Trouble with Erythritol

> Witkowski et al. note that the vast majority of their study participants were enrolled prior to erythritol becoming a common sweetener and food additive. This, combined with the authors’ finding that erythritol levels remain well above the cohort ranges for at least a day after consumption, suggests that none of the cohort patients were consuming erythritol in their diets, and that the levels measured in fasting plasma samples were instead the result of endogenous production

[1] https://peterattiamd.com/more-hype-than-substance-erythritol...

There is a reason we say this, if we produce it naturally our body has mechanisms to metabolize the item. For example acetone isn't very toxic because our body produces it naturally and knows how to deal with it.

(Note I am not disagreeing with you regarding amounts, just pointing out it's not such a foolish thing to say.)

Another thing is that some artificial sweeteners instantly kick me out, too. Worse than sugar. I forget which one it is but I grabbed a "sugar-free" energy drink one time. I spit out the very first sip but still got kicked out of ketosis including the heat and sugar rush, that's how strong it was.

That said, stevia and monk fruit are totally fine for me. No effect whatsoever. I slightly prefer the taste of monk fruit.

Vegetables are packed with nutrients and fiber, without all the sugars that fruit brings.

I tend to think sugar and flour belongs at the top of a pyramid, fruit in the middle, and veggies is the base. However cutting out fruit altogether probably won't hurt at all.

Being fat is a lot more deadly than not eating fruits.

b. Many fruits are 'keto friendly', like blueberries, strawberries, actually mostly berries :), but also something like water melon, in moderation.

c. A lot of modern fruit is engineered to be high in sugar and water and low in nutrients, so they might not even be so healthy as you think.

d. I can actually eat sweet fruit (although I don't often want to). I was talking more about sugar-crammed stuff like cake and soft drinks.

Everybody eats wrong until diabetes, treatment resistant epilepsy, mental disease(bipolar, schizophrenia), some type of insulin resistance, overweight, etc (only these come at the top of my head) punches you in the mouth.

Then you have to eat correct. Which is low carb, high fat, low-to-medium protein.

And that is keto diet.

> How is it supposed to improve your health/life?

Lowering carb intake improves your health. While fruits "feel" good, it's mostly just sweets/carbs/fructose.

Edit: Aha, from a bit of googling it looks like they are required cofactors for various enzymes.

It's exquisite. I drink one every few months when we go out to a restaurant. Or a Dr Pepper, another favorite of mine. If you drink them every day, they're pretty boring. But once in a while, they're fantastic.

Total grams doesn't matter. The point is the glycemic impact. Some people are very sensitive to carbs and can't eat a banana without throwing off ketosis, and others can have upwards of 30g of net carbs a day and still stay in ketosis. My goal is 20g or less, and my ketones still stay in the 1.5-2.0 range unless I overdo protein instead of fat.

For most people, the starting point is around 15g net carbs a day. If you're serious about keto (and staying healthy while doing so) you'll want a ketone testing mechanism as well as guidance from your doctor about adjusting medications since ketosis mimics a fasting state for a bunch of your metabolic processes.

I keep some in the house double bagged to use in a neti pot when I’m sick (it’s also a good decongestant!), but there’s no way I’d willingly buy any food with it. It’s just too risky.

I don't own a dog, but my God I hope they have warning labels on it!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame#Cancer

Plenty of citations there if you need to deep dive any further.

The only problem is its pretty expensive and you have to buy it online since it's realitive new.

Hopefully production ramps up over the next few years.

more profound cooling effect than erythritol (which has some)

more expensive

really, really does not caramelize and cooks very differently

gastrointestinal effects

causes an insulin spike

Top 5 hits on Amazon for "monk fruit sweetener" all have Erythritol. Some mention it in the product name, some later on in description, etc. Have to read very carefully.

It's really easy to drink hundreds and hundreds of calories with calorie-heavy drinks. It's a lot harder to do the same by eating, fiber in the food tells your body to stop pretty fast.

After trying a few different things, I decided it was time to bring out the big guns so I started calorie counting. Sugar had to go due to its calorie density and how much I would keep craving it afterwards.

My sweet cravings didn't go away. I started with fruit but that wouldn't quite hit the spot, at least not always.

Enter zero calorie sweeteners.

I'd add a bit of them to less sugary fruits (berries, etc) at first. I started adding it to a few other things when I wanted something sweet. It worked great.

