Study: cutting sugar improves all the things!

suzannesimmons3 wrote: »

A study done by the Food network....Errr. where's the proper science

And ALL sugar means ALL carbs.

Did I miss something obvious? It looks like the Food Network is reporting on the study, not that they conducted it.

JustRobby1 wrote: »

Yes! A "study" conducted by the Food Network!

I will be sure to call the New England Journal of Medicine and tell them to keep the cover for next month's issue open.

Did you READ the study? Or just the food network summary.

timtam163 wrote: »

Within 9 days study participants showed metabolic improvements by cutting out sugar.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/features/apple-news/reducing-sugar-intake-improves-health-quickly-researchers-find

My speculative hunch is that the elimination of all sugar is easiest in paleo/keto regimes which explains their success; but that any diet that reduces sugar will show similar results. Thoughts?

Pretty sure that's an older study [edit, no it looks like it might be a redo of Lustig's earlier similar study, which I was talking about] and it didn't work as planned in that the kids were supposed to keep calories steady and they lost weight, indicating that they did not and the improvements could have been related to a weight loss diet.

That said, it does indicate that obese kids would probably eat less if they had less sugar in their diet, which I think is almost certainly true (and pretty predictable).

The study does not say that cutting out ALL sugar (I assume you mean added sugar? I'd agree even less if you really mean all sugar) is beneficial. It basically started with people eating huge amounts of sugar and found they did better after 9 days on lower sugar diets where the sugar was replaced with starch.

I also think the SAD is overly high sugar, so of course cutting sugar tends to be associated with cutting calories and is probably beneficial in general.

Does someone eating 5% of calories from added sugar, on average, benefit from cutting sugar? I don't think so, and haven't see anything to support that.

I would also disagree that cutting excess sugar is easiest in paleo/keto regimes (but again we get into the question of what you personally mean by sugar, because I am reasonably confident that the study wasn't looking at whether fruit is bad for you, and I've seen absolutely nothing supporting such a conclusion).

JustRobby1 wrote: »

diannethegeek wrote: »

suzannesimmons3 wrote: »

A study done by the Food network....Errr. where's the proper science

And ALL sugar means ALL carbs.

Did I miss something obvious? It looks like the Food Network is reporting on the study, not that they conducted it.

The media (especially as it pertains to health) is world famous for cherry picking research that gives them results they feel might create interest, or else grossly exaggerating the impact of a given study as if it is the Rosetta Stone of modern health care. Science is both a collaborative and compounding endeavor. Almost no summary writer in peer reviewed material makes grandiose statements regarding their research. "Further research is needed" is often used, or they will offer suggestions on how to expand on their findings to add validity. Only when lab after lab after lab consistently achieves the same results with similar methodology and proper controls do you start to see organizations like the AMA, WHO, NIH etc. adopting official positions on a subject pertaining to health. This only happens when the evidence is unequivocal and unambiguous.

Yes, I'm aware of all of that. I don't know why you think I wouldn't be after five years of nonsense threads like this. But this study wasn't conducted by the Food Network. That's all I'm asking about.

essexgirl1971 wrote: »

ive been doing the keto diet and i have to say its stopped my sugar cravings. even eating fruit and veg and getting sugar from natural sources i was still having alot of sugar. my normal sugar intake since starting keto is around 2g a day.

Hmm.

I've cut out added sugar a few times. The first two times I wasn't anywhere near keto levels (more like 40% carbs, maybe even more), and I did not have sugar cravings.

I also went low on sugar (and almost not added sugar) when trying out keto, and while I found that generally easy and enjoyable (well, until my favorite fruits came in season), I am not sure how one ends up with 2 g of sugar, or how that could be advisable. When trying keto, I was getting the vast majority of my sugar from vegetables, and still was coming in at between 15 and 25 most days. I hate this idea that keto should be done as low sugar as possible, as if vegetables were to be avoided.

Having read some Lustig and being less down on him than the average MFPer, I am 100% confident that he is not interpreting this study to mean that fruits and vegetables are bad for kids.

Also, the study has nothing to do with keto, the kids were at 51% carbs before and during the study.

lichn wrote: »

Some people on this forum are so ridiculous. The second paragraph names and links the legitimate medical journal that published the study. The conclusion of the study is completely uncontroversial and affirms already well documented and well diffused knowledge about the effects of sugar on health and obesity. It's a simple, well designed study that adds a bit of new data to a problem of broad public interest. All these self-appointed detectives over here react way harder than necessary like the rest of us don't have any media literacy at all.

