet,’ says Dr. Andrew Bremer, a pediatrician and NIH expert on sweeteners. ‘When you eat an orange, for instance, you’re getting a lot of nutrients and dietary fiber along with the natural sugars.”
“Although sugar itself isn’t bad,’ says Rother, ‘sugar has a bad reputation that’s mostly deserved because we consume too much of it. It’s now in just about every food we eat.” – NIH “Sweet Stuff”
I’ve bolded the central issue in the War on Sugar. The proponents of the War on Sugar – those fighting to eliminate — or at least sharply reduce the amount of – sugar from the American diet have painted sugar as bad – have made sugar into a villain – because it is too popular – people like it and, in the opinion of the anti-sugar advocates, eat too much of it. We should additionally note that sugars are one of the carbohydrates that the body breaks down into glucose – also known as blood sugar. This illogic – sugar is bad because we eat too much of it — is then used to vilify food producers who use sugar in their products – positioned as unnecessary, too much, wrong kind – an endless attack on a substance that is not only innocent, but is a necessary part of the human diet and the main source of quick energy for most higher life forms on earth.
The War on Sugar is dissimilar to the two previous Science Wars discussed so far in this series: The Salt Wars and the Great Barrier Reef Wars. In those previously covered wars, we found two groups of scientists, one on each apparent more-or-less polarized side of the issue, each surrounded by followers in civil society – activist groups, media, and citizens – who are also polarized on the issues involved. In the War on Sugar, we find almost exclusively a large monolithic body of science and health researchers, ‘science popularizers’ and government agencies waging an endless battle against what they see as the inertia of the general public – who for the most part refuse to do as they are told and give up, or at least eat less, sugar — and, as is common in science wars, assert that there is a conspiracy called Big Sugar (which includes all food producers and anyone else not aligned with their view).
The anti-sugar forces use logic like this: “Several studies have found a direct link between excess sugar consumption and obesity and cardiovascular problems worldwide,” Bremer says. Because of these harmful effects, many health organizations recommend that Americans cut back on added sugars.” (NIH – ibid)
All of us who have studied and trained ourselves to read health studies and findings see right away the problem here. The finding of “links” (direct or not) between two or three things is [almost] meaningless. To then make society-wide health or diet recommendations on this sort of weak evidence is not scientific.
As in both of the previous wars, we find that the War on Sugar, has at its core a simple and basic truth, with which most people would agree is true (or, more precisely, true enough). All sugars have high caloric values – they are loaded with calories, packed with chemical energy. [Simplification Warning – the following is actually far more complicated, but this will suffice for now.] In a very general sense, human bodies need to take in as much energy as they expend – they operate on an energy budget. If one expends more energy than one takes in, the body starts using itself as an energy/food source. It begins breaking down its stored fat and uses it for energy. If it runs out of fat stores, it begins to break down the fabric of the body itself – one is starving. On the other hand, if one takes in more energy – more calories – than one expends, then the body stores the extra energy by converting it to fat – its ready pantry of food storage – which can be used later if needed.
The current public health view is that all “excess body fat” is bad, bad, bad – a view that ignores the incontrovertible evidence that so-called overweight people live the longest compared to so-called normal weight and obese people– a fact named The Obesity Paradox.
It is well established that the morbidly obese – those with body mass indexes exceeding 35 or so – are prone to a bevy of health problems which include diabetes and cardiovascular problems associated with high blood pressure. It is not yet entirely clear what type of comorbidity exists between obesity and the related health problems – the choices being: direct causation, associated risk factors, heterogeneity, independence – but the general view is that obesity is either a direct cause or a very high risk factor and thus, if there were less obesity, there would be fewer cases of diabetes and heart disease, a win for individual health, public health and a savings in health care costs.
Thus, the current prominent public health view that eating sugar leads to weight gain which can lead to overweight which can then, if the trend continues, lead to obesity which is a risk factor for diabetes and heart disease – therefore: Eating excess sugar must stop.
The basic truth is that people who are concerned about unwanted weight gain, who are dangerously overweight or who have problems related to the body’s sugar-processing functions, should consider reducing the overall calorie intake – with sugars, particularly added sugars, being the easiest calories to identify and reduce.
If this were The Public Health Message About Sugar all would be well – there would be no controversy and no need of a science war. This true and accurate health message has apparently – see the rising tide of obesity – failed to convince, or failed to help, those to whom it is rightly addressed. The “chain-of-evidence” indicting dietary sugar as the [or even a] cause of diabetes or of high blood pressure or of obesity and related heart disease involves way too many “can lead to”s – the evidence itself is weak.
