
What If Sugar Is Worse Than Just Empty Calories? - andrewl
http://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.j5808.full
======
aylons
The Harriet Hall piece on Gary Taubes may give some good insight on this
essay:

[https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/gary-taubes-and-the-
cause-o...](https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/gary-taubes-and-the-cause-of-
obesity/)

------
scarface74
Let's look at this from the standpoint of Pascal's Wager.

If eating too much sugar is bad for you and has negative consequences and you
choose to cut back, you have significant gains in living a healthy lifestyle.

If sugar is not bad for you and you cut back, you've given up on a few
pleasures, but in the grand scheme of things, you've lost nothing.

So, why not cut back and eat as if sugar is bad for you? I think there is
enough credible evidence to take a chance and cut back.

No, I don't feel the same way about non-gmo, organic, grass fed, gluten free
food, grown and cultivated by virgin nuns. I think the "natural food" cruft is
just a bunch of marketing.

~~~
tszymczyszyn
Pascal’s wager does not make much sense even for the original case.

~~~
scarface74
Why not? In the grand scheme of things it's a simple case where the upside
rewards are much greater than the downside risks.

It's the same theory behind venture capitalism. Your downside risk is only the
amount of money you invest, your upside reward is that you may invest in what
will become the next Facebook.

Yes I know that in reality most VC investors don't beat an index fund.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
But there are thousands of gods. How do you decide? Pascal was a product of
his times, and could only conceive of "Atheist vs Deist". Only savages could
worship false gods; that wasn't even in his mind. Today his assertion sounds
feeble.

~~~
scarface74
And going back to the VC analogy I referenced above, VCs invest in a lot of
companies hoping One will succeed and expecting lots of them to fail.

------
jlebrech
it's high glycemic index that's bad, sugar water is fine as it's dilute.

------
natecavanaugh
_sigh_ typical Gary Taubes. Sugar itself is not an empty calorie, and is more
than easily stored and used by the body. Of course, I do think that sugar has
a special place in our body that affects things more than we understand (for
instance, how a ketogenic diet can lower and regulate epileptic siezures).

But empty? I get alcohol being an empty calorie, since it's a toxin that your
body cannot store, but protein, fat, and carbohydrates can and are all either
stored or used.

Not only that, but protein can have an insulin response as well, which makes
you think that maybe insulin resistance isn't caused by only a single
macronutrient.

Gary Taubes, while I respect some of what he does, approaches his hypotheses
as if they were forgone conclusions. And he has had his sugar axe to grind for
so long, it's hard to tell how much he his cherry picking his data and how
much it reflects reality.

~~~
Axsuul
You are taking his definition of "empty" quite literally while in the article,
his definition of "empty" clearly states:

> sugars cause dental caries and are a source of excess calories, “empty” of
> vitamins, minerals, protein, and fibre

On proteins having an insulin response, when you intake too much protein,
glucose is formed from a metabolic process known as gluconeogenesis which can
definitely cause an insulin response.

Interested to hear why you "think that sugar has a special place in our body".
Is this from empirical or anecdotal evidence?

~~~
natecavanaugh
> You are taking his definition of "empty" quite literally while in the
> article, his definition of "empty" clearly states: > sugars cause dental
> caries and are a source of excess calories, “empty” of vitamins, minerals,
> protein, and fibre

Yeah, that also stretches the definition quite a bit, and it's like saying
"protein is empty of vitamins, minerals, fat and carbohydrates".

None of the macros contain vitamins or minerals or fiber, so what exactly are
empty calories?

> Interested to hear why you "think that sugar has a special place in our
> body". Is this from empirical or anecdotal evidence?

I think all of the macros interact with the body in different ways, but sugar
is interesting to me because of how much of it is used for brain processing,
and how it's also leveraged to trigger insulin to store the macros.

Related to brain function, though, is that depriving yourself of sugar (or
complex carbs) can regulate seizures in epileptic patients.

So, IMHO, the article somehow tries to differentiate between complex and
simple carbs, but if that were the case, why would complex carbs somehow still
factor into epilepsy?

I think we have a very very basic understanding of how the different macros
all interact with our bodies, especially sugar.

~~~
grogers
It's not so much the difference between simple and complex carbohydrates, but
between glucose and fructose. Glucose is energy for your body, so important
you will manufacture it even on a zero carbohydrate diet. Fructose serves no
real purpose in the body and is processed entirely by the liver (primarily
into fat - excessive consumption leading to non-alcoholic fatty liver
disease).

"Sugar" is often used for any simple carbohydrate but it's really fructose
containing compounds like sucrose this piece is primarily warning about.
Fructose seems to have a much bigger impact on insulin resistance leading to
obesity, type 2 diabetes, etc.

~~~
natecavanaugh
I've read that fructose is stored primarily by the liver, but again, this just
gets a bit more confusing it I'm to follow the logic of the article.

They mention the problem with sucrose (and HFCS), but sucrose is 50/50 glucose
and fructose and HFCS is 45/55 glucose/fructose.

If fructose is the sugar with a real impact on diabetes and insulin
resistance, why are diabetics given glucose tablets to raise low blood sugar?

Maybe I'm the one who is confused, but if fructose were the main evil
component, I'd imagine there would be a lot of fruitarians with diabetes
(though I have anecdotally seen a lot that run into pancreatic problems, but
rarely obesity or diabetes).

------
jgalvez
Oh my god, the never ending sugar non-sense.

[https://cowseatgrass.org/2016/02/12/sugar-feeds-
thyroid/](https://cowseatgrass.org/2016/02/12/sugar-feeds-thyroid/)
[http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/sugar-
issues.shtml](http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/sugar-issues.shtml)

~~~
PinkMilkshake
Ray Peat is a quack. cowseatgrass is based on his work.

~~~
jgalvez
Ray Peat is most definitely not a quack. How did you come to that conclusion?

