
The Sugar Conspiracy - oska
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin
======
leonroy
Jack Lalanne (American fitness guru) stated "If man made it, don't eat it". I
recall reading that and scratching my head at the sheer number of food
products that encompassed. I thought it a rather presumptuous statement.

Five years later and after many books and articles on nutrition I now fully
agree with him. When I hit the grocery store I skip the middle aisles and head
straight for the fish and meat counter or the fresh fruit and veg section.

My only (dietary) vices are coffee and the odd glass of wine (both very much
man made).

I think that the human body has evolved to run on a certain fuel and of course
we adapt but it takes time. Grains and milk are relatively recent to our diet
(past 10000 years) so you will see some people who can and some who can't
digest them. Sugar however and all the other myriad man made products on store
shelves are even more recent and apart from as occasional treats should really
be avoided.

As an aside one incredibly beneficial thing people can do for their health is
exercise. The lymphatic system which helps rid the body of waste substances is
'pumped' by respiration and physical activity. If you want to eat that cupcake
or enjoy that cold glass of beer be sure to exercise it off. It really is
incredible how effective exercise can be at covering a multitude of dietary
sins!

~~~
torgoguys
>If man made it, don't eat it

That's way too simple. It's a kind of naturalistic fallacy as applied to food.

If you think your produce area is where you should be getting your calories
(not disagreeing), it fails the "if man made it, don't eat it" test
spectacularly. Basically everything you see there has been shaped by man. A
(stunning) example: one species of plant, brassica oleracea, has been
selectively (i.e., artificially) bred to produce a wide range of different
cultivars including, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, broccoli, kohlrabi, brussel
sprouts, and more. NONE of these produce items are "natural."

Getting back to the linked article a bit, if you think fructose is bad, you
should know it is very natural. Obviously it occurs in fruits and honey has
more fructose than refined sugar and about the same as high fructose corn
syrup.

(As a side note, I'm of the opinion we _should_ be engineering foods to make
them better for us. We as a species have been doing similar things to our food
for thousands of years.)

~~~
slacka
>If man made it, don't eat it

I think a better heuristic, is "Just eat what your great-grandma ate". Or
avoid the middle of the supermarket as much as possible.

Simply eating more fat and less sugar/carbs, I have lost 10+ pounds and feel
much better. These nutrition fads have done more harm than good. My mother
switched from butter to Crisco when I was a kid, then she banned salt from the
house, and bought (high sugare, low fat) snack wells for us. All based on
poor/pseudo science.

The diabetes and obesity are modern problems caused by a diet that our bodies
haven't evolved to handle.

~~~
hammock
_> I think a better heuristic, is "Just eat what your great-grandma ate"_

Unfortunately that's not always possible as we have selectively bred over time
for appearance, size and/or sugar content in our fruits, vegetables and even
meat at the expense of macro- and micronutrients.

We have also begun overly sanitizing our foods, pasteurizing everything and
adding antibiotics to the detriment out our gut microbiome.

In many cases the food our great grandmas ate doesn't exist anymore.

~~~
rwmj
My grandma (and probably my great grandma, I've no idea) grew most of the food
she ate.

------
Synaesthesia
Very interesting how people can all subscribe to an orthodoxy for so long,
ignoring evidence to the contrary.

Max Planck: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its
opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents
eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

~~~
PepeGomez
There is no evidence for what Lustig says. He produced one mediocre paper
after multiple attempts. That's it. It's not science. It's just an attempt to
distract from the real issue.

It started with pet food. Attempts at making plant based foods for dogs and
cats initially failed, becuase the animals didn't want to eat these unnatural
diets. But a solution was found: the so called "palatants". When they were
added to the food, animals ate it.

Naturally, somebody thought of using these in human food as well. It didn't
work as expected - it turned out they don't work by making the food tastier,
they work by disabling the satiety response. Once the palatants get into your
bloodstream, you won't feel satisfied no matter how much you eat until your
body can get rid of these these chemicals. You may feel that your stomach is
completely filled and stop eating, but you won't ever feel that you ate
enough.

Since adults would get suspicious if they got more hungry, it started with
child menus. The idea was the same as with pet food - if children eat a lot of
the food, their parents will buy it again.

Now we have at least two generations of people who believe it's perfectly
normal not to feel satisfied until their stomach can't hold any more food and
that staying not obese requires arduous discipline. Our perception of normal
weight has changed as well, for pets and human alike. Cats, when fed
unaldutered meat eat to stay very skinny, with body shape that many modern
guidelines show as "very thin" or "underweight". But many people today think
of them as naturally fatty animals.

Many of these chemicals are approved food aditives and are listed usually as
emuglators, flour conditioners or something similarly inconspicious.

