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The Sugar Conspiracy
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pcoslady83 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »
It's a scientific debate, semantics are important. I think we are all just geeks who like debating
But its also important in the context of the idea of a sugar conspiracy, or whatever. Are corporate interests feeding us an addictive substance or is sugar just really tasty and some of us develop unhealthy relationships with it? Obviously i support the latter explanation.
I believe refined sugar is addictive to many people and at the minimum an appetite stimulant which interferes with normal brain functionality. So I think corporations are using these attributes of sugar to increase profits.
Aaaaannnnnndddddddd...I don't like debating at all. I used to though, but when I started understanding that different people experience different realities when faced with an objectively same situation, debating became less interesting and learning about different experiences and perspective became more interesting.
I wish to address only what I've highlighted, keeping in mind that you possibly agree with what I am about to say: If that is true, then it's an example of corporations doing what corporations do, and I can't fault them for that. Whether or not it needs to change is a political discussion that doesn't belong in these forums.
I know this is a tad off topic but I just had to say it.
ETA: Before I'm misunderstood, I know no one is actually making any type of political argument here.pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »
It's a scientific debate, semantics are important. I think we are all just geeks who like debating
But its also important in the context of the idea of a sugar conspiracy, or whatever. Are corporate interests feeding us an addictive substance or is sugar just really tasty and some of us develop unhealthy relationships with it? Obviously i support the latter explanation.
I believe refined sugar is addictive to many people and at the minimum an appetite stimulant which interferes with normal brain functionality. So I think corporations are using these attributes of sugar to increase profits.
Aaaaannnnnndddddddd...I don't like debating at all. I used to though, but when I started understanding that different people experience different realities when faced with an objectively same situation, debating became less interesting and learning about different experiences and perspective became more interesting.
I wish to address only what I've highlighted, keeping in mind that you possibly agree with what I am about to say: If that is true, then it's an example of corporations doing what corporations do, and I can't fault them for that. Whether or not it needs to change is a political discussion that doesn't belong in these forums.
I know this is a tad off topic but I just had to say it.
ETA: Before I'm misunderstood, I know no one is actually making any type of political argument here.
I don't fault corporations. But I think educating people about the amount of refined sugar that gets added to the food and its ill effects is extremely important. I welcome the addition of added sugar on the nutrition labels.
+1
I think we're on the same page here. I believe that what's most needed to reverse obesity rates is better nutrition education. (And I figured you don't fault corporations, but I've heard some tin hat things on the interwebz so I just had to springboard off of your post!
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paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »
It's a scientific debate, semantics are important. I think we are all just geeks who like debating
But its also important in the context of the idea of a sugar conspiracy, or whatever. Are corporate interests feeding us an addictive substance or is sugar just really tasty and some of us develop unhealthy relationships with it? Obviously i support the latter explanation.
I believe refined sugar is addictive to many people and at the minimum an appetite stimulant which interferes with normal brain functionality. So I think corporations are using these attributes of sugar to increase profits.
Aaaaannnnnndddddddd...I don't like debating at all. I used to though, but when I started understanding that different people experience different realities when faced with an objectively same situation, debating became less interesting and learning about different experiences and perspective became more interesting.
Experiences do not negate reality. If I start seeing unicorns, the unicorns are not there. It's me. The fact that I saw unicorns is real, the existence of unicorns is not. If someone believes they are physically addicted to sugar the only way to determine if this is true is through science.
Sure science will determine that...eventually. Till then, it is good to have an open mind.
I do. It's open to evidence.
Then..let us just wait and respect people's experiences rather than dismissing them as willpower problem.
I hope I've been clear that I think it's more nuanced than just a willpower problem and calling something psychological is in no way a dismissal. If someone tells me they really struggle with sugar I am in no position to say "No you don't get a grip" but can discuss how to categorise it or whether it's the substance itself.
A simple google search will point you to papers. Here is the first link that turned up and I have copied the conclusion.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/
The reviewed evidence supports the theory that, in some circumstances, intermittent access to sugar can lead to behavior and neurochemical changes that resemble the effects of a substance of abuse. According to the evidence in rats, intermittent access to sugar and chow is capable of producing a “dependency”. This was operationally defined by tests for bingeing, withdrawal, craving and cross-sensitization to amphetamine and alcohol. The correspondence to some people with binge eating disorder or bulimia is striking, but whether or not it is a good idea to call this a “food addiction” in people is both a scientific and societal question that has yet to be answered. What this review demonstrates is that rats with intermittent access to food and a sugar solution can show both a constellation of behaviors and parallel brain changes that are characteristic of rats that voluntarily self-administer addictive drugs. In the aggregrate, this is evidence that sugar can be addictive.
Now..please don't tell me that the study was in rats and not applicable to humans.
Why would I not tell you that? The study is literally on rats. This has been discussed already. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/is-sugar-really-toxic-sifting-through-the-evidence/ Rat study dealt with in this article.
I love this article So. Much. It answered so many questions I had!1 -
It was a personal comparison between two situations where I was told the same thing. The same incorrect thing. LOL Nevermind then.
Was one of those situations in regard to how sugar affects you? A friend of mine also suffered for years while being told her problems were all in her head. She finally found a doctor that identified the problem (fibromyalgia) and she now knows how to handle it better. I'm sorry that you had a similar experience. I know it sucks.
The reason I ask if a doctor has told you that your experience with sugar is all in your head is because, as far as I can see, you were the first one to introduce the idea in this thread. I'm pretty sure no one here is saying that whatever leads to overconsumption of sugar is imaginary.
I tend to agree with you that the word "addiction" should be left out, but I'm not sure what should be used instead to describe it. Curious about your thoughts?
My reactive hypoglycemia was indeed ignored and brushed off but that was not a big deal. The autoimmune issues being ignored was a larger problem....
I let myself get derailed while trying to make myself understood.0 -
You know what kills me? When people say there's "added sugar" in bread. Sure, it is on the ingredients list.. but not because there's actual "added sugar" in bread. The yeast almost certainly used it up unless the bread is specifically a sweet bread (such as King's Hawaiian -- which has pineapple juice, incidentally). Yeast grows on sugar, and expels carbon dioxide, which makes bread rise. You don't have sugar in your bread, you have air bubbles, thanks to sugar having been an ingredient with yeast. There's little to no sugar left if the baker worked things out correctly.13
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You know what kills me? When people say there's "added sugar" in bread. Sure, it is on the ingredients list.. but not because there's actual "added sugar" in bread. The yeast almost certainly used it up unless the bread is specifically a sweet bread (such as King's Hawaiian -- which has pineapple juice, incidentally). Yeast grows on sugar, and expels carbon dioxide, which makes bread rise. You don't have sugar in your bread, you have air bubbles, thanks to sugar having been an ingredient with yeast. There's little to no sugar left if the baker worked things out correctly.
Please stop trying to confuse this issue with facts.
Just kidding, even if it is a sweet bread where they add sugar, so what? Recipes having been doing that for years.5 -
pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »
It's a scientific debate, semantics are important. I think we are all just geeks who like debating
But its also important in the context of the idea of a sugar conspiracy, or whatever. Are corporate interests feeding us an addictive substance or is sugar just really tasty and some of us develop unhealthy relationships with it? Obviously i support the latter explanation.
I believe refined sugar is addictive to many people and at the minimum an appetite stimulant which interferes with normal brain functionality. So I think corporations are using these attributes of sugar to increase profits.
Aaaaannnnnndddddddd...I don't like debating at all. I used to though, but when I started understanding that different people experience different realities when faced with an objectively same situation, debating became less interesting and learning about different experiences and perspective became more interesting.
Experiences do not negate reality. If I start seeing unicorns, the unicorns are not there. It's me. The fact that I saw unicorns is real, the existence of unicorns is not. If someone believes they are physically addicted to sugar the only way to determine if this is true is through science.
Sure science will determine that...eventually. Till then, it is good to have an open mind.
I do. It's open to evidence.
Then..let us just wait and respect people's experiences rather than dismissing them as willpower problem.
I hope I've been clear that I think it's more nuanced than just a willpower problem and calling something psychological is in no way a dismissal. If someone tells me they really struggle with sugar I am in no position to say "No you don't get a grip" but can discuss how to categorise it or whether it's the substance itself.
A simple google search will point you to papers. Here is the first link that turned up and I have copied the conclusion.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/
The reviewed evidence supports the theory that, in some circumstances, intermittent access to sugar can lead to behavior and neurochemical changes that resemble the effects of a substance of abuse. According to the evidence in rats, intermittent access to sugar and chow is capable of producing a “dependency”. This was operationally defined by tests for bingeing, withdrawal, craving and cross-sensitization to amphetamine and alcohol. The correspondence to some people with binge eating disorder or bulimia is striking, but whether or not it is a good idea to call this a “food addiction” in people is both a scientific and societal question that has yet to be answered. What this review demonstrates is that rats with intermittent access to food and a sugar solution can show both a constellation of behaviors and parallel brain changes that are characteristic of rats that voluntarily self-administer addictive drugs. In the aggregrate, this is evidence that sugar can be addictive.
Now..please don't tell me that the study was in rats and not applicable to humans.
Why would I not tell you that? The study is literally on rats. This has been discussed already. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/is-sugar-really-toxic-sifting-through-the-evidence/ Rat study dealt with in this article.
Sure..I did go through the article. I found two places where it mentions rat study.
<snip>
B. Not only do many worrying fructose studies use unrealistic doses of the sugar unaccompanied by glucose, it also turns out that the rodents researchers have studied metabolize fructose in a very different way than people do—far more different than originally anticipated. Studies that have traced fructose's fantastic voyage through the human body suggest that the liver converts as much as 50 percent of fructose into glucose, around 30 percent of fructose into lactate and less than one percent into fats. In contrast, mice and rats turn more than 50 percent of fructose into fats, so experiments with these animals would exaggerate the significance of fructose's proposed detriments for humans, especially clogged arteries, fatty livers and insulin resistance.
<snip>
Now..for B. Sure liver converts 50% of fructose into glucose..if that glucose is in excess of what body needs (which is the problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes), it gets converted to fat. I have a hard time understanding what is the point the author is trying to make here.
I think your point A has been well covered by other posters. I'd like to address point B.
The paragraph you've quoted here contains two points which go hand in hand in order to reach a conclusion. These are: a human liver would convert as much as 50% of that fructose into glucose; a rat liver would convert more than 50% of it into fat.
We'll add to these facts a third one that you provided:[a human] liver converts 50% of fructose into glucose..if that glucose is in excess of what body needs (which is the problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes), it gets converted to fat.
Please bear with me as I piece this together.
As you correctly stated, in a human excess glucose is converted to fat; so then at first glance those aforementioned figures of 50% might appear to be equivalent.
However, please pay close attention to the wording here. It is the excess glucose that is converted into fat, and a human liver may convert as much as 50% of fructose into glucose. Let's use 50 grams of straight fructose, ingested by Alice, as an example to illustrate what I'm trying to say. As much as 25 grams of it could be converted to glucose. How much of that is excess? Of course that would depend on how much glucose Alice's body needs, so it is quite possible that less than 25 grams of the recently-converted glucose is re-converted into fat.
