
Is Sugar Killing Us? - prostoalex
http://www.wsj.com/articles/is-sugar-killing-us-1481303447?mod=e2fb
======
calvano915
Third year nutrition undergrad. Simple sugar consumption as a high percentage
of carbohydrates/calories has the effect of chronic inflammation via oxidative
stress, which is a factor of diabetes and other chronic disease.

This article briefly discusses inflammation and has mostly sound nutritional
advice: [http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/what-you-
eat-c...](http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/what-you-eat-can-fuel-
or-cool-inflammation-a-key-driver-of-heart-disease-diabetes-and-other-chronic-
conditions)

This lecture by Dr. Robert Lustig has been very popular on this topic:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM)
. Unsure of its veracity since I watched this quite a few years ago.

Many other factors should be considered as many have mentioned like
micronutrient intake/absorption, physical activity, gut biome, and genetic
predisposition.

~~~
piva00
As a layman who got into nutrition for weight training purposes I want to ask
you: why have I seen an uptick in the use of "inflammation" more broadly in
nutrition from an year or so ago?

You may be well aware of the whole broscience that runs in fitness forums and
it's very hard sometimes to find good and scientifically accurate sources and
until now I've been lumping most of those "inflammation" articles together
with the "toxins" ones, mostly a very broad umbrella term that had no real
meaning.

But reading your comment and seeing this article from Harvard made me
reconsider it so, again, what is this thing about "inflammation" regarding
diet? It really just feels like an umbrella term...

~~~
justinator
You can almost think of, "inflammation" as a synonym for, "detrimental
reaction". The inflammation is going to be a wholly different thing, depending
on what you're talking about. But it usually causes response in the body that
then becomes a different, chronic problem.

Example: too much sugar -> inflammation of arteries (because reasons) ->
buildup of cholesterol -> heart attack.

It's not the sugar that cause the heart attack, it's the inflammation from the
sugar and the body's response to it. This may seem like a small detail, but
remember the theory was that it was the buildup of dietary cholesterol that
caused clogged arteries. That was an easy narrative to follow, since,
"(because reasons)" wasn't something you can market easily. Fat-free food
usually doesn't have cholesterol either so it's good for you, if you're
worried about having a heart attack!

This is the same falisty of thinking that merely eating fat makes you fat.

Excessive sugar causing Type 2 Diabetes is much less a theory than the above
(insulin resistance)

Anyways, different inflammation is the pain I feel in my wrists typing this,
or the pain my ankle from an accident last year. That inflammation is Not
Good, and could lead to other Bad Things, like perhaps cancer (so I'm told by
an MD)

So it is a very broad term, but it does def. have meaning.

~~~
calvano915
Inflammation = immune response, and isn't always detrimental (immune response
to a foreign body, or healing from trauma are good responses) but can be a bad
thing (arthritis from antibody complexes, or artery inflammation as we are
focusing on for this discussion).

Otherwise the parent's comment is pretty on point.

~~~
justinator
_Inflammation = immune response, and isn 't always detrimental_

Yeah, you're right. I would say that one theory is that _chronic_ inflammation
can lead to Bad Things, but this is just areas of research at the moment and
it's as diverse as types of inflammation.

------
TACIXAT
I'm celiac, so my body has some crazy responses to food. I get withdrawal
symptoms from a couple of foods and have cut them out because of it. Sugar was
the most recent. When I stop eating it I get a sinus headache, I get the
shakes (like drinking too much caffeine), and if it's bad, I throw up. What
blew my mind in giving up sugar was that I lost 5 lbs. I'm was lean at 155 lbs
and 6'1, I dropped below 150 now. It really opened my eyes to how much sugar
is converted to fat.

I gave up gluten (withdrawal symptoms), high fructose foods (digestive issues,
celiacs wrecks your small intestine lining), caffeine (withdrawal symptoms),
sodium nitrites (withdrawal symptoms, but I don't know much about this one,
it's in bacon and deli meats as a preservative / cure), and now sugar
(withdrawal symptoms). I feel so good. My nose used to be stuffy all the time,
I used to have awful digestion, cutting out these foods totally changed my
life.