~~~
hammock
Fascinated by your response, including the history. I'm assuming you are
referring to MSG and similar chemicals. What are your sources?

~~~
PepeGomez
I mean tetrasodium pyrophosphate and similar chemicals. But there may be many
more that can cause such effects.

~~~
traek
Do you have any sources for this? I'm looking for academic literature on the
effects of tetrasodium pyrophosphate on satiety, but I can't find anything.

------
asadkn
It's typical how most people really want to immediately buy into the simple
fixes and religiously believe them without knowing why it worked. Overweight?
Must be the fructose (recently) / carbs (a while back) / fats (further back).
Same old story. Somebody makes rounds in media and makes a lot of money after
publishing a book with something "new" \- a simple fix.

Fortunately we have people like Lyle McDonald, Alan Aragon, Guyenet out there
talking some sanity. Unfortunately, they never make it to mainstream media.

Some Resources:

[http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/index.php/free-
cont...](http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/index.php/free-content/free-
content/volume-1-issue-7-insulin-and-thinking-better/insulin-an-undeserved-
bad-reputation/)

[http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2016/01/testing-
insuli...](http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2016/01/testing-insulin-
model-response-to-dr.html)

[https://medium.com/@lylemcdonald/highly-processed-
carbohydra...](https://medium.com/@lylemcdonald/highly-processed-
carbohydrates-cause-more-insulin-secretion-calorie-for-calorie-than-any-
other-38f907ae75d1#.p38cx0qc2) (A comment by Lyle on the rhetoric posted by
Ludwig)

~~~
funkyy
Very few public, true fitness instructors and dietitians are following the
simplest rule ever - decrease calories to lose weight. This method is not that
popular, its to tricky since it requires for person to calculate foods, which
makes it unpopular for lazy. But it is absolutely the best method to lose
weight fast, decrease calorie intake and create shortage.

~~~
sirtastic
This doesn't always work. Many people, myself included can fail to lose weight
on a restricted calorie diet. I spent 12 months eating below 1200 while
working out religiously (4-6 days a week with 30sh mins of cardio followed by
45sh mins of weight lifting). In the beginning I lost weight and fast. At 5'9
I went from 240 down to 148 lbs in 7 months. At 148 I still had excess fat on
my body and no matter how hard I worked out it went nowhere. I was borderline
starving myself and everything I read said "it's simple calorie in vs out". It
became obvious to me that wasn't always true. It's frustrating to hear people
spew that when I'm weighing chicken breasts with 110% certainty of what my
caloric intake is vs my out and here I was, not losing a damn pound.

I wish I could say I know what was going on. I have theories as I spent months
of my life trying to turn the tables. I eventually gave up and just continued
to lift weights and eat normal. Now 4 years later I still have that fat I
couldn't lose but I'm a lot bigger (muscle). That fat hasn't gone anywhere and
in the 4 years I've yo-yo'd with different attempts to get rid of it. The fat
I have is not normal.

~~~
Goronmon
_This doesn 't always work. Many people, myself included can fail to lose
weight on a restricted calorie diet._

 _I spent 12 months eating below 1200 while working out religiously (4-6 days
a week with 30sh mins of cardio followed by 45sh mins of weight lifting). In
the beginning I lost weight and fast. At 5 '9 I went from 240 down to 148 lbs
in 7 months._

You just described an example showing that a restricted calorie diet can be
wildly successful. The former quote seems provably false using the latter.

Honestly, this is what I just read from your post.

 _I can 't lose weight on a restricted calorie diet. Here is an example of how
I lost a huge amount of weight on a restricted calorie diet._