As for a rat or mouse liver, again please pay close attention to the wording. "Mice and rats turn more than 50% of fructose into fats." Returning to our illustration, let's say that Bob the lab rat is fed 50 grams of straight fructose (we're keeping Alice's and Bob's amounts the same only for the sake of simplicity & comparison). Over 25 grams could be converted into fat for poor Bob.
Do you see the subtle yet important difference that could make mouse and rat studies unreliable when extrapolated to humans?
Regarding your point that excess glucose is a "problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes", here we agree. Excess glucose is a problem. No one says it's OK to consume any form of sugar to the point that your liver begins to turn it to fat; and I would like to see more help available for people who, for whatever reason, engage in addiction-like or compulsive behavior when it comes to food.
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pcoslady83 wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »
It's a scientific debate, semantics are important. I think we are all just geeks who like debating
But its also important in the context of the idea of a sugar conspiracy, or whatever. Are corporate interests feeding us an addictive substance or is sugar just really tasty and some of us develop unhealthy relationships with it? Obviously i support the latter explanation.
I believe refined sugar is addictive to many people and at the minimum an appetite stimulant which interferes with normal brain functionality. So I think corporations are using these attributes of sugar to increase profits.
Aaaaannnnnndddddddd...I don't like debating at all. I used to though, but when I started understanding that different people experience different realities when faced with an objectively same situation, debating became less interesting and learning about different experiences and perspective became more interesting.
Experiences do not negate reality. If I start seeing unicorns, the unicorns are not there. It's me. The fact that I saw unicorns is real, the existence of unicorns is not. If someone believes they are physically addicted to sugar the only way to determine if this is true is through science.
Sure science will determine that...eventually. Till then, it is good to have an open mind.
I do. It's open to evidence.
Then..let us just wait and respect people's experiences rather than dismissing them as willpower problem.
I hope I've been clear that I think it's more nuanced than just a willpower problem and calling something psychological is in no way a dismissal. If someone tells me they really struggle with sugar I am in no position to say "No you don't get a grip" but can discuss how to categorise it or whether it's the substance itself.
A simple google search will point you to papers. Here is the first link that turned up and I have copied the conclusion.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/
The reviewed evidence supports the theory that, in some circumstances, intermittent access to sugar can lead to behavior and neurochemical changes that resemble the effects of a substance of abuse. According to the evidence in rats, intermittent access to sugar and chow is capable of producing a “dependency”. This was operationally defined by tests for bingeing, withdrawal, craving and cross-sensitization to amphetamine and alcohol. The correspondence to some people with binge eating disorder or bulimia is striking, but whether or not it is a good idea to call this a “food addiction” in people is both a scientific and societal question that has yet to be answered. What this review demonstrates is that rats with intermittent access to food and a sugar solution can show both a constellation of behaviors and parallel brain changes that are characteristic of rats that voluntarily self-administer addictive drugs. In the aggregrate, this is evidence that sugar can be addictive.
Now..please don't tell me that the study was in rats and not applicable to humans.
Why would I not tell you that? The study is literally on rats. This has been discussed already. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/is-sugar-really-toxic-sifting-through-the-evidence/ Rat study dealt with in this article.
Sure..I did go through the article. I found two places where it mentions rat study.
A. A more compelling criticism is that concern about fructose is based primarily on studies in which rodents and people consumed huge amounts of the molecule—up to 300 grams of fructose each day, which is nearly equivalent to the total sugar in eight cans of Coke—or a diet in which the vast majority of sugars were pure fructose. The reality is that most people consume far less fructose than used in such studies and rarely eat fructose without glucose.
AND
B. Not only do many worrying fructose studies use unrealistic doses of the sugar unaccompanied by glucose, it also turns out that the rodents researchers have studied metabolize fructose in a very different way than people do—far more different than originally anticipated. Studies that have traced fructose's fantastic voyage through the human body suggest that the liver converts as much as 50 percent of fructose into glucose, around 30 percent of fructose into lactate and less than one percent into fats. In contrast, mice and rats turn more than 50 percent of fructose into fats, so experiments with these animals would exaggerate the significance of fructose's proposed detriments for humans, especially clogged arteries, fatty livers and insulin resistance.
Let us first see A: Study was conducted on rodents which consumed huge amounts of sugar. What drove them to consume huge amounts of sugar? Did they force feed the rodents and people so that they can see impact of such high levels of sugar consumption? Rodents were just offered sugar solution as an option along with their regular food and rodents displayed addiction traits (both behavioral and neurochemical).
Now..for B. Sure liver converts 50% of fructose into glucose..if that glucose is in excess of what body needs (which is the problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes), it gets converted to fat. I have a hard time understanding what is the point the author is trying to make here.
Excess glucose is first and foremost turned to glycogen.
Also your body upregulates the carb oxidation to meet the increased supply, because burning it off is less work than converting it to fat. Efficiency, yo.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10365981
Sure..some people may have excellent metabolism which burns off excess sugar. It is not true for everyone on this planet. If all our bodies were identical and excellent, then we would not have issues like obesity today.
I agree that not all our bodies are identical and excellent, but the idea that some people's metabolism burns off a great deal more calories that other's isn't exactly true. Here's a good explanation:
https://examine.com/faq/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/
The revelant portion:Metabolic rate does vary, and technically there could be large variance. However, statistically speaking it is unlikely the variance would apply to you. The majority of the population exists in a range of 200-300kcal from each other and do not possess hugely different metabolic rates.
This leaves room for outliers with extremely high or extremely low metabolism, but as you can see the variation in metabolic rates would not contribute greatly to the obesity issues.3 -
FeedMeFish wrote: »Yes, foods low in nutrients (including high in processed sugars) can make one "fat". My friend is a perfect example. She's very health conscious about her weight so she strictly counts calories while eating high processed food (i.e. 1200 calories a day of pizza). The result? She lost weight but looks like a skinny soft mess and complains about feeling constantly tired, almost how I used to look/feel when I was anorexic. I currently eat around 1800 calories a day and very clean. Am solid/lean, energized, lift, etc.
This is probably one of the few points that no one in this thread is disputing.
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When people are stealing food, it is because they have none, not because they want a sugar fix. They don't generally care about the type and quality of food, they are hungry.
Humiliation is a big motivator for those who steal food when they have the ability to afford it.
I agree though, the consequences of addiction pale in comparison to those of dependence.
I don't understand your point about humiliation. A little help?Many addiction groups recognize both a physical and a psychological component to addiction (not counting physical dependencies). This is the development of an abnormal craving once the substance is ingested. Once the craving is induced it cannot be satisfied no matter how much of the substance is consumed. The other component is the existence of a mental obsession of which the afflicted cannot overcome to prevent the triggering of the craving through ingesting the substance.
Basically, they can't stop once they've started and they can't stop themselves from starting.
This is a core concept behind the reason that many recovered alcoholics (or other recovered addicts) will not attempt moderation. While free from any physical dependencies, they are not free from the condition which caused the craving in the first place. Their recovery comes on the mental obsession side of the problem.
I believe there are many compounds which carry a potential to cause such a reaction. Food is one of these. Sugary foods seem to be the most commonly cited, but I am aware of plenty who cite fatty meats and other things like salt, and starchy foods...or any mixture of them.
I think a lot of people say they are addicted to sugar as a way of describing their fondness for it. They might have heard about it before, but aren't quite as out of control as the statement would indicate. To them, it might be more of a metaphor. Others are struggling with crippling desperation. On these forums, I can't tell one type from the other, so I treat them the same.
It's like that riddle where there are two tribes, one filled cannible liars (as in they never tell the truth) and one friendly honest (as in they never tell a lie). They look the same. You approach a fork in the road and see one tribesman standing there. The two paths will take you to either village. Given a single question, what do you ask the tribesman?Which way to your village?
In either case, the answer is the same.
I love all of this and it makes me very curious how you treat people who say they are addicted to sugar. Could you give an example?0 -
pcoslady83 wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »
It's a scientific debate, semantics are important. I think we are all just geeks who like debating
But its also important in the context of the idea of a sugar conspiracy, or whatever. Are corporate interests feeding us an addictive substance or is sugar just really tasty and some of us develop unhealthy relationships with it? Obviously i support the latter explanation.
I believe refined sugar is addictive to many people and at the minimum an appetite stimulant which interferes with normal brain functionality. So I think corporations are using these attributes of sugar to increase profits.
Aaaaannnnnndddddddd...I don't like debating at all. I used to though, but when I started understanding that different people experience different realities when faced with an objectively same situation, debating became less interesting and learning about different experiences and perspective became more interesting.
Experiences do not negate reality. If I start seeing unicorns, the unicorns are not there. It's me. The fact that I saw unicorns is real, the existence of unicorns is not. If someone believes they are physically addicted to sugar the only way to determine if this is true is through science.
Sure science will determine that...eventually. Till then, it is good to have an open mind.
I do. It's open to evidence.
Then..let us just wait and respect people's experiences rather than dismissing them as willpower problem.
I hope I've been clear that I think it's more nuanced than just a willpower problem and calling something psychological is in no way a dismissal. If someone tells me they really struggle with sugar I am in no position to say "No you don't get a grip" but can discuss how to categorise it or whether it's the substance itself.
A simple google search will point you to papers. Here is the first link that turned up and I have copied the conclusion.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/
The reviewed evidence supports the theory that, in some circumstances, intermittent access to sugar can lead to behavior and neurochemical changes that resemble the effects of a substance of abuse. According to the evidence in rats, intermittent access to sugar and chow is capable of producing a “dependency”. This was operationally defined by tests for bingeing, withdrawal, craving and cross-sensitization to amphetamine and alcohol. The correspondence to some people with binge eating disorder or bulimia is striking, but whether or not it is a good idea to call this a “food addiction” in people is both a scientific and societal question that has yet to be answered. What this review demonstrates is that rats with intermittent access to food and a sugar solution can show both a constellation of behaviors and parallel brain changes that are characteristic of rats that voluntarily self-administer addictive drugs. In the aggregrate, this is evidence that sugar can be addictive.
Now..please don't tell me that the study was in rats and not applicable to humans.
Why would I not tell you that? The study is literally on rats. This has been discussed already. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/is-sugar-really-toxic-sifting-through-the-evidence/ Rat study dealt with in this article.
Sure..I did go through the article. I found two places where it mentions rat study.
A. A more compelling criticism is that concern about fructose is based primarily on studies in which rodents and people consumed huge amounts of the molecule—up to 300 grams of fructose each day, which is nearly equivalent to the total sugar in eight cans of Coke—or a diet in which the vast majority of sugars were pure fructose. The reality is that most people consume far less fructose than used in such studies and rarely eat fructose without glucose.