I'm honestly really grateful that I'm celiac, I think it magnifies all the
shittiness that these foods bring. It got me to realize all the garbage I was
sustaining myself on. I'm now incredibly healthy despite being 'sick'. One of
the stranger realizations was that I now only drink water, and that I used to
live mostly off of soda.

All these industries have huge interests in selling people addicting food
(caffeine, sugar) and maintaining their market positions. They put out so much
misinformation on what is healthy.

~~~
jerf
"caffeine (withdrawal symptoms),"

Do you mean that the caffeine itself doesn't bother you (above its expected
effect), but that the withdrawal is pretty rough?

I'm curious, because I also have celiac, and I've also ended up dropping
caffeine because it was getting to be too much of a pain to manage it whenever
I had to do without for some reason (travel mostly). I've noticed I have _no_
grace with it; if I drink a 20oz Coke Zero right now, which is actually pretty
low in caffeine (or, at most depending on your standards, "medium"), in 36
hours I will have a withdrawal headache.

But I can't tell if this is "celiac", or just generally how people respond to
caffeine. Most people don't pay attention that much.

(As long as we're comparing notes: I've also noticed that alcohol has little
appeal to me, because it mostly just makes me tired and gives me vague muscle
pain before I'm "buzzed". In fact I can't say I've ever been "pleasantly
buzzed" the way some people seem to describe.)

(Also, before someone comes along and complains about "anecdotes" being used,
I do try to keep up with the celiac science, but generally speaking what we're
talking about here is _way_ beyond the current science frontier. Science may
be the slow-and-steady that wins the race, but in the meantime, we can't wait
for science to figure out the perfect way to live with it and/or cure it in
30-50 years... we have it _now_.)

~~~
Periodic
Caffeine is known to have withdrawal symptoms. Those headaches, for me in the
face and forehead, seem to be a common symptom.

As I went through my 20s I experimented with abandoning coffee a few times. I
had developed the habit in college and I wanted to ensure that I was
continuing to drink coffee for the benefits and not simply because I was
addicted to it. This meant that I did handful of experiments with not drinking
coffee for 2-3 months. The first week or two would be rough. Headaches
starting 24-30 hours after I stopped and persisting for about a week. After
that I would just settle into what felt like a normal life, but a lot more
groggy.

The main difference between my life with coffee and my life without seemed to
just be how grumpy I was before noon. I still had insomnia, I still got tired
after lunch. Those things seemed unconnected to the coffee.

Maybe I need to go off coffee for a long time to really see the benefits, e.g.
give it 3-6 months for my body to recover and stabilize. I'm not sure, but at
this point I have what I consider to be a healthy consumption level and I get
the benefits of increased alertness and focus in the mornings. I'm focusing on
other elements of my life to address any health concerns.

~~~
stevep98
I had horrible heacahes from ~16-19 years old... I never made the connection
until a professor in college mentioned 'caffeine withdrawal headache', and it
totally clicked. And I switched to decaf for the next 15 years. Totally
paranoid about waitresses filling my coffee cup up with the wrong pot.

However, a couple of years ago, I noticed that I can actually drink caffeine
without getting any withdrawal problems at all, making me think it was all in
my head...

------
gtrubetskoy
What's interesting is that most of the population of this planet does not even
realize that glucose is not the only source of energy and that we can be
powered entirely by beta-hydroxybutyrate (which comes from fats); our
carbohydrate requirement is zero because our body can synthesize all the
glucose it needs.

Here is a pretty good and scientific talk about what is happening (warning > 1
hour long):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM)

Edit: just noticed this y/t has already been cited in another comment -
evermore reason to pay attention to it :)

~~~
amelius
I didnt' watch the video yet. But do you need to be "in ketosis" to benefit
from this energy source?