~~~
sirtastic
Not saying it isn't effective, just only that it doesn't work in some cases.
It's a fallacy to say it's simply calories in vs out. As I said in my post, I
lost weight but then I stopped losing weight and still haven't lost a large
amount of weight using that method.

~~~
mordocai
I would think that if you've hit a plateau on weight loss within a health
weight range (which from the sounds of it, you are within a healthy weight
range) then you won. Maintain that, and don't worry about having a little
extra fat.

------
js2
Stephan Guyenet, obesity researcher and neurobiologist, critiques the
carbohydrate-insulin-obesity hypothesis put forward by Lustig, Taubes, et al.
He and Lustig exchange arguments here:

[http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2016/01/always-
hungry-...](http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2016/01/always-hungry-its-
probably-not-your.html)

[https://medium.com/@davidludwigmd/ludwig-responds-to-
whole-h...](https://medium.com/@davidludwigmd/ludwig-responds-to-whole-health-
source-article-93d8e1667477)

[http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2016/01/testing-
insuli...](http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2016/01/testing-insulin-
model-response-to-dr.html)

------
tomaskazemekas
One diet that reflects these findings and is tested personally is "5:2 fast
diet, proposed by M. Mosley. This method really is effective in reducing the
ill effects of modern food and lifestyle and is easy to turn into normal
weekly behavior pattern.
[https://thefastdiet.co.uk/](https://thefastdiet.co.uk/)

~~~
scott_s
That sounds like a typical fad diet. What differentiates it, and what evidence
do they have for their claims?

~~~
js2
The companion documentary (Eat, Fast, and Live Longer) is worth watching -
[https://vimeo.com/50912488](https://vimeo.com/50912488)

Personal note: I've been following this diet since Jan 1. I also run ~ 70
miles/week. I've run 3 of my best marathons this year and lost 5 stubborn lbs
(145 -> 140, I'm 5'8"). There are other styles of intermittent fasting. I'm
enjoying this way of eating.

Aside, a related BBC/Horizon documentary I saw years ago flipped the question
of obesity on its head and asked: Why Are Thin People Not Fat?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1hbPXooB1U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1hbPXooB1U)

------
Udik
Here is a more balanced and more scientific article about sugars and health:

[http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/is-sugar-
real...](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/is-sugar-really-toxic-
sifting-through-the-evidence/)

~~~
pitchka
Definitely. Lustig made numerous claims in his Bitter Truth talk that were
just incorrect.

Here are articles that are unbalanced but on the other end of spectrum (pro
sugar).

[http://anthonycolpo.com/sweet-stupidity-part-1-is-sugar-
real...](http://anthonycolpo.com/sweet-stupidity-part-1-is-sugar-really-as-
bad-as-alcohol-cocaine-heroin/)

[http://anthonycolpo.com/sweet-stupidity-part-2-the-bitter-
tr...](http://anthonycolpo.com/sweet-stupidity-part-2-the-bitter-truth-about-
robert-lustigs-anti-sugar-claims/)

It's interesting that in the USA the calorie consumption rose from 80s to 00s
from 3100 to 3600.

In the UK and Australia they eat less fructose but more calories.

Everyone keeps on getting fatter.

There's not a single food to blame. Any food can't be healthy or unhealthy.
Diets can be healthy or unhealthy. Thinking otherwise is a sign of unhealthy
relationship with food. Avoiding stuff because it is carcinogenic (processed
meat) or correlates with cancer (red meat) is ridiculous.

Eating large amounts every day (which is what most of the obese do) isn't?

I don't care if apples have cyanide or 60g of fructose will give me liver
disease. I won't eat 50 bananas a day, I won't eat 100 apples a day, I'll eat
agave syrup all over my pancakes and won't feel a thing. It's food. I enjoy
it. Having fructose in it, or animal products just means I can easily overdose
if I consume it every day but I won't.

------
fasteo
It is sad to see how we are going from fat phobia to carb phobia, repeating
the same mistakes 50 years later.

I have genetic metabolic disease and I have thought about this many times. My
conclusion is simple enough: Eat real food, ignore the macros, listen to your
body and adapt your food intake accordingly. Paul Jaminet's diet [1] is the
closest I have found to fit this idea.

[1] [http://perfecthealthdiet.com/](http://perfecthealthdiet.com/)

~~~
notthegov
What is real food?

I disagree strongly. Eating shouldn't make you tired. I could eat 2 1/3 pound
greasy cheeseburgers with toppings but if I skip the buns, I feel like I ate
nothing.

There is something legitimate to intermittent fasting, ketogenic diets,
avoiding refined carbs, avoiding bread etc.

I have a serious disease that is thought to prevented by ketogenic diets. And
I think there's an equal chance I got the disease from refined carbs as
anything else.

I also know many so-called experts in this field (MDs) and they know nothing;
and worse they do not want to know anything.

My conclusion is simple: just don't eat bread or drink any sugary drinks.

