What If Sugar Is Worse Than Just Empty Calories?

http://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.j5808.full

by andrewl • 9 years ago

55 33 9 years ago

bmj.com

jgalvez2• 9 years ago

Oh my god, the never ending sugar non-sense.

https://cowseatgrass.org/2016/02/12/sugar-feeds-thyroid/ http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/sugar-issues.shtml

raarts• 9 years ago

Would you care a adding some context or tl;dr to that? You linked to a really long text which - to my eyes - does not reach a conclusion.

teslabox• 9 years ago

Tl/dr: the campaign against sugar is not actually grounded on solid science - it's sort of a disinformation campaign to distract people from the other elephants in the room: rancid deodorized dietary oils, xeno-estrogens and other endocrine disrupters, etc...

People with a healthy metabolism can easily burn sugar for energy. Having a high metabolism increases the body's need for other nutrients, which are not present in white sugar. Sugar-rich foods, used in the context of a nutrient-dense diet, can be therapeutic.

claar• 9 years ago

From a myriad of anecdotal evidence from my immediate and extended family, I'm personally convinced that there are significant downsides to America's addiction to sugar.

Discussion, debate, close examination of results/methods, and the like are helpful. But calling out an entire research topic as "non-sense" holds back scientific progress, even if the research topic appears fruitless. Many of today's accepted truths were yesterday's non-sense.

PinkMilkshake2• 9 years ago

Ray Peat is a quack. cowseatgrass is based on his work.

jgalvez2• 9 years ago

Ray Peat is most definitely not a quack. How did you come to that conclusion?

scarface745• 9 years ago

Let's look at this from the standpoint of Pascal's Wager.

If eating too much sugar is bad for you and has negative consequences and you choose to cut back, you have significant gains in living a healthy lifestyle.

If sugar is not bad for you and you cut back, you've given up on a few pleasures, but in the grand scheme of things, you've lost nothing.

So, why not cut back and eat as if sugar is bad for you? I think there is enough credible evidence to take a chance and cut back.

No, I don't feel the same way about non-gmo, organic, grass fed, gluten free food, grown and cultivated by virgin nuns. I think the "natural food" cruft is just a bunch of marketing.

PinkMilkshake2• 9 years ago

Pascal’s wager doesn’t apply in this case as Ray Peat believes cutting back on sugar is really bad for you.

He doesn’t just think all current experts are wrong, he seems to be one of those rebel doctors who will specifically claim the opposite of any currently accepted fact regarding health and nutrition.

ghostbrainalpha• 9 years ago

Do you have another example of him fighting the accepted wisdom on anything other than the fat/sugar ratio someone should be eating?

brador• 9 years ago

"A few pleasures" is subjective, just like the value loss of untimely death. Also you'd be dead either way.

scarface745• 9 years ago

Having diabetes is not just about an untimely death. I'm going to die anyway, but hopefully I can enjoy a life that doesn't involve insulin shots, amputated limbs, blindness, etc. I've seen what diabetes does to a person first hand.

tszymczyszyn• 9 years ago

Pascal’s wager does not make much sense even for the original case.

scarface745• 9 years ago

Why not? In the grand scheme of things it's a simple case where the upside rewards are much greater than the downside risks.

It's the same theory behind venture capitalism. Your downside risk is only the amount of money you invest, your upside reward is that you may invest in what will become the next Facebook.

Yes I know that in reality most VC investors don't beat an index fund.

matt-attack• 9 years ago

Well Zeus might be real. If you worship him there’s no cost to do so. It’s a mild inconvenience to go to Zeus temples every Thursday for the rest of your life and pray to him. If you’re wrong, no harm. Oh and apply this thousands of other gods too.

tkyjonathan2• 9 years ago

Depends how much you cut back. I think your body/brain needs 120g of glucose a day. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22436/

maxxxxx• 9 years ago

There is almost zero risk not getting enough sugar these days. That's not something to worry about.

eisrep• 9 years ago

The body can produce the amount of glucose it needs through converting proteins using Gluconeogenesis. Dietary intake of carbohydrates/glucose is not necessary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis

Waterluvian• 9 years ago

That makes it sound easy. For some, trying to cut back is not giving up on a few pleasures, it's embarking on an incredibly effortful, emotionally and often physically draining undertaking.

cwkoss• 9 years ago

Let's look at this from the standpoint of Pascal's Wager.

If reading hackernews gives you brain cancer, you could save your life by not reading it.

If reading hackernews doesn't give you brain cancer, you've given up on a minor pleasure, but in the grand scheme of things, you've lost nothing.

