
Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes - inertial
https://aeon.co/essays/sugar-is-a-toxic-agent-that-creates-conditions-for-disease?ref=
======
kichuku
I would like to share an anecdote. In March 2016, I was weighing 96 kilograms
(211.64 pounds). I made just one change during that time which is to stop
having anything with sugar. I continued to take other natural sweeteners like
jaggery and honey. The rest of my diet remained the same and my activity level
remained the same ( I work in IT as a network engineer in a desk job)

In October 2016, I was weighing 72 kilos (158.73 pounds). I am still
maintaining that same weight between 70 to 72 kilos since then. Incase if it
is relevant, I am a 29 year old guy with a height of 172 cm (5 feet 7 inches).

Along with that, I got several other benefits such as being more energetic,
not feeling sleepy all the time, general improvement in mood etc.

All this just with stopping of sugar and nothing else changed.

I can share even more side benefits which I got, but it will seem more
unbelievable because I have observed that the general population is still
unaware of the extremely harmful effects of sugar.

EDIT: I had typed October 2017 when I had intended to type October 2016. It
was just 7 months.

~~~
analog31
Oddly enough, I can share an anecdote too. After a health scare, I decided to
change my diet. I didn't think that I was self disciplined enough to count
calories, so I arbitrarily eliminated certain things from my diet, most
notably butter.

My exercise didn't change much: Cycling to work every day. I got a new bike,
but it didn't make me go that much faster.

Within a few months, I went from 175 to 150 pounds (about 79 to 68 kg), and
have kept it off.

Now, this goes against the current "ketogenic" hypothesis, and is actually
kind of puzzling, but I realize that butter makes things tasty, and I was just
eating a lot less food overall because it was less pleasant. So it probably
was a reduction in carbs.

It took more than a year before I could enjoy a piece of toast without
anything on it.

~~~
GordonS
If butter is the only thing you removed from your diet, you must have been
eating an incredible amount of it?!

~~~
y4mi
No, butter makes the other stuff more delicious, making you eat just a little
more each time.

~~~
tslug
I find a great substitute is olive oil where I'd use butter for non-cooking
(eg. instead of butter on pasta or instead of butter on bread). It's not quite
as tasty but still a huge improvement over dry, and it's healthier.

For cooking, I understand olive oil is unhealthy (I think you create
carcinogens as a side-effect), as are many other oils, but that coconut oil
doesn't do this because of its different melting temperature.

~~~
projektir
> For cooking, I understand olive oil is unhealthy (I think you create
> carcinogens as a side-effect), as are many other oils, but that coconut oil
> doesn't do this because of its different melting temperature.

I believe the situation with oil is a bit more complicated than that, and
you're generally fine with olive oil unless you make it smoke, which is fairly
non-trivial to do, despite its low smoking point. There seems to be some
debate on the topic: [http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/03/cooking-with-olive-
oil-fa...](http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/03/cooking-with-olive-oil-faq-
safety-flavor.html)

Coconut oil in particular actually has a low smoking point. If you want to be
safe, you want Avocado oil.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_point)

------
jnordwick
The recent demonization of sugar substitutes hasn't helped either. The problem
with studies that link them to weight gain is that they confuse correlation
and caution then make some wild unsubstantiated stab at causation by guessing
that maybe they cause insulin issues. I went looking for information on that,
and found and excellent article by a diabetic site summarizing the evidence
and treating each substitute as its own compound. The bulk is the data is that
they have no correlation (there is some in vitro evidence for a couple of
lesser used sweeteners but under very contrived circumstances). As long as we
deny the existence of usable substitutes, we are making this harder on
ourselves.

[https://www.marksdailyapple.com/artificial-sweeteners-
insuli...](https://www.marksdailyapple.com/artificial-sweeteners-insulin/)

~~~
mike_o
"The Obesity Code" by Jason Fung goes into all the issues from the article in
more detail. He references studies that seem to prove sugar substitutes
_cause_ weight gain rather than correlate with weight gain: Sucralose raises
insulin by 20 percent, despite the fact that it contains no calories and no
sugar. This insulin-raising effect has also been shown for other artificial
sweeteners, including the “natural” sweetener stevia. Despite having a minimal
effect on blood sugars, both aspartame and stevia raised insulin levels higher
even than table sugar.