It is because the evidence is so weak that anti-sugar forces, which include the FDA (plus the usual cadre of health food and health fad advocacy groups), must rely on exaggerated framing of the evidence in order to justify their policy recommendations.
In a nutshell: The claimed basis for the War on Sugar is that sugars – particularly added sugars, a phrase used to avoid indicting fruits, fruit juices, sweet vegetables and milk – are “empty calories” that when ingested in excess can lead to weight gain which can then lead to diabetes, metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease.
[ It might be well to point out, as an aside, that when I was in hospital following a heart attack, the nice nurse, on orders from my doctor, plugged a tube into my arm that fed me normal saline solution (salt water) laden with dextrose/glucose (sugar) – those vilified “empty calories” – to sustain my life while I was unable to eat other foods. ]
On the same advice page from the National Institutes of Health, the conclusion is given as:
“In the long run, if you want to lose weight, you need to establish a healthy lifestyle that contains unprocessed foods, moderate calories, and more exercise,” Rother says. [Dr. Kristina Rother, an NIH pediatrician and expert on sweeteners]….
“The key to good health is eating a well-balanced diet with a variety of foods and getting plenty of physical activity. Focus on nutrition-rich whole foods without added sugars.” [emphasis mine – kh]
The majority of this conclusion is scientific and based on good research that returns useful information to nutritionists who have translated it into good clinical advice. The emphasized words and phrases are advocacy and are only very vaguely based on science at all.
There is no evidence, given a well-rounded diet, that “unprocessed” foods are more healthful than processed foods or that well-rounded diets should focus on “whole foods” (a marketing term, not a scientific term) and foods that are free of added sugars.
By the way, the science expressly states, contrary to common belief, that sugar consumption, even excess sugar consumption, does not cause diabetes. (WebMD, supplier of the video making this point, is apparently so sure of the opposite opinion that they named the video file “kahn-eating-sugar-cause-diabetes”.]
Back to Earth: None of these facts should be taken to mean that I, or anyone else, would not suffer health consequences if I ate nothing but ice cream, sugared donuts, honey-sweetened smoothies, drank liter-after-liter of full-sugar soft drinks or chug-a-lugged can-after-can of sugar-laden, over-caffeinated energy drinks alternated with Snickers and Mars bars. That, my kind friends, does not a well-rounded diet make. As with all things, the poison is in the dose, and sugars, as with every other type of food, probably have some natural limit.
[voice-over] AND NOW FOR A LOOK AT THE HEADLINES:
The War on Sugar and How We Can Win It — 05/20/2015 — Jose Aristimuno at HuffPo Blog
“If every candy bar and soda across the country carried a warning label just like a pack of cigarettes does, then our country would start to see our sugar consumption go down, just as we have been able to see it happen within the Tobacco industry.”
Eating too much added sugar increases the risk of dying with heart disease — February 06, 2014 –Julie Corliss, Executive Editor, Harvard Heart Letter
“Nutritionists frown on added sugar for two reasons. One is its well-known links to weight gain and cavities. The other is that sugar delivers “empty calories” — calories unaccompanied by fiber, vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. Too much added sugar can crowd healthier foods from a person’s diet.”
AND BOOK TITLES:
Sweet Poison: Why Sugar Makes Us Fat by David Gillespie
Suicide by Sugar by Dr. Nancy Appleton
Sugar Nation: The Hidden Truth Behind America’s Deadliest Habit and the Simple Way to Beat It by Jeff O’Connell
The Sugar Addict’s Total Recovery Program by Kathleen DesMaisons
The Real Truth About Sugar: Dr. Robert Lustig’s “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” by Samantha Quinn
Sweet Pete: A story about a bunny who ate too much sugar (a children’s book) by Maria Alony and Heidi Rodis
Sugars and Flours: How They Make us Crazy, Sick and Fat, and What to do About It by Joan Ifland
[ Disclosure: I have read all the articles linked, plus approximately 100 others, as well as dozens of journal articles on the sugar issue, but have only read one of the books: Sweet Pete: A story about a bunny…. ]
“Sugar is poison” (Dr. Lustig and others), “sugar is killing or will kill us”, “sugar is like tobacco”, “sugar makes us crazy”, “sugar is addictive (like cocaine or heroin)”.
