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The Sugar Conspiracy
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Great article! Thanks for sharing!
It's so encouraging to see such a great summary in one place--and mainstream at that! I'm glad the truth is getting out there, even to those who so adamantly contradict it. It's so exciting to see the discussion happening.2 -
Rats don't actually correlate to humans all that well. They're used because they're cheap, ethical, and have short lifespans, which make them good enough.8
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pcoslady83 wrote: »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 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.
I completely agree withslow 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 also agree that we should educate people about metabolism, differences among people, how significant weight changes small variations in metabolism can bring and how people can have slow metabolism (and otherwise in good health) still be manage weight.
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Rats don't actually correlate to humans all that well. They're used because they're cheap, ethical, and have short lifespans, which make them good enough.
I'm trying to wrap my head around this whole subject. In some of my posts here I've tried to explain the point made in this linkshared by @paulgads82 about why exactly rats aren't the ideal subject of study in this matter.
The article made sense to me, I attempted to put in my own words what it's saying (and @pcoslady83 was gracious enough to volley back and forth with me). I still feel lost in the woods.
To anyone who can help and has perhaps read my recent posts about fructose and rat livers, what, if anything, am I missing?1 -
masterwilde wrote: »So firstly here is the link for you to read yourselves:-
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin
Its definitely interesting reading, let me have your thoughts please
That's way too long to read. As far as fructose goes there are foods with fructose in them that are very healthy for you. Fructose is a naturally occurring sugar that can be found in the healthiest of foods.
I will also point out that you can't ignore the impact that sugar has had on the diets of the western world. You can say all you want to that you don't eat any more sweets than your grandparents did back in their day but that's simply not true. Yes you may eat the same amount of less cookies, cakes, candy, etc than your grandparents did but sugar is now added into EVERYTHING. The reliance on processed food is really what fueled the obesity epidemic and diabetes epidemic because what's in processed food, which more often than not has added sugar in it. Reliance on processed food happened for a number of reasons but overall it's a cultural shift. I mean if I counted everyone I saw during the day and put them into two groups overweight and healthy weight I bet less than half would fit into a healthy weight category. You can't ignore that and what changed is what we eat. Maybe yes how much we eat, but when your grandparents were eating large meals out of the garden your meal may seem to be the same size but when it's made of chemicals, sugar, salt, and subsidized corn and soy the energy in your meal is greater leading to greater fat storage. But I will most certainly tell you I've never heard of anyone being fat because they ate too much fruit.3 -
Carlos_421 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »Sugar does something physical to some people. It may not be a true addiction, or maybe it is similar to nicotine - I dunno, but there is a physical component to it. When I quit sugar, as much as is possible without abstaining from all veggies, my sugar cravings went WAY down (along with my appetite) within days. Within a week I was able to not buy and eat candy or soda, not to mention baked goods. As long as I didn't touch the stuff, I was fine.
And yes, for me, if I did eat more carbs it increased my cravings. I tend to eat carbs later in the day because if I have a "higher" carb meal (15g carbs) I will crave more carbs. If I have carbs at breakfast It is very difficult to keep my carbs at keto levels because I want/crave/hunger for more. If I eat somehing very high in carbs, like a few candies, grapes or a muffin, then I wil be fighting cravings/hunger/compulsion/whatever it is for the next 24-48 hours or so. If I don't eat more, eventually my carb cravings fade again.
There's no way that could have been a psychological issue. A psychological addiction/behaviour/compulsion/habit that is gone within days of changing a behaviour? I don't think so. Now a physical change within days of removing an unhealthy substance (for that individual)? That is believable.
As a celiac, that's how it worked for me when I gave up gluten. I started feeling relief of some symptoms within days, after a few months I was quite a bit better, and after about 18 months I was healed. Like giving up sugar, at first I felt worse. I had headaches, pain, fatigue, moodiness and it triggered a pretty bad autoimmune arthritis flare-up. When I cut carbs very low, even while increasing salt, I had fatigue, moodiness, headaches, felt fluish and it triggered an autoimmune flare-up too. But within a week I had better energy, after a month my skin cleared up and my cognitive function improved enough that my family noticed, and improvements continued for a few months.... It was NOT in my head.
It may not be an addiction, but it IS something physical for some of us, and I find the comments that imply it is just in our heads to be very insulting. As someone said up thread, I bet those with NAFLD, PCOS, T2D and Alzheimer's complications (blindness, infertility, limb amputation), who still suffer those complications because it is hard to stop eating foods with high carb contents, may find it insulting too.
I don't know how this turned into another debate on the semantics of addiction thread. Some use addiction as a metaphor, some use it literally, some are insulted by the use of the word... This isn't going to change anytime soon.
