
The bitter truth about fructose alarmism - chipsy
http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/
======
lionhearted
This author doesn't read his own studies or check his numbers. Here's the most
glaring example:

> One of Lustig’s opening assertions is that The Atkins diet and the Japanese
> diet share one thing in common: the absence of fructose. This is flat-out
> false because it implies that the Japanese don’t eat fruit. On the contrary,
> bananas, grapefruits, Mandarin oranges, apples, grapes, watermelons, pears,
> persimmons, peaches, and strawberries are significant staples of the
> Japanese diet [17].

Except the Japanese DON'T eat much fruit compared to Americans. It's in his
own citation:

Japan fruit consumption: 41.5 kg per person per year

USA fruit consumption: 126.5 kg per person per year

<http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/wrs0406/wrs0406h.pdf>

<http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.pdf>

Americans eat over 300% more fruit than Japanese. I don't know what a
"significant staple" is, but from my time in Tokyo, Osaka, the rest of Kansai,
and Hokkaido, Japanese have a heck of a lot less fructose than Americans do.
It's mostly rice, meat, fish, and vegetables, and the main desserts are only
semi-sweet like mochi and red bean.

~~~
dabent
I also didn't think the problem was fruit, but rather things like HFCS-
sweetened sodas. A banana or an apple has about 100 calories, but a 12 ounce
can of soda has about 150. I know people (I was one) that will drink 32 ounces
(about a liter) of soda just at lunch but won't have more than 2 pieces of
fruit a day.

There's also the fact that the apple or banana have fiber and other nutrients
the sodas are missing. The sodas (or often other HFCS-rich foods) don't have.

~~~
msluyter
Actually, a banana has about 200 calories, 23g sugars, and a fairly high
glycemic index:

[http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-
juices/1...](http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-
juices/1846/2)

That's why a lot of the paleo diet folks avoid them.

~~~
dabent
That's 1 cup, mashed. I looked up 1 medium banana:

<http://www.weightlossforall.com/calories-banana.htm>

Edit: To note that I still do see your point about why certain diets avoid
them. I think of bananas as the 3 Musketeers Bar of fruit. :-)

------
yanowitz
Very interesting article. I continue to be amazed at how primitive our
nutrition science is but I guess that's what happens when you combine a tough
problem with market distortions.

The tough problem: there are a million variables to control for, people's
environment (work, health, happiness, etc.) confounds everything, accurate
reporting is difficult, food quality varies (e.g., apple nutrients have
changed over time), etc.

The market distortions: huge subsidies and entrenched interests for factory
farming with a heavy emphasis on grains, cereals and legumes, particularly
wheat, corn, and soybeans.

I've found that substituting lots of fat and protein for carbohydrates while
emphasizing food quality (little processed foods) produces lots of satiety,
and improvement in physical performance, a better lipid profile and loss of
body fat. But YMMV.

~~~
matrix
The science of nutrition and biochemistry in general is anything but
primitive. Unfortunately though, there is probably no single field that has a
greater amount of psuedo-scientific nonsense published about it in the
mainstream media (not to mention crackpot blogs, books etc). Anyone can
publish a book or a blog and pretend to have expertise on the topic. For
example, I remember seeing one that was proudly emblazoned with the author's
name appended with "PhD". It was complete fluff. Turns out her PhD was in
English literature.

Like all sensationalist issues, the fructose thing is more nuanced than the
fruitcakes on either side would have you believe. But where's the fun in that?

I've been considering starting some sort of site for publishing the real truth
on this stuff, but I'm not sure how interesting it would be to other people.
The truth just isn't link-baity and sensationalist enough, y'know?

~~~
nixme
_> the fructose thing is more nuanced than the fruitcakes on either side would
have you believe_

Can you enlighten us on these nuances? By "fruitcakes" I assume you're
referring to Aragon and Lustig?

~~~
matrix
In terms of fruitcakes, I was thinking more of the people that bring a
political agenda or talk about "toxins" or what not.

Long story short: fructose is only problematic if you are consuming it without
dietary fiber (e.g. as fruit) for glycemic control, as well as all the other
modulating effects fiber has.

Fructose (and HFCS) sweetened foods are really just a sideshow to the the main
issue: people making bad nutrition and lifestyle choices over the long term,
e.g. drinking sodas every day. There's no easy, magic bullet that takes away
one's responsibility for making good choices.

