Is Sugar Really Toxic?
blogs.scientificamerican.com
blogs.scientificamerican.com
The thing about fructose is that it is not by itself poisonous. The problem only comes about for refined fructose, such as that found in cane sugar and HFCS. In those cases, fructose overwhelms the liver and gets processed by wrong pathways which result in all kinds of problems. But if you eat fructose in the form of fruits and vegetables, your body has to take a while to break the fructose out of the fruit and vegetable cells. Thus, your liver only gets a steady trickle of fructose instead of a flood of it. As a result, the liver can process the fructose correctly. Furthermore, if you eat fructose with fiber, molecules from the fiber help the liver process more fructose correctly.
Knowing this, it is not difficult to construct an experiment that shows that fructose is not harmful. All you have to do is feed your subjects the correct form of fructose (i.e., fruits and vegetables). The experiment where subjects ate large numbers of apples and were perfectly ok was quite telling.
The other defense of the sugar industry is that it is not the sugar, it is the overeating. However, refined sugar causes the overeating. One of the results of processing fructose the wrong way is that the liver does not produce the hormones that are supposed to inform the brain that you are full. Thus, refined fructose causes overeating of sugar and anything else you happen to be eating with your sugar. Personally I know I eat much more fries if I eat them with ketchup and I will eat much more steak if I eat it with steak sauce.
The fat people and diabetics are being blamed for eating too much and lacking willpower. They may be partially to blame, but it is very hard to make the correct decision when your brain's own sensory mechanisms are being hijacked and tricked. It is very hard to stop eating when you are constantly hungry. But if you cut down on the sugar you will not be constantly hungry, and then you may find that you do not even need that much will power to cut down on your calories.
So, yes, qualitatively there is a difference not only between eating an apple and a glass of apple juice representing 8 apples, but even when you're juicing a single apple, because that fructose hits your bloodstream immediately.
Useful if you're a bonking cyclist or a runner who's hit the wall. Not so much if you're leading a sedentary lifestyle.
[1] http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance...
Affects insulin levels, insulemic effects etc.
The point is that quantity alone is not sufficient consideration, quality also must be taken into account.
I could be arsed to dig up a bunch of references, but frankly I'm not ego-attached to this issue right now. That said:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=effects+of+gastric+emptying+on+ins... https://duckduckgo.com/?q=effects+of+insulin+levels+on+morta... https://duckduckgo.com/?q=effects+of+insulin+levels+on+fat
... might give you some interesting starting points.
What matters when you ingest those 500 calories is what they're allocated to, and there endocrine responses (as well as body store availability) does matter.
500g of carbohydrate dumped in the bloodstream of an individual with depleted skeletal muscle and hepatic glycogen stores will have a different response (glycogen uptake in these tissues) than in an individual whose glycogen stores are already saturated (conversion to triglycerides and storage as fat).
Gastric emptying and rate of release matters as you're consuming roughly 15-25g of carbohydrate hourly in your brain (and a few more grams in other tissues). So that an ingested bolus of 500g cho released over the course of 5 hours is going to _largely_ simply result in uptake to tissues with an existing demand, rather than lipogenesis.
No, you can't say fuck you to thermodynamics, but you can dance the funky chicken around it.
Not to detract from your other excellent points but:
1 - it makes it easier to eat more because it's less dry. If you eat a bunch of fries with nothing it will turn into a huge lump in your stomach and you won't want more.
2 - insoluble fiber in apples slows fructose absorption, but a hunk of fatty meat does not? Fat slows absorption through the intestine.
3 - Vinegar is supposed to suppress appetite. Eating a pickle when your hungry will 4/6 times make you feel a lot less hungry.
It can't possibly be something simple and emergent like "HFCS is cheap" and "people like sweet things".
That being said, I found the article interesting, but, as a biochem major, fairly unsurprising. Fructose and glucose are fundamental elements of our body's metabolism, and metabolism is a fundamental element to life. It's what gives your cells energy to do every single thing they do. That sucrose, a compound made up of a single fructose molecule bonded to a glucose molecule, is not detrimental to your health given reasonable consumption reaches "duh" levels of obviousness. Same is true of high fructose corn syrup, which actually just contains 55% fructose and 42% glucose, a negligible difference. So it seems the only detriment to your health posed by HFCS over sucrose is the anxiety you'll get by worrying about it.