~~~
kdamken
If you don't mind me asking, what disease did you get?

~~~
fasteo
Mitochondrial myopathy. Simply put, I do not produce enough energy to keep my
body up and running.

There are many possible causes; in my case, it is a single large scale
deletion in my mitochondrial DNA.

Symptoms are varied. In my case: extremely weak eye muscles (I have both
ptosis and diplopia), intermittent fatigue, mild aerobic exercise intolerance
and hot intolerance.

From a scale of 1 to 10, being 10 the worst, I rate myself at 3. So, I am
doing fine. Watching what I eat, doing some exercise and controlling stress
made a big difference in my quality of life (going from 7 to 3)

~~~
ValentineC

        mild aerobic exercise intolerance
    

What happens when you perform aerobic exercises?

~~~
fasteo
Difficult to describe. Malaise is the closest word I can find to describe the
feeling.

------
Cshelton
Here is what worked for me to lose fat (weight), but not muscle.

It really is simple.

\- Reduce carbs/sugar intake to around ~100 grams/day, this varies slightly
per person. Just reducing bread/grain intake alone is a TON. Grains are turned
into glucose, same as sugar, it's effectively the same thing. This also means
getting rid of all sweats, processed food. They are just bad for you whether
you are overweight or not...don't do it. Occasional is fine.

\- Drink water. Often times when you are hungry, you're dehydrated. If you
drink soda or something else, do the "diet" version at least. Diet Coke,
Miller Lite, etc.

\- Portions. Most restaurants in the U.S. server portions that are way too
big. Eat half your plate, then wait 10 - 15 min while having a conversation
with others or whatever, do something else. Take your mind off food. I bet
after 15 min, you won't be that hungry anymore. That super tired feeling you
get after a big meal...yeah, you should never have that. That means you
overate.

\- Get your heart rate up for at least 10 min a day. Try to do an hour, but
sometimes that's not practical with limited time, etc. Even just doing jumping
jacks for 10 min will do the trick...Just do it. It's crazy how many people
will go a day...a week..or more without out ever getting their heart rate
above 100 bpm... That's terribly bad for you.

Forget all the fads or popular, trending stuff out there... They try to sell
you on quick fixes. Weight loss is not a quick fix. Instead of viewing it as
trying to lose weight, just look at it like trying to live a healthy life
style. Don't obsess checking the scale everyday or counting calories. Take a
picture of yourself in underwear once a week in the mirror. Every month, not
any smaller intervals, check your 4 pictures from that month and see how far
you've come. This should drive you more.

That's it, you'll be healthy in no time.

~~~
cname
Hasn't it been shown that artificial sweeteners can mess with your blood sugar
level and may be just as bad for you as sugar? It seems like it would be best
to wean yourself from the craving for sweets.

[http://www.webmd.com/diet/20140917/artificial-sweeteners-
blo...](http://www.webmd.com/diet/20140917/artificial-sweeteners-blood-sugar)

~~~
Cshelton
Yeah, there is a lot of different studies about artificial sweeteners, it's a
pretty controversial topic...

They probably aren't great for you, but I don't think it's near as bad as
consuming 40g of sugar/High fructose corn syrup per soda...

Ideally you stay away from both, but If you are going to drink a
soda/sweetened drink, go with the one with 0g sugar and 0g carbs...

Its too easy to intake an stupid amount of carbs and sugar from just
liquids...3 sodas in one day and boom...140g of carbs/sugar already...even
worse, their "empty carbs", which is to say, it provides you with no
nutritional energy/value.

Note: I'm not a dietician/nutritionist. Just someone who has used the above
methods and have had great results.

------
coldcode
When I was taking nutritional chemistry in the late 70's the idea that serum
cholesterol had little to do with consumed cholesterol was something our
professor repeated over and over again. The next 40 years I heard the opposite
over and over again. Now people are finally accepting this fact.

~~~
criddell
I think the _you are what you eat_ maxim is somewhat responsible for the
strange dietary beliefs held by many.

------
sjwright
[In response to a now-deleted comment]

It is still a fringe theory in the context of "mainstream" nutritional
science. It just happens to also be a theory that aligns surprisingly well
with evidence. This paradox is what makes the story increasingly interesting
to the community and media.

