Interesting Video on 'Sugar: The Bitter Truth'

123457»

Replies

  • fangedneko
    fangedneko Posts: 133 Member
    Nothing in science is ever proven.

    You didn't even link to a study, but to a news article. Not exactly known for accuracy to their sources.

    Your confirmation bias and appeal to authority are duly noted.
  • asdowe13
    asdowe13 Posts: 1,951 Member
    If any food was proven, in study after to study, to give rats, for example, early dementia, how comfortable would you feel eating it every day just because it was almost but not quite proven in humans?

    Since this isn't the case with addiction and sugar, this is a strawman argument.

    In animal studies it is proven to be addictive.

    Humans? Close: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/the-sugar-addiction-taboo/282699/


    I'm going to take his word for it, absent other experts with equal education in relevant fields linking relevant data.

    http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/

    Lustig - Pediatric - his field is not nutrition
  • QuietBloom
    QuietBloom Posts: 5,413 Member
    If any food was proven, in study after to study, to give rats, for example, early dementia, how comfortable would you feel eating it every day just because it was almost but not quite proven in humans?

    Since this isn't the case with addiction and sugar, this is a strawman argument.

    In animal studies it is proven to be addictive.

    Humans? Close: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/the-sugar-addiction-taboo/282699/


    I'm going to take his word for it, absent other experts with equal education in relevant fields linking relevant data.

    There is a lot of evidence that the 'addiction model' so widely embraced by the media and AA don't much go for the addiction model in general, even when it comes to drugs. There are many professionals who strongly debate the 'helpless in the face of addiction' mindset that AA deems to be critical. In fact, the miserable success rate of AA points to the fact that it does not work. And that labeling people in general is extremely harmful.

    http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-heart-addiction/201206/alcoholics-are-not-powerless-over-alcohol

    An article that outlines quite nicely what is wrong with AA:
    http://porkchoptze.hubpages.com/hub/Twelve-Things-That-Alcoholics-Anonymous-Doesnt-Want-You-to-Know

    And it's not just alcohol. A brain scan study of cocaine abusers show that they have the ability to cognitively reduce their cravings.
    http://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=11026

    "Because inhibitory control is crucial for regulating emotions and desires, the findings from this study could have implications for other disorders involving loss of behavioral control, such as gambling and obesity.

    This study was supported by the intramural program from the National Institutes of Health Intramural Research Program at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Brookhaven Lab’s infrastructure for PET imaging and radiotracer development also receive support from the DOE Office of Science."
  • RGv2
    RGv2 Posts: 5,789 Member
    You're right, he calls it strike two and a half as far as deciding it is indeed addictive in humans, although it's definitely addictive in rats. The whole piece is worth a read, obviously I can't post it all here.



    http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/the-sugar-addiction-taboo/282699/

    The Sugar-Addiction Taboo
    When can you call a food addictive?
    ROBERT H. LUSTIGJAN 2 2014, 11:00 AM ET



    I've argued previously that excess sugar has been added to processed food because the food industry knows that when they add it, we buy more. And 77 percent of the food items available in the American grocery store are spiked with added sugar. But is this just “wanting”, or are we “needing”? Is sugar just abused, or is it downright addictive? In animals, it’s a “no-brainer.” Dr. Nicole Avena of Columbia University exposes rats to sugar water in an excess-deprivation paradigm for three weeks, and they demonstrate all the criteria needed to diagnose addiction: binging, withdrawal, craving, and addiction transfer (when you’re addicted to one substance, you’re addicted to others as well).

    I fully agree that sugar is addicting. The food industry relies heavily on sugar because it is cheap and it sells. It is not the sugar itself that is the problem but rather the sheer quantity of sugar that some ingest on a very regular basis. Those eating a high sugar diet will of course say there is nothing wrong with it just the same way an alcoholic will deny any problems with alcohol.

    Wut? :huh:
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    If any food was proven, in study after to study, to give rats, for example, early dementia, how comfortable would you feel eating it every day just because it was almost but not quite proven in humans?

    Since this isn't the case with addiction and sugar, this is a strawman argument.

    In animal studies it is proven to be addictive.