Like someone else said "TL;DR: stop eating so much, fatty." In more practical terms, eat reasonably and lift weights and you'll be fine.
Edit:
Here's some science for you:
Energy in = Energy out + Change in Body Stores (fat or muscle)
Where "energy" is measured in calories. Laws of thermodynamics ain't nothin' to f with! [1]
[1] http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance...
I didn't pay attention to my weight for a couple years, ate a lot of sweets and drank a lot of beer. Before I knew it I'd gained 30 pounds, and had a minor freakout. I decided to do three things--weigh myself every morning, stop eating sugar except for from fruit, and stop drinking. I ended up shedding 30 pounds in 90 days, and have kept it off for a full year. I didn't exercise or count calories in any way, in fact I probably upped my overall calorie consumption but I replaced the sugars with more complex energy sources like nuts. I'm not sure if it was cutting the alcohol, cutting the sugar, or both that did the trick. However, I've been letting myself have some alcohol for the past few months (wine, not beer) and haven't gained a pound since doing so, so my gut tells me it was the sugar. I definitely feel a whole lot healthier.
Alcohol itself doesn't affect weight much, though IIRC fat isn't metabolized well together with it. But it can improve your lifespan: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9481115
I'm curious if gut fauna could be a factor.
Lost about thirty pounds over four months (which was terrific, my girlfriend of four years dumped me the night I flew home so at least I was ready for singles' life).
I won't go so far as to call sugar "toxic" but I know that cutting it out has made me much, much healthier.
Also, I had a blood test a few weeks ago. My doctor actually wrote "outstanding" on my cholesterol report.
Pedantically we might say that, but it's not really true.
Sure, what makes something poisonous/dangerous is the dosage, but the dosage itself depends on more basic characteristics.
It's not like we arbitrarily try high dosages of stuff. We don't go out eating small amounts of cyanide for a reason.
Nice taste facits venenum -- by making us increase the dosage. Think sugar, salt, red meat, etc.
Uplifting side effects facit venenum. Think heroin, alcohol, etc.
Adverse withdrawal effects also facit venenum. Else we could easily quite alcohol, drugs, cigarettes with a little self restraint.
^^^ IMHO, since there is a chance you were consuming pound of sugar and six-pack of beer daily :)
(Which is not to say that you'll magically lose weight if you stop drinking, or that it's impossible to lose weight if you're drinking every week.)
On the other hand if you drink 6 pack during the span of the whole week - it will hardly make a difference.
So yeah - it really depends on how much beer peak usage we are talking about here.
>I probably upped my overall calorie consumption but I replaced the sugars with more complex energy sources like nuts
Unless you started exercising, these two statements are incompatible with one another (violates the first law of thermodynamics). What's more likely is you felt "fuller" from eating healthy foods and therefore consumed less calories.
Energy in = Energy out + Change in Body Stores [1]
Where "change in body stores" is, for all intents and purposes, either muscle or fat. So while going from eating 3000 calories of pure butter to eating 3000 calories of straight fibrous vegetables will show a modest difference in caloric retention, I guarantee you that's not the case here.
[1] http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance...
Another possibility is that the food eaten affects the metabolic rate. I've known multiple people who stopped having cold extremities when they cut back on their sugar intake.
You need a calorie deficit of approximately half a standard daily intake to lose a third of a pound a day.
Over the course of 90 days, you'd lose a grand total of a pound of fat or so.
And then there's this (http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=99...)
Despite the fact that all of the subjects spent the same amount of time in exactly the same confined space, the results showed large differences in the number of calories they burned. Some subjects burned as few as 1,300 calories in 24 hours, while others burned as much as 3,600 calories, a difference of 2,300 calories in one 24-hour period!
Keep in mind that most of what these subjects were doing would not be counted as "exercise".
If you want to know more about what I'm talking about with drastic changes in calorie expenditure, do a google search on "non-exercise activity thermogenesis".