Whether or not the fundamentals of this line of argument turn out to be
ultimately correct, it shines a light on the way practical science can become
myopic.

~~~
leshow
except it doesn't align with evidence, unless you cherry pick. people have
been getting fatter as fructose consumption has declined, and the studies
Lustig & Taubes use to demonize sugar/fructose are done in rats that were fed
ungodly amounts of it.

the answer to why people are getting fatter isn't some evil sugar molecule;
it's that people are overconsuming food.

------
Phlow
"Look at a graph of postwar obesity rates and it becomes clear that something
changed after 1980. In the US, the line rises very gradually until, in the
early 1980s, it takes off like an aeroplane."

Not that I disagree with the premise of this article, but the graphs I can
find show that there is a steep increase in the late 70's, not after the
Dietary Guidelines were written in the early 80's.

~~~
jnbiche
> but the graphs I can find show that there is a steep increase in the late
> 70's, not after the Dietary Guidelines were written in the early 80's.

But still, the upward trend follows the cultural meme that "fat is bad" that
started propagating in the early 1970s. The dietary guidelines only formalized
that bit of "scientific wisdom".

(naturally, correlation does not equal causation, but it does often indicate a
phenomenon of interest, worthy of further investigation)

~~~
scholia
You are correct....

The McGovern committee (of the U.S. senate) published the first Dietary Goals
For The United States in 1977. This was supposed to reverse the epidemic of
heart disease.

McGovern rubber-stamped the prevailing views first made popular by Ancel Keys'
Seven Countries Study, published in 1970.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Countries_Study](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Countries_Study)

So the steep increase in starting in the late 70s is right on time....

------
henrik_w
I thought that "Why We Get Fat" was pretty interesting. It argues that sugar,
not fat, is the reason.

[http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-
About/dp/0307474259/](http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-
About/dp/0307474259/)

------
dantiberian
I think it's pretty likely that in 10-20 years, the sugar companies of today
will be seen in the same light as the tobacco companies of yesterday.

~~~
vixen99
There is no comparability at all. Smoking generates and tobacco contains -
known toxic agents. Sucrose (ordinary sugar but also corn syrup) is entirely
non-toxic, it being a di-saccharide containing glucose (essential for life
though where you get it from is another question) and fructose, found in
almost all fruits & adequately metabolized by the liver if provided in small
amounts. Too much is disastrous - that's agreed. But so is too much of any
food.

No one is forced to buy over-sweetened foods clearly marked with the contents
so why blame manufacturers for providing what people want? The food they sell
is not toxic but certainly the proportions consumed can be and frequently are.
Down to us not the manufacturer.

~~~
quickben
That's not true. If what you are saying was true, late stage diabetics
wouldn't lose their legs.

Sugar is toxic to nerves and your body has to heal after every spike.

Yes, it's usually down to us, just so many of 'us' are on the payroll of
various lobby groups so most of every popular internet forum is heavily
spinned instead of providing info.

Your post seems very biased.

------
teslabox
The article is pretty good, but neglects to mention that there are more types
of fatty acids than the saturated kind. Unsaturated fatty acids become more
unstable as the level of unsaturation increases. The so-called "essential"
fatty acids, the polyunsaturated oils, are the most unstable of all.

Soybean oil is useful as biodiesel, and not much else.

~~~
maxwelljoslyn
What is the significance of a fatty acid's being unstable?

~~~
nunb
They get oxidized more easily. Arterial plaque is oxidized fatty acids. Fatty
acids are essential to cell wall formation. Deductively, fatty acids which are
more susceptible to reactive oxidation species (aka free radicals) will lead
to more cell damage. It's an interesting topic and the nutritional science
(PUBMED) is very far away from the popular perception (ex Time magazine).

\-
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16757819](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16757819)
\-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T78cJv6gi88](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T78cJv6gi88)
\-
[http://oregonstate.edu/dept/biochem/hhmi/hhmiclasses/biochem...](http://oregonstate.edu/dept/biochem/hhmi/hhmiclasses/biochem/lectnoteskga/2kjan14lecturenotes.html)

------
tim333
>We no longer live in a world in which elites of accredited experts are able
to dominate conversations about complex or contested matters.

Yay, go internet. The public opinions of the elites on complex contested
matters often seem to degenerate into something like party politics.

------
chinathrow
"We replaced steak and sausages with pasta and rice, butter with margarine,
eggs with muesli. But we still grew fatter"

Check mueslis and the sugar most of them contains. It's _horrible_. I try
buying a no sugar muesli once in a while - within regular european
supermarkets, it's next to impossible!

~~~
leonroy
Really? I find it in the UK (Tesco) quite readily. Tastes extremely bland
though (like eating uncooked porridge oats) which might explain its
unpopularity.

~~~
ValentineC
Curious: how do you eat your muesli?

I eat my unsweetened muesli with yoghurt (like the Swiss do), and find it
quite tasty.