    Humans? Close: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/the-sugar-addiction-taboo/282699/


    I'm going to take his word for it, absent other experts with equal education in relevant fields linking relevant data.

    http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/

    Lustig - Pediatric - his field is not nutrition

    Beyond that, Lustig (who does not strike me as an unbiased source) really fails to make any kind of convincing argument for addiction even in that article. He basically assumes that fast food is addictive (which strikes me as nonsense) claims it's made up of salt, fat, caffeine, and sugar, and then dismisses salt and fat as possible reasons. He acknowledges that caffeine is addictive, and asserts that people get withdrawal when they give up soda, and asks whether the sugar plays a role. He then acknowledges that we don't know and weirdly from that gets "strike two and a half." Truly bizarre.

    Also, the idea that people go to fast food restaurants because they are addicted is, again, an unproven claim (of which I am enormously skeptical), but the idea that they go there because of the sugar and not the salt and fat is self-evidently ridiculous. And as someone who has dropped coffee a time or two in my life (I've never added sugar to coffee), that does lead to withdrawal depending on how you drank it, no sugar required. On the other hand, I quit sweets and grains for a couple of weeks when starting this process, for various personal reasons (and wasn't eating much fruit, since I don't in the winter) and had zero withdrawal. But beyond that, my guess is what gets called withdrawal related to sugar is the low carb flu that some get when suddenly going to a low carb diet--and that's NOT withdrawal, it has to do with your body's preferred fuel source.
  • Meerataila
    Meerataila Posts: 1,885 Member
    If any food was proven, in study after to study, to give rats, for example, early dementia, how comfortable would you feel eating it every day just because it was almost but not quite proven in humans?

    Since this isn't the case with addiction and sugar, this is a strawman argument.

    In animal studies it is proven to be addictive.

    Humans? Close: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/the-sugar-addiction-taboo/282699/


    I'm going to take his word for it, absent other experts with equal education in relevant fields linking relevant data.

    http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/

    Lustig - Pediatric - his field is not nutrition

    His field is pediatric endocrinology. Very much dealing with issues of diet and diet related disease.

    Pediatric endocrinology (British: Paediatric) is a medical subspecialty dealing with variations of physical growth and sexual development in childhood, as well as diabetes and other disorders of the endocrine glands.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pediatric_endocrinology


    He also co-authored research that shows causation between sugar consumption and diabetes in populations. Not correlation, causation. Eating too much sugar makes a percentage of populations sick. (Which is more important than it making us fat or addicted.)

    http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0057873


    Short Lustig Bio:

    Robert Lustig, M.D.
    Pediatric endocrinologist
    Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital, is nationally recognized in the field of neuroendocrinology, with an emphasis on the regulation of energy balance by the central nervous system. He is interested in how biochemical, neural, hormonal and genetic influences contribute to obesity in children and adults. He defined a syndrome of vagally mediated beta-cell hyperactivity that leads to excessive production of insulin and obesity, which may occur in up to 20 percent of the obese population and is treatable with insulin suppression. He also is studying the association between hyperinsulinemia, or the presence of excess insulin in the blood, and cardiovascular disease and is developing methods to evaluate and prevent this in children.

    Lustig earned a bachelor's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a medical degree from Cornell University Medical College. He completed a pediatric residency at St. Louis Children's Hospital and a clinical fellowship in pediatric endocrinology at UCSF. From there, he spent six years as a postdoctoral fellow in neuroendocrinology at Rockefeller University in New York. Lustig is a professor of clinical pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at UCSF.

    http://www.ucsfbenioffchildrens.org/robert.lustig
  • Meerataila
    Meerataila Posts: 1,885 Member
    If any food was proven, in study after to study, to give rats, for example, early dementia, how comfortable would you feel eating it every day just because it was almost but not quite proven in humans?

    Since this isn't the case with addiction and sugar, this is a strawman argument.

    In animal studies it is proven to be addictive.

    Humans? Close: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/the-sugar-addiction-taboo/282699/


    I'm going to take his word for it, absent other experts with equal education in relevant fields linking relevant data.