Want to get healthy and lose weight? Cut the processed foods. If it comes in a box, don't buy it. If there are ingredients you have trouble pronouncing, don't buy it. Your body has evolved to know when you've had enough food (slowing down your eating will help too). But those foods that are designed in a lab have sugar and other "bad" stuff in disproportionately high amounts, so by the time you've eaten enough to feel full, you've eaten way too much.
TL;DR: stop eating so much, fatty
Plus, when you're consuming the "bad stuff" it's even more difficult because of their interactions within the body.
If you can manage to research and control "bad stuff" in your diet and that works, go ahead. But why have them in there at all messing everything up?
Americans are lucky to have all of it stated on the packaging, which allows very precise control of nutrients consumption. So if you bought box of Devil Hole (which are delicious!) and read, that one hole comes with 120 calories - eat just one! That simple.
Now... if you can't stop on one, this is completely different issue.
I've reduced my diet to the following: apples, canned pineapple, pork steaks, canned corn, and tap water.
The advantage is that none of those contain anything artificial (except the tap water). The disadvantage is that probably no one else would be content eating only those things. But I've been forcing myself, because the alternative is empirically worse.
It's likely I'm just fooling myself. But even still, it's a huge stress relief to not feel bad about we eat.
Walmart, actually. $1.99/lb. It's all I can afford.
There's plenty to feel bad about in there.
Yeah, I feel bad that an animal had to die for me to live. But genetically my body freaks out if I don't eat meat, and the animal's already dead anyway.
Regarding fat in the pork steak, I'm not so worried about it. I try not to eat the fat, but even still, it seems like there's a decent chance that it's better for you than the additives present in almost all other food. We've been eating meat for millions of years, so I'm betting on evolution to take care of me.
> But genetically my body freaks out if
> I don't eat meat
> and the animal's already dead anyway.
> We've been eating meat for millions of years
You're right you shouldn't stress about what you eat too much; what's the point of eating healthy if it makes you miserable. But it's worth thinking about why taking the time to eat healthy stresses you out. If it's a matter of not having time, consider what you could do to make time. Your entire existence subsists on the stuff you ingest. I find that fact reason enough to make time to find healthier meals.
This is all just my 2 cents based on personal experience. Certainly don't mean to be telling you exactly what to do. Just want to encourage thoughtful consideration. It's not a switch you flip, it's a journey
Still, I applaud your approach. I've been on paleo for about a year, lost a bunch of weight, and for a while I was basically eating the same 12 foods on a loop (eggs, bacon, coffee, lamb, shrimp, fish, broccoli, spinach, carrots, raspberries, dark chocolate, almonds).
Thanks for the list of paleo-safe foods!
The fact is, we're all wired a little differently. Some who drink too much can simple moderate; some find the need to temporarily or permanently quit drinking altogether. Anyone trapped in the "metabolic syndrome" of a sugary diet will probably be more successful doing the latter.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Willpower-Rediscovering-Greatest-Human...
Personally I think this is pretty extreme/bad advice. Plenty of over-processed foods don't come in boxes, and plenty of perfectly acceptable foods do come in boxes.
> Considering that our cells depend on sugar for energy,
Is dishonest. In general parlance "sugar" refers to sucrose. Sucrose is a glucose bonded to a fructose.
Our bodies need glucose to live.
However they do not need fructose.
"What I find frustrating about this debate is that most people yelling and screaming don’t fully define the terms, perhaps because they don’t appreciate them (forgivable) or because they are trying to mislead others (unforgiveable). The wrong question is being asked. “Is sugar toxic?” is a silly question. Why? Because it lacks context. Is water toxic? Is oxygen toxic? These are equally silly questions, I hope you’ll appreciate. Both oxygen and water are essential for life (sugar, by the way, is not). But both oxygen and water are toxic – yes, lethal – at high enough doses."
I'm not an expert by any means, but from what I recall that point is still widely contested.
Facepalm
He's a consulting research guy for the same people that benefit from HFCS. He has a bunch of propaganda about HFCS, so he is seriously bending the conclusions as much as possible in favor of it.
Here's the part where the article actually agrees that sugar is bad for you:
> Even if Lustig is wrong to call fructose poisonous and saddle it with all the blame for obesity and diabetes, his most fundamental directive is sound: eat less sugar.
