"Action on Sugar" - now that fat is back in fashion

geebusuk

This seems to be bouncing about a lot in the UK.
http://www.actiononsugar.org/

It seems that their main complaint is that's it's calorie dense.

They haven't answered my tweet, nor my question on facebook asking for some scientific backup for their campaign.

From what I can see, it's just a rather expensive 'trolling'.
However, I do wonder if it's been backed by artificial sweetener companies.

Skrib69

Try reading the book Pure, White and Deadly. It puts a lot of things into perspective. The main thrust, as was the discussion on the Radio 2 show with Jeremy Vine, is not so much that it is calorie dense, but more that it is being used in foods that you would not expect, use has rocketed with the advent of pre-prepared convenience foods in the supermarkets, and that it is easy to eat a ton of it without realising. Ergo, you eat rubbish calories and it is no surprise that we have an obesity epidemic. Now to read up on your link.......

Mr_Knight

So round 'n' round 'n' round we go,
Where the world's headed, nobody knows...

ChrisM8971

Think I caught some of this on the news this morning and would agree that the gist was the amount of sugar in products that you wouldn't expect to find it in.

The affect of sugar on teeth was mentioned and a little on juices that are high in sugar with little or no bulk in the form of fibre etc

One of the things that I did like is the interviewer mentioned "good sugars and bad sugars" and the response was they don't like the term "bad sugar" rather "hidden sugar"

Edited to add and personally I do not believe that there is such a thing as bad sugars either

Skrib69

Try listening to http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03nhc97

Skip through to about half way for the relevant bit..... Interesting.....

geebusuk

From what I can work out, the ONLY bit that isn't about just reducing calorie intake is from the study below:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0057873
Overall, the study seems pretty well done. The study states that 150 calories extra of sugar correlates?? with a 1.1% increase in Diabetes.
Interestingly, there's also a 1.07% increase with every 1% increase in GDP.
So, if your country starts to do a little worse, you can have an extra can of full-sugar coke with no extra risk (to 2SD)!

This graph is also interesting

The UK is actually pretty low on the diabetes stakes.
In fact, with middle-high obesity, it would seem we have significantly lower diabetes than would be expected - so I'd have to question if we're really doing it so badly? We're right at the bottom of the scale (It's to be expected Flying Spaghetti Monster land is doing better than us, of course... high obesity due to all the spaghetti and meatballs, but low diabetes because it's the land of god.)
There is only ONE country that has the same or higher incidence of obesity but a lower incidence of diabetes - that is Mongolia. I don't know that much about the real make up there, but I suspect there are a lot of pretty fit people that as with our country in years gone by, might value fat reserves.
There are two others with near the level of obesity and one similar with the other a good bit less in diabetes.

Overall, I don't think the figures from this study suggest there really is THAT much to worry about for the UK.

They do suggest " sugar-diabetes relationship appeared to meet criteria for temporal causality without being the result of selection biases or the effect of secular trends that may be artifacts of economic development or changes in surveillance." but don't really seem to get closer to causation than that.
There could be a lot of other factors - such as that we can see a very good correlation between eating Breakfast and being healthy. But, it turns out that's just a habit healthy people often have.

As far as reducing calorie intake goes, I do not think focusing on one aspect is a good idea.
Much better would be to educate the public to make genuinely informed choices

They are also complemented by individual data, but unfortunately such individual analyses cannot identify what factors are most prominently affecting diabetes rates at the population level in the setting of multiple other concurrent economic and social changes.

Overall the study is pretty good compared to so many out there, I'd say.
However, I do think that it has in various places had it's conclusions overstated.

I haven't got the figures, but studies have always shown that increased fitness correlates to a reduced incidence of diabetes.
Instead of campaigning for all those evil companies and gubbermints to force the will on us, how about encouraging people to want to exercise more.
I'd be willing to bet this would have significantly better results in changing the health of the populace that actually did it than reducing the sugar in foods.

As ever, also:
http://www.simplyshredded.com/the-science-of-nutrition-is-a-carb-a-carb.html


Some rambling thoughts as I listened to the BBC2 thing:
I used to make Frappucinos. They are basically a desert. If they've had one, they must realise this, surely?
Coke - I note they didn't mention Orange Juice which has MORE sugar. (Edit - They do come to this later on, but a long time after the 'shock' value.)