How difficult is it to incorporate this in your diet? And is it expensive?

~~~
jacamat
I did Keto for a month in September. It requires a good deal of self-control
to stick to it (you'll quickly realize that only about 1% of the grocery store
is food you can eat on Keto - resisting that temptation constantly is a trial)
but it's not particularly expensive. You do have to be "in ketosis" to get the
full benefits of Keto, but I've also found that just sticking to a low carb
diet (under 100 carbs p/d) is a good start to ease into it. For Keto you will
need to stay under 50...some people stay under 20.

I lost about 15 lbs during the process and my diet mostly consisted of salads
with lots of chicken + cheese + high fat dressing. I was a vegan before I
switched to Keto so eating my veggies was not difficult, but some of my
friends struggled to keep a "healthy" diet during the process.

The most difficulty you will have doing Keto is your own self-control. Finding
recipes & food to buy is easy.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
Keto was the only diet I could lose weight with. One thing a lot of other diet
plans ignore is satiety. If you are hungry or crave food, it is basically an
addiction. You will not stop till satieted. Sugars and starches spike glucose
levels and thus trigger insulin responses which puts one back in a hungry
state.

------
mgarfias
Recently diagnosed diabetic here. Yes, I'm fat, but no excessively so. When I
tell people I'm diabetic they're confused as I don't look the type.

What I can say is that I can see the effects of cortisol (stress) on my
fasting glucose levels. When my ex does something that causes strife, my
glucose levels will be 20-30 pts higher for the next few days.

In general, I ate fairly decently, and didn't consume mass amounts of sugar.

It's my belief, that our diabeetus epidemic is related to more than just our
diets. Perhaps our modern living environment is too stressful and makes
certain segments of the population susceptible to metabolic disease?

~~~
mads
Maybe there is a relationship between sugar consumption and our ability to
cope with stress? I found, that when I stopped eating sugar, it wasn't exactly
a big revelation, but merely a subtle change (mentally), that made me somehow
less anxious and when I had irrational anxiety "attacks", I was able to
suppress them better.

I don't have any better way to explain this psychological stuff, but for me
there was a change for sure. A subtle one, but it made a big impact on my life
long term.

The reason I stopped eating sugar was that I saw a pattern in my moods
depending on what I ate. I initially thought that it my eating habits were
dictated by life circumstances and that life circumstance were dictating my
mood, but two things stood out, which left me to try going without sugar.

First I wanted to loose weight, so I went on a protein only diet during a very
stressful time and it made me feel pretty good. Second, I was feeling even
better, when I was fasting. Third, I had my worst "breakdown", when I was
training for a marathon (I ran many, so it wasn't marathon stress) and
ingested a lot of sugar.

~~~
Afton
In the interests of anecdata, I went ketogenic for about 18 months. One of my
reasons for doing this that my sister described in glowing terms how eating
this way had all sort of positive mental health efforts (more muted emotional
responses, mental clarity, lack of anxiety).

I had no effect of that sort. I can only assume that this is one of those
'some people respond well to this, others not so much'.

~~~
mads
"Muted emotional responses" .. this describes very well how I experience it
actually.

------
mads
I firmly believe that sugar not only makes us fat, but also has an effect on
the psychological state of certain people (e.g. people with anxiety problems).

In my own experience, cutting out sugar (from anything else but fruit) and
wheat from my diet has made a big difference.

~~~
cyeb
I've been told my whole life that wheat (or whole-grained and fibrous foods in
general) is healthy -- can you elaborate some more?

~~~
0xfeba
Well, in the US, the USDA promoted grains as the base of the food pyramid[1].
But this turned out to be at the behest of grain industries.

Whole grains are much better for you than white or processed breads, but they
should still only be a small part of your diet, not the base.

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_USDA_nutrition_guid...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_USDA_nutrition_guides#Controversy)

~~~
calvano915
I agree, and the focus should be a on a varied diet. So multiple complex carb
sources (potatoes, whole grains, beans, etc).

------
spilk
Article is paywalled, but anecdotally, last year I inched past that magic A1C
reading where the doctor tells you you are Type 2 Diabetic. I switched to a
low-carb/high-fat diet (
[https://reddit.com/r/keto](https://reddit.com/r/keto) ) and fairly rapidly
lost 30 pounds while eating things like avocados, eggs, cheese, butter,
coconut oil and bacon.

Several months of this diet and my A1C has dipped back to almost-normal, not
even "pre-diabetic" levels. For me at least, carbs are definitely a killer.

~~~
calvano915
While keto seems promising in the short term, there isn't much data to
validate whether it would be best for "most people". There is a definite
concern long term with organ failure associated with ketoacidosis.

~~~
overgard
Whereas, the "standard" USDA diet has created an obesity epidemic. That is
also a definite concern. I would take the diet with insufficient evidence over
the diet that has years of evidence in provably not working.