These are not the messages of calm, deliberative nutritional science. They are wild and unfounded exaggerations, unlikely extrapolations, symptoms of “public health epidemiology” and the inevitable propagandists’ tool, “sugar is the first step on the slippery slope to morbid obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and eventual death from heart disease.”
Who, you may rightly ask, is on the side of rationality in this controversy? Very few, and far between.
In this War, we see industry forces whose profits depend in part on high-sugar content foods and drinks funding research in hopes of clarifying the science. Regardless of the findings, the strength of the science, and the thoroughness of the methods, industry science is discredited and discounted.
There are a few voices that occasionally fight back against the exaggerators – write articles pointing out that sugar is not poison, for instance, Ross Pomeroy and David Katz among them. Those who are too outspoken are accused of working for Big Sugar.
The War on Sugar is intertwined with the Obesity Wars, the Soda Wars and HFCS Wars (a sub-set of the War on Sugar).
But we see some common features with the two previously discussed Wars: there is polarization among scientists and the general public, there is resistance to those changes in public policy being insisted on by those speaking for Science, when evidence is weak or only associational, proponents of policy change have exaggerated risks and inflated expected benefits of proposed policy changes to make their messages more powerful (but less true), the general public may pay lip service to the messages (many say they are avoiding sweets) but does not change its behavior (sales of sugar laden StarBigBucks coffee continue to soar, so-called energy drinks – contents: sugars and caffeine — have grabbed a huge bite of the canned drinks market, US candy sales increased from 6.8 billion dollars in 2009 to 8 billion dollars in 2014).
As of 2015, the combined billions of dollars of research expended on the sugar question have allowed us to reach this conclusion:
“Conclusion: There are epidemiological data, plausible mechanisms and clinical data from diet intervention studies that provide strong support for a direct causal/contributory role of sugar in the epidemics of metabolic disease, and for an indirect causal/contributory role mediated by sugar consumption promoting body weight and fat gain. Yet, these are still controversial topics.” Kimber L. Stanhope (2016) Sugar consumption, metabolic disease and obesity: The state of the controversy, Critical Reviews in Clinical Laboratory Sciences, 53:1,52-67 DOI: 10.3109/10408363.2015.1084990
Medical/Nutritional science has made the long, long loop back to where it stood 40 years ago: sugar, representing calories, may cause or contribute to ‘metabolic disease’, meaning 3-out-of-5 of obesity, elevated blood pressure, elevated fasting plasma glucose, high serum triglycerides, and low high-density lipoprotein (HDL) levels. [NB: Metabolic syndrome is associated with the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and diabetes.] and may indirectly cause or contribute to “promoting body weight and fat gain”.
Overeating, over-consumption of calories beyond your energy expenditure may cause you to gain weight and, if you do become too heavy, too fat, it can adversely affect your health. This we already knew.
The policy proposals that the general public must be somehow forced to reduce their intake of sugars, through FDA nutritional advice, pressure on the food industry to reduce added sugars, through outright propaganda aimed at the public, and through attacks-by-regulation (so-called soda taxes) on the sugared-drinks industry are all based on the premise that if the public consumed less sugar they would be less fat and more healthy – yet another “one substance solution” which is almost certain to be only a part of the problem that is as yet only vaguely understood. Policies to enforce the premise as a society-wide solution to obesity or metabolic syndrome or diabetes are most likely to fail because they do not solve the right problem and the general public will not act on such weak evidence of potential harms. The general public recognizes the “advocate that exaggerates” as an untrustworthy source of information and discounts all his advice, rejecting the good along with the bad.
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Author’s Comment Policy:
I have personal experience with added calories – if I drink highly-sugared beverages and eat primarily restaurant food – which I did for months at a time when traveling for business, staying in hotels, in the 1990s – I put on 10-15 pounds of extra weight. I knew it would happen, but one pays the price of doing business. On return home, to home-cooked meals and more choices, I readily dropped the extra weight. The cycle was repeated several times. I am now, as I have habitually been, a perfectly normal-weighted middle-age-shaped man, with a current BMI of 24. I have a sweet tooth and childishly enjoy a bit of candy or a dish of ice cream occasionally. I don’t have any stake in the War On Sugar, with the exception of my concern for the extent of the harm that these modern scientific controversies do to the reputation of science.
I will be glad to answer your questions about the War on Sugar – I have been following it for at least 15 years.