Fung, Jason. The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss (p. 172).

------
ruminasean
I've been on a ketogenic (very low carb, no sugar) diet for a little over a
year. At the beginning of the diet, I started eating MORE than I used to, and
tracking calories religiously, including weighing my food. I never miss a meal
now and eat breakfast every day. The biggest thing I cut out was sugar.

In that time, I lost 45 lbs, going from 210 to 165. I didn't exercise or do
anything else. That weight came off in about 3 months.

I am now commuting 11mi by bicycle most days, I feel better than I ever have.
I fit perfectly into a few things I owned in HS (I'm in my 40s and was a
skinny kid).

Sugar is the worst.

------
dlwdlw
Fad diets like keto offer something very important, a model of nutrition.
Currently heuristic based eating like "natural" or "non-processed" work, but
the knowledge doesn't compound and is brittle. In eastern cultures especially
there is a huge body of heuristics for eating. In Chinese culture there is a
concept of hot/cold foods and despite it not being accepted in the west, it
still has predictive ability above chance.

The end goal I would like to see is healthy off the shelf long lasting
processed food that tastes great. It runs contrarian to "eat local and
natural, big food is evil" but it solves a huge problem.

Of course on the way imperfect models will yield bad results and heuristics
are all we have. When doctors refused to wash their hands because they didn't
know germ theory despite the massive heuristic evidence, people needlessly
died.

~~~
aaron-lebo
I tried keto for a very short time, found it difficult to meet such dietary
restrictions. Not gonna be shocked if we find out in 10 years that eating keto
is actually horrible for your cholesterol or something, and then it's gonna be
too late for the early adopters. As an anecdote, I noticed some people
advocating that diet literally eat bacon and steak all the time and justify
it. They're probably gonna have major health problems one day because it's not
actually a good rule, it's just a rule that sounds good and tastes delicious.

Most of our popular models of diet are basically unscientific quackery. Maybe
they are bad models? You are right of course in simply having a set of rules
to follow seems to help.

~~~
Fnoord
Not many people can afford 2000 calories of steak every day. Result from
anecdotal evidence: "eating steak causes health loss."

> Most of our popular models of diet are basically unscientific quackery.

The most conventional holds up: the one that consuming too many calories
causes one to gain weight, and consuming not enough calories causes one to
lose weight.

If I'd go with what's popular on my gf's FB, I'd end up believing vegan diet
is the panacea. We're living in our bubbles. Your mistake in thinking is the
assumption that diets like keto and atkins are popular. They're not popular.
They're just hypes in certain circles like silicon valley.

Another thing you'll find is that there are government (based on science)
recommended daily intake on things like vitamin D, iron, vitamin B12, etc etc
and with a keto diet or high carb diet or whatever diet this may be difficult
to reach. Although that's not directly related to weight, it is related to
health.

~~~
swsieber
> They're just hypes in certain circles like silicon valley.

Which is probably one of the most widely spread culture on the internet ( I
think ), by virtue of being highly tuned into tech.

In this day and age, minority opinions greatly magnify themselves to seem like
they are a) common and b) widely accepted.

Diets are no exception, some more than others.

------
mncharity
_How Big Business Got Brazil Hooked on Junk Food_ [1]. "As their growth slows
in the wealthiest countries, multinational food companies like Nestlé, PepsiCo
and General Mills have been aggressively expanding their presence in
developing nations, unleashing a marketing juggernaut that is upending
traditional diets from Brazil to Ghana to India." "a growing number of people
are both overweight and undernourished." "The diet is killing us." Nestlé: "We
didn’t expect what the impact would be".

[1]
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/16/health/brazil...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/16/health/brazil-
obesity-nestle.html) , about: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/17/insider/as-
global-obesity...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/17/insider/as-global-
obesity-rises-teasing-apart-its-causes-grows-harder.html)

~~~
grecy
I have been through countless dirt-street towns from Guatemala to Mali where
the local store has a few moldy potatoes, coke and Doritos.

All the kids are eating the coke and Doritos as a meal, and of course there is
nobody telling them not to, or that they should be brushing their teeth or
anything like that. It's a massive, massive disaster.

------
sn9
Sugar's role in diabetes seems likely to be true, but to say that CICO is
false and a mutually exclusive explanation compared to the way in which
insulin affects one's metabolism is empirically false [0].