~~~
JamesBarney
There are plenty of healthy diets recommended by leading nutritionists and
doctors that aren't the food pyramid. And bringing this up as a straw-man
doesn't seem to further the discussion.

There are lots of very healthy diets with much more long term data behind them
like the Mediterranean diet.

~~~
overgard
The food pyramid is literally taught to every child in the united states, and,
uh, we're kind of a fat nation. I think it's totally fair to call it out, it's
not a straw-man, the government is literally forcing bad advice on people
that's making them fat.

~~~
calvano915
The food pyramid has been out of date since 2011

~~~
overgard
The people that followed its advice are still around, and you'll have to
forgive me if I'm not going to trust newer USDA guidelines after what a
spectacular (and politically motivated) fuck up that was.

------
kumarski
Increase fats?

No biggie, you'll get satiated too fast to overconsume.

Increase proteins?

You satiate even faster.

Increase sugar?

You will eat a lot more and your leptin signal gets all sorts of messed up.

~~~
iopq
That's not true, some people can eat a lot of cheese.

[http://www.irkitated.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/eat-
bloc...](http://www.irkitated.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/eat-block-of-
cheese.jpg)

Things are not as simple as "don't eat sugar"

~~~
randomdata
To be fair, cheese usually contains sugar.

~~~
iopq
Very little. Even most lactose-intolerant people can eat a little bit of
cheese. Aged cheese contains only trace amounts because all of the lactose has
been processed by bacteria at that point.

~~~
dogma1138
Processed cheese like that block of cheese in the meme contains quite a bit of
sugar it's added to make it "taste better".

~~~
iopq
They also don't age it properly, they usually only age it for 18 months or
less to realize the return on investment sooner.

~~~
dogma1138
thats a give for mass produced cheese and other things like wine, they add
"flavoring" instead of aging it properly...

Low fat cheese is also quite bad if you want to avoid sugar / carbs since
adding / leaving in the carbs is pretty much the only way to produce a low fat
cheese while keeping the same texture (you can increase the proteins but it
will make it very stringy and or hard).

------
neals
I've really cut down on sugar from august to november. I didn't really notice
anything except loosing a lot of weight (mind that I already was under weight,
but I should probably build some muscle anyway)

So in comes December. And there is candy and chocolate everywhere. In just a
single week our house filled up with it and here I am, stuffing my face full
of sugar.

I think the struggle just goes on, right?

~~~
WA
I cut sugar for 40 days in April and lost weight, too (having normal weight).
After a while, I was back to old habits. Thought about trying the same thing
in mid-November. Worked alright. Then came December and while I'm eating a
cookie here and there, it's way less than previous years.

 _I think the struggle just goes on, right?_

To some extend: Yes. But something flipped in my head this time. The struggle
is less serious. Heck, I even prefer an orange over the cookie now.

~~~
edem
How did you make that switch flip? I'm struggling to find it for years.

~~~
WA
I don't know exactly. I guess it's a series of realizations.

a) Sometimes, we see candy as some kind of reward or treat. Most children are
given chocolate etc. as a reward. So, to a certain extend, it is seen as
something special. Most chocolates are marketed as special, as a reward, as
well. But to be honest, chocolate is cheap and there is an endless supply.

The realization for me is: There is no shortage. There is no scarcity. There
is no _need_ to eat it. I can buy candy whenever I want. There's really
nothing special about it. In fact, most chocolate is quite nasty anyways,
cheaply produced garbage, especially in the US ;)

b) It's an addiction and the desire fades, if you don't eat sugar for a while.
I'm an all-or-nothing guy. If I eat a bit of chocolate once, I might as well
eat it every day.

I must cut it entirely and fight cravings by other means. Someone suggested
drinking a glass of water. This works. I ate some sugar-free gum once in a
while to fight cravings.