~~~
leonroy
Chopped dried apricots (if you can pick some up which are grown in Silicon
Valley - not kidding - you're in for a treat), almonds, walnuts and a dollop
of Greek yoghurt.

Don't overdo the dried fruit though since you'll end up defeating the point of
unsweetened muesli!

------
SeanDav
Looks like "Nutritional Science" has been an oxymoron for far too many
decades, perhaps it should have been replaced by "Closed Minded Egotist".

~~~
sjwright
Part of the problem is that doing good nutritional science is difficult and
expensive, and there's not much grant money or enthusiasm for rigorously
testing what we naively assume are the basics.

~~~
zimpenfish
An example I read recently -
[http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2016/04/04/cet...](http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2016/04/04/cetp-
finally-heads-to-the-trash-heap)

"But that brings up a third possibility, that lipidology is complex enough to
have fooled us completely, and that HDL and LDL are not, in fact, good markers
at all. [...] Several large companies have poured hundreds of millions of
dollars apiece down the drain in finding this out for us."

------
nxzero
"But instead of becoming healthier, [America] grew fatter and sicker."

Complex topic, but this sentence to me was the most interesting from the
story; in part, because of how much focus is put on solving problems that do
not harm nearly as many Americans being over weight & unhealthy.

It be curious to know if this topic has even come up once in America's
election.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Overweight and unhealthy are very different things.

There is never been a scientific study that showed being overweight (not
obese) causes health problems. And the opposite causality (weight gain
resulting from unrelated health problems) is incredibly common.

Julie Guthman's book "Weighing In" goes into detail.

~~~
nxzero
Interesting any other suggested source of info on nutrition?

------
Mc_Big_G
Only hacker news could bikeshed over the definition of man-made food.

------
simook
Sugar free for almost two years now and I avoid it like the plague. Really
glad to see more and more articles like these.

All the naysayers should continue to eat sugar, and let nature do it's
"thing".

------
at-fates-hands
_" Nobody could have predicted, it is said, how the food manufacturers would
respond to the injunction against fat – selling us low-fat yoghurts bulked up
with sugar, and cakes infused with liver-corroding transfats."_

It's interesting the author notes trans-fats as a by product of the injuction
against fat, which couldn't be further from the truth.

Trans-fat has been around since the 1900's and was used widely as a substitute
for butter when it was in short supply during WWII. Remember Crisco? Mom's in
the 1970's used it for everything, including baking and cooking. It wasn't
until the 1990's that the FDA finally put warnings out regarding partially
hydrogenated oil.

The fact is, trans fats had been around a LONG time before before the
government decided to start saying that it was bad for your health. Hell, it
took them another decade before they made the recommendation to stop using
trans fats after the 1980 guidelines came out.

------
heisenbit
Throwing two things in a bucket and information is lost. This makes the topic
so complex everyone talks about carbs but almost no one talks about that
fructose and glucose are very different in very significant ways:

1) Natural prevalence: Glucose is more common 2) Digestion: Glucose is
transported by different mechanisms from the gut to the bloodstream. The
mechanisms for fructose are in some people significantly weaker 3) Regulation
in the body: Glucose is regulated by insulin and handled by all cells.
Fructose is left to the liver and contributes to blood triglycerides.

If intake, processing, regulation and resting places are different should
there not always be two different discussions?

------
minikites
> Eventually, he tracked down a copy after submitting a request to his
> university library.

Unrelated to nutrition, but libraries and inter-library lending can track down
all sorts of things and your taxes already pay for this service, so take
advantage of it.

------
minikites
> Despite requests, he cited no examples of her unprofessional behaviour. The
> vitriol poured over Teicholz is rarely dispensed to Gary Taubes, though they
> make fundamentally similar arguments.

I wonder why more women don't want to go into science.

~~~
tashi
Yes, that made me sad too. As the father of a girl, I'm often discouraged when
I see how angry some men get when women (and only women) disagree with them,
regardless of tone or substance.

------
blubb-fish
30 years ago people had to be proactive and smart enough to gain information.
Now people have to be proactive and smart enough to distinguish between sound
and unfounded (aka bullshit) information.