Magically eliminating fructose or HFCS from our diets won't reverse the
obesity trend. It'll help a bit, of course, but ultimately humans will need to
find a way to adapt to over-abundance of temping, high-calorie foods.
Meanwhile, a modicum of education and self-discipline are the keys.

~~~
Goladus
The Lestig talk offers some fairly convincing arguments that what you say is
not the case. Fructose is inherently problematic. Fiber merely mitigates the
effects, which are still there and wouldn't have happened at all had you eaten
something without sugar at all.

Furthermore, while drinking sodas every day is perhaps a choice, what about
the example of walking down the bread aisle and finding that something like
95% of the varieties listed HFCS as an ingredient? It's not just that sodas
and juice drinks are ubiquitous, heavily-marketed, cheap, tasty, and designed
to maximize consumption and therefore profit through use of diuretics and
sodium and therefore people find themselves making the dietary choice to drink
them with meals instead of water, but also the fact that HFCS is used in an
enormous number of processed foods.

Bread, pizza dough, tomato sauce, cookies, candy bars, chocolate, yogurt,
sports drinks, salad dressing, BBQ sauce, chocolate milk... HFCS is everywhere
because it's cheap, because it makes food taste better, and because it doesn't
fill you up so people will consume (and therefore buy) more of it.

On the one hand, fats are more calorie-dense, but sugar doesn't fill you up
(and in my experience salt has a similar effect but I work out and sweat a lot
so that could be why). So the combination of sugar and fat is the killer
combination.

Try this experiment: for a single day, try to eat 4,000 calories of nothing
but a simple starchy food (like white rice) with some fat, like olive oil.
This is a low fiber, high calorie diet. My guess is that you'll feel
incredibly full after all the rice and oil. You may not even be able to reach
4,000 calories in 16 hours. You'll have to force yourself to eat by the end.

Then, a few days later after you've sent some fiber through your digestive
system to clear out any blockage you caused eating so much rice, try the same
thing with soda and cookies. Get a couple boxes of your favorite HFCS-
sweetened cookies and a couple of 2-liter bottles of your favorite soda or
better yet, juice drink. See how hard it is to reach 4,000 calories now. My
guess is that you'll have no trouble, although you may feel a bit ill by the
end of the day.

~~~
blueben
You have to applaud Coca Cola. Over a mere 70 years they have managed to teach
the entire planet to consume a dessert multiple times a day; for some people
multiple times in one meal. Imagine trying to convince the entire planet to
eat ice cream or chocolate cake with every meal. That is an impressive
manipulation of human behavior.

------
WilliamLP
> Taking a hard look at the data above, it appears that the rise in obesity is
> due in large part to an increase in caloric intake across the board, rather
> than an increase in carbohydrate in particular.

Ok, but the Calories in/out argument is a silly oversimplification. Pregnant
women gain weight because they consume more calories than they expend, but
this isn't the most interesting level of causation.

Let's say that one day I drink two cans of Coke in the morning, and measure
how I feel for the next few hours. The next day I eat 320 calories worth of
chicken breast. To say that an increase in caloric intake can be _caused_ by a
change in the kinds of foods consumed is not a contradiction.

The author of this rant either completely misses, or tries to skate around
this obvious point, as many do.

~~~
skushch
I think the author's 'rant' contains an answer to your post:

"I’m obviously not in favor of replacing anyone’s daily fluid intake with soft
drinks, but I can already see a number of straw man arguments headed my way.
This is because people have a tendency to think in either-or terms that
strictly involve extremes."

I think the main point of his post is that fructose is being demonized. He
points out that we're taking in more calories while spending less. If anything
is to be taken from the article is that moderation is the way.

------
richcollins
_aking a hard look at the data above, it appears that the rise in obesity is
due in large part to an increase in caloric intake across the board, rather
than an increase in carbohydrate in particular._

Doesn't Lustig propose that a change in the proportion of fructose to other
sugars in the diet causes a decrease in satiety, leading to more overall
caloric intake?

------
rue
Sort of tangentially to this (fairly good) article, I have noticed a number of
people recently somehow conflating all fructose with high-fructose corn syrup
and other refined variants. I am not sure if this is just symptomatic of
ignorance or a concerted effort of some kind.

~~~
pohl
Could you be more specific? The two are not without similarities in how they
are metabolized, so if we're to understand what you mean by "conflating" you
should mention the way in which they should not be combined/confused. Since
HFCS is a solution of fructose and glucose, there is overlap.

(edited to correct brain fart mentioned below)

~~~
araneae
There is no HFCS "molecule"- high fructose corn syrup is a solution containing
a certain percentage of fructose and glucose molecules, which are not attached
to each other.

You may be confusing it with sucrose (table sugar) which does consist of a
fructose and glucose molecule with a glycosidic linkage.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-fructose_corn_syrup>

~~~
pohl
I must remember to become fully awake before posting. Thank you. I refined my
question.

------
nkohari
I've done my best to understand the data, but with my limited understanding of
natural science, I trust the man with the M.D. and a focus in metabolism more
than the one with an MS in nutrition.

~~~
nixme
Really? Can't we evaluate these claims properly? Both sides here are citing
sources and starting a healthy debate. Why must we resort to choosing a side
based solely on authority? I always assumed the HN audience would never fall
back on that since we've seen success and intelligence where least expected.

~~~
nkohari
On the contrary, I think it makes a lot of sense to accept the opinion of
someone more educated on a topic than yourself. I'm a technologist, not a
nutritionist. Likewise, if a doctor thought he knew more about software than
me, he'd likely be mistaken.

~~~
nixme
If you know nothing about a topic, then yes, best to listen to someone that
does. But both individuals here are at least knowledgeable enough to debate
this without us automatically choosing a side. This isn't the case of a sales
director arguing with a senior programmer. It's a junior programmer taking on
a senior programmer.

 _> Likewise, if a doctor thought he knew more about software than me, he'd
likely be mistaken._

Usually, but I would hope if a Con Kolivas offered an opinion on your code,
you wouldn't brush him aside merely because he was a doctor :) Reminds me of
this thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=930117>