AND
B. Not only do many worrying fructose studies use unrealistic doses of the sugar unaccompanied by glucose, it also turns out that the rodents researchers have studied metabolize fructose in a very different way than people do—far more different than originally anticipated. Studies that have traced fructose's fantastic voyage through the human body suggest that the liver converts as much as 50 percent of fructose into glucose, around 30 percent of fructose into lactate and less than one percent into fats. In contrast, mice and rats turn more than 50 percent of fructose into fats, so experiments with these animals would exaggerate the significance of fructose's proposed detriments for humans, especially clogged arteries, fatty livers and insulin resistance.
Let us first see A: Study was conducted on rodents which consumed huge amounts of sugar. What drove them to consume huge amounts of sugar? Did they force feed the rodents and people so that they can see impact of such high levels of sugar consumption? Rodents were just offered sugar solution as an option along with their regular food and rodents displayed addiction traits (both behavioral and neurochemical).
Now..for B. Sure liver converts 50% of fructose into glucose..if that glucose is in excess of what body needs (which is the problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes), it gets converted to fat. I have a hard time understanding what is the point the author is trying to make here.
Excess glucose is first and foremost turned to glycogen.
Also your body upregulates the carb oxidation to meet the increased supply, because burning it off is less work than converting it to fat. Efficiency, yo.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10365981
Sure..some people may have excellent metabolism which burns off excess sugar. It is not true for everyone on this planet. If all our bodies were identical and excellent, then we would not have issues like obesity today.
I agree that not all our bodies are identical and excellent, but the idea that some people's metabolism burns off a great deal more calories that other's isn't exactly true. Here's a good explanation:
https://examine.com/faq/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/
The revelant portion:Metabolic rate does vary, and technically there could be large variance. However, statistically speaking it is unlikely the variance would apply to you. The majority of the population exists in a range of 200-300kcal from each other and do not possess hugely different metabolic rates.
This leaves room for outliers with extremely high or extremely low metabolism, but as you can see the variation in metabolic rates would not contribute greatly to the obesity issues.
let us say we are same height and weight to begin with and you burn a modest 125 Cal per day more than me. That means if we eat the same food, I am twelve pounds heavier than you per year. If we consider 250 Cal per day which is what the study you referred to suggests, then I am twenty four pounds heavier than you. That is in one year I can move from healthy weight to nearly obese.0 -
pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »
It's a scientific debate, semantics are important. I think we are all just geeks who like debating
But its also important in the context of the idea of a sugar conspiracy, or whatever. Are corporate interests feeding us an addictive substance or is sugar just really tasty and some of us develop unhealthy relationships with it? Obviously i support the latter explanation.
I believe refined sugar is addictive to many people and at the minimum an appetite stimulant which interferes with normal brain functionality. So I think corporations are using these attributes of sugar to increase profits.
Aaaaannnnnndddddddd...I don't like debating at all. I used to though, but when I started understanding that different people experience different realities when faced with an objectively same situation, debating became less interesting and learning about different experiences and perspective became more interesting.
Experiences do not negate reality. If I start seeing unicorns, the unicorns are not there. It's me. The fact that I saw unicorns is real, the existence of unicorns is not. If someone believes they are physically addicted to sugar the only way to determine if this is true is through science.
Sure science will determine that...eventually. Till then, it is good to have an open mind.
I do. It's open to evidence.
Then..let us just wait and respect people's experiences rather than dismissing them as willpower problem.
I hope I've been clear that I think it's more nuanced than just a willpower problem and calling something psychological is in no way a dismissal. If someone tells me they really struggle with sugar I am in no position to say "No you don't get a grip" but can discuss how to categorise it or whether it's the substance itself.
A simple google search will point you to papers. Here is the first link that turned up and I have copied the conclusion.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/
The reviewed evidence supports the theory that, in some circumstances, intermittent access to sugar can lead to behavior and neurochemical changes that resemble the effects of a substance of abuse. According to the evidence in rats, intermittent access to sugar and chow is capable of producing a “dependency”. This was operationally defined by tests for bingeing, withdrawal, craving and cross-sensitization to amphetamine and alcohol. The correspondence to some people with binge eating disorder or bulimia is striking, but whether or not it is a good idea to call this a “food addiction” in people is both a scientific and societal question that has yet to be answered. What this review demonstrates is that rats with intermittent access to food and a sugar solution can show both a constellation of behaviors and parallel brain changes that are characteristic of rats that voluntarily self-administer addictive drugs. In the aggregrate, this is evidence that sugar can be addictive.
Now..please don't tell me that the study was in rats and not applicable to humans.
Why would I not tell you that? The study is literally on rats. This has been discussed already. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/is-sugar-really-toxic-sifting-through-the-evidence/ Rat study dealt with in this article.
Sure..I did go through the article. I found two places where it mentions rat study.
<snip>
B. Not only do many worrying fructose studies use unrealistic doses of the sugar unaccompanied by glucose, it also turns out that the rodents researchers have studied metabolize fructose in a very different way than people do—far more different than originally anticipated. Studies that have traced fructose's fantastic voyage through the human body suggest that the liver converts as much as 50 percent of fructose into glucose, around 30 percent of fructose into lactate and less than one percent into fats. In contrast, mice and rats turn more than 50 percent of fructose into fats, so experiments with these animals would exaggerate the significance of fructose's proposed detriments for humans, especially clogged arteries, fatty livers and insulin resistance.
<snip>
Now..for B. Sure liver converts 50% of fructose into glucose..if that glucose is in excess of what body needs (which is the problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes), it gets converted to fat. I have a hard time understanding what is the point the author is trying to make here.
I think your point A has been well covered by other posters. I'd like to address point B.
The paragraph you've quoted here contains two points which go hand in hand in order to reach a conclusion. These are: a human liver would convert as much as 50% of that fructose into glucose; a rat liver would convert more than 50% of it into fat.
We'll add to these facts a third one that you provided:[a human] liver converts 50% of fructose into glucose..if that glucose is in excess of what body needs (which is the problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes), it gets converted to fat.
Please bear with me as I piece this together.
As you correctly stated, in a human excess glucose is converted to fat; so then at first glance those aforementioned figures of 50% might appear to be equivalent.
However, please pay close attention to the wording here. It is the excess glucose that is converted into fat, and a human liver may convert as much as 50% of fructose into glucose. Let's use 50 grams of straight fructose, ingested by Alice, as an example to illustrate what I'm trying to say. As much as 25 grams of it could be converted to glucose. How much of that is excess? Of course that would depend on how much glucose Alice's body needs, so it is quite possible that less than 25 grams of the recently-converted glucose is re-converted into fat.
As for a rat or mouse liver, again please pay close attention to the wording. "Mice and rats turn more than 50% of fructose into fats." Returning to our illustration, let's say that Bob the lab rat is fed 50 grams of straight fructose (we're keeping Alice's and Bob's amounts the same only for the sake of simplicity & comparison). Over 25 grams could be converted into fat for poor Bob.
Do you see the subtle yet important difference that could make mouse and rat studies unreliable when extrapolated to humans?
Regarding your point that excess glucose is a "problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes", here we agree. Excess glucose is a problem. No one says it's OK to consume any form of sugar to the point that your liver begins to turn it to fat; and I would like to see more help available for people who, for whatever reason, engage in addiction-like or compulsive behavior when it comes to food.
Let us consider you argument and take a can of classic coke which is just sugar (so that we don't have fat or any protein or complex carbohydrates coming into equation and a can of coke is something many people consume). Google says it has 39 grams of sugar. Let us say 25% of that get converted to fat which is roughly 10 grams fat per day which is 8 pounds per year and I don't think it is less.
Also, again I restate my my point that many people may not stop at one coke or one cookie or one slice of cake because sugar makes you eat more of it.0 -
pcoslady83 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »
It's a scientific debate, semantics are important. I think we are all just geeks who like debating
But its also important in the context of the idea of a sugar conspiracy, or whatever. Are corporate interests feeding us an addictive substance or is sugar just really tasty and some of us develop unhealthy relationships with it? Obviously i support the latter explanation.
I believe refined sugar is addictive to many people and at the minimum an appetite stimulant which interferes with normal brain functionality. So I think corporations are using these attributes of sugar to increase profits.
Aaaaannnnnndddddddd...I don't like debating at all. I used to though, but when I started understanding that different people experience different realities when faced with an objectively same situation, debating became less interesting and learning about different experiences and perspective became more interesting.
Experiences do not negate reality. If I start seeing unicorns, the unicorns are not there. It's me. The fact that I saw unicorns is real, the existence of unicorns is not. If someone believes they are physically addicted to sugar the only way to determine if this is true is through science.
Sure science will determine that...eventually. Till then, it is good to have an open mind.
I do. It's open to evidence.
Then..let us just wait and respect people's experiences rather than dismissing them as willpower problem.
I hope I've been clear that I think it's more nuanced than just a willpower problem and calling something psychological is in no way a dismissal. If someone tells me they really struggle with sugar I am in no position to say "No you don't get a grip" but can discuss how to categorise it or whether it's the substance itself.
A simple google search will point you to papers. Here is the first link that turned up and I have copied the conclusion.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/
The reviewed evidence supports the theory that, in some circumstances, intermittent access to sugar can lead to behavior and neurochemical changes that resemble the effects of a substance of abuse. According to the evidence in rats, intermittent access to sugar and chow is capable of producing a “dependency”. This was operationally defined by tests for bingeing, withdrawal, craving and cross-sensitization to amphetamine and alcohol. The correspondence to some people with binge eating disorder or bulimia is striking, but whether or not it is a good idea to call this a “food addiction” in people is both a scientific and societal question that has yet to be answered. What this review demonstrates is that rats with intermittent access to food and a sugar solution can show both a constellation of behaviors and parallel brain changes that are characteristic of rats that voluntarily self-administer addictive drugs. In the aggregrate, this is evidence that sugar can be addictive.
Now..please don't tell me that the study was in rats and not applicable to humans.
Why would I not tell you that? The study is literally on rats. This has been discussed already. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/is-sugar-really-toxic-sifting-through-the-evidence/ Rat study dealt with in this article.
Sure..I did go through the article. I found two places where it mentions rat study.
A. A more compelling criticism is that concern about fructose is based primarily on studies in which rodents and people consumed huge amounts of the molecule—up to 300 grams of fructose each day, which is nearly equivalent to the total sugar in eight cans of Coke—or a diet in which the vast majority of sugars were pure fructose. The reality is that most people consume far less fructose than used in such studies and rarely eat fructose without glucose.
AND
B. Not only do many worrying fructose studies use unrealistic doses of the sugar unaccompanied by glucose, it also turns out that the rodents researchers have studied metabolize fructose in a very different way than people do—far more different than originally anticipated. Studies that have traced fructose's fantastic voyage through the human body suggest that the liver converts as much as 50 percent of fructose into glucose, around 30 percent of fructose into lactate and less than one percent into fats. In contrast, mice and rats turn more than 50 percent of fructose into fats, so experiments with these animals would exaggerate the significance of fructose's proposed detriments for humans, especially clogged arteries, fatty livers and insulin resistance.
Let us first see A: Study was conducted on rodents which consumed huge amounts of sugar. What drove them to consume huge amounts of sugar? Did they force feed the rodents and people so that they can see impact of such high levels of sugar consumption? Rodents were just offered sugar solution as an option along with their regular food and rodents displayed addiction traits (both behavioral and neurochemical).
