High refined sugar intake linked to a 23% higher risk of mental disorders

IIRC the study that led to people carbo loading for endurance events was first only done with males and that follow up studies found no effect in women. So we don't know the reason for the gender response difference but it exists. For a separate semi tangential on gender differences, the presence of testosterone in males appears to increase the red blood cell count and oxygen carrying ability slightly (versus testosterone deficient or females who doped in a prior era without testing versus clean females) so there is definite precedent for there being a difference in response to diet/ability due to gender/gender specific hormones.

Animal products are bad for you.

Not me though, I'm just trying to reduce demand.

From the beginning of the article...

> Although previous studies have found an increased risk of depression with higher consumption of added sugars, none examined the role of ‘reverse causation’. If people with anxiety and/or depression tended to consume more sugary foods and drinks, this could be the real reason why a link between sugar intake and poorer mental health is observed. Although the study looked for this link, it was not seen in the data: men and women with mental disorders were not more likely to consume more sugar. As a result, the evidence that mental health is adversely affected by a high sugar intake is strengthened.

Without a doubt I have used sugar as medication, many times in my life.

My hypothesis: people that had a lot of sugar as a young person, perhaps in particular ways or situations, has trained their brain to release dopamine in response to sugar. Everyone I know that had little sugar as a young person doesn't get the medicinal value of sugar.

> no doctor properly figured it out.

You wanted a doctor to figure out you ate too many donuts and candy because of your ADHD?

That's pretty tough considering most people eat too much sugar just because.... it is good. Also it is easy as hell for EVERYONE to give up sugar once you are ADHD meds because they have a great appetite suppression effect.

That's not a special effect of mental disorders.

Heuristically, eating actual fruit (like a normal healthy primate) seems to be fine, but our metabolism isn't as ready for the man-made sweetened foods (e.g. juice, cake, bread, soda, etc).

The more refined the source the faster it enters your bloodstream. That said, You should eat the fruit rather than consuming a juice.

At any rate the glucose uptake is generally lower with fruits, even if juiced (but whole fruits with fiber still intact are best). The rate at which simple sugars enter the blood is considered one of the primary problems, as this leads to a number of metabolic problems and higher generalized oxidation of body tissue.

Unlike added sugars fruits also have antioxidants and a number of other compounds and nutrients that do a swell job at negating these effects and even providing benefits (i suppose because a lot of fruit has surplus of Anti-Oxidant to Sugar Burn.

Totally hearsay, but-

I've never really heard anything to suggest fruit is a risk. The fiber slows absorption in the gut, so you don't get the blood sugar spike, and it seems like many issues tied to added sugar consumption trace to the blood sugar spike & insulin response.

What bothers me is there's no magical "processing" that does anything to these simple sugars. Fructose is... a 20 atom molecule? There's no magical processing that makes that molecule any different inside a fruit or in honey or in corn syrup.

So either the problem is the characteristics of a single food item (ratio of sugar, fiber, fat, etc.), some magical byproduct of processing that makes up a very tiny fraction of the food, or (more likely correct) the ratios that make up the diet as a whole. Carb/fat/protein ratio seems important as does the ratios of which carbs. Demonizing sugar or "refined" sugar seems ridiculous, encouraging proportional consumption makes sense.

I think you worded it a bit strongly, but I tend to agree with you.

Science: Aspartame consumption is correlated with weight gain.

Journalists: Does aspartame cause weight gain?

Readers: Aspartame causes weight gain.

I know it's up to the readers to draw the correct conclusions, but it feels a little bit dishonest for journalists to "let the cards fall where they may" so to speak.

> so has US inflation, less overall exercise, social media consumption, and a variety of other possible negative factors.

Quite. And job security for many has plummeted significantly. Which I would expect to be a major trigger for mental disorders.

I don't understand this complaint. The study didn't look at a total rise in sugar consumption and a total rise in mental disorders over this period and just lazily guess that they were linked.

The claim is that, within the sample, those who consumed more sugar were more likely to have mental disorders, "independent of health behaviours, socio-demographic and diet-related factors, adiposity and other diseases".

This sounds like a snarky remark, but it does have a point. Many large-scale nutrition studies rely on surveying thousands of people about their diet and lifestyles.

Unfortunately, this works best for detecting very dramatic health effects, like the link between smoking and lung cancer. For smaller health effects, any meaningful signal in the data can be overwhelmed by other correlations. One famous example is hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women: https://www.med.uottawa.ca/sim/data/EBM_Study_Bias_e.htm

Thanks, all my teaspoons are stainless steel. I only have 8 though, so it probably evens out.