    There is a lot of evidence that the 'addiction model' so widely embraced by the media and AA don't much go for the addiction model in general, even when it comes to drugs. There are many professionals who strongly debate the 'helpless in the face of addiction' mindset that AA deems to be critical. In fact, the miserable success rate of AA points to the fact that it does not work. And that labeling people in general is extremely harmful.

    http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-heart-addiction/201206/alcoholics-are-not-powerless-over-alcohol

    An article that outlines quite nicely what is wrong with AA:
    http://porkchoptze.hubpages.com/hub/Twelve-Things-That-Alcoholics-Anonymous-Doesnt-Want-You-to-Know

    And it's not just alcohol. A brain scan study of cocaine abusers show that they have the ability to cognitively reduce their cravings.
    http://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=11026

    "Because inhibitory control is crucial for regulating emotions and desires, the findings from this study could have implications for other disorders involving loss of behavioral control, such as gambling and obesity.

    This study was supported by the intramural program from the National Institutes of Health Intramural Research Program at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Brookhaven Lab’s infrastructure for PET imaging and radiotracer development also receive support from the DOE Office of Science."

    I'm not fond of AA myself, or rather, I know it has helped people, but I wouldn't be one of them, seeing as, for one thing, I don't believe in a higher power. I also am not overly fond of labeling just anyone who overdoes something an addict, no matter what their vice of choice.

    But I am fond of the possibility that drugs will be available in the future to either treat or cure addiction. Whether it be addiction to chocolate or gambling or cigarettes or heroin. I can't find it right now, but in one of the presentations I saw recently, one of the experts mentioned a drug used to treat opiate overdose, if given to chocolate cravers, will kill their cravings. Seeing as it's an IV administered drug, it's not going to work as a fix currently, but it has interesting possibilities.

    Edit: I also don't believe in 'willpower' as a higher power. Research shows we only have so much of it. It costs energy to resist. Energy I'd much rather use for other pursuits. The ridiculous amount of time and effort I've put into becoming a normal weight could have gone to other things, if I hadn't had to worry about it. The world will be a better place when no one gets fatter than they want to be and then has to fight to be a healthy weight again.
  • QuietBloom
    QuietBloom Posts: 5,413 Member

    Edit: I also don't believe in 'willpower' as a higher power. Research shows we only have so much of it. It costs energy to resist. Energy I'd much rather use for other pursuits. The ridiculous amount of time and effort I've put into becoming a normal weight could have gone to other things, if I hadn't had to worry about it. The world will be a better place when no one gets fatter than they want to be and then has to fight to be a healthy weight again.

    I think it is a skill that becomes easier with practice, like any other. Moderation and a strong will-power something we all have to learn. Or at least we should in order to lead healthier more productive lives. To write obesity off as a product of an addiction to which people are helpless, is to take away their power. It is easier to believe that you cannot decide how much fat you are going to carry because you have a disease that makes you unable to stop eating, rather than it was a personal choice you made to keep eating. Yeah, it's tough to take weight off and seems so easy to put it on. But life is not easy, and no one promised anyone it would be a bed of roses. You have done an incredible job of taking the weight off and I solute you. So congrats to the choices you have made the will-power you have displayed. :drinker:
  • Meerataila
    Meerataila Posts: 1,885 Member

    Edit: I also don't believe in 'willpower' as a higher power. Research shows we only have so much of it. It costs energy to resist. Energy I'd much rather use for other pursuits. The ridiculous amount of time and effort I've put into becoming a normal weight could have gone to other things, if I hadn't had to worry about it. The world will be a better place when no one gets fatter than they want to be and then has to fight to be a healthy weight again.

    I think it is a skill that becomes easier with practice, like any other. Moderation and a strong will-power something we all have to learn. Or at least we should in order to lead healthier more productive lives. To write obesity off as a product of an addiction to which people are helpless, is to take away their power. It is easier to believe that you cannot decide how much fat you are going to carry because you have a disease that makes you unable to stop eating, rather than it was a personal choice you made to keep eating. Yeah, it's tough to take weight off and seems so easy to put it on. But life is not easy, and no one promised anyone it would be a bed of roses. You have done an incredible job of taking the weight off and I solute you. So congrats to the choices you have made the will-power you have displayed. :drinker:

    Thanks! I practice willpower every time I don't buy the cookies, I have no beef with people who practice willpower by buying them and then eating one serving. I just prefer the other method. Whatever gets us to a healthy weight and keeps us there in a healthy way sounds good to me. :drinker:
  • derik999
    derik999 Posts: 73
    This thread = fail. More proof that the majority of social interaction on the internet is a worthless time sink.

Categories