
How Coca-Cola shaped obesity science and policy in China - laurex
https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.k5050
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nickik
The sugar industry has a long history financing research. The obsession the US
got in with salt, fat and 'red meat' were often financed by the sugar
industry.

The results were the absurd situation where things would be sold as 'low fat'
but had doupled the amount of sugar and is marketed as diet food.

~~~
platelet
Financed research with vested interests, though it may be, salt, fat and red
meat can have palpable effects on the human body.

Salt is an implement of suicide, for one.

Red meat, I suspect, transmits all kinds of biological signaling residue from
the original animal’s state, even when fully cooked. From horomones, to
antibiotics, to persistent organic pollutants, and then onward to your
electrolyte changes required to produce the gastric juices for the quantity
you’ve eaten. Muscle protein, though it may be, it’s a carrier of all kinds of
interesting artifacts, and when you start accepting ground beef, you even open
up the window to prion diseases, since other tissues, besides muscle, sneak
in.

Fat does have complications and side effects, now that we have a better
concept of the way transfats interact with our metabolism, when they remain
waxier and refuse to easily melt at body temperature, requiring more intensive
effort to burn off. This means fried foods and processed food that deliver
doses of transfat really do introduce a metabolic issue.

Food is complex, and refined sugar also adds problems. I don’t find sugar
addictive, but in high quantities, and when combined with these other gotchas,
sugar is definitely a serious contributor to all the obesity and diabetes we
see, for sure. Eat some extra donuts for a month to notice the difference.
Actually, _don’t_.

Caffeine, nicotine and alcohol are also complications, that seem to fly under
the cognitive radar in these discussions. And are actually probably the worst
offenders, in terms of seriously augmenting an unhealthy diet.

~~~
GordonS
> I don’t find sugar addictive

Try eliminating it from your diet and see if you still think the same!
Seriously, for a few days you will _crave_ carbs if you stop eating them
altogether.

> Red meat, I suspect, transmits all kinds of...horomones, to antibiotics, to
> persistent organic pollutants...

Surely you could say the same about non-red meats such as chicken, pork and
lamb?

> Red meat, I suspect, transmits all kinds of...persistent organic
> pollutants...

You could also argue this for just about any vegetable, legume, fruit or grain
crop too.

~~~
platelet
Carbs are a source of ordinary nutrition, so the cravings you experience
aren't a clue regarding addiction.

Body chemistry has essential needs. You can't just drop carbs (simple or
complex), feel a pang, and conflate as addiction.

And yeah, all meat transmits compounds besides protein. But.

Meat sourced from mammals is different. And genetic/evolutionary proximity
matters.

Pork, for sure, is controversial according to religious food customs for a
reason. Not just the perception of pigs as "filthy animals." Consider that
boar taint is a key factor in selecting how to butcher pigs for their meat.

Plants are extremely distant, and the evolutionary pathways that have lead to
biologically significant plants is on the other side of the predator/prey
wall.

Plants do not operate lipids in ways similar to animals, and oil solubility is
a key factor for how animal behavior and metabolism gets modified by
nutrition. From vitamins, to horomones, to blood/brain barrier crossing
agents.

~~~
keymone
Can you link sources to those claims?

For instance carbs are absolutely not essential [1], one can live healthy life
without a gram of carbohydrates. So I’m interested where are you getting your
information.

[1]
[https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/75/5/951/4689417](https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/75/5/951/4689417)

~~~
platelet
I don’t have a single link for you. Gee, looks like you win the internet.

Except, just try it. Try to exclude them from your diet, and see where you
wind up.

And at this point, we can see that there’s nothing to your argument except
pedantry. You use vague blanket statements “all” and “carbs” but link to a
specific article about refined carbohydrates only, which really doesn’t cover
the total scope of “all” carbohydrates.

Carbohydrates are a chemical class. You get carbs when you eat fruits and
vegetables. Those are carbs.

People who go vegan have to deal with managing their carb intake all the time,
and guess what? It _ain’t_ just because of bread, pasta, rice, whole grain,
flour and sugar. The sources of protein for a vegan diet often bring carbs
along for the ride. Legumes bring carbs to the table. Quinoa is really
popular, but includes a carbohydrate load, even though it’s a good source of
essential amino acids.

If carbohydrates _aren’t_ an essential aspect of metabolism, then can you
explain the role of glycolysis as an input to the Krebs cycle? Need a link for
that?

[https://google.com/search?q=glycolysis+krebs+cycle](https://google.com/search?q=glycolysis+krebs+cycle)

Have fun.

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dgudkov
>How nutrition lost out to physical activity

This is spot on. The thing is that to lose weight one just needs to eat less.
That's it. Although, for an average person it's very hard to eat less while
keeping consuming lots of sugary foods because sugar makes you hungry. But
once you remove added sugar from your diet eating less stops being a problem.

The problem is that the corporate world doesn't want you to eat less, because
they can't make money off you if you just eat less. They want you to keep
buying sugary stuff and exercise, because when you're trying to fight obesity
with exercise you need to buy running shoes, sportswear, gym bag, fitness
tracker, apps for fitness tracker, gym membership, bicycle, and so on. It's a
huge huge business. That's why you keep seeing ads for all those kinds of
things (and sugary foods too). You will never see an ad that would tell you
"just eat less" because no corporation would ever pay for it.

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devoply
Obesity is a disease of improper nutrition and nothing else. Physical activity
can not fix the problem with food. A country like China could easily control
obesity by banning all the companies producing obesity by selling obesity
causing food products. In the West this is outright difficult, but it's
trivial for a country like China. Ban soft drinks, ban fast food, ban junk
food. Obesity solved.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
There is plenty of Chinese food with lots of sugar in it, not to mention those
that are super carb heavy. It isn’t just the western versions of Chinese food
either, you could avoid processed and fast food and still have a problem.

~~~
slacka
I lived in mainland China for over 4 years. I lost weight switching from a
typical American diet to Chinese one. I don't claim to know the cause, but the
standard drink with meals was unsweetened tea, not soda. Yes, the meals were
carb heavy, but these carbs were primarily vegetables. Rice was always served
at the end, only to fill up, if you were still hungry.

From the hundreds of local restaurants to Foxconn's cafeteria, I am sure of a
few things. Compared to Americans, they eat a higher percent of vegetables and
fat and less meat. For example ordering a pork dish, might actually be chunks
of pork fat that Americans would never eat.

As far as sweet foods, I only observed that when I was in Shanghai. Most
Chinese do not like main courses to be sweetened.

~~~
sn41
Is the food oily? I am more or less a vegetarian, and have always wondered why
Chinese food is seemingly able to hold down obesity as compared to Indian food
(I'm Indian) - well, modern Indian food at least. I am not sure whether the
traditional Indian food of 70-80 years ago was as oily, fatty and unhealthy as
today's fare.

~~~
GordonS
Something I've observed in India is that (probably due to industry meddling),
there have been campaigns to get people to switch from ghee to vegetable and
palm oils, saying that ghee is unhealthy.

At the same time, obesity and diabetes rates have rocketed.

Of course, this is the only cause, but we had similar campaigns in the west
against butter and lard, steering people towards vegetable oil.