Now..for B. Sure liver converts 50% of fructose into glucose..if that glucose is in excess of what body needs (which is the problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes), it gets converted to fat. I have a hard time understanding what is the point the author is trying to make here.
Excess glucose is first and foremost turned to glycogen.
Also your body upregulates the carb oxidation to meet the increased supply, because burning it off is less work than converting it to fat. Efficiency, yo.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10365981
Sure..some people may have excellent metabolism which burns off excess sugar. It is not true for everyone on this planet. If all our bodies were identical and excellent, then we would not have issues like obesity today.
I agree that not all our bodies are identical and excellent, but the idea that some people's metabolism burns off a great deal more calories that other's isn't exactly true. Here's a good explanation:
https://examine.com/faq/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/
The revelant portion:Metabolic rate does vary, and technically there could be large variance. However, statistically speaking it is unlikely the variance would apply to you. The majority of the population exists in a range of 200-300kcal from each other and do not possess hugely different metabolic rates.
This leaves room for outliers with extremely high or extremely low metabolism, but as you can see the variation in metabolic rates would not contribute greatly to the obesity issues.
let us say we are same height and weight to begin with and you burn a modest 125 Cal per day more than me. That means if we eat the same food, I am twelve pounds heavier than you per year. If we consider 250 Cal per day which is what the study you referred to suggests, then I am twenty four pounds heavier than you. That is in one year I can move from healthy weight to nearly obese.
Very true. But if you are weighing yourself you could catch the slow gain and reverse/prevent it by cutting out a can of soda (or its equivalent) or walking some more each day. It's not difficult to eliminate 250 Cal/day through a combination of watching what you eat and conscientiously moving some more.
In this case it wouldn't be the differences in metabolism that contributed to obesity, it would be mindlessness and/or neglectfulness.4 -
pcoslady83 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »
It's a scientific debate, semantics are important. I think we are all just geeks who like debating
But its also important in the context of the idea of a sugar conspiracy, or whatever. Are corporate interests feeding us an addictive substance or is sugar just really tasty and some of us develop unhealthy relationships with it? Obviously i support the latter explanation.
I believe refined sugar is addictive to many people and at the minimum an appetite stimulant which interferes with normal brain functionality. So I think corporations are using these attributes of sugar to increase profits.
Aaaaannnnnndddddddd...I don't like debating at all. I used to though, but when I started understanding that different people experience different realities when faced with an objectively same situation, debating became less interesting and learning about different experiences and perspective became more interesting.
Experiences do not negate reality. If I start seeing unicorns, the unicorns are not there. It's me. The fact that I saw unicorns is real, the existence of unicorns is not. If someone believes they are physically addicted to sugar the only way to determine if this is true is through science.
Sure science will determine that...eventually. Till then, it is good to have an open mind.
I do. It's open to evidence.
Then..let us just wait and respect people's experiences rather than dismissing them as willpower problem.
I hope I've been clear that I think it's more nuanced than just a willpower problem and calling something psychological is in no way a dismissal. If someone tells me they really struggle with sugar I am in no position to say "No you don't get a grip" but can discuss how to categorise it or whether it's the substance itself.
A simple google search will point you to papers. Here is the first link that turned up and I have copied the conclusion.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/
The reviewed evidence supports the theory that, in some circumstances, intermittent access to sugar can lead to behavior and neurochemical changes that resemble the effects of a substance of abuse. According to the evidence in rats, intermittent access to sugar and chow is capable of producing a “dependency”. This was operationally defined by tests for bingeing, withdrawal, craving and cross-sensitization to amphetamine and alcohol. The correspondence to some people with binge eating disorder or bulimia is striking, but whether or not it is a good idea to call this a “food addiction” in people is both a scientific and societal question that has yet to be answered. What this review demonstrates is that rats with intermittent access to food and a sugar solution can show both a constellation of behaviors and parallel brain changes that are characteristic of rats that voluntarily self-administer addictive drugs. In the aggregrate, this is evidence that sugar can be addictive.
Now..please don't tell me that the study was in rats and not applicable to humans.
Why would I not tell you that? The study is literally on rats. This has been discussed already. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/is-sugar-really-toxic-sifting-through-the-evidence/ Rat study dealt with in this article.
Sure..I did go through the article. I found two places where it mentions rat study.
A. A more compelling criticism is that concern about fructose is based primarily on studies in which rodents and people consumed huge amounts of the molecule—up to 300 grams of fructose each day, which is nearly equivalent to the total sugar in eight cans of Coke—or a diet in which the vast majority of sugars were pure fructose. The reality is that most people consume far less fructose than used in such studies and rarely eat fructose without glucose.
AND
B. Not only do many worrying fructose studies use unrealistic doses of the sugar unaccompanied by glucose, it also turns out that the rodents researchers have studied metabolize fructose in a very different way than people do—far more different than originally anticipated. Studies that have traced fructose's fantastic voyage through the human body suggest that the liver converts as much as 50 percent of fructose into glucose, around 30 percent of fructose into lactate and less than one percent into fats. In contrast, mice and rats turn more than 50 percent of fructose into fats, so experiments with these animals would exaggerate the significance of fructose's proposed detriments for humans, especially clogged arteries, fatty livers and insulin resistance.
Let us first see A: Study was conducted on rodents which consumed huge amounts of sugar. What drove them to consume huge amounts of sugar? Did they force feed the rodents and people so that they can see impact of such high levels of sugar consumption? Rodents were just offered sugar solution as an option along with their regular food and rodents displayed addiction traits (both behavioral and neurochemical).
Now..for B. Sure liver converts 50% of fructose into glucose..if that glucose is in excess of what body needs (which is the problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes), it gets converted to fat. I have a hard time understanding what is the point the author is trying to make here.
Excess glucose is first and foremost turned to glycogen.
Also your body upregulates the carb oxidation to meet the increased supply, because burning it off is less work than converting it to fat. Efficiency, yo.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10365981
Sure..some people may have excellent metabolism which burns off excess sugar. It is not true for everyone on this planet. If all our bodies were identical and excellent, then we would not have issues like obesity today.
I agree that not all our bodies are identical and excellent, but the idea that some people's metabolism burns off a great deal more calories that other's isn't exactly true. Here's a good explanation:
https://examine.com/faq/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/
The revelant portion:Metabolic rate does vary, and technically there could be large variance. However, statistically speaking it is unlikely the variance would apply to you. The majority of the population exists in a range of 200-300kcal from each other and do not possess hugely different metabolic rates.
This leaves room for outliers with extremely high or extremely low metabolism, but as you can see the variation in metabolic rates would not contribute greatly to the obesity issues.
let us say we are same height and weight to begin with and you burn a modest 125 Cal per day more than me. That means if we eat the same food, I am twelve pounds heavier than you per year. If we consider 250 Cal per day which is what the study you referred to suggests, then I am twenty four pounds heavier than you. That is in one year I can move from healthy weight to nearly obese.
Very true. But if you are weighing yourself you could catch the slow gain and reverse/prevent it by cutting out a can of soda (or its equivalent) or walking some more each day. It's not difficult to eliminate 250 Cal/day through a combination of watching what you eat and conscientiously moving some more.
In this case it wouldn't be the differences in metabolism that contributed to obesity, it would be mindlessness and/or neglectfulness.
Well..you can constantly move the goal post. I specifically answered to your point that metabolism doesn't contribute to obesity because the difference in metabolism is insignificant.
I just showed that is not the case. All things being equal, even exercise being equal, modest difference in metabolism can contribute to significant weight gain.
Now you are saying it is not metabolism, it is mindlessness.2 -
pcoslady83 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »
It's a scientific debate, semantics are important. I think we are all just geeks who like debating
But its also important in the context of the idea of a sugar conspiracy, or whatever. Are corporate interests feeding us an addictive substance or is sugar just really tasty and some of us develop unhealthy relationships with it? Obviously i support the latter explanation.
I believe refined sugar is addictive to many people and at the minimum an appetite stimulant which interferes with normal brain functionality. So I think corporations are using these attributes of sugar to increase profits.
Aaaaannnnnndddddddd...I don't like debating at all. I used to though, but when I started understanding that different people experience different realities when faced with an objectively same situation, debating became less interesting and learning about different experiences and perspective became more interesting.
Experiences do not negate reality. If I start seeing unicorns, the unicorns are not there. It's me. The fact that I saw unicorns is real, the existence of unicorns is not. If someone believes they are physically addicted to sugar the only way to determine if this is true is through science.
Sure science will determine that...eventually. Till then, it is good to have an open mind.
I do. It's open to evidence.
Then..let us just wait and respect people's experiences rather than dismissing them as willpower problem.
I hope I've been clear that I think it's more nuanced than just a willpower problem and calling something psychological is in no way a dismissal. If someone tells me they really struggle with sugar I am in no position to say "No you don't get a grip" but can discuss how to categorise it or whether it's the substance itself.
A simple google search will point you to papers. Here is the first link that turned up and I have copied the conclusion.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/
The reviewed evidence supports the theory that, in some circumstances, intermittent access to sugar can lead to behavior and neurochemical changes that resemble the effects of a substance of abuse. According to the evidence in rats, intermittent access to sugar and chow is capable of producing a “dependency”. This was operationally defined by tests for bingeing, withdrawal, craving and cross-sensitization to amphetamine and alcohol. The correspondence to some people with binge eating disorder or bulimia is striking, but whether or not it is a good idea to call this a “food addiction” in people is both a scientific and societal question that has yet to be answered. What this review demonstrates is that rats with intermittent access to food and a sugar solution can show both a constellation of behaviors and parallel brain changes that are characteristic of rats that voluntarily self-administer addictive drugs. In the aggregrate, this is evidence that sugar can be addictive.
Now..please don't tell me that the study was in rats and not applicable to humans.
Why would I not tell you that? The study is literally on rats. This has been discussed already. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/is-sugar-really-toxic-sifting-through-the-evidence/ Rat study dealt with in this article.
Sure..I did go through the article. I found two places where it mentions rat study.
<snip>
B. Not only do many worrying fructose studies use unrealistic doses of the sugar unaccompanied by glucose, it also turns out that the rodents researchers have studied metabolize fructose in a very different way than people do—far more different than originally anticipated. Studies that have traced fructose's fantastic voyage through the human body suggest that the liver converts as much as 50 percent of fructose into glucose, around 30 percent of fructose into lactate and less than one percent into fats. In contrast, mice and rats turn more than 50 percent of fructose into fats, so experiments with these animals would exaggerate the significance of fructose's proposed detriments for humans, especially clogged arteries, fatty livers and insulin resistance.
<snip>
Now..for B. Sure liver converts 50% of fructose into glucose..if that glucose is in excess of what body needs (which is the problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes), it gets converted to fat. I have a hard time understanding what is the point the author is trying to make here.
I think your point A has been well covered by other posters. I'd like to address point B.
The paragraph you've quoted here contains two points which go hand in hand in order to reach a conclusion. These are: a human liver would convert as much as 50% of that fructose into glucose; a rat liver would convert more than 50% of it into fat.