Taubes would be hard pressed to explain how you could lose weight on a diet of
Twinkies or how those subsisting on high carb, low fat, low protein diets that
fail to meet their caloric needs in famine-afflicted regions remain thin.

The way insulin works and the way the body requires a caloric surplus to gain
weight are not remotely mutually exclusive ideas and to suggest otherwise
requires cherry-picking the literature in a way that's scientifically
irresponsible.

[0] [https://examine.com/nutrition/what-should-i-eat-for-
weight-l...](https://examine.com/nutrition/what-should-i-eat-for-weight-loss/)

~~~
jm2721
CICO is not 'false', per se, but it's fundamentally misleading and
tautological. Yes, people will lose weight on a calorie restricted diet of
just twinkies. However, their bodies metabolic rate will decrease gradually to
the point where continuing to maintain a caloric deficit will be unsustainable
(i.e. a 500 calorie deficit if your basal metabolic rate is only 750 or 1000),
at which point they'll stop losing weight, but still be 'skinny fat'. They'll
also cause potentially irreparable harm to their liver and pancreas, and if
they do manage to sustain it for longer periods, be on the express track for
diabetes and heart disease. The difference between eating equivalent calories
of twinkies or a salad is that one is a toxic substance and the other isn't.
In the same vein, as another poster mentioned above, you can say that a
milligram is a milligram, but a milligram of cyanide will kill you while a
milligram of water is harmless. _That 's_ why more and more people are
challenging CICO; it gives you the false sense that replacing meat and
vegetables with coke and doritos is harmless as long as they're equivalent
calories.

Nobody is suggesting that CICO and the insulin theory are mutually exclusive;
what the author is saying is that CICO is a profoundly unhelpful statement for
people looking to lose weight, improve their health, or reverse diabetes/heart
disease.

> Taubes would be hard pressed to explain how those subsisting on high carb,
> low fat, low protein diets that fail to meet their caloric needs in famine-
> afflicted regions remain thin.

Thin doesn't mean healthy. We're talking about disease, not necessarily
weight, and you can have metabolic syndrome even if you're considered 'thin'.
Most people who are thin with a poor diet have visceral fat (fat around the
organs) which is far worse than subcutaneous fat (as a risk factor).

~~~
sn9
If your BMR is 750-1000, you're likely a female shorter than 5' and/or
weighing less than 100 lbs. At that point, you are likely severely underweight
and probably shouldn't be trying to lose weight.

I'm not denying that there are other reasons to eat a diet with greater
nutritional density, but trying to convince people that CICO is _wrong_ is far
more harmful than trying to convey that it is literally the most important
factor in trying to modify your weight.

If you want to make changes in your life, you need to know the right things to
measure, and your caloric intake relative to how your weight changes is the
single most important factor for people trying to lose weight. If you're not
even doing that, it's unlikely you'll succeed, as millions of people who
struggle with their weight will understand.

Once you've convinced people of the value of that, it then becomes more
productive to go into the value of high protein intake and strength training
to further improve body composition, the importance of eating a diet centered
around fruits and vegetables, etc.

For people that are severely overweight, getting their weight down will have
the highest impact on their health.

>Nobody is suggesting that CICO and the insulin theory are mutually exclusive;

Taubes literally argued this in the paragraph where he quoted the biochemistry
text.

------
mrmr22
Here's a study showing Metabolic and behavioral effects of a high-sucrose diet
during weight loss:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9094871](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9094871)
It shows when kcals are equated,there is no difference in fat loss in high vs
low sugar intake. I find Layne Norton a good resource for science related
information about nutrition. I will say he is an outspoken critic of Taubes.
Here is one of Layne's articles on sugar with references:
[https://www.bodybuilding.com/content/the-science-of-sugar-
an...](https://www.bodybuilding.com/content/the-science-of-sugar-and-fat-
loss.html)

------
retreatguru
This about sums it up: "A far more parsimonious hypothesis is that the same
thing that makes our fat cells fat makes us fat: ‘high blood glucose’ and
concomitant elevated levels of insulin and the insulin resistance itself, both
caused by the carbohydrate content of our diets. Insulin is secreted in
response to rising blood sugar, and rising blood sugar is a response to a
carbohydrate-rich meal. Sugar is implicated, in particular, because its
chemical structure includes a large proportion of the carbohydrate fructose,
and fructose is preferentially metabolised in the liver. As such, it is a
prime suspect for the fat accumulation in liver cells that is hypothesised to
be the trigger of insulin resistance itself."