OP you have a totally interesting point, thanks for sharing this! I always find it at least mildly interesting when a study confirms the general principles of healthy eating as I understand them. It's a good reminder to stay with it.

I assume you're talking about me with your first sentence. I'm honestly curious why @suzannesimmons3 and @JustRobby1 say this is a study conducted by the Food Network. Was it something in the funding? I've read through the article and skimmed the study a few times, but I don't see it. And instead I got a lecture about the way articles blow studies out of proportion. You can call me ridiculous, but I'm not trying to be snarky. I'm trying to learn more about these studies and it's frustrating that no one wants to explain it to me.

timtam163 wrote: »

study is not that surprising, except for how fast it reversed markers of bad diet. I've read that it takes up to a decade for your body to recover from ever having been overweight; while this study shows that some changes occured right away when this group of kids steered away from the standard american diet.

This is not surprising either, or wasn't to me. Losing weight turns around various test markers (T2D, IR, high cholesterol, fatty liver) extremely quickly. The interesting thing here is that they were turned around before any significant weight could have been lost, but in that they were kids eating horrible diets (selected for that), I'm not surprised.

I think you are referring to the fat that death stats are worse if you look at "have been overweight" vs. "never been overweight" even for people who lost the weight, but that is a correlation thing and the question is why: is there something different about people who were never overweight vs. those who were overweight but lost it? One thing is, in that one reason for losing is illness and another is getting a bad health diagnosis that motivates you. If you control for that, is it still worse? I don't know, would be interested.

3) I mostly started asking myself about the success of dieting; a lot of people who start a diet that reduces sugar intake see pretty immediate, pretty drastic results; I did as well.

Same with people who do other kinds of diets as a result of bad health tests. The 100% plant based arguments are often based on this kind of anecdote too, and if you've read Denise Minger's discussion of very low fat diets (https://deniseminger.com/2015/10/06/in-defense-of-low-fat-a-call-for-some-evolution-of-thought-part-1/) then you see that happens too, even when the diets aren't particularly healthful there.

Personally, my tests were always fine, even when I was fat (maybe because I ate a pretty healthful diet with lots of vegetables and not really much like the SAD with little fast food, no sugary soda, probably not that high in sugar) when I was getting fat, more likely because of genetics). They got even better when I lost weight, but I've seen nothing to suggest I do better on super low sugar diets vs. higher sugar ones (but again I have not tried super high added sugar and am not attracted to that as something to try, heh).

So I read this and was musing on whether this was the key to paleo/other diet successes... and yes in this case I'd be talking about added sugar, though the study I don't think made the distinction.

The study did not make the distinction, but they took kids with high added sugar and lowered the sugar by replacing it with starch. They did not take high sugar WFPB vegans and see if they did better replacing fruit with starch. (I'd guess no.)

Basically, I operate under the "don't be afraid of carbs and sugars from complex sources, basically, but reduce as much as possible your consumption of processed food and added sugar" assumption, and am looking to validate/negate that theory.

The starches they were replacing the sugar with in the study were processed.

Fruit is a simple carb -- simple = sugar, whatever the source, complex=starch when talking about carbs.

Personally I tend to agree that healthful diets (which will include lots of vegetables, probably some fruit for most people, some whole food carbs and other moderately processed carbs (like whole grains), plenty of protein and healthy fats, and some added sugar and more refined carbs in moderation) are healthful and that so long as you aren't missing essential nutrient percentage of carbs likely doesn't matter much (which is why keto can be healthful and so can 80-10-10 whole food vegan, if you have enough calories to carry that little fat and protein by percentage).

I think this study was much more limited in its intent, however.

Is it BETTER to eat a mediocre diet that is high in starch vs. one that is high in sugar from things like candy and soda? That's what I think Lustig et al was looking at -- that independent of other problems with the diet the sugar in the type of doses (related to sources) was in itself harmful. I think that's an interesting question and it might be so, but I'm inclined to think the bigger issue is that those foods crowd out better (more nutritious) foods and in some kids kill the taste for more nutritious things (especially if their diet is quite limited) and that having lots of sugar in your diet (you being a kid in this case) makes you more prone to overeat.