We'll add to these facts a third one that you provided:[a human] liver converts 50% of fructose into glucose..if that glucose is in excess of what body needs (which is the problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes), it gets converted to fat.
Please bear with me as I piece this together.
As you correctly stated, in a human excess glucose is converted to fat; so then at first glance those aforementioned figures of 50% might appear to be equivalent.
However, please pay close attention to the wording here. It is the excess glucose that is converted into fat, and a human liver may convert as much as 50% of fructose into glucose. Let's use 50 grams of straight fructose, ingested by Alice, as an example to illustrate what I'm trying to say. As much as 25 grams of it could be converted to glucose. How much of that is excess? Of course that would depend on how much glucose Alice's body needs, so it is quite possible that less than 25 grams of the recently-converted glucose is re-converted into fat.
As for a rat or mouse liver, again please pay close attention to the wording. "Mice and rats turn more than 50% of fructose into fats." Returning to our illustration, let's say that Bob the lab rat is fed 50 grams of straight fructose (we're keeping Alice's and Bob's amounts the same only for the sake of simplicity & comparison). Over 25 grams could be converted into fat for poor Bob.
Do you see the subtle yet important difference that could make mouse and rat studies unreliable when extrapolated to humans?
Regarding your point that excess glucose is a "problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes", here we agree. Excess glucose is a problem. No one says it's OK to consume any form of sugar to the point that your liver begins to turn it to fat; and I would like to see more help available for people who, for whatever reason, engage in addiction-like or compulsive behavior when it comes to food.
Let us consider you argument and take a can of classic coke which is just sugar (so that we don't have fat or any protein or complex carbohydrates coming into equation and a can of coke is something many people consume). Google says it has 39 grams of sugar. Let us say 25% of that get converted to fat which is roughly 10 grams fat per day which is 8 pounds per year and I don't think it is less.
Also, again I restate my my point that many people may not stop at one coke or one cookie or one slice of cake because sugar makes you eat more of it.
Right. But a rat study could potentially show that those 39 grams of sugar (let's say it's all fructose to keep it consistent) convert to as much as 19.5 grams of fat or more because, as the article said, "mice and rats turn more than 50 percent of fructose into fats"; whereas a human " liver converts as much as 50 percent of fructose into glucose", (in the case of the Coke, 19.5 grams or less which then may or may not turn into fat).
This highlights why it can be inaccurate to extrapolate and apply data gathered from rat studies to humans. The author said "experiments with these animals would exaggerate the significance of fructose's proposed detriments for humans, especially clogged arteries, fatty livers and insulin resistance." And you said you had a hard time understanding why that would be, and I've attempted to explain.
Again, I agree with your point that many people may not stop after just one because of many reasons. That is unhealthy no matter how you look at it and I'd like to see more help available to people who display compulsive eating habits.
0 -
pcoslady83 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »
It's a scientific debate, semantics are important. I think we are all just geeks who like debating
But its also important in the context of the idea of a sugar conspiracy, or whatever. Are corporate interests feeding us an addictive substance or is sugar just really tasty and some of us develop unhealthy relationships with it? Obviously i support the latter explanation.
I believe refined sugar is addictive to many people and at the minimum an appetite stimulant which interferes with normal brain functionality. So I think corporations are using these attributes of sugar to increase profits.
Aaaaannnnnndddddddd...I don't like debating at all. I used to though, but when I started understanding that different people experience different realities when faced with an objectively same situation, debating became less interesting and learning about different experiences and perspective became more interesting.
Experiences do not negate reality. If I start seeing unicorns, the unicorns are not there. It's me. The fact that I saw unicorns is real, the existence of unicorns is not. If someone believes they are physically addicted to sugar the only way to determine if this is true is through science.
Sure science will determine that...eventually. Till then, it is good to have an open mind.
I do. It's open to evidence.
Then..let us just wait and respect people's experiences rather than dismissing them as willpower problem.
I hope I've been clear that I think it's more nuanced than just a willpower problem and calling something psychological is in no way a dismissal. If someone tells me they really struggle with sugar I am in no position to say "No you don't get a grip" but can discuss how to categorise it or whether it's the substance itself.
A simple google search will point you to papers. Here is the first link that turned up and I have copied the conclusion.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/
The reviewed evidence supports the theory that, in some circumstances, intermittent access to sugar can lead to behavior and neurochemical changes that resemble the effects of a substance of abuse. According to the evidence in rats, intermittent access to sugar and chow is capable of producing a “dependency”. This was operationally defined by tests for bingeing, withdrawal, craving and cross-sensitization to amphetamine and alcohol. The correspondence to some people with binge eating disorder or bulimia is striking, but whether or not it is a good idea to call this a “food addiction” in people is both a scientific and societal question that has yet to be answered. What this review demonstrates is that rats with intermittent access to food and a sugar solution can show both a constellation of behaviors and parallel brain changes that are characteristic of rats that voluntarily self-administer addictive drugs. In the aggregrate, this is evidence that sugar can be addictive.
Now..please don't tell me that the study was in rats and not applicable to humans.
Why would I not tell you that? The study is literally on rats. This has been discussed already. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/is-sugar-really-toxic-sifting-through-the-evidence/ Rat study dealt with in this article.
Sure..I did go through the article. I found two places where it mentions rat study.
A. A more compelling criticism is that concern about fructose is based primarily on studies in which rodents and people consumed huge amounts of the molecule—up to 300 grams of fructose each day, which is nearly equivalent to the total sugar in eight cans of Coke—or a diet in which the vast majority of sugars were pure fructose. The reality is that most people consume far less fructose than used in such studies and rarely eat fructose without glucose.
AND
B. Not only do many worrying fructose studies use unrealistic doses of the sugar unaccompanied by glucose, it also turns out that the rodents researchers have studied metabolize fructose in a very different way than people do—far more different than originally anticipated. Studies that have traced fructose's fantastic voyage through the human body suggest that the liver converts as much as 50 percent of fructose into glucose, around 30 percent of fructose into lactate and less than one percent into fats. In contrast, mice and rats turn more than 50 percent of fructose into fats, so experiments with these animals would exaggerate the significance of fructose's proposed detriments for humans, especially clogged arteries, fatty livers and insulin resistance.
Let us first see A: Study was conducted on rodents which consumed huge amounts of sugar. What drove them to consume huge amounts of sugar? Did they force feed the rodents and people so that they can see impact of such high levels of sugar consumption? Rodents were just offered sugar solution as an option along with their regular food and rodents displayed addiction traits (both behavioral and neurochemical).
Now..for B. Sure liver converts 50% of fructose into glucose..if that glucose is in excess of what body needs (which is the problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes), it gets converted to fat. I have a hard time understanding what is the point the author is trying to make here.
Excess glucose is first and foremost turned to glycogen.
Also your body upregulates the carb oxidation to meet the increased supply, because burning it off is less work than converting it to fat. Efficiency, yo.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10365981
Sure..some people may have excellent metabolism which burns off excess sugar. It is not true for everyone on this planet. If all our bodies were identical and excellent, then we would not have issues like obesity today.
I agree that not all our bodies are identical and excellent, but the idea that some people's metabolism burns off a great deal more calories that other's isn't exactly true. Here's a good explanation:
https://examine.com/faq/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/
The revelant portion:Metabolic rate does vary, and technically there could be large variance. However, statistically speaking it is unlikely the variance would apply to you. The majority of the population exists in a range of 200-300kcal from each other and do not possess hugely different metabolic rates.
This leaves room for outliers with extremely high or extremely low metabolism, but as you can see the variation in metabolic rates would not contribute greatly to the obesity issues.
let us say we are same height and weight to begin with and you burn a modest 125 Cal per day more than me. That means if we eat the same food, I am twelve pounds heavier than you per year. If we consider 250 Cal per day which is what the study you referred to suggests, then I am twenty four pounds heavier than you. That is in one year I can move from healthy weight to nearly obese.
Very true. But if you are weighing yourself you could catch the slow gain and reverse/prevent it by cutting out a can of soda (or its equivalent) or walking some more each day. It's not difficult to eliminate 250 Cal/day through a combination of watching what you eat and conscientiously moving some more.
In this case it wouldn't be the differences in metabolism that contributed to obesity, it would be mindlessness and/or neglectfulness.
Well..you can constantly move the goal post. I specifically answered to your point that metabolism doesn't contribute to obesity because the difference in metabolism is insignificant.
I just showed that is not the case. All things being equal, even exercise being equal, modest difference in metabolism can contribute to significant weight gain.
Now you are saying it is not metabolism, it is mindlessness.
We have a misunderstanding here. I agreed that metabolism *could* contribute to significant weight gain ("Very true," I said); but I disagree that it *must*, or even that it's a good excuse for being overweight. If one is paying attention, being mindful of their weight, one could catch a gain and do something about it. If one is not paying attention and gains weight, is it incorrect to call it neglectful? Mindless?
I didn't say differences in metabolism are insignificant; please don't put words in my mouth. I attempted to show that controlling weight is manageable even if one has a slow metabolism.
No goal post moved.6 -
pcoslady83 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »
It's a scientific debate, semantics are important. I think we are all just geeks who like debating
But its also important in the context of the idea of a sugar conspiracy, or whatever. Are corporate interests feeding us an addictive substance or is sugar just really tasty and some of us develop unhealthy relationships with it? Obviously i support the latter explanation.
I believe refined sugar is addictive to many people and at the minimum an appetite stimulant which interferes with normal brain functionality. So I think corporations are using these attributes of sugar to increase profits.
Aaaaannnnnndddddddd...I don't like debating at all. I used to though, but when I started understanding that different people experience different realities when faced with an objectively same situation, debating became less interesting and learning about different experiences and perspective became more interesting.
Experiences do not negate reality. If I start seeing unicorns, the unicorns are not there. It's me. The fact that I saw unicorns is real, the existence of unicorns is not. If someone believes they are physically addicted to sugar the only way to determine if this is true is through science.
Sure science will determine that...eventually. Till then, it is good to have an open mind.
I do. It's open to evidence.
Then..let us just wait and respect people's experiences rather than dismissing them as willpower problem.
I hope I've been clear that I think it's more nuanced than just a willpower problem and calling something psychological is in no way a dismissal. If someone tells me they really struggle with sugar I am in no position to say "No you don't get a grip" but can discuss how to categorise it or whether it's the substance itself.
A simple google search will point you to papers. Here is the first link that turned up and I have copied the conclusion.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/
The reviewed evidence supports the theory that, in some circumstances, intermittent access to sugar can lead to behavior and neurochemical changes that resemble the effects of a substance of abuse. According to the evidence in rats, intermittent access to sugar and chow is capable of producing a “dependency”. This was operationally defined by tests for bingeing, withdrawal, craving and cross-sensitization to amphetamine and alcohol. The correspondence to some people with binge eating disorder or bulimia is striking, but whether or not it is a good idea to call this a “food addiction” in people is both a scientific and societal question that has yet to be answered. What this review demonstrates is that rats with intermittent access to food and a sugar solution can show both a constellation of behaviors and parallel brain changes that are characteristic of rats that voluntarily self-administer addictive drugs. In the aggregrate, this is evidence that sugar can be addictive.