------
vixen99
Short take: this is adapted from ‘The Case Against Sugar’ by Gary Taubes, a
science writer who's been a long-standing campaigner against dietary
carbohydratesa and sugar'.

~~~
lokerfoi
Is he bashing vegetables and fruits? The average US citizen does not eat the
recommended minimum amount for fiber. Is he bashing the 3500kcal diet of
average US citizen or is he purposefully demonizing a single macronutrient
group?

~~~
sliverstorm
If you read his writings you'll quickly understand he's chiefly against
refined carbohydrates.

Fruit and vegetables contain carbohydrates, but their impact is completely
different from refined carbs.

~~~
Gibbon1
What I get out of it is, the problem with refined carbs is both how fast it
gets absorbed in you gut/stomach thus spiking your blood sugar and the sheer
amount you can eat. I think those two play off each other. With unprocessed
vegetables generally you get a lot of bulk fiber and water along with the
carbs. If your gut is full of fiber you tend to not be hungry. If it's mostly
empty then you tend to be hungry.

Also one thing I've read more recently is the gut has it's own nervous system
and hormonal signaling. It's high;y away of what is going on in it's world.
However mostly that information isn't available to your brain. But what it can
do is control your feeding behavior. If your gut is full and busing extracting
nutrients, then it signals your brain to stop feeding. Ever wonder why if you
eat a good meal you can got for hours without wanting to eat anything? That's
why.

------
Nomentatus
The largest hormonal change we experience isn't puberty - it's night, under
the aegis of the master hormone melatonin. Almost every hormone changes.

I was overweight and had an appetite out of control a couple decades ago. For
other health reasons, I adopted a natural night (real dark, can't see you hand
in front of your face) and exactly the same lights on and lights off time. My
extra weight vanished. My appetite didn't just lower, it changed away from
salt fat and sugar (exactly what you want when starving) towards veggies and
salads.

(Ten hour nights recommended as your sleep will bifurcate.)

Recommended. Nature ain't all wrong, it turns out.

~~~
aaron-lebo
This sounds very wooey. Do you have anything to show this isn't the result of
you wanting to change, changing habits, and your excitement at attempting
change carrying through to produce some kind of placebo effect?

I get similarly suspicious when people talk about how going on keto radically
changed how they felt. Maybe it is true, but in an sea of anecdotes, it's
really hard to figure out what is real. Do you notice how almost all of these
turn into "this is how nature actually works"? That similar belief has led
people to not get cancer treatments and then die horribly, so there's gotta be
more than "this is how nature works".

Congrats on your weight loss, regardless.

~~~
floatingatoll
There's no way to demonstrate that as one individual, full stop. The burden of
proof you require to consider whether a valuable benefit could potentially be
derived is unacquirable.

A more interesting test is to measure the difficulty of trying a certain
anecdote yourself. How easily can you 'black out' your bedroom and sit, lay,
or sleep in it for a 10 hour window at night for 30 days in a row?

If you can do such a test easily, and you are invested in seeing a certain
change that you think may result from it, then it does you no material harm to
try it. Worst case scenario, you lose sleep for a few days and abort the
experiment. Best case scenario, it has a positive impact. The results could be
anywhere between those two endpoints.

So, that makes this a 'safe' test to apply to your own personal body system,
which is not necessarily applicable to any others.

Anecdotes that require you to alter what you ingest (food, water, supplements,
medicines etc) are much riskier, yet people constantly try these out endlessly
under the rubric of "diets" without a second thought for the potential of
months of damage to their gut biome, muscle mass, hormone levels, and so on.
It's been demonstrated by a vast array of people that it's relatively safe to
cut out all the sugar from your diet, but you have to make sure you don't let
your blood sugar levels fall too low in the process.

Anecdotes that require you to alter your body (e.g. stomach stapling) are even
riskier than those, as we have very little experience in this space compared
to diets or other non-consumption non-modification approaches.

You are absolutely correct to be suspicious, but consider also the level of
suspicion appropriate for the context. "Try blackout curtains for a month at
night and charge your phone face down" is a far lower bar to be 'worth a shot'
than "Remove all carbs from your diet". And if you see others failing to take
this into account, remind them of the inherent level of risk in what they're
considering. It's not always about being right or wrong, but instead about
e.g. "how much harm could come to me if I try keto diet?".

EDIT: There's very much a personal overtone to these risk assessments as well.
My personal mental stability hinges critically on getting enough sleep, so I
am unusually wary of anything that messes with sleep, because I need mental
stability far more than I need the benefits such an experiment may or may not
produce for me.

EDIT: Harness the placebo effect! Believe that what you're trying _could_ help
when you try it. If you're doubtful and pessimistic and cynical about
something you're trying, be especially careful to focus every day on _why_
you're trying it. Doing so makes it more likely that the placebo effect will
enhance your results, and less likely that the nocebo effect will diminish
them. This relates directly to a lot of "woo-woo" thinking, but apply my logic
above. What's the level of risk of trying a placebo-welcoming approach? You
could mislead yourself into thinking something helped when it didn't. Keeping
a careful journal about your experiments is an effective treatment for that
problem for many folks, and the placebo effect is _really_ powerful. No point
in setting aside a useful tool just because it's mind-body.

