
The Case Against Sugar - miiiiiike
https://aeon.co/essays/sugar-is-a-toxic-agent-that-creates-conditions-for-disease
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qubitcoder
Salient passage:

 _" Answers began coming with the very first publications out of Yalow and
Berson’s laboratory and were swiftly confirmed. As it turns out, virtually all
hormones work to mobilise fatty acids from fat cells so that they can then be
used for fuel. The one dominant exception to this fuel-mobilisation signalling
is insulin, which partitions how we use the fuels we consume: in particular,
it directs fat cells to store fat, while facilitating the uptake and oxidation
of glucose (blood sugar) by muscle and organ cells. In other words, when
insulin is secreted – primarily in response to the carbohydrates in our diet –
it directs our cells to burn carbohydrate as fuel and store fat. And so, the
one biological factor necessary to mobilise fat from storage and have it used
for fuel, as Yalow and Berson suggested in 1965, is ‘the negative stimulus of
insulin deficiency’. Put simply, when insulin levels in circulation are
elevated, we store fat and use glucose for fuel; as insulin levels drop, fat
is mobilized and we burn it instead."_

 _" Yalow and Berson themselves described insulin as a ‘lipogenic’, or fat-
forming hormone. This lipogenic signal must be turned off, or at least muted
significantly, for the fat cells to release their stored fat and for the body
to metabolise it for energy. While obesity researchers like to say that the
sine qua non of a weight reduction diet is calorie-restriction, this
alternative, biologically-based hypothesis would say that the sine qua non is
lowering insulin. The more we consume carbohydrates, though, and particularly
sugar, the higher insulin our levels will be."_