The bloke talking has a GOOD reason to avoid sugar - he gets exma.
Bloke with him is on paelo. Not such a great start.

One of them thought smoothies were 'good for you' and didn't realise they were full of sugar. Never mind the sugar - they're full of CALORIES. I WILL drink a litre of drink at a time. That means a reasonable meal just from the drink.
I was a bit lost if this was an 'expert' - but seriously, I don't even have A-Levels and I knew this a LONG time before I got all geeky with health stuff and MFP.

I wasn't in the UK 30 years ago, but when I came back in 88 there was a lot of sugary stuff around. Not sure there's more now; if anything, with low calorie sweetener options, it's easier to avoid.
On that, I believe they had a go at them without any backup.

Actually you CAN buy salads in a lot of petrol stations. Maybe not quinoa, unless you're in at an M&S petrol station or other similarly pretentious place, thank god .


Finally.
http://www.theverge.com/ces-2014/2014/1/7/5285628/3d-systems-chefjet-pro-sweet-3d-printer-candy-hands-on
3d printed sweets. Exquisitely shaped nom!

ChrisM8971

I agree about educating people to make more informed choices but what appears to be the unfortunate truth, here in the UK at least is that its easier & cheaper to scare people into not buying something because of its content (used to be fat which is why everything supposedly healthy is labelled low fat) so that the manufacturers have to change or lose sales than it is to spend time and money on educating people from on young age about nutrition and calories.

They get their desired affect by reducing fats and reducing sugars in the products which more often than not leads to the overall reduction in calories

geebusuk

I couldn't sleep last night (no, I did NOT eat loads of sugar before bed ) so read a chunk of pure white and deadly as well as looking around elsewhere.

Here's a critique of his work:
http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/#comment-1017
Here's an overview of the discussion the author above had with Lustig - note that Lustig got in a huff when he was shown to be using questionable reasoning.
http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-the-fructose-alarmism-debate/
From those, yes, Occam's Razor - I'd certainly tend to agree that looking for the bogey man when the answer is 'eat less, exercise more' is counter productive...
http://www.leangains.com/2010/02/occams-razor.html

I got those first two links from here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/08/04/a-new-front-opens-in-the-war-against-big-sugar/

tedrickp

I love that Aragon post - such a thorough drubbing of Lustig in that comment section.

ChrisM8971

Thanks for those links geebusuk they make interesting and quite pleasant reading. This is a topic that is going to rage on I think, just as the demonisation of fats raged on for many years.

I am firmly in the camp of everything in moderation and it's quantity of calories not specific foods that lead to obesity and the risk of diabetes, but I also firmly believe in the fact that we will see this sort of thing many times over and once the sugar obsession has cooled then another food stuff will bear the brunt, wonder if it will be the turn protein next?

As I alluded to in my earlier post, in order to educate an entire population on nutrition, a balanced diet and the moderation of calories takes time and costs a lot of money, something that no government has a great deal of at the current time. While this sort of sensationalist reporting is wrong, if it forces people to stop buying products with high sugar contents, thereby forcing the manufacturers to reduce the sugar levels (and therefore possibly the calories) the end result may very well be the elimination of one of the excesses that can result in obesity etc. something most countries would see as a great result especially if it was a no cost result

Oh and not wanting to be cynical but titles such as "Excessive sugar intakes may be a contributing factor in obesity" probably don't sell that many books

geebusuk

Indeed; quite agree that sadly society forces people to 'sex up' ideas to be even considered.

Seen the first affects of it in the supermarket today. While inspecting calories on some 'diet' Crème fraîche a woman was looking at low cal cream alternatives and moaned to me "But they all have sugar in!"
I didn't stop and explain that presuming she was looking for low fat too, if she was skipping sugar as well she was basically getting a protein-powder based drink/food!

And this is the very problem I have with this sort of thing. To start with, she now thinks 'sugars' should be avoided, despite sugar being a naturally occurring part of every single product in that section.