I realize that many readers here will want to move on immediately to discuss the parallel problems in the Climate Wars. I ask that you please try to restrain yourselves – we’ll get to that later on in the series.
I am still open to suggestions on which of the current Science Wars to cover in this series, I am aware of a half dozen or more. I have more-or-less promised to cover the Ozone Wars dealing with the so-called hole in the ozone layer.
The last essay in the series will be an attempt to layout a coherent pattern of modern science wars and maybe suggest ways that the different science fields themselves can break these patterns and return their specific area of science back to the standards and practices that should exist in all scientific endeavors.
Thank you for reading here.
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What kind of government makes war on its own citizens?
This kind.
Land of the Free baby.
All of them! It’s about control, see Brexit.
I have a chemosensor to detect a certain food.
My species has a second name that’s much misunderstood.
Nature tells me to provide a certain monosaccharide-
The only thing a brain can eat is why we like our sugar sweet.
Kip. You’re right about the controversy and many of the issues. But you’ve got a basic problem here in conflating all sugars as being more or less equal. In point of fact the human body can only utilize a small number of the many sugar variants that occur in nature. Primarily Glucose, Fructose, Lactose and some dissacharide combinations of those — Sucrose, Maltose, Galactose.
Not all natural sugars are completely harmless. For example, many non-European adults have limited tolerance for Lactose and have to avoid it or limit intake.
There is not a whole lot of metabolic issue with Glucose and its digestible polymer — starch. Glucose is, as you say, essential to human life. The problem, if there is one, is Fructose. Fructose is converted to Glucose via a rather complex metabolic path that includes generation of a substantial amount of a fatty acid — Palmitic Acid. Palmitic Acid may in fact not be good for one when its constantly present in substantial amounts. At least there is evidence of physiological changes in mammals from high Fructose diets. An apple a day may be fine. Six apples a day, every day, may not be a super idea.
Two possible problems that MAY have some legitimacy. Table sugar is sucrose which is a disaccharide combination of Glucose and Fructose. It may in fact be less good for one than an equivalent amount of calories from starch. Also, Fructose is sweeter than Sucrose which in turn is sweeter than Glucose. People like sweet, so there is some tendency to spike processed food with Fructose to enhance taste. Maybe that’s overdone.
My perception is that much of the controversy over sugar is caused by two things. First, a lack of specificity about what is meant by “sugar”. Yes Glucose — a sugar — is essential to life. But table sugar is only half Glucose. The other half is Fructose which may be a bit iffy. The second problem is a vast numbers of people equate “natural” to “good” notwithstanding that the nearest garden, patch of woods or meadow probably contains several natural plants that can kill them or make them very sick if consumed. That leads to a lot of Honey(natural) is good whereas High Fructose Corn Syrup (unnatural) which is quite similar sugar wise is evil and depraved.
Don K,
Thanks for pointing out that the article fails to enumerate the various kinds of sugars, and in particular fructose.
Dr Lustig (the anti-sugar man) claims that the liver metabolises fructose in the same way that it metabolises alcohol, and that fructose stimulates our appetite much more than the equivalent amount of other sugars.
Well that is an original suggestion — but totally wrong, of course. The liver uses some short, simple adapter pathway to break down fructose to glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate and dihydroxyacetone phosphate, two metabolites that also occur early on in glucose degradation. From then on, the degradation pathways of both sugars are identical.
Absolutely, all sugars are not equal, even when they might appear to be!
The sugar our cells prefer is glucose, which can be taken in as the sugar molecule itself, produced from starch, glycogen, other carbohydrates, proteins, fats etc. We need the requisite enzymes to be able to do this (e.g. sucrase to breakdown sucrose into glucose and fructose), sometimes we don’t have them. The ability of adult humans to process lactose is a recent adaptation primarily among europeans, the absence of lactase leading to ‘lactose intolerance’.
Insulin is one of the hormones used to control the levels of blood glucose, which is stimulated by excess glucose, the other is glucogon, which is stimulated by lack of glucose, the system maintains a homeostatic balance (when working properly).
In the US sucrose has been largely replaced by High Fructose Corn Syrup which is a mix of glucose and fructose, which you’ll sometimes see described as being ‘the same as’ sucrose, but it’s not. Sucrose is broken down into glucose and fructose, which takes time so you won’t get a sudden surge of fructose like you can with HFCS. Such high surges can cause liver problems by overtaxing the enzyme system there.