WTF? It spent the whole article trying to show that sugar is ok, and then it concludes that?
I've been like you in the past. But instead believing in Lustig and others, I've kept reading scientific studies and the work of Ray Peat is much more consistent.
http://examine.com/faq/what-should-i-eat-for-weight-loss.htm...
In turn, obesity is a strong predictor of many diseases, regardless of other factors.
In individual cases unobservable "noise" can affect the rate of gain or loss vs the estimated rate given by subtracting an estimate (calories gleaned from an activities database) from another estimate (calories written on the side of the food packet).
But when you look at population BMI vs population calorie intake, it looks suspiciously like a perfect correlation:
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/calories-st...
Which is what we would expect from a basic acceptance of freshman physics. Energy and matter are conserved. No exceptions.
Singling out fructose as some kind of super-baddy doesn't work, for the simple reason that the population BMI-calories correlation appears in countries outside the USA. Only the USA has corn politics and only the USA has HFCS in the food supply in any abundance. Yet the rest of the developed world is getting fat on the same trajectory as the USA has.
US style food is being exported all over the world. Sodas are sold all over the world. Obesity around the world is generally correlated to the level at which US style food culture is adopted.
I don't know of anywhere else in the world that has serving sizes as big as the US. And very few places outside the US offer free refills.
Everyone else uses cane sugar because it's cheaper.
People are getting fat because they like the taste of dense foods and those foods are cheaper and more available than ever before in history.
I would say the US may be primarily responsible for the technology (agricultural, supply chain, financing, etc) that made food potentially affordable to everyone. An unfortunate consequence of having enough food to eat is being able to eat too much.
What I do know is a diet low in sugar reduces cravings by a lot. Its a lot easier to lose weight when you don't feel hungry all the time.
> any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word "no."
The article directly answers the headline in the negative.
> our cells depend on sugar for energy
The rest of the article is more intelligent but it's undermined by the link-baiting headline.
Anyways I hope this recent bump from HN allows Dr. Lustig to make the talk-show rounds again.
The implication was that the brain uses glucose in its operation, and requires a certain level of glucose to function at full capacity. At least one cause of the brain fog we get after a full day's focused work is that we're low on fuel, which happens to be easy to fix. Unfortunately, it has other effects too that we might not want so much. I've been meaning to experiment on myself a bit with some glucose tabs after a long day of code, but haven't gotten around to it yet.
(*) I think that was in "Thinking, Fast and Slow" but I'm not certain now, too many similar books in between.
As I wrote that, I did remember a bit of evidence that the glucose was actually beneficial - namely that they measured performance on the problems over time. At the end of the first set, both groups were showing approximately equal degraded performance. Upon resuming on the second set, the group given glucose was back up to nearly the starting level of proficiency, while the group given no glucose was at the same level they stopped at on the first group.
Anecdotal feedback - they work great for short bursts of activity. I use them when playing multiplayer games at night. Given my opponents are usually young and fuelled on caffeinated sodas I need some kind of edge after getting home from work. When I stomp a lobby on team deathmatch it's usually after popping a couple of glucose tabs. A good low-GI meal does much the same, but of course isn’t as convenient.
Consider the ''eugeroic'' ("Wakefulness Enhancer") class, described as "unproven primary mechanisms but proven efficacy". Bit scary, not something to have a habit around, but widely available through the internets.
I gained over 100 lbs in just under half a year. I was eating around 10k calories a day.
I then stuck to only these foods and have only been eating this the past couple years:
chicken
lean beef
kale + other greens
various fruit
cheese
That's it. No seasoning, nothing. I'm so much happier now. Better sleeps, better mood, better everything. My mood and days fluctuated like crazy when I didn't keep track of my diet.
I'd love to hear some opinions on the following talk from fellow HNers:
For those who want to try restricting their diet to be more healty, a simple trick is to only shop on the outer isles of the grocery store. In more stores, you'll have the produce along one one, meats and fish along another, and then dairy and cheese along another.
Sadly, the bakery is also along a wall, so just be smart enough to avoid that one, and don't be tricked by bread, most of it has a significant amount of sugar.