For some people, this won't work and they need to allow themselves a cheat day
once per week or something like that.

c) Eating sugar is a habit and breaking it gives you more awareness of your
behavior, which I find desirable in general.

d) I like to see myself as a person who eats healthy.

e) I like to see myself as a person who is able to resist sugar, especially
because everybody finds it totally normal to eat tons of sugar and doesn't see
the problem. This plays to my ego ;)

f) After a few days, it's less about avoiding sugar, but to _not break the
chain of abstinence_. Think Seinfeld-calendar.

------
tomcam
Cutting out sugar causes anxiety, headache, and depression for me. Sugar is by
far my most reliable therapist. Yes, I'm very very fat and have diabeetus. In
a life characterized by struggle, this has been the one that challenges me
most. Privately I feel very strongly that I am an addict, though I don't know
if my condition matches the clinical definition.

~~~
alexc05
Have you ever checked out Reddit's
[https://Reddit.com/r/keto](https://Reddit.com/r/keto) keto subreddit? The
keto-flu is a known & expected phase that matches the "anxiety and headache"
thing. If you quit sugar "cold turkey" about 4 days in your body essentially
switches from a carbs-for-fuel system to a fats-for-fuel one. It feel pretty
wretched for a day. Afterwards you feel great, virtually never hungry, &
weight melts off.

~~~
dcherman
Can confirm that. The very first time I attempted a keto like diet (was
actually a PSMF if I recall correctly), I felt so shitty and lightheaded in
the first couple days that I bailed and tore into a small pack of cookies.

It gets a lot easier though. After going in and out of keto a couple more
times, it completely stops being an issue.

------
fauria
I found this talk by Dr. Robert H. Lustig very interesting: "Sugar: The Bitter
Truth"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM)
It has been previously discussed on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1006980](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1006980)

------
chrismealy
I quit sugar for two weeks and the runny nose and sinus headache I'd had my
whole life went away. It wasn't hard. Everybody should try it.

~~~
reactor
Oh man, can you please shed more lights on this as I've exactly same problem,
sinusitis and running nose (mostly because I'm allergic to cold and histamine
is wreaking havoc). I'm trying all the possible way to control it, exercising
regularly, taking lemon+honey everyday morning etc. But only an anti-histamine
(xyzal or zyrtec) is working for me.

It's interesting that to know if it has anything to do with Sugar, as I take
moderate amount of sugar.

Did you completely cut off sugar/variance of sugars? what about fruits?

~~~
chrismealy
No added sugar (or stevia or aspartame either). In the months after I quit I
had a cookie or a chocolate croissant here and there and always woke up with a
sinus headache the next day. I can eat berries and most fruit with no
problems, but not bananas. I still have sinus trouble, a kind of a raw feeling
in my nose most of the time, but without sugar in my diet I don't have
constant mucus, congestion, and chronic sinus infections. I also take Allegra
(fexofenadine) daily and use the Neilmed sinus irrigation when the raw sinus
feeling is bad.

The other thing is my appetite decreased enormously and I lost about 25 pounds
without trying. I actually decided to gain a little weight because I got too
thin.

~~~
reactor
Thanks a lot, will try that, its going to be hard, as sugar is prevalent in
almost everything we eat.

~~~
chrismealy
Naw, it's easy. Just eat real food or read the label.

The only bummer is Thai and Indian is so sweet it might as well be dessert.

------
appwiz
"Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us"
([https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00985E3UG/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00985E3UG/))
by Michael Moss is highly recommended if you want to learn about the
prevalence of sugar in processed food.

~~~
ggregoire
I would recommend this website as cheatsheets:
[http://ss.fitness/#nutrition](http://ss.fitness/#nutrition)

~~~
dandelion_lover
>>Why Does This Food Pyramid Work?

[https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-
eating-...](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-
plate/)

"in June 2011 the USDA replaced MyPyramid with a new and simpler icon,
MyPlate"

------
illivah
Pro tip - don't take your health advice from news articles. Also, if the title
is hyperbolic, pay extra non-attention to it.

~~~
joshu
Is news killing us?

Also, betteridge's law of headlines.

------
ggregoire
> Experts warn that sugar may have an outsize role in causing obesity and
> diabetes

I thought that was pretty well-known? Is there something new later in the
article? (I don't have access)

------
edoceo
See [http://thatsugarfilm.com](http://thatsugarfilm.com)

Was pretty good

~~~
andrei_says_
Also Fed Up.