~~~
aaron-lebo
It's not that I think it is risky; there's probably no risk at all from making
a room darker when you go to sleep. I know people who can't sleep without a
sleeping mask and they've been alternately skinny and fat all the same.

What I'm asking is whether that test, as an individual, can actually prove
anything? What you think is an actual effect might not be any effect at all.
Without something more rigorous, your "test" is that of a magician. It's easy
to forget how suggestible we are as humans.

Do you believe that if you pray to god to confirm himself to you and you feel
a "burning in your bosom" that the Book of Mormon and the LDS church are right
about reality?

~~~
Nomentatus
One always wants larger experimental groups, but remember that one self-
experiment was quite important in conquering malaria. If the result is
striking enough, it's worth some attention. This result has held for two
decades.

------
ha8o8le
This is the truth. There's a lot more to this - so much so that I decided to
make a documentary about it. I don't mean to promote it (there is nothing to
promote yet, for now it's just a website), but here it is if anyone is
interested [http://FoodLies.org](http://FoodLies.org)

I have one of these thought leader doctors on board. Would love any feedback
or help from the community to get this made.

~~~
jonex
I don't know how the film will be, but based on the short quips on the
homepage, it seems Alan Aragon's quote from 2016 won't be far off:
[https://www.facebook.com/alan.aragon.796/posts/1015548460098...](https://www.facebook.com/alan.aragon.796/posts/10155484600984992)

Well, in the best case I guess, seems you think the textbook is just a bunch
of lies and there won't even be half of the pages left in there?

Just hoping that you won't further the spread of the many myths about
nutrition that are so popular today. There are for instance actually still
people who don't think calories in vs calories out determines weight change _.

_ The relevant question of course is what determines calories in and out if
you aren't counting it manually.

------
troydavis
The CDC says 34% of US adults have pre-diabetes, and of those, 88% are
undiagnosed[1]. Yes, about 29% of US adults have un-diagnosed pre-diabetes, or
about 74 million people.

I think a significant cause is that testing blood glucose is thought of as
something that only diabetics do, and as a result, most people have no idea
how their bodies respond to meals they'd consider normal. The feedback loop is
completely open. A typical Chipotle burrito has ~115 grams of carbs, often
consumed in 20 minutes[2]. For some people, that's fine, and for others it's
not, but the only way to know (other than waiting for problems) is to actually
measure one's own blood glucose an hour later.

Until blood glucose testing is either (a) thought of more as data collection
without fear or stigma, like a bathroom scale, or (b) made blood-less and
automatic, like is rumored about the Apple Watch[3], many people won't learn
the answer to that question until a symptom of pre-diabetes appears.

If you're reading this and haven't had your fasting blood glucose tested as
part of a regular checkup, get that done. It's not nearly as informative as
post-meal testing, but it's much better than nothing.

Also, if you're a diabetic who created a side project/hack because you wanted
it, and at scale, that project could mitigate the public health impact of
diabetes, feel free to contact me. I'd consider helping make it mainstream[4].
My interest is improving societal health (this will be a massive problem in 20
years if nothing happens now), not personal or financial.