I have taught an undergraduate lab where the students tested the processing of different ‘sweeteners’ by yeast, measuring the response to monosaccharides (e.g. glucose, fructose etc.), disaccharides (e.g. sucrose, maltose, lactose etc.), natural products (e.g. honey) and artificial sweeteners, the variation in response is dramatic.
The reason for the replacement of cane sugar by corn syrup is the imposition of federal tariffs on imported sugar. The main beneficiary of which is ADM (similarly benefits from corn ethanol subsidies), thanks to Bob Dole!
Reply to Don K ==> Yes, the proper handling of this issue — The War on Sugar — is book length. If I had included even a tenth of the really important points, this essay would be far too long to read.
But here we see that there is a similarity to the War on Sugar with the Salt Wars and the GBR Wars….how the science is communicated to the public resulting in a general rejection of the solutions provided by Science.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the sensible “basic truth” version of the public health message — if you are dangerously overweight, cut down on calories, added sugars would be a good place to start (along with exercise more).
The rabid exaggerations about the harmful effects of sugar themselves are harmful — people won’t listen because they’ve heard it all before — about fats, about butter, about bacon, about other “one substance” solutions that had to be retracted — Nutrition Science has poisoned itself.
Nutrition science has poisoned itself, and our entire culture, by making longevity out to be some kind of a *contest* and peddling the myth that it’s mostly under our control. In point of fact, over 75% of the metrics of morbidity and mortality can be chalked up to genetic and socioeconomic factors. That leaves just 25% for us to fiddle with via “lifestyle,” and probably 20% of that can be accounted for by NOT SMOKING.
As of now, we have no reliable way to make fat people permanently thin. We have no evidence of there being any health advantage in trying. It is known that yo-yo dieters pay a terrible price. I believe 99% of all this horseshit that’s published on any given day is just to keep us worried about mortality in the interest of SELLING us something we don’t need–including the very idea that we’re in control of our “health” outcome.
Reply to Goldrider ==> Exactly, as we shall see in the yet-to-be-written essay on the Obesity Wars. If you read closely, you will find that the final study linked in the main essay, after all the years of directed research, finds only “strong support for a direct causal/contributory role of sugar in the epidemics of metabolic disease, and for an indirect causal/contributory role mediated by sugar consumption promoting body weight and fat gain”.
The evidence can’t even positively indict sugar for weight gain.
Kip whenever you get around to the Obesity Wars, don’t overlook the mind boggling redefinition of obesity in 1998 that made millions of normal weight range Americans overweight and millions of overweight Americans obese — literally overnight. That was followed not many years later by a declaration of a national obesity epidemic. You’d think the clowns that perpetrated that travesty would be laughed out of town. But no. They’ve been taken seriously.
Author:
Body Mass Index is not an appropriate measure of how fat someone is..
Reply to Anne Ominous ==> Agreed — that is part-and-parcle of the Obesity Wars — to be covered in a future essay.
My 2 cents. If you want to live long, go and talk to the 70, 80, and 90 year olds. I do, it’s part of my job. At this age, they almost never smoke. They drink very little alcohol. They are overweight by modern standards, though not obese. They eat some fats, they eat some sugar, they eat some vegis and meat. Can’t remember when I last met a vegan in this age group. They have a balanced diet in other words, that includes sugar, biscuits, cake, candy.
There is one stand out fact that separates them from everyone else (the ones who didn’t survive). They are active. They are busy. They talk in hushed tones about the friend/neighbour/relative who sat down and rested because they retired.
I listened. I now work part time. I am active when off work. I often walk to work. And my weight stabilised. The reason I eat a little less is that I am busier than I used to be. I take my patients through a discussion on how to get the most out of life. The ones who listen or the ones who know already – live. The ones who follow diet fads (you know – organic/paleo/vegitarian/no sugar/ Atkins/no fat) feel great, but die young.
Reply to peter ==> Amen!
Where I live we have one vegan, now in her eighties, who swears with a nearly religious tone that her continued health is due entirely due to becoming vegan (she “converted” in her 60’s I think). She swears she is in the best shape of her life and continuously writes letters, etc., pushing the vegan lifestyle. I’m sure such individuals are few and far between, but they are out there.
She does run marathons in her age group, so she is active. How much the activity and new focus in her life (as in preaching the vegan way) contributed to her newfound health and happiness are not known.