Now..please don't tell me that the study was in rats and not applicable to humans.
Why would I not tell you that? The study is literally on rats. This has been discussed already. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/is-sugar-really-toxic-sifting-through-the-evidence/ Rat study dealt with in this article.
Sure..I did go through the article. I found two places where it mentions rat study.
<snip>
B. Not only do many worrying fructose studies use unrealistic doses of the sugar unaccompanied by glucose, it also turns out that the rodents researchers have studied metabolize fructose in a very different way than people do—far more different than originally anticipated. Studies that have traced fructose's fantastic voyage through the human body suggest that the liver converts as much as 50 percent of fructose into glucose, around 30 percent of fructose into lactate and less than one percent into fats. In contrast, mice and rats turn more than 50 percent of fructose into fats, so experiments with these animals would exaggerate the significance of fructose's proposed detriments for humans, especially clogged arteries, fatty livers and insulin resistance.
<snip>
Now..for B. Sure liver converts 50% of fructose into glucose..if that glucose is in excess of what body needs (which is the problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes), it gets converted to fat. I have a hard time understanding what is the point the author is trying to make here.
I think your point A has been well covered by other posters. I'd like to address point B.
The paragraph you've quoted here contains two points which go hand in hand in order to reach a conclusion. These are: a human liver would convert as much as 50% of that fructose into glucose; a rat liver would convert more than 50% of it into fat.
We'll add to these facts a third one that you provided:[a human] liver converts 50% of fructose into glucose..if that glucose is in excess of what body needs (which is the problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes), it gets converted to fat.
Please bear with me as I piece this together.
As you correctly stated, in a human excess glucose is converted to fat; so then at first glance those aforementioned figures of 50% might appear to be equivalent.
However, please pay close attention to the wording here. It is the excess glucose that is converted into fat, and a human liver may convert as much as 50% of fructose into glucose. Let's use 50 grams of straight fructose, ingested by Alice, as an example to illustrate what I'm trying to say. As much as 25 grams of it could be converted to glucose. How much of that is excess? Of course that would depend on how much glucose Alice's body needs, so it is quite possible that less than 25 grams of the recently-converted glucose is re-converted into fat.
As for a rat or mouse liver, again please pay close attention to the wording. "Mice and rats turn more than 50% of fructose into fats." Returning to our illustration, let's say that Bob the lab rat is fed 50 grams of straight fructose (we're keeping Alice's and Bob's amounts the same only for the sake of simplicity & comparison). Over 25 grams could be converted into fat for poor Bob.
Do you see the subtle yet important difference that could make mouse and rat studies unreliable when extrapolated to humans?
Regarding your point that excess glucose is a "problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes", here we agree. Excess glucose is a problem. No one says it's OK to consume any form of sugar to the point that your liver begins to turn it to fat; and I would like to see more help available for people who, for whatever reason, engage in addiction-like or compulsive behavior when it comes to food.
Let us consider you argument and take a can of classic coke which is just sugar (so that we don't have fat or any protein or complex carbohydrates coming into equation and a can of coke is something many people consume). Google says it has 39 grams of sugar. Let us say 25% of that get converted to fat which is roughly 10 grams fat per day which is 8 pounds per year and I don't think it is less.
Also, again I restate my my point that many people may not stop at one coke or one cookie or one slice of cake because sugar makes you eat more of it.
Right. But a rat study could potentially show that those 39 grams of sugar (let's say it's all fructose to keep it consistent) convert to as much as 19.5 grams of fat or more because, as the article said, "mice and rats turn more than 50 percent of fructose into fats"; whereas a human " liver converts as much as 50 percent of fructose into glucose", (in the case of the Coke, 19.5 grams or less which then may or may not turn into fat).
This highlights why it can be inaccurate to extrapolate and apply data gathered from rat studies to humans. The author said "experiments with these animals would exaggerate the significance of fructose's proposed detriments for humans, especially clogged arteries, fatty livers and insulin resistance." And you said you had a hard time understanding why that would be, and I've attempted to explain.
Again, I agree with your point that many people may not stop after just one because of many reasons. That is unhealthy no matter how you look at it and I'd like to see more help available to people who display compulsive eating habits.
Sure...we applied a correction to compensate for the exaggeration that the article claims and we see it is still a huge impact. So just because he is claiming that differences are exaggerated, it still doesn't mean the impact of sugar on human beings is insignificant. So that argument is not worth much.0 -
pcoslady83 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »
It's a scientific debate, semantics are important. I think we are all just geeks who like debating
But its also important in the context of the idea of a sugar conspiracy, or whatever. Are corporate interests feeding us an addictive substance or is sugar just really tasty and some of us develop unhealthy relationships with it? Obviously i support the latter explanation.
I believe refined sugar is addictive to many people and at the minimum an appetite stimulant which interferes with normal brain functionality. So I think corporations are using these attributes of sugar to increase profits.
Aaaaannnnnndddddddd...I don't like debating at all. I used to though, but when I started understanding that different people experience different realities when faced with an objectively same situation, debating became less interesting and learning about different experiences and perspective became more interesting.
Experiences do not negate reality. If I start seeing unicorns, the unicorns are not there. It's me. The fact that I saw unicorns is real, the existence of unicorns is not. If someone believes they are physically addicted to sugar the only way to determine if this is true is through science.
Sure science will determine that...eventually. Till then, it is good to have an open mind.
I do. It's open to evidence.
Then..let us just wait and respect people's experiences rather than dismissing them as willpower problem.
I hope I've been clear that I think it's more nuanced than just a willpower problem and calling something psychological is in no way a dismissal. If someone tells me they really struggle with sugar I am in no position to say "No you don't get a grip" but can discuss how to categorise it or whether it's the substance itself.
A simple google search will point you to papers. Here is the first link that turned up and I have copied the conclusion.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/
The reviewed evidence supports the theory that, in some circumstances, intermittent access to sugar can lead to behavior and neurochemical changes that resemble the effects of a substance of abuse. According to the evidence in rats, intermittent access to sugar and chow is capable of producing a “dependency”. This was operationally defined by tests for bingeing, withdrawal, craving and cross-sensitization to amphetamine and alcohol. The correspondence to some people with binge eating disorder or bulimia is striking, but whether or not it is a good idea to call this a “food addiction” in people is both a scientific and societal question that has yet to be answered. What this review demonstrates is that rats with intermittent access to food and a sugar solution can show both a constellation of behaviors and parallel brain changes that are characteristic of rats that voluntarily self-administer addictive drugs. In the aggregrate, this is evidence that sugar can be addictive.
Now..please don't tell me that the study was in rats and not applicable to humans.
Why would I not tell you that? The study is literally on rats. This has been discussed already. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/is-sugar-really-toxic-sifting-through-the-evidence/ Rat study dealt with in this article.
Sure..I did go through the article. I found two places where it mentions rat study.
A. A more compelling criticism is that concern about fructose is based primarily on studies in which rodents and people consumed huge amounts of the molecule—up to 300 grams of fructose each day, which is nearly equivalent to the total sugar in eight cans of Coke—or a diet in which the vast majority of sugars were pure fructose. The reality is that most people consume far less fructose than used in such studies and rarely eat fructose without glucose.
AND
B. Not only do many worrying fructose studies use unrealistic doses of the sugar unaccompanied by glucose, it also turns out that the rodents researchers have studied metabolize fructose in a very different way than people do—far more different than originally anticipated. Studies that have traced fructose's fantastic voyage through the human body suggest that the liver converts as much as 50 percent of fructose into glucose, around 30 percent of fructose into lactate and less than one percent into fats. In contrast, mice and rats turn more than 50 percent of fructose into fats, so experiments with these animals would exaggerate the significance of fructose's proposed detriments for humans, especially clogged arteries, fatty livers and insulin resistance.
Let us first see A: Study was conducted on rodents which consumed huge amounts of sugar. What drove them to consume huge amounts of sugar? Did they force feed the rodents and people so that they can see impact of such high levels of sugar consumption? Rodents were just offered sugar solution as an option along with their regular food and rodents displayed addiction traits (both behavioral and neurochemical).
Now..for B. Sure liver converts 50% of fructose into glucose..if that glucose is in excess of what body needs (which is the problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes), it gets converted to fat. I have a hard time understanding what is the point the author is trying to make here.
Excess glucose is first and foremost turned to glycogen.
Also your body upregulates the carb oxidation to meet the increased supply, because burning it off is less work than converting it to fat. Efficiency, yo.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10365981
Sure..some people may have excellent metabolism which burns off excess sugar. It is not true for everyone on this planet. If all our bodies were identical and excellent, then we would not have issues like obesity today.
I agree that not all our bodies are identical and excellent, but the idea that some people's metabolism burns off a great deal more calories that other's isn't exactly true. Here's a good explanation:
https://examine.com/faq/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/
The revelant portion:Metabolic rate does vary, and technically there could be large variance. However, statistically speaking it is unlikely the variance would apply to you. The majority of the population exists in a range of 200-300kcal from each other and do not possess hugely different metabolic rates.
This leaves room for outliers with extremely high or extremely low metabolism, but as you can see the variation in metabolic rates would not contribute greatly to the obesity issues.
let us say we are same height and weight to begin with and you burn a modest 125 Cal per day more than me. That means if we eat the same food, I am twelve pounds heavier than you per year. If we consider 250 Cal per day which is what the study you referred to suggests, then I am twenty four pounds heavier than you. That is in one year I can move from healthy weight to nearly obese.
Very true. But if you are weighing yourself you could catch the slow gain and reverse/prevent it by cutting out a can of soda (or its equivalent) or walking some more each day. It's not difficult to eliminate 250 Cal/day through a combination of watching what you eat and conscientiously moving some more.
In this case it wouldn't be the differences in metabolism that contributed to obesity, it would be mindlessness and/or neglectfulness.
Well..you can constantly move the goal post. I specifically answered to your point that metabolism doesn't contribute to obesity because the difference in metabolism is insignificant.
I just showed that is not the case. All things being equal, even exercise being equal, modest difference in metabolism can contribute to significant weight gain.
Now you are saying it is not metabolism, it is mindlessness.
We have a misunderstanding here. I agreed that metabolism *could* contribute to significant weight gain ("Very true," I said); but I disagree that it *must*, or even that it's a good excuse for being overweight. If one is paying attention, being mindful of their weight, one could catch a gain and do something about it. If one is not paying attention and gains weight, is it incorrect to call it neglectful? Mindless?
I didn't say differences in metabolism are insignificant; please don't put words in my mouth. I attempted to show that controlling weight is manageable even if one has a slow metabolism.
No goal post moved.
We were not debating how a person who has slow metabolism can manage his weight. We were debating if variations in metabolism is significant enough to cause obesity in a person. I have not put any words in your mouth.