You're insulted by having a psychological problem? Why? Are they inferior? Psychological illnesses have physical components. Nobody uses the phrase "in your head" to describe psychological issues or illnesses. Certainly not "just in your head". I am starting to wonder if there's a certaina amount of stigma and prejudice towards mental health and this may explain why people desire a physical explanation.
I was told that my autoimmune diseases were in my head (in so many words) by doctors, for many years (decades). I eventually understood that statement to mean that they couldn't figure out what was wrong so there was NOTHING wrong - they implied that it was all in my head. They were wrong. They just did not have an answer and were still looking for a way to be right about that fact.
Eventually I self diagnosed myself and had them run the tests to prove it. I was right on everything and it wasn't in my head. I even figured out my reactive hypoglycemia before getting tested.
Don't twist my words. Just because my sugar problem is not psychological does not mean that psychological problems are infererior to physical problems. I never said that.
So why is it insulting?
Because it is implied that the problem doesn't exist. It was made up.
After all my comments I don't know anyone could say I think psychological addiction is made up.
Again, that's not what I said. I meant the phrase "it is all in your head" means it is not real or it is made up.
After being told stomach aches, arthritis and such were "in my head", I was not sent for psychological treatment or counselling. I was just sent home.
I fail to see how a doctor failing to diagnose your condition has any bearing on the argument over whether addiction to sugar as a substance is a real thing or if those who have self diagnosed as such are actually suffering from a behavioral addiction to eating, an eating disorder or some other psychological issue.
And we in the US are constantly told the Canadian medical system is better.
MFP has cured me of that idea.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Carlos_421 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »Sugar does something physical to some people. It may not be a true addiction, or maybe it is similar to nicotine - I dunno, but there is a physical component to it. When I quit sugar, as much as is possible without abstaining from all veggies, my sugar cravings went WAY down (along with my appetite) within days. Within a week I was able to not buy and eat candy or soda, not to mention baked goods. As long as I didn't touch the stuff, I was fine.
And yes, for me, if I did eat more carbs it increased my cravings. I tend to eat carbs later in the day because if I have a "higher" carb meal (15g carbs) I will crave more carbs. If I have carbs at breakfast It is very difficult to keep my carbs at keto levels because I want/crave/hunger for more. If I eat somehing very high in carbs, like a few candies, grapes or a muffin, then I wil be fighting cravings/hunger/compulsion/whatever it is for the next 24-48 hours or so. If I don't eat more, eventually my carb cravings fade again.
There's no way that could have been a psychological issue. A psychological addiction/behaviour/compulsion/habit that is gone within days of changing a behaviour? I don't think so. Now a physical change within days of removing an unhealthy substance (for that individual)? That is believable.
As a celiac, that's how it worked for me when I gave up gluten. I started feeling relief of some symptoms within days, after a few months I was quite a bit better, and after about 18 months I was healed. Like giving up sugar, at first I felt worse. I had headaches, pain, fatigue, moodiness and it triggered a pretty bad autoimmune arthritis flare-up. When I cut carbs very low, even while increasing salt, I had fatigue, moodiness, headaches, felt fluish and it triggered an autoimmune flare-up too. But within a week I had better energy, after a month my skin cleared up and my cognitive function improved enough that my family noticed, and improvements continued for a few months.... It was NOT in my head.
It may not be an addiction, but it IS something physical for some of us, and I find the comments that imply it is just in our heads to be very insulting. As someone said up thread, I bet those with NAFLD, PCOS, T2D and Alzheimer's complications (blindness, infertility, limb amputation), who still suffer those complications because it is hard to stop eating foods with high carb contents, may find it insulting too.
I don't know how this turned into another debate on the semantics of addiction thread. Some use addiction as a metaphor, some use it literally, some are insulted by the use of the word... This isn't going to change anytime soon.
You're insulted by having a psychological problem? Why? Are they inferior? Psychological illnesses have physical components. Nobody uses the phrase "in your head" to describe psychological issues or illnesses. Certainly not "just in your head". I am starting to wonder if there's a certaina amount of stigma and prejudice towards mental health and this may explain why people desire a physical explanation.
I was told that my autoimmune diseases were in my head (in so many words) by doctors, for many years (decades). I eventually understood that statement to mean that they couldn't figure out what was wrong so there was NOTHING wrong - they implied that it was all in my head. They were wrong. They just did not have an answer and were still looking for a way to be right about that fact.
Eventually I self diagnosed myself and had them run the tests to prove it. I was right on everything and it wasn't in my head. I even figured out my reactive hypoglycemia before getting tested.
Don't twist my words. Just because my sugar problem is not psychological does not mean that psychological problems are infererior to physical problems. I never said that.
So why is it insulting?
Because it is implied that the problem doesn't exist. It was made up.