An article in The Guardian back in April, described how reduction of fats became the target for health advice, while concerns over sugar were ignored.
https://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2016/04/11/the-error-of-our-ways/
I’ve never worried about fats, but am of the opinion that sugars and refined carbohydrates are a luxury from a biochemical point of view. If you think about our recent history vs evolution as a species, we have evolved to be able to cope with gluts of honey, fruit or starchy materials, but eaten on a daily basis, all year, no. It is no surprise that studies now suggest major changes in gut microflora that have health consequences, as well as direct effects on human metabolism.
The food excesses we have in our culture have given us huge freedom of choice and quantity, but as the saying goes, with freedom comes responsibility. Sadly so many in our society seem unable to accept that they have to make responsible choices, while others are only too glad to try to dictate and control the choices of others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRe9z32NZHY The bad things the Gov., do to our lives
The unthinking also imply that “processed” means it is evil and that sucrose is “highly processed” making it very evil. They claim that raw sugar is somehow healthier than the purified product. These folk have obviously never worked in a sugar mill. I’d prefer my sucrose 99.97% pure from the refinery, rather than having it looking brown and “natural” because of the dirt and other muck in it.
” are prone so a bevy of health problems which include diabetes and cardiovascular ”
Should that be ” are prone TO a bevy of health problems ” ??
Reply to Marcus ==> Thanks for reading and editing! Despite using a human proofreader (as opposed to a digital one) these little errors sneak through. I appreciate the help.
..I’m for hire…for free !! LOL
Sugar, salt and flavour enhancers stimulate eating. When we like the taste of the food or the drink, we like to have more. We keep on eating, even without any real hungry feeling.
Products without those ‘eating stimulators’ make it (much) easier to keep the wanted weight.
(I myself I prefer a mix of all kinds of food, but I know where I must search for the ‘brakes’ in my food pattern, when necessary)
Reply to Wim Röst ==> Only self-flagelating misguided health-food-faddists eat food that they think tastes bad — food they don’t like. At least here in affluent America, we have so many food choices, from so many world cultures, that one would have to make a determined effort to avoid foods that one found pleasing, regardless of their particular eccentricities about diet.
Excess sugar makes my kids angry & argumentative and less likely to pay attention. I know this to be fact, I’ve tested this hypothesis. I’ve seen it first hand, which is why we have a sweet day once a week, also for teeth too, brushing wont stop excess sugar rot
oh and some Fridays I do eat some junk, treat day 😀 and I have often had a hangover sat morning, from sweets!
Some studies suggest sugar causes the walls of arteries to become inflamed, because the sugar causes abrasion
sugar causes arterial abrasion? that, as you have stated it, makes no freakin sense at all.
nonsensical statements such as that automatically require rejection of all the rest.
just thought you might like to know. only a friend would tell you when you’re so far out.
anybody else might encourage you to go deeper till you can’t get back.
let’s see how this plays out. maybe you’ll be triggered to the deep end. maybe you’ll head for shore.
I think the lesson here is as with most, too much. Moderation is the issue not the sugar surely.
Another aspect is that weight gain across society is that many people now have two working adults, leading to families eating ‘ready meals’. which when you analyse food labels show high amounts of sugar.
Quite innocuous looking food items can be packed with added ingredients that you would never think of adding if you prepared a similar meal at home.
Drinking a gallon of water with every meal is also aiding getting fat. Carbs digest first, proteins later.
I never drink when eating
This is a bit of an oversimplification in part and actually misleading in other parts. There are a couple of significant issues here. One is the vast amount of sugar in our diets even in things that might be promoted as healthy such as fruit juice. The other is the type of sugar. There is emerging evidence that humans do not metabolize huge quantities of fructose well at all and this in particular is harmful. It is highly likely that not all calories are the same.
It is entirely reasonable as a public health initiative to try to educate people as to the large amounts of sugar in everyday food stuffs. (Think of shoveling 1 kg of sugar into your mouth over a month each and every month if you have only 1 glass of fruit juice per day in an otherwise sugarless diet!) It is also entirely reasonable to educate people that not all sugar is the same. There is no sugar war here- just a recognition that a high sugar is probably harmful- probably more so than high fat or salt. What is interesting is that low fat health foods were typically high in sugar and the perhaps misplaced fat and salt reduction obsession has distracted from the benefits of less sugar until now.
Reply to Sam ==> Of course, this is a simplification — but remember, it is about the War on Sugar, not about the science of sugar consumption.