To paraphrase, if an external force was making our kids sick, addicted and
more likely to die, we'd be bombing them into oblivion.

But as this force is the food industry's vision of profit at all costs, we
just watch them get progressively sicker with each generation.

------
Cozumel
Recommend 'Pure, White and Deadly' by John Yudkin
[https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009CTYTCA](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009CTYTCA)

The sugar industry conspired to discredit and bury him and his research, they
succeeded and passed the blame to saturated fats instead! Fortunately he was
rediscovered (
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/diet/10634081...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/diet/10634081/John-
Yudkin-the-man-who-tried-to-warn-us-about-sugar.html) )

------
maxxxxx
This is not directly related to this article but I wonder if anybody has the
same problem: Any kind of sugar gives me joint ache, headache and sometimes
even fever. Even sugar from fruit not just added sugar. No blood tests have
shown anything unusual and doctors don't seem to know this problem either.

Is anybody else experiencing this? It makes life quite difficult because it's
really hard to avoid sugar totally.

------
greywolve
The opposite view: [http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/sugar-
issues.shtml](http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/sugar-issues.shtml) . Ray
Peat's argument is that polyunsaturated fats are the real culprit, and if you
look at most sugar laden foods these days, it's difficult to find any that
don't also contain a decent amount of PUFA.

~~~
justinator
> I eat plenty of sugar, and I'm in decent shape:

You can't tell the damage of a poor diet (or other maladies), simply by
looking at videos.

You're also fairly young. A poor diet wrecks your health in a cumulative way.

I'm not saying your diet is poor (I have little data about your diet), I'm
just saying it's up in the air with knowing that you eat, "plenty of sugar",
and you IG yourself doing calisthenics. Would you agree?

~~~
greywolve
I'm not actually that young, I'm 33. (I also haven't been training very long,
about 2 years now) I agree though, I am a sample size of one. There are forums
of people who follow Ray Peat's ideas, and some do consume large amounts of
sugar, and do really well.

~~~
justinator
But think about when people succumb to problems because of poor diet choices:
it's not 33. It's more like 65, for heart disease or 45 for Type 2 Diabetes.

Not that you CAN'T see differences, in some instances. I look at former
classmates from college and they look horrible when I compare myself (and they
know it) - but it's mostly from abuse of alchohol, which I think we can all
agree will age you.

> There are forums of people who follow Ray Peat's ideas, and some do consume
> large amounts of sugar, and do really well.

How are their teeth?

~~~
greywolve
I haven't heard any reports of people getting teeth issues, assuming they
actually look after them. The community there is quite skeptical, and very
much for experimenting on themselves, having blood tests taken, etc.

Here's another article that explains the alternative view point on this:
[http://digestiblekitchen.com/2013/10/confused-about-sugar-
on...](http://digestiblekitchen.com/2013/10/confused-about-sugar-one-year-
since-i-brought-sugar-back/)

Note that I'm not recommending processed foods either. I actually think it's
much harder to eat lots of sugar, if you are only consuming it in non-
processed foods.

But then is it sugar itself that is the problem?

------
smn1234
funny how this was published and then a NYTimes article on a 'Study Tied to
Food Industry Tries to Discredit Sugar Guidelines' shortly thereafter!

------
jstewartmobile
Here's a video Dr. Robert Lustig explaining how the body metabolizes different
sugars:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM)

He gets into the chemistry around the 40 minute mark.

------
kahrkunne
First they thought it was fat killing us, now that they know that's not really
true they think it's sugar killing us. I wonder if I'll live to see the day
the headlines read "protein is killing us!"

~~~
p94k
To be fair, the only reason it was ever "fat killing us" was because of
intense lobbying by the sugar industry:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-
ind...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-
shifted-blame-to-fat.html)

------
jlebrech
No it's not, it's merely the quantity of it that is.

------
edem
Is there a way to skip the paywall somehow?

~~~
steamer25
Click the 'web' link above on the line that looks like the following:

... points by prostoalex ... ago | flag | hide | past | -----> web <\----- |
... comments | favorite

------
mkevac
No access.

------
jokoon
Paywall

Is it a matter of dosage?