After all my comments I don't know anyone could say I think psychological addiction is made up.
Again, that's not what I said. I meant the phrase "it is all in your head" means it is not real or it is made up.
After being told stomach aches, arthritis and such were "in my head", I was not sent for psychological treatment or counselling. I was just sent home.
I fail to see how a doctor failing to diagnose your condition has any bearing on the argument over whether addiction to sugar as a substance is a real thing or if those who have self diagnosed as such are actually suffering from a behavioral addiction to eating, an eating disorder or some other psychological issue.
And we in the US are constantly told the Canadian medical system is better.
MFP has cured me of that idea.
It is ... as long as you can handle the 6 year wait to see a doctor.
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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.
Complaining that you can't eat as much as someone else hasn't helped anyone.
If you so much as step on a scale from time to time and do something to not eat at a surplus anymore it won't make you obese.
And 250 above the average is already a pretty unlikely scenario. That's resting btw. without factoring exercise in. There's more than just a few people who have lower resting metabolism than me who've still got higher TDEE because they go for a run every day or something similar.
Metabolism differences really aren't that huge of ain impact.2 -
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.
You completely made up your numbers to claim it is still a huge impact. Also like in literally every situation talked about: no surplus, no fat gain. Surplus, fat gain, sugar or not.6 -
pcoslady83 wrote: »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.
Please, no Lustig. He's as credible as the guy with the ancient aliens.6 -
pcoslady83 wrote: »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.
Your scenario implies that the person with the lower metabolism has the same appetite as the person with the higher one too, which is not a given.
4 -
Sugar and fat both are harmful in excess, the key question is whether or not they have been tested simultaneously in a randomized and controlled double-blind study.1
-
all_in_the_game wrote: »Sugar and fat both are harmful in excess, the key question is whether or not they have been tested simultaneously in a randomized and controlled double-blind study.
Water and oxygen are both harmful in excess.4 -
Carlos_421 wrote: »all_in_the_game wrote: »Sugar and fat both are harmful in excess, the key question is whether or not they have been tested simultaneously in a randomized and controlled double-blind study.
Water and oxygen are both harmful in excess.
How does this relate to sugar conspiracy and addiction?1 -
Carlos_421 wrote: »all_in_the_game wrote: »Sugar and fat both are harmful in excess, the key question is whether or not they have been tested simultaneously in a randomized and controlled double-blind study.
Water and oxygen are both harmful in excess.
How does this relate to sugar conspiracy and addiction?
Corporations could be filling our foods with water without concern as to the negative health effects.6 -
stevencloser wrote: »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.
Complaining that you can't eat as much as someone else hasn't helped anyone.
If you so much as step on a scale from time to time and do something to not eat at a surplus anymore it won't make you obese.
And 250 above the average is already a pretty unlikely scenario. That's resting btw. without factoring exercise in. There's more than just a few people who have lower resting metabolism than me who've still got higher TDEE because they go for a run every day or something similar.
Metabolism differences really aren't that huge of ain impact.
You should read what we me and @Jane Snow were debating about before making this statement.1 -
stevencloser wrote: »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.
You completely made up your numbers to claim it is still a huge impact. Also like in literally every situation talked about: no surplus, no fat gain. Surplus, fat gain, sugar or not.
Again, you are quoting this out of context. @Jane Snow gave me an example, I plugged in the numbers.
I said this to prove that the author's claim in Scientific American the differences in results between rats and human beings are exaggerated has no value because as you correctly noticed I could plug in a value that Jane Snow and arrive at the any conclusion. Jane Snow assumed a conservative estimate that less than 50% of glucose (which comes fructose) gets converted to glucose. If I follow what Scientific American says (less than 50% of fructose gets converted to glucose) , I can claim that 99.99% of that of that glucose will get converted to fat and give an even bigger number than what I arrived at using Jane Snow's number. If Scientific American author provided a data that 1% of fructose gets converted to fat (the way he provided 50% number for rats), then we could arrive at some conclusion. But he compared apples and oranges. So whatever he claimed has little to no value.
1 -
stevencloser wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »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.
Your scenario implies that the person with the lower metabolism has the same appetite as the person with the higher one too, which is not a given.
Again your argument doesn't prove anything. A person with lower metabolism may have same appetite as a person with higher one, or lower appetite or greater appetite.
Please don't argue for the sake of argument and don't quote everything out of context.
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stevencloser wrote: »pcoslady83 wrote: »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.
Please, no Lustig. He's as credible as the guy with the ancient aliens.
Well..you can have your opinions.
The irony is we are debating about an article that heavily relies on Lustig's work and you don't want to quote him.
0 -
Let's assume the rat experiment is applicable, which virtually nobody does in science, but let's assume it does. One study is not enough. What's next? A human study?0
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