I will repeat here the bottom line, basic truth:
“The basic truth is that people who are concerned about unwanted weight gain, are dangerously overweight or have problems related to the bodies sugar-processing functions, should rather obviously consider reducing the overall calorie intake – with sugars, particularly added sugars, being the easiest calories to identify and reduce.”
Dont drink water when you eat. Wait until you digest otherwise you are flushing out protein while all the carbs get digested.
Test, if a dog want to eat your turd, it has lots of protein in it 😀
Where did you get this nonsense from?
Your intestines are “flushed” with more than 8 liters (2 gallons) of various secreted fluids per day. Compared to that, the amount you might drink with your meals is a drop in the bucket. Also, protein per se is not hard to digest, particularly when properly cooked.
It’s not the amount of water, moron.
drinking loads of water with food is pushing it through you faster.
Got it. It’s not about the amount, it is just that you need loads. Thanks for clarifying.
No and stop debating like a troll.
If you drink loads of water with dinner you will be hungry sooner than without. I’ve tested this hypothesis on my own body. It holds true and after 20+ years of not drinking loads of water with a meal, I am 15lbs heavier than when I was 20 years old, I dont exercise really and sit at computers alot, IT is my work.
My wife always drank a lot of water with meals, and her weight was all over the place, no longer, she also eats less now that she doesn’t guzzle water with meals.
I can only speak from experience, and offer advice so I dont get your pretty pathetic attitude.
Another who comes to a conclusion then considers evidence. IT works the other way around moron
and before you day genetics or some nonsense, all of my brothers are towards the heavy end as is my father. I’m the odd one out, and they (my family) all drink with meals and all eat more than I do
You basically disagree, then acted like a moron in your posting. Debate is not for you, you discuss like those raging alarmists
Funny thing: my father lived till he was 91, had three spoonfuls of sugar in his tea and half a dozen or more cups of tea throughout the day. Me? If I was to consume 18 spoonfuls of sugar in one day I would become seriously ill. Individuals have different tolerances to different substances.
It’s a bit like smoking. Smoking causes cancer….in some people.
The important thing is to educate those people who are intolerant to sugar to recognise the signs so that they can save themselves. Blanket declarations and regulations are worthless.
Yesterday I bicycled 25 miles in two hours using an estimated 1000 Calories. Then I napped, did chores, drank some ethanol, ate leftovers, and slept seven hours. Ride to eat, eat to ride. Ride, drink, eat, sleep, wash, rinse, repeat.
Avoid the lamestream media’s presentation of science.
Science in the media is only for comic relief.
Sugar cane juice (real sugar) is OK. The evaporated version concentrated sugar powder is poison just like powdered salt. All foods have enough sugar/salt per se. BTW just try drinking a cup of sugar cane juice.
Care to explain what difference the crystal size of salt has to do with toxicity? Crystals of sodium chloride, whether large of small (powdered) dissociate into sodium and chloride ions when placed in water. I completely miss your point.
I heard a theory somewhere (yeah, I know, [citation needed]) that in the Palaeolithic diet, humans would benefit from stuffing all of the fruit they could in Autumn, when it was ripe, to benefit from the vitamin boost and to fatten up for Winter. The fruit was only available when it was ripe, so the whole process was inherently self-limiting. Thus we evolved to over-eat on sweet fruit as a survival mechanism.
Now, the abundance of sweet foods pushes the button on this “don’t get full, stuff! stuff!” reflex all of the time, without the restriction of seasonality. So we get fat.
Big problem with the essay and most of the comments.
All sugars are not created equal. As noted in several places, the body takes carbs and converts some into sugars. The big one is sucrose, table sugar. The body splits it into its two components, glucose and fructose. But it stops when it has what it needs and splits it no more.
Also as noted by some, when the war on fat was declared, the substitute was high fructose corn syrup which is a combination of glucose and fructose. The body just cannot handle an overdose of glucose and fructose and fat results. There is no limiting as with sucrose.
BTW, I am a beekeeper and have loads of honey but consume little as it is mostly glucose-fructose and a bunch of other sugars. For our ancestors, pure sugars were few and we got most of them through our body’s regulatory system by splitting carbs. Our diet bypasses the splitting.
So we are eating the wrong sugars in great quantities all because of the “War on Fat” which has recently been proved to be a phony war. (The low fat diet (20%) has been shown to be unhealthy.)