Because if it is, how do you make people consume less? Of course you can set a
limit for grams of sugar per gram of food sold, I guess it could make people
eat less sugar.

~~~
YCode
With WSJ if you google the title of the article you can get in from the search
result link.

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ckelly
tl;dr Yes

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kurttheviking
Seems to be a rare instance that violates Betteridge's Law.

~~~
iopq
It's not true, sugar is not worse for you than white bread. White bread has a
higher glycemic index than sugar.

Sugar does have a lot of fructose in it, but fruits have higher fructose
content because they have less glucose.

Reality, turns out, is more complicated than black and white.

~~~
kazinator
White bread is just syntactic sugar for simpler sugars, and destructures into
them in your gut.

~~~
analog31
So far as i know, the same is true of sucrose. Only simple sugars pass into
the bloodstream.

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mastazi
Pro tip: you need a balanced diet. Despite all the recent conspiracy theories,
getting rid of sugar while e.g. eating loads of fat is not going to do you
good.

Downvoters: show me academic papers. Not some tabloid mis-quoting some paper,
but the actual paper or at least an abstract.

Otherwise you're just being dietary fanboys

"SV kids getting healthy thanks to one weird trick"

~~~
taeric
The verbiage "balanced diet" is begging the question. What is a balanced diet?
If it is just "one that works" than this is akin to knowing how to efficiently
sort a large array from the definition of "elements are in in increasing
order." Well, yes, but how do we get there?

That is, at best, claims of a balanced diet resort to existence statements,
but never evidence ones. I am not going to claim I eat healthy, or that
everyone should follow my diet (not many like whiskey nearly as much as I do),
however, it is baffling to me the amount of stock people have placed on such
things as "square meals", "food pyramids", and finally "balanced diets."

So, by all means, build strawmen to knock down against people asking
questions. But realize you are likely not helping advance any actual knowledge
unless you are presenting evidence.

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Laforet
The human body have an amazing ability to adapt to the environment and we will
survive as long as energy intake match energy expenditure. The only category
that need some attention is protein where having too little or too much can
lead to issues. An Inuit from Greenland is no more or less healthy than an
American or farmer from Brazil because of what they eat.

~~~
nikatwork
Thanks for the heads up, since you've told me that all food is equal I'm going
to switch my diet to only include Soda, Doritos and Hotpockets. I'm sure my
body will adapt amazingly.

~~~
pessimizer
What do you honestly think would happen if you did, assuming that your
calories were limited to an amount that kept you at a consistent healthy
weight for your size?

~~~
magic_beans
Headaches from too much sodium, acne breakouts, blood sugar crashes, poor
mood, high acidity in stomach, digestive problems, bloating, etc. Eating
nutritionally-poor food has immediate consequences.

~~~
Laforet
>Headaches from too much sodium

Not to say this is a myth like Chinese Restaurant Syndrome, but there is
honestly a lot of evidence either way so we can't make establish a causative
relationship for everyone. It is quite possible for people to have a short
term reaction to salt because the hormones in charge of water and sodium
balance can take several days to stablise, but again, we are unsure of long
term consequences especially on an individual level.

[https://www.newscientist.com/article/2101015-does-eating-
mor...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2101015-does-eating-more-salt-
prevent-migraines-and-severe-headaches/)

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-
end-t...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-end-the-war-
on-salt/)

The rest of your symptoms suggest that you are either eating too much like the
guy from Supersize Me, or have more underlying health issues that require a
better designed diet to heal. It's not food but how you eat.

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Firegarden
Fuck Sugar!

~~~
hyperbovine
I would if I could

~~~
HeadlessChild
... Bitch?

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metaprinter
Unless a 500kg pallet of sugar falls on a person, I don't believe sugar has
ever killed a single human. I know that people die from complications arising
from diabetes. A quick google search shows that Saudi Arabia has the highest
incidents of Diabetes of any country, more than double USA but they are not
even in the top 10 sugar consumers. So, why is that? When did their diabetes
problems 'start'?

~~~
Diggty
[http://english.alarabiya.net/en/business/economy/2014/12/28/...](http://english.alarabiya.net/en/business/economy/2014/12/28/Saudi-
Arabia-is-largest-soft-drinks-consumer-in-the-Middle-East.html)