I have copied what you said here. Please show me where is the discussion about how a how a person with slow metabolism can manage his/her weight.I agree that not all our bodies are identical and excellent, but the idea that some people's metabolism burns off a great deal more calories that other's isn't exactly true. Here's a good explanation:
https://examine.com/faq/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/
The revelant portion:Metabolic rate does vary, and technically there could be large variance. However, statistically speaking it is unlikely the variance would apply to you. The majority of the population exists in a range of 200-300kcal from each other and do not possess hugely different metabolic rates.0 -
pcoslady83 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »
It's a scientific debate, semantics are important. I think we are all just geeks who like debating
But its also important in the context of the idea of a sugar conspiracy, or whatever. Are corporate interests feeding us an addictive substance or is sugar just really tasty and some of us develop unhealthy relationships with it? Obviously i support the latter explanation.
I believe refined sugar is addictive to many people and at the minimum an appetite stimulant which interferes with normal brain functionality. So I think corporations are using these attributes of sugar to increase profits.
Aaaaannnnnndddddddd...I don't like debating at all. I used to though, but when I started understanding that different people experience different realities when faced with an objectively same situation, debating became less interesting and learning about different experiences and perspective became more interesting.
Experiences do not negate reality. If I start seeing unicorns, the unicorns are not there. It's me. The fact that I saw unicorns is real, the existence of unicorns is not. If someone believes they are physically addicted to sugar the only way to determine if this is true is through science.
Sure science will determine that...eventually. Till then, it is good to have an open mind.
I do. It's open to evidence.
Then..let us just wait and respect people's experiences rather than dismissing them as willpower problem.
I hope I've been clear that I think it's more nuanced than just a willpower problem and calling something psychological is in no way a dismissal. If someone tells me they really struggle with sugar I am in no position to say "No you don't get a grip" but can discuss how to categorise it or whether it's the substance itself.
A simple google search will point you to papers. Here is the first link that turned up and I have copied the conclusion.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/
The reviewed evidence supports the theory that, in some circumstances, intermittent access to sugar can lead to behavior and neurochemical changes that resemble the effects of a substance of abuse. According to the evidence in rats, intermittent access to sugar and chow is capable of producing a “dependency”. This was operationally defined by tests for bingeing, withdrawal, craving and cross-sensitization to amphetamine and alcohol. The correspondence to some people with binge eating disorder or bulimia is striking, but whether or not it is a good idea to call this a “food addiction” in people is both a scientific and societal question that has yet to be answered. What this review demonstrates is that rats with intermittent access to food and a sugar solution can show both a constellation of behaviors and parallel brain changes that are characteristic of rats that voluntarily self-administer addictive drugs. In the aggregrate, this is evidence that sugar can be addictive.
Now..please don't tell me that the study was in rats and not applicable to humans.
Why would I not tell you that? The study is literally on rats. This has been discussed already. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/is-sugar-really-toxic-sifting-through-the-evidence/ Rat study dealt with in this article.
Sure..I did go through the article. I found two places where it mentions rat study.
<snip>
B. Not only do many worrying fructose studies use unrealistic doses of the sugar unaccompanied by glucose, it also turns out that the rodents researchers have studied metabolize fructose in a very different way than people do—far more different than originally anticipated. Studies that have traced fructose's fantastic voyage through the human body suggest that the liver converts as much as 50 percent of fructose into glucose, around 30 percent of fructose into lactate and less than one percent into fats. In contrast, mice and rats turn more than 50 percent of fructose into fats, so experiments with these animals would exaggerate the significance of fructose's proposed detriments for humans, especially clogged arteries, fatty livers and insulin resistance.
<snip>
Now..for B. Sure liver converts 50% of fructose into glucose..if that glucose is in excess of what body needs (which is the problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes), it gets converted to fat. I have a hard time understanding what is the point the author is trying to make here.
I think your point A has been well covered by other posters. I'd like to address point B.
The paragraph you've quoted here contains two points which go hand in hand in order to reach a conclusion. These are: a human liver would convert as much as 50% of that fructose into glucose; a rat liver would convert more than 50% of it into fat.
We'll add to these facts a third one that you provided:[a human] liver converts 50% of fructose into glucose..if that glucose is in excess of what body needs (which is the problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes), it gets converted to fat.
Please bear with me as I piece this together.
As you correctly stated, in a human excess glucose is converted to fat; so then at first glance those aforementioned figures of 50% might appear to be equivalent.
However, please pay close attention to the wording here. It is the excess glucose that is converted into fat, and a human liver may convert as much as 50% of fructose into glucose. Let's use 50 grams of straight fructose, ingested by Alice, as an example to illustrate what I'm trying to say. As much as 25 grams of it could be converted to glucose. How much of that is excess? Of course that would depend on how much glucose Alice's body needs, so it is quite possible that less than 25 grams of the recently-converted glucose is re-converted into fat.
As for a rat or mouse liver, again please pay close attention to the wording. "Mice and rats turn more than 50% of fructose into fats." Returning to our illustration, let's say that Bob the lab rat is fed 50 grams of straight fructose (we're keeping Alice's and Bob's amounts the same only for the sake of simplicity & comparison). Over 25 grams could be converted into fat for poor Bob.
Do you see the subtle yet important difference that could make mouse and rat studies unreliable when extrapolated to humans?
Regarding your point that excess glucose is a "problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes", here we agree. Excess glucose is a problem. No one says it's OK to consume any form of sugar to the point that your liver begins to turn it to fat; and I would like to see more help available for people who, for whatever reason, engage in addiction-like or compulsive behavior when it comes to food.
Let us consider you argument and take a can of classic coke which is just sugar (so that we don't have fat or any protein or complex carbohydrates coming into equation and a can of coke is something many people consume). Google says it has 39 grams of sugar. Let us say 25% of that get converted to fat which is roughly 10 grams fat per day which is 8 pounds per year and I don't think it is less.
Also, again I restate my my point that many people may not stop at one coke or one cookie or one slice of cake because sugar makes you eat more of it.
Right. But a rat study could potentially show that those 39 grams of sugar (let's say it's all fructose to keep it consistent) convert to as much as 19.5 grams of fat or more because, as the article said, "mice and rats turn more than 50 percent of fructose into fats"; whereas a human " liver converts as much as 50 percent of fructose into glucose", (in the case of the Coke, 19.5 grams or less which then may or may not turn into fat).
This highlights why it can be inaccurate to extrapolate and apply data gathered from rat studies to humans. The author said "experiments with these animals would exaggerate the significance of fructose's proposed detriments for humans, especially clogged arteries, fatty livers and insulin resistance." And you said you had a hard time understanding why that would be, and I've attempted to explain.
Again, I agree with your point that many people may not stop after just one because of many reasons. That is unhealthy no matter how you look at it and I'd like to see more help available to people who display compulsive eating habits.
Sure...we applied a correction to compensate for the exaggeration that the article claims and we see it is still a huge impact. So just because he is claiming that differences are exaggerated, it still doesn't mean the impact of sugar on human beings is insignificant. So that argument is not worth much.
Oh OK. Do you know where I can read about that? I'm actually very curious about the validity of rodent studies as applied to humans. I asked a question yesterday about it and didn't get an answer. It would make a huge difference if a correction had been applied to compensate for the differences, and I would have to repent in dust and sack cloth. 0 -
pcoslady83 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »
It's a scientific debate, semantics are important. I think we are all just geeks who like debating
But its also important in the context of the idea of a sugar conspiracy, or whatever. Are corporate interests feeding us an addictive substance or is sugar just really tasty and some of us develop unhealthy relationships with it? Obviously i support the latter explanation.
I believe refined sugar is addictive to many people and at the minimum an appetite stimulant which interferes with normal brain functionality. So I think corporations are using these attributes of sugar to increase profits.
Aaaaannnnnndddddddd...I don't like debating at all. I used to though, but when I started understanding that different people experience different realities when faced with an objectively same situation, debating became less interesting and learning about different experiences and perspective became more interesting.
Experiences do not negate reality. If I start seeing unicorns, the unicorns are not there. It's me. The fact that I saw unicorns is real, the existence of unicorns is not. If someone believes they are physically addicted to sugar the only way to determine if this is true is through science.
Sure science will determine that...eventually. Till then, it is good to have an open mind.
I do. It's open to evidence.
Then..let us just wait and respect people's experiences rather than dismissing them as willpower problem.
I hope I've been clear that I think it's more nuanced than just a willpower problem and calling something psychological is in no way a dismissal. If someone tells me they really struggle with sugar I am in no position to say "No you don't get a grip" but can discuss how to categorise it or whether it's the substance itself.
A simple google search will point you to papers. Here is the first link that turned up and I have copied the conclusion.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/
The reviewed evidence supports the theory that, in some circumstances, intermittent access to sugar can lead to behavior and neurochemical changes that resemble the effects of a substance of abuse. According to the evidence in rats, intermittent access to sugar and chow is capable of producing a “dependency”. This was operationally defined by tests for bingeing, withdrawal, craving and cross-sensitization to amphetamine and alcohol. The correspondence to some people with binge eating disorder or bulimia is striking, but whether or not it is a good idea to call this a “food addiction” in people is both a scientific and societal question that has yet to be answered. What this review demonstrates is that rats with intermittent access to food and a sugar solution can show both a constellation of behaviors and parallel brain changes that are characteristic of rats that voluntarily self-administer addictive drugs. In the aggregrate, this is evidence that sugar can be addictive.
Now..please don't tell me that the study was in rats and not applicable to humans.
Why would I not tell you that? The study is literally on rats. This has been discussed already. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/is-sugar-really-toxic-sifting-through-the-evidence/ Rat study dealt with in this article.
Sure..I did go through the article. I found two places where it mentions rat study.
<snip>
B. Not only do many worrying fructose studies use unrealistic doses of the sugar unaccompanied by glucose, it also turns out that the rodents researchers have studied metabolize fructose in a very different way than people do—far more different than originally anticipated. Studies that have traced fructose's fantastic voyage through the human body suggest that the liver converts as much as 50 percent of fructose into glucose, around 30 percent of fructose into lactate and less than one percent into fats. In contrast, mice and rats turn more than 50 percent of fructose into fats, so experiments with these animals would exaggerate the significance of fructose's proposed detriments for humans, especially clogged arteries, fatty livers and insulin resistance.
<snip>
Now..for B. Sure liver converts 50% of fructose into glucose..if that glucose is in excess of what body needs (which is the problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes), it gets converted to fat. I have a hard time understanding what is the point the author is trying to make here.
I think your point A has been well covered by other posters. I'd like to address point B.
The paragraph you've quoted here contains two points which go hand in hand in order to reach a conclusion. These are: a human liver would convert as much as 50% of that fructose into glucose; a rat liver would convert more than 50% of it into fat.
We'll add to these facts a third one that you provided:[a human] liver converts 50% of fructose into glucose..if that glucose is in excess of what body needs (which is the problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes), it gets converted to fat.
Please bear with me as I piece this together.
As you correctly stated, in a human excess glucose is converted to fat; so then at first glance those aforementioned figures of 50% might appear to be equivalent.