The activity of the enzyme is usually controlled by inhibition by the product. For example lactose will only be broken down if there is insufficient glucose present, the presence of glucose inhibits the process. See ‘lac operon’.
As pointed out above by Bill there is no such step required with HFCS and the fructose ‘floods’ the system.
It has always been my philosophy that if you are physically fit the weight will take care of itself. Instead of dieting, which we all know doesn’t work on its own, if you concentrate on fitness and increasing your metabolism everything else will work to your favor. Now, I don’t mean you have to be a gym rat and be overly fit and obsessive about it. But let’s not forget genetic disposition. I have always had a high metabolism rate so perhaps it is easier for me. I also believe that keeping the leg muscles fit is essential to keeping blood flow back to the heart and to prevent pooling of liquids and swelling there. The human body is designed to move so strong legs and a strong heart makes for a strong life. As an aside, whenever I feel unmotivated I simply go to a Walmart and look at all the people in scooters with there bloated legs and fat bodies. If that doesn’t get you moving, nothing will.
Reply to Tom in Florida ==> One thing WalMart does is make it possible for the handicapped — those who need scooters and walkers — to shop for themselves, to get out of the house, and be somewhat self-sufficient. If only other retailers would be as considerate.
That said, I find it almost impossible to make myself enter a WalMart store for any purpose — I have to be dragged in and always rush out at the end.
I am about to enter a WalMart for the first time in a very long time, about a decade, for cheap ISO 22241 Diesel Exhaust Fluid. Eschew Big Box Stores. Shop local, buy local,eat local, brew local. Shop Mom&Pop
I, personally, believe in the war against high-fructose corn syrup. I want that stuff banned because products with HFCS do not taste as good as products with pure sugar. I believe Big Corn has a lot of power, which is why corn ethanol is forced down our gas tanks instead of alternative forms of ethanol or 100% gasoline. Big Corn also spent a lot of money to rename HFCS to “corn sugar”, even spending a lot of money to run TV ads about it. The FDA blocked it on a technicality. I had to drive 40 miles to buy a 12 pack of Mountain Dew with pure sugar. It tastes so much better, I would gladly do it again. Many years ago I had a Dr Pepper with pure sugar and it was the best soda I ever had. I want HFCS gone so that we can have proper sugar in our products again. People have forgotten how much better sugar tastes.
Yes, try googling Bob Dole and AMD!
Reply to alexwade ==> As you know, that one dream of yours is coming true: some of the soft drink manufacturers are returning to “real sugar” versions of their offerings.
All fructose is bad, not just high fructose corn syrup. This is easily proven – as I and many of my immediate family have demonstrated. If you cut out all fructose from your diet apart from that in a sensible quantity of fresh fruit and vegetables, and use only pure glucose for sweetening puddings, ice cream, cakes etc then you will go on losing weight until your BMI falls to a “medically approved level”. This is partly achieved by the fact that fructose dampens the effect of the appetite suppressant grhelin. If you cut out the fructose you will want to eat much less! Giving up fructose is not easy, however, as all processed foods are full of it – as are fruit juices, smoothies and suchlike. All this is explained in “Sweet Poison: Why Sugar Makes Us Fat” by David Gillespie which is packed with helpful advice as well as with all the relevant scientific research that backs up his theory.
Hugh Davis. Just curious. Where do you get pure glucose in the amounts needed for daily cooking? AFAIK the only sources of glucose readily available in the US are glucose tablets sold in small quantities to some insulin dependent diabetics who have problems with low blood sugar and possibly corn syrup. The former would be too expensive for cooking. The later probably impractical for many recipes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da1vvigy5tQ Reversing Type 2 diabetes starts with ignoring the guidelines | Sarah Hallberg | TEDxPurdueU
Discussing weight management and chronic diseases without MENTIONING insulin is like modeling climate change without accounting for the sun or moisture.
Just sayin’
Reply to Ruminati ==. The issues of sugars and insulin are way beyond the education levels of most readers…and are themselves — when translated to practical application in the human diet of well humans — controversial. As there is no need here to discuss the various pathways the body uses to convert sugars, carbs, and proteins to glucose, discussing normal and abnormal insulin reactions would not clarify why there is a modern Scientific Controversy about sugar.
Insulin works like the thermostat on your AC/Furnace. You have an ideal set point, if glucose exceeds that value insulin is produced to reduce it to the set point. If glucose falls below the set point glucogon is produced to increase it to the set point.
The process is called homeostasis.