[1]: CDC National Diabetes Statistics report, 2017:
[http://cdc.gov/diabetes/pdfs/data/statistics/national-
diabet...](http://cdc.gov/diabetes/pdfs/data/statistics/national-diabetes-
statistics-report.pdf) (page 7)

[2]: Chipotle nutrition calculator: [https://www.chipotle.com/nutrition-
calculator](https://www.chipotle.com/nutrition-calculator)

[3]: "Apple CEO Tim Cook test-drove a device that tracks his blood sugar":
[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/18/apple-ceo-tim-cook-test-
drov...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/18/apple-ceo-tim-cook-test-drove-
glucose-monitor.html)

[4]:
[https://twitter.com/troyd/status/920747116703518720](https://twitter.com/troyd/status/920747116703518720),
[https://twitter.com/troyd/status/921409373661884416](https://twitter.com/troyd/status/921409373661884416)

~~~
goodells
This sounds very interesting as another metric (like weight on a scale, as you
put it) for someone trying to be conscious about their health. Is this
something that a person could do cheaply at home with over-the-counter
diabetic testing supplies? Could you be more specific or link to something
about a protocol for e.g. measuring the effect of a meal on blood glucose and
how to interpret those results?

~~~
lolc
Testing instruments are widely available and affordable too due to diabetes
being such a widespread disease.

I've just started using Freestyle Libre[1]. It's quite affordable even though
it's not as accurate as blood measurements. It's possible to have one sensor
attached for up to two weeks. This should be enough time to assess your body's
reaction to carbs.

I don't know how you would test for pre-diabetes but to test for diabetes you
can basically just drink a lot of sugar-water and see what your blood does.
There are levels you can't reach unless you're diabetic.

Personally I've switched to a mostly carb-free diet because managing sugar
levels is much easier that way.

[1] [http://www.diabetes.co.uk/blood-glucose-meters/abbott-
freest...](http://www.diabetes.co.uk/blood-glucose-meters/abbott-freestyle-
libre.html)

~~~
pimeys
Have you tried to use it with xDrip plus[1] and an NFC capable Android phone?
It allows you to calibrate the values using accurate blood glucose values. If
you do a bit of research and do the calibrations right, it can be as accurate
as the values from a fingerstrip reader.

[1]
[https://github.com/NightscoutFoundation/xDrip](https://github.com/NightscoutFoundation/xDrip)

~~~
lolc
I've only just started using the sensors. xDrip is very interesting, thanks.

~~~
pimeys
Being a type 1 diabetic, this software has changed my life totally. It's just
that good nothing else comes even close. I use Dexcom G4 as my CGM and I wrote
an InfluxDB support to xDrip, so now I can use Grafana to monitor my glucose
values in real time.

The development of xDrip plus is very active, so you probably want to use the
nightlies.

------
projektir
But why has obesity not been such a problem in the past, despite sugar being
available?

One point to make from the article, though: "They suggested that the
physician-authors were trying to con the obese with the fraudulent argument
that they could become lean without doing the hard work of curbing their
perverted appetites."

If you want to really confuse what's going on, turn to moralism. Desire to
judge and to avoid being judged completely messes with incentives and people
will line up to the "hard working" side while avoiding the "lazy" side,
regardless of what is actually true.

~~~
electriclove
Sugar was not readily available until relatively recently.

~~~
refurb
_In the 15th century, Venice was the chief sugar refining and distribution
centre in Europe.[6]_

From Wikipedia.

Sugar has been around far longer than our very recent obesity epidemic.

~~~
jm2721
Not really for the masses, since it wasn't cheap or plentiful. The wealthy
that consumed high quantities of sugar did have the same illnesses that are so
prevalent today.

------
thearn4
I've been trying to cut sugar out of my diet recently. Eventually I'd like to
at least feel comfortable treating it like alcohol: only for consumption in
social settings and not too often.