However, please pay close attention to the wording here. It is the excess glucose that is converted into fat, and a human liver may convert as much as 50% of fructose into glucose. Let's use 50 grams of straight fructose, ingested by Alice, as an example to illustrate what I'm trying to say. As much as 25 grams of it could be converted to glucose. How much of that is excess? Of course that would depend on how much glucose Alice's body needs, so it is quite possible that less than 25 grams of the recently-converted glucose is re-converted into fat.
As for a rat or mouse liver, again please pay close attention to the wording. "Mice and rats turn more than 50% of fructose into fats." Returning to our illustration, let's say that Bob the lab rat is fed 50 grams of straight fructose (we're keeping Alice's and Bob's amounts the same only for the sake of simplicity & comparison). Over 25 grams could be converted into fat for poor Bob.
Do you see the subtle yet important difference that could make mouse and rat studies unreliable when extrapolated to humans?
Regarding your point that excess glucose is a "problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes", here we agree. Excess glucose is a problem. No one says it's OK to consume any form of sugar to the point that your liver begins to turn it to fat; and I would like to see more help available for people who, for whatever reason, engage in addiction-like or compulsive behavior when it comes to food.
Let us consider you argument and take a can of classic coke which is just sugar (so that we don't have fat or any protein or complex carbohydrates coming into equation and a can of coke is something many people consume). Google says it has 39 grams of sugar. Let us say 25% of that get converted to fat which is roughly 10 grams fat per day which is 8 pounds per year and I don't think it is less.
Also, again I restate my my point that many people may not stop at one coke or one cookie or one slice of cake because sugar makes you eat more of it.
Right. But a rat study could potentially show that those 39 grams of sugar (let's say it's all fructose to keep it consistent) convert to as much as 19.5 grams of fat or more because, as the article said, "mice and rats turn more than 50 percent of fructose into fats"; whereas a human " liver converts as much as 50 percent of fructose into glucose", (in the case of the Coke, 19.5 grams or less which then may or may not turn into fat).
This highlights why it can be inaccurate to extrapolate and apply data gathered from rat studies to humans. The author said "experiments with these animals would exaggerate the significance of fructose's proposed detriments for humans, especially clogged arteries, fatty livers and insulin resistance." And you said you had a hard time understanding why that would be, and I've attempted to explain.
Again, I agree with your point that many people may not stop after just one because of many reasons. That is unhealthy no matter how you look at it and I'd like to see more help available to people who display compulsive eating habits.
Sure...we applied a correction to compensate for the exaggeration that the article claims and we see it is still a huge impact. So just because he is claiming that differences are exaggerated, it still doesn't mean the impact of sugar on human beings is insignificant. So that argument is not worth much.
Oh OK. Do you know where I can read about that? I'm actually very curious about the validity of rodent studies as applied to humans. I asked a question yesterday about it and didn't get an answer. It would make a huge difference if a correction had been applied to compensate for the differences, and I would have to repent in dust and sack cloth.
We applied the correction you suggested right here for the most reasonable case of a can of coke using the numbers provided by the article and using a liberal estimate that only half of glucose resulting from fructose gets to fats.
Here is a paper where Dr. Lustig answers your question.
http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0002822310019851/1-s2.0-S0002822310019851-main.pdf?_tid=6fc801d8-20a9-11e6-89cf-00000aacb35f&acdnat=1463982457_96671721f8e69b58feaecfc74bea0c9f
Anyways..when claiming exaggeration, Scientific American post refers to a paper which doesn't compare mice and human beings at all. I have no clue where he got the data from. Can you please point me where I can find the information about rats converting 50% of fructose to fat?
And I am getting out of here. It was fun debating with you all.
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It's a scientific debate, semantics are important. I think we are all just geeks who like debating
But its also important in the context of the idea of a sugar conspiracy, or whatever. Are corporate interests feeding us an addictive substance or is sugar just really tasty and some of us develop unhealthy relationships with it? Obviously i support the latter explanation.
I believe refined sugar is addictive to many people and at the minimum an appetite stimulant which interferes with normal brain functionality. So I think corporations are using these attributes of sugar to increase profits.
Aaaaannnnnndddddddd...I don't like debating at all. I used to though, but when I started understanding that different people experience different realities when faced with an objectively same situation, debating became less interesting and learning about different experiences and perspective became more interesting.
Experiences do not negate reality. If I start seeing unicorns, the unicorns are not there. It's me. The fact that I saw unicorns is real, the existence of unicorns is not. If someone believes they are physically addicted to sugar the only way to determine if this is true is through science.
Sure science will determine that...eventually. Till then, it is good to have an open mind.
I do. It's open to evidence.
Then..let us just wait and respect people's experiences rather than dismissing them as willpower problem.
I hope I've been clear that I think it's more nuanced than just a willpower problem and calling something psychological is in no way a dismissal. If someone tells me they really struggle with sugar I am in no position to say "No you don't get a grip" but can discuss how to categorise it or whether it's the substance itself.
A simple google search will point you to papers. Here is the first link that turned up and I have copied the conclusion.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/
The reviewed evidence supports the theory that, in some circumstances, intermittent access to sugar can lead to behavior and neurochemical changes that resemble the effects of a substance of abuse. According to the evidence in rats, intermittent access to sugar and chow is capable of producing a “dependency”. This was operationally defined by tests for bingeing, withdrawal, craving and cross-sensitization to amphetamine and alcohol. The correspondence to some people with binge eating disorder or bulimia is striking, but whether or not it is a good idea to call this a “food addiction” in people is both a scientific and societal question that has yet to be answered. What this review demonstrates is that rats with intermittent access to food and a sugar solution can show both a constellation of behaviors and parallel brain changes that are characteristic of rats that voluntarily self-administer addictive drugs. In the aggregrate, this is evidence that sugar can be addictive.
Now..please don't tell me that the study was in rats and not applicable to humans.
Why would I not tell you that? The study is literally on rats. This has been discussed already. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/is-sugar-really-toxic-sifting-through-the-evidence/ Rat study dealt with in this article.
Sure..I did go through the article. I found two places where it mentions rat study.
A. A more compelling criticism is that concern about fructose is based primarily on studies in which rodents and people consumed huge amounts of the molecule—up to 300 grams of fructose each day, which is nearly equivalent to the total sugar in eight cans of Coke—or a diet in which the vast majority of sugars were pure fructose. The reality is that most people consume far less fructose than used in such studies and rarely eat fructose without glucose.
AND
B. Not only do many worrying fructose studies use unrealistic doses of the sugar unaccompanied by glucose, it also turns out that the rodents researchers have studied metabolize fructose in a very different way than people do—far more different than originally anticipated. Studies that have traced fructose's fantastic voyage through the human body suggest that the liver converts as much as 50 percent of fructose into glucose, around 30 percent of fructose into lactate and less than one percent into fats. In contrast, mice and rats turn more than 50 percent of fructose into fats, so experiments with these animals would exaggerate the significance of fructose's proposed detriments for humans, especially clogged arteries, fatty livers and insulin resistance.
Let us first see A: Study was conducted on rodents which consumed huge amounts of sugar. What drove them to consume huge amounts of sugar? Did they force feed the rodents and people so that they can see impact of such high levels of sugar consumption? Rodents were just offered sugar solution as an option along with their regular food and rodents displayed addiction traits (both behavioral and neurochemical).
Now..for B. Sure liver converts 50% of fructose into glucose..if that glucose is in excess of what body needs (which is the problem in addiction like behavior with sugar causes), it gets converted to fat. I have a hard time understanding what is the point the author is trying to make here.
Excess glucose is first and foremost turned to glycogen.
Also your body upregulates the carb oxidation to meet the increased supply, because burning it off is less work than converting it to fat. Efficiency, yo.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10365981
Sure..some people may have excellent metabolism which burns off excess sugar. It is not true for everyone on this planet. If all our bodies were identical and excellent, then we would not have issues like obesity today.
I agree that not all our bodies are identical and excellent, but the idea that some people's metabolism burns off a great deal more calories that other's isn't exactly true. Here's a good explanation:
https://examine.com/faq/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/
The revelant portion:Metabolic rate does vary, and technically there could be large variance. However, statistically speaking it is unlikely the variance would apply to you. The majority of the population exists in a range of 200-300kcal from each other and do not possess hugely different metabolic rates.
This leaves room for outliers with extremely high or extremely low metabolism, but as you can see the variation in metabolic rates would not contribute greatly to the obesity issues.
let us say we are same height and weight to begin with and you burn a modest 125 Cal per day more than me. That means if we eat the same food, I am twelve pounds heavier than you per year. If we consider 250 Cal per day which is what the study you referred to suggests, then I am twenty four pounds heavier than you. That is in one year I can move from healthy weight to nearly obese.
Very true. But if you are weighing yourself you could catch the slow gain and reverse/prevent it by cutting out a can of soda (or its equivalent) or walking some more each day. It's not difficult to eliminate 250 Cal/day through a combination of watching what you eat and conscientiously moving some more.
In this case it wouldn't be the differences in metabolism that contributed to obesity, it would be mindlessness and/or neglectfulness.
Well..you can constantly move the goal post. I specifically answered to your point that metabolism doesn't contribute to obesity because the difference in metabolism is insignificant.
I just showed that is not the case. All things being equal, even exercise being equal, modest difference in metabolism can contribute to significant weight gain.
Now you are saying it is not metabolism, it is mindlessness.
We have a misunderstanding here. I agreed that metabolism *could* contribute to significant weight gain ("Very true," I said); but I disagree that it *must*, or even that it's a good excuse for being overweight. If one is paying attention, being mindful of their weight, one could catch a gain and do something about it. If one is not paying attention and gains weight, is it incorrect to call it neglectful? Mindless?
I didn't say differences in metabolism are insignificant; please don't put words in my mouth. I attempted to show that controlling weight is manageable even if one has a slow metabolism.
No goal post moved.
We were not debating how a person who has slow metabolism can manage his weight. We were debating if variations in metabolism is significant enough to cause obesity in a person. I have not put any words in your mouth.
I have copied what you said here. Please show me where is the discussion about how a how a person with slow metabolism can manage his/her weight.
I reread all our posts on this topic and accept that I implied that differences in metabolism between most people are insignificant (however that was your word, I would have chosen the word "surmountable") , so I take it back that you put words in my mouth, with my apologies. But I neither said nor implied that metabolism *does not* contribute to obesity. A great many people pay no attention to their metabolism and so gain weight.
I believe our misunderstanding has arisen because my intent was never to debate but rather to add some extra information for the benefit of lurkers and future readers. I wanted to show that "the variation in metabolic rates would not contribute greatly to the obesity issues." I could probably have expressed myself better by saying that a slow metabolism does not *automatically* doom one to weight gain/obesity and that by being mindful and keeping an eye on things a healthy weight can be maintained and/or achieved.
I'm sure I came across as trying to educate you. Please accept that that was never my intent. I've read with interest a lot of what you've written, and I just wanted to add a bit for the benefit of any who believe they're hopeless because of a "slow metabolism" since it might help them to know that the difference between "slow" and "fast" is not insurmountable, as I myself once believed.0
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