From that point of view not that much changed really.

~~~
tunap
No real difference between a "Dark Age" where info is cloistered for the few
and a blindingly "Light Age" where the signal is buried in noise of
conflicting interests.

The beauty of this puzzle for most people can be solved with a modicum of
info, simple maths and listening to their body. Treating indigestion,
constipation and other irritants with magic pills only masks the symptoms of
bigger problems, most of which can be cured by diet & physical activity. Of
course, as always, YMMV.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Yes there is. People use can and do use networks of trust to navigate the
latter. It's messy, but it works to an extent. In the former you have no such
option.

As a species we're becoming more knowledgable at a _staggering pace_ right
now. If you think the non-academic world is not benefitting from having access
to the Internet you are crazy.

~~~
tunap
I concur on the potential, quite staggering infos. However, the key word here
is "can". It is very interesting to me to monitor progress of the young
nerdlings I cross paths with regularly. There is hope, but there is also a
shit-ton of distractions and general malaise. Where human nature + freedom of
will are concerned, the difference is, again, "can". For better or worse the
die is cast. To say nothing else, the digital renaissance makes for very
interesting times.

edit: typos & clarity

------
st4ck3r
It will take a solid 5 years minimum for the 'main stream dietitians' to start
believing this and promoting it. My mom with all the information I have
shared, still refuses to give up milk and thinks I may be reading too much
into a 'FAD DIET' to say things like milk can be bad for health. Either she is
too entrenched/doesn't care or I am not providing enough evidence or need to
provide an alternative way of making her switch.

~~~
exhilaration
The article agrees with your mom:

 _We replaced steak and sausages with pasta and rice, butter with margarine
and vegetable oils, eggs with muesli, and milk with low-fat milk or orange
juice. But instead of becoming healthier, we grew fatter and sicker._

~~~
maskull
Vegetable oils, having vegetable in the name, sound healthy but are like the
HFCS of the oil world. They are cheap, heavily processed, and prone to
rancidification.

------
basicplus2
the healthy diet..

lots of vegetables, fatty meats, rice for carbs, and no addded sugars, and
nothing you see in bakeries ( ie no breads etc) and virtually no pasta.

~~~
CuriouslyC
Sorry but you can't proclaim one healthy diet for everyone; people with
different genes, activity levels and gut microbiomes will respond differently
to different foods.

That being said, even your simplified recommendations are wrong. A ton of
research exists linking saturated fat to systemic inflammation and a worsening
of insulin sensitivity in pre-diabetic populations. Rice is fairly bad carb
source in terms of nutrients/calorie (not to mention arsenic contamination in
American rice) - the only thing it has going for it is it is hypo-allergenic.
Whole wheat/multigrain sourdough bread is actually a really good carb source.
Additionally, there are premium pastas like Barilla protein plus that are good
as well.

------
BBL
Mexico successfully increased their tax on sugary beverages, and companies
threw relatively few hissy fits. I think a large part of the country's
willingness to shoulder that tax, and the lack of push back from industry,
came about as a result of positive leadership from Mexico's president at that
time and the recognition that diabetes was becoming an epidemic.

------
talles
I'm still waiting for a prominent figure in the nutrition world to start the
debate about intermittent fasting just as Lustig is doing with sugar.

Many nutritionists are prescribing the exact opposite of it: avoid fasting for
more than very few hours. Heck, my coworker have a timer that fires every 2
hours to remind him to eat something.

~~~
Someone1234
In fairness to nutritionists, intermittent fasting is really bleeding edge
stuff. There have been some clinical research that shows it may be effective
(in particular against pre-diabetes) but more research could be done on this,
and plus it would need to filter down out of the scientific sphere.

Nutritionists get attacked both for jumping on "trendy" new ideas and for
being too conservative. Really is no winning. Someone is going to criticise.

Plus much of the advice people read doesn't come from anyone qualified, even
the term "nutritionist" has different meanings in different places and
requires literally no qualifications at all in some jurisdictions (they're
essentially "alternative medicine" practitioners).

Dietitians often require at least SOME professional training and
certification. That's who a doctor will refer you to, rather than a
nutritionist.

------
LCDninja
A friend watched "That Sugar Film" and it had a profound effect - I'm told
that it's very difficult to avoid sugar these days in processed food
(especially in fat-free products). I was blown away to learn that even low fat
milk from the supermarket contains sugar.

~~~
coredog64
The lactose that's a component of milk, or added sucrose/HFCS?

As I understand it, food manufacturers are going away from sugar a little.
Sucralose provides a similar sweetness at no additional calories and with a
longer shelf life.

~~~
tremon
Which is still the wrong way to go, I feel. We're now replacing the (newly
introduced) refined sugars with even newer artificial sweeteners. I really
don't look forward to hearing about them in another 40 years.