It's true that when it wasn't available I would get something with actual sugar, but that would be maybe 5-10% of the time, so I had cut 90-95% of the calories I used to consume from sugar. That's a win.

In time I started weaning it all off. Not completely but I reduced it to a minimum. I still have a zero ginger beer every now and then, and still add a bit of fake sugar to one thing or another. I also consume chewing gums and mints with sugar alcohols.

They have been instrumental in my weight loss journey and now I'm at about 14% body fat. I still want to lose a little to see if it will improve my climbing performance but I'm quite satisfied. I have reintroduced small amounts of sugary foods to my diet, at this point with no abnormal cravings.

Yes, carrots, oranges, beetroots, milk, even berries can be very sweet after you wean off the excess sugar and fake sugars. They can be enough most days. Other days I'll use whatever sweet thing I have at hand, in moderation, in order to beat the craving.

So my take on fake sugar is, if you use it for weight loss, use it conscientiously and in a way that will help you get off sugar first, but also with a plan to slowly get off them as well. They can be an excellent tool if used well.

Gnats and aphids' larvae and eggs appear to be a delicacy for bees. Whenever I put plant pots on a sunny balcony during early spring daytime, I have dozens of bees tinkering in the soil. They also very efficiently clean up the soil and help aerate the roots[1]. Bees are the awesomest living species I know!

[1] https://wojteksychut.com/vid/bees.mp4

They need both moisture and oxygen to reproduce, which means they only live in a damp top layer of soil. So leaving the top layer of soil dry prevents them from reproducing. And since fungus gnats are dumb and slow they fly right into the flypaper, removing themselves from the gene pool.

You can also replace the top couple centimeters of soil. You'll still want to keep the soil as dry as possible for a week so any remaining gnats stop laying eggs.

I've had success suppressing them with frequent sprays of neem oil, direct to the soil of the pots. Daily for a week or two to break the life cycle and then weekly or more often to keep the inevitable survivors knocked back and feeling unwelcome.

They're also suckers for a candle left lit in a darkened room.

So? Why should I care whether a report is written by David Lowe? This guy has already drawn a conclusion about erythritol despite how inadequate the evidence is for how harmful it is to those without CVD, and is even willing to tease the reader with some data on fruit flies as if that matters. It doesn't matter what his background is; I don't find this article becoming of someone in the field of research.

> A facile dismissal

Yet all you did was cite the fact the article was written by David Lowe and paste an excerpt as if you think I hadn't already read it.

Facetious, because I chose to read beyond that piece of abstract? Because I pointed out that invertebrate physiology is a nonsequitor as to whether a substance is medically relevant to human being? Because I don't agree that correlation of data in a study with inherent confounders can be so easily used to interpret risk in healthy individuals?

There's a difference between correlation and causation, and especially in regards to judging medically relevant risk.

If I was being facile and facetious, I'd be claiming there's no problem with erythritol. That's not what I'm saying at all. There's no good reason people should be consuming artificial sweeteners or sugar. That doesn't mean that there's necessarily a meaningful cardiovascular risk.

In either case, it's still misleading and irrelevant. Whether people think a chemical is inert doesn't say anything about whether a chemical is dangerous to humans. If one wrote an equivalent article with the thesis that water bottles should no longer be sold, and the author points to the curiosity that thousands of people drown every year, that only serves to persuade gullible readers into believing that drinking a bottle of Aquafina and drowning in a pool are connected in a way that is relevant. If Derek Lowe's point truly was that people should not see erythritol as biologically inert, he should have said something explicit stating as such. The fact that he didn't communicates that his goal was to lead the reader to the conclusion that he's made quite clear in his final paragraph.

> It was not totally irrelevant to an article discussing erythritol but it is irrelevant to human physiology.

It's irrelevant to the point that he is explicitly making, and is no different than an article about weight loss telling people to stop eating so much chocolate and, oh by the way, did you know that chocolate is toxic to dogs?! Gee whiz! And you thought chocolate was a harmless treat!

> The article need not be limited to one point. If that were the case most articles would be too boring to read.

So you read articles for the factoids? I guess there's nothing wrong with that in isolation, but the insertion of factoids into articles is often misleading to those whom are less scientifically minded, which is a problem when an author is acting as a science communicator. There's no reason a site called Science.com can't have articles that are written to both fit the parameters of science and be interesting to read.