------
arikr
Robert Lustig has written an excellent book on this topic: "The Hacking of the
American Mind."

~~~
jakeogh
Neat interview:
[https://overcast.fm/+FaTQX2SRE](https://overcast.fm/+FaTQX2SRE)

------
PeterStuer
Ever notice how since the 1980 the mantras changed from 'eat less, exercise
more' to 'fad' diets whose one common theme was 'don't consume less, but eat
different'. Subsequently obesity skyrocketed and the fat-lobby made sure that
anyone who even pointed out the problem got demonized. Meanwhile 'food-
scientists' silently made designer drugs out of daily consumables leading to a
feeding frenzy and an obesity pandemic.

~~~
keymone
> fat-lobby made sure that anyone who even pointed out the problem got
> demonized

do provide sources. the one such episode i recall was demonization of John
Yudkin in 60s when he tried to point out how bad sugar was.

------
iopq
I'm lean and I eat a lot of sugar. Sugar is not a toxin. It's a source of
energy. I'll eat some sugar and go to the gym. I'll come back and eat more
sugar to replace the glycogen I drained.

What happens to overweight people has NOTHING to do with lean people who
exercise.

~~~
toephu2
Sugar is a drug that is addictive and releases dopamine when consumed which is
why you feel good when you eat it and have cravings for it.

~~~
nradov
Sugar doesn't meet the medical criteria to be considered an addictive drug.

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Tistron
If you prefer audio the author appears in Sam Harris' podcast in a long
interview abd speaks about this subject.

#74 — What Should We Eat? Waking Up with Sam Harris Duration: 2:07:24
Published: Sat, 06 May 2017 20:30:08 +0000 URL:
[http://traffic.libsyn.com/wakingup/Waking_Up_74_Gary_Taubes....](http://traffic.libsyn.com/wakingup/Waking_Up_74_Gary_Taubes.mp3?dest-
id=480596)

 _In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Gary Taubes
about his career as a science journalist, the difficulty of studying nutrition
and public health scientifically, the growing epidemics of obesity and
diabetes, the role of hormones in weight gain, the controversies surrounding
his work, and other topics._

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Montezuma_II
Not meaning to be rude or ignorant, but was anyone actually doubting this? I
thought that the link of sugar to diabetes and obesity was common knowledge.

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Siilwyn
So I wonder... is the effect of sugar on your body permanent, building up over
time? Or would stopping the intake of refined sugars restore your system?

~~~
halotrope
The worst effects of excessive Insulin, non alcoholic fatty liver and insulin
resistance (which becomes type 2 diabetes after some time) can be reversed
pretty easily by cutting sugar, fasting or a diet with extremely low levels of
carbohydrates (Ketogenic Diet). Check Dr. Jason Fung and Robert Lustig on
youtube. They both have done a great deal of research about the topic and have
published very interesting material. I have adopted a very high fat, low carb
diet (LCHF) and avoid all sugar for a couple months now and it is absolutely
incredible how it changes your body, makes you loose fat and increases overall
energy. Gone are these cycles of high and crashing after meals etc. I am
absolutely convinced, that we will have a wake up to the toxicity of sugar
very similar to that of cigarettes. Especially cancer and sugar seem to have a
very strong and under researched relationship.

~~~
Siilwyn
Thank you for your reply, definitely interested in this. Going on further
investigation!

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milesward
I cut out carbs (<20g per day) and am down 50lb in <1 year. YMMV, but keto
worked for me.

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alexandercrohde
Tl; dr:

Author contrasts two explanations of the obesity and diabetes crises: A) that
the root of the issue is caloric intake stemming from low-self-control or B)
that the root of the issue is high blood-sugar and its subsequent effects.

Author explores the long history of this debate and presents points for both
sides. Author admits the thermodynamic validity of caloric math but cites that
at a cellular glucose levels cause insulin levels to rise that cause the cell
to take on fat. Author cites other research, such as increased appetite among
obese animals, suggesting a systemic effect. Author cites ketogenic diets as
evidence (which restrict sugars but not total calories).

Author contrasts the moral interpretation of each theory. Proposes the caloric
consumption model places blame on the individual, whereas the glucose
explanation places blame on the FDA.

~~~
rwnspace
And yet, behavioural biology tells us that the development of the pre-frontal
cortex is heavily influenced by genetics, epigenetics, and early-years
experiences. The PFC appears to influence things like rates of risk-taking
behaviour, addiction, and ability to choose long-term rewards... Of course, we
wouldn't want to pass the buck of choice back to societal influences.

Not that I know anything, I've just watched and read Robert Sapolsky's
material.