Stop sweetening. Period. There's a lot more to flavour than just sweet, and
the sooner we can revive our taste for other flavours, the better our children
will be.

~~~
epalmer
I agree we don't need sweet food. I gave up carbs and everything tastes
better. I don't use artificial sweeteners at all. Of course low carb may turn
out to be harmful. Who knows. I feel better =, have lost some weight and my
blood sugar and a1c is in the great range.

------
estambolieva16
Some of you have criticized governments here, and this is why small tech
startups come to offer help. Lustig or not, the time for us to collect all
useful nutrition information, tone it down so everyone can read and understand
it, and give it to the population. Then, each individual can make this own
nutrition choices - very much like smoking cigarettes and knowing the dangers
this habit can pose to the long-term health.

Take the European Sugarwise for instance:
[https://www.facebook.com/aboutsugarwise/](https://www.facebook.com/aboutsugarwise/).
Powered by a handful of social entrepreneurs, Sugarwise is a mobile
application to count nutrient intake and provide diet alternations when
nutrient deficiencies are detected. The idea started with raising awareness
about added sugar and exposing it in foods, and grew to cover a full range of
nutrients and minerals. The bests part of it is that it is one of many great
social projects that shape our future.

------
csours
Sugar: The Bitter Truth Video
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM)
(as I did not see it linked)

------
leshow
Sugar is not to be demonized, there is an overwhelming amount of research
pointing to overconsumption as the culprit in ill health affects normally
associated with sugar.

------
tempodox
Had Yudkin posted HN comments, he would have learned quickly that telling the
truth is not only profoundly unpopular, but actively being penalized.

------
zaruvi
I'll just leave this here...
[http://nutritionfacts.org](http://nutritionfacts.org)

------
steaminghacker
big up the sugar tax! demonise sugar so we can tax it like tobacco...

------
guard-of-terra
Isn't it, like, obvious that excessive sugar is bad for you?

It tastes good, and you consume a lot of it. Kind of easy to make an
inference. Doesn't require any research.

I was taugt from my childhood that excessive sugar leads to obesity and
diabetes. Not that I cut down its consumption by a lot :), but at least I was
aware, as everybody else around me.

Maybe it's because we're all hypochondriacs here so we assume that anything is
bad for you unless proven otherwise.

------
joesmo
My take on this article is that nutrition science is not science, no one knows
what the fuck they're talking about, and we're basically still in the 1920's
with absolutely no real nutritional information or system (usually science in
our society) to get there. Having lost someone very dear to me to
"cholesterol" and knowing it was a lie at the time, let alone now, this makes
me fuming angry. But I live in the US, where the primary driving factor for
such misinformation is continuing to profit off of people's misery, so it's
hardly surprising that profit has completely kicked science out of one of its
most important subjects. Maybe when we stop letting companies profit off of
misery and pain, we'll learn something, but I doubt that will ever happen.

~~~
acchow
I wonder if we will someday discover that everybody's bodies are dramatically
unique and require their own diet to maintain health - i.e. some people can't
handle much sugar, some people can't handle much cholesterol, some saturated
fat, etc.

------
tkyjonathan
I still dont agree that sugar is the problem. Lustig himself seems to have not
figured out what the secret is to health and weightloss as he is obese to
morbidly obese.

Saturated fats still do cause heart disease, strokes, alzheimers.. anything
where blood is blocked or doesnt reach the organ it needs to.

If anything, processed sugars like HFCS which is extracted from corn by a
chemical enzyme process, could be the cause. But the problem to me is when
people think chocolate bar, cake, pizza or milk shake.. these are food items
with 75% calories from fat. So if you exclude high fat items and greatly
reduce heavily processed sugar foods, you will not have the issues we are
facing today.

~~~
thomaspurchas
The irony of you starting your rebuttal with an ad hominem attack is pretty
amusing.

Expecially in reponse to an article that talks at length about others in
nutritional science using ad hominem attacks as a primary form of defence
against dissident arguments.

~~~
tkyjonathan
It may seem like an attack, but you can also consider it fair comment as he is
an expert tell us that sugar causes weight gain, when he himself is obese for
many years now. How can you both be an expert on weightloss and obese at the
same time?

~~~
omurphyevans
You're confusing knowledge and application of that knowledge in a personal
situation.

A cosmologist may know all about the orbit of the planets but still say 'The
sun rose this morning'.