So, why not cut back and avoid hackernews as if it gives your brain cancer?

...

I don't think Pascal's Wager is a good reason to do anything. It can be used to justify anything: there are an infinite amount of potential bad things that can happen.

dragonwriter• 9 years ago

Let's look at this from the standpoint of Pascal's Wager.

The problem with Pascal's Wager in most applications, including this one, is the “if X does Y...” can trivially be flipped to “if not-X does Y...” or, in some cases, “if not-X does Z...” where Z has equally negative consequences to Y).

Mostly, the Pascal's Wager structure is a template for flimsy rationalizations of pre-existing preferences or beliefs.

scarface745• 9 years ago

The negative consequences of X is all of the known issues with obesity and an increased risk of diabetes. The negative consequences of Y is you have to cut back on sugar.

The consequence of Y (a healthier life and a decreased risk of diabetes) is well worth the sacrifices of doing X.

The gains of doing X is not worth the consequences of not Y (all of the health consequences of being overweight)

Is there any scientific literature that says consuming a lot of sugar is healthy for you?

If you could bet $50 and have a 90% chance of getting $500 would you take it? Would not betting $50 and having a 10% chance of not losing the $50 be equivalent?

Yes I realize the odds are exaggerated in the example above.

newscracker• 9 years ago

If sugar is not bad for you and you cut back, you've given up on a few pleasures, but in the grand scheme of things, you've lost nothing.

I disagree that giving up sugar and sugary stuff is the same as giving up on a few pleasures. That just sweeps the issues under the carpet, so to speak. Depending on the person, giving up sugar can be a whole lot more, and for some people it may be equivalent to giving up the biggest pleasures and the biggest supporters of existence itself. Tangentially, sugar is one of those things that's not as easy to give up for most people because of how our bodies are wired (and have evolved). The dopamine effect, the reinforcement and the need to up the intake to get more pleasure can be a serious hindrance even to the most rational, thinking and open minded people.

natecavanaugh3• 9 years ago

sigh typical Gary Taubes. Sugar itself is not an empty calorie, and is more than easily stored and used by the body. Of course, I do think that sugar has a special place in our body that affects things more than we understand (for instance, how a ketogenic diet can lower and regulate epileptic siezures).

But empty? I get alcohol being an empty calorie, since it's a toxin that your body cannot store, but protein, fat, and carbohydrates can and are all either stored or used.

Not only that, but protein can have an insulin response as well, which makes you think that maybe insulin resistance isn't caused by only a single macronutrient.

Gary Taubes, while I respect some of what he does, approaches his hypotheses as if they were forgone conclusions. And he has had his sugar axe to grind for so long, it's hard to tell how much he his cherry picking his data and how much it reflects reality.

Axsuul• 9 years ago

You are taking his definition of "empty" quite literally while in the article, his definition of "empty" clearly states:

sugars cause dental caries and are a source of excess calories, “empty” of vitamins, minerals, protein, and fibre

On proteins having an insulin response, when you intake too much protein, glucose is formed from a metabolic process known as gluconeogenesis which can definitely cause an insulin response.

Interested to hear why you "think that sugar has a special place in our body". Is this from empirical or anecdotal evidence?

natecavanaugh3• 9 years ago

You are taking his definition of "empty" quite literally while in the article, his definition of "empty" clearly states: sugars cause dental caries and are a source of excess calories, “empty” of vitamins, minerals, protein, and fibre

Yeah, that also stretches the definition quite a bit, and it's like saying "protein is empty of vitamins, minerals, fat and carbohydrates".

None of the macros contain vitamins or minerals or fiber, so what exactly are empty calories?

Interested to hear why you "think that sugar has a special place in our body". Is this from empirical or anecdotal evidence?

I think all of the macros interact with the body in different ways, but sugar is interesting to me because of how much of it is used for brain processing, and how it's also leveraged to trigger insulin to store the macros.

Related to brain function, though, is that depriving yourself of sugar (or complex carbs) can regulate seizures in epileptic patients.

So, IMHO, the article somehow tries to differentiate between complex and simple carbs, but if that were the case, why would complex carbs somehow still factor into epilepsy?

I think we have a very very basic understanding of how the different macros all interact with our bodies, especially sugar.

aylons• 9 years ago

The Harriet Hall piece on Gary Taubes may give some good insight on this essay:

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/gary-taubes-and-the-cause-o...

jlebrech• 9 years ago

it's high glycemic index that's bad, sugar water is fine as it's dilute.

What If Sugar Is Worse Than Just Empty Calories?

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