

60 minutes: Is sugar toxic? - fhoxh
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7403942n&tag=contentBody;storyMediaBox

======
dr_
I've watched Dr. Lustig's video previously, and in general its the same
principles touted by Gary Taubes, but I still find it dubious. You can look at
your patient population and come up with a hypothesis that would make sense
from a pure biochemistry perspective, but that's really no different than what
the proponents of dietary fat as a cause of heart disease did.

And since when is monitoring people in a controlled lab for a few weeks at a
time (likely limiting their physical activity and who knows what kind of
stress to the system having your blood drawn every 30 minutes induces)
considered valid scientific research when it in no way exemplifies real world
situations that people are exposed to. And sugar is apparently carcinogenic
because it can cause an increase in baseline insulin levels as a response,
which can drive glucose into potential tumor cells allowing them to grow.
That's purely speculative, and very difficult to substantiate when there are
so many other reasons for people to develop cancer:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/health/research/red-
meat-l...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/health/research/red-meat-linked-
to-cancer-and-heart-disease.html)

Personally, I'm still convinced that a calorie is a calorie. And the reason
we've been gaining weight, with greater incidence of heart disease, diabetes,
etc. is that we simply consume too much food, perhaps too much processed food,
but in general we just eat too much. So eat less, and the best way is to
consume small portions of food multiple times a day instead of large meals
with large gaps in between. Trust me, it works.

~~~
lukifer
It's true that you don't lose weight without caloric deficit. But while a
calorie equals a calorie, the body reacts differently to fast calories and
slow calories: a steady supply of blood sugar, vs. spikes and troughs. This
affects feedback loops of insulin, satiety, etc., prompting people to overeat.

Side note: I'm really looking forward to future biofeedback tech. It'd be
interesting to know my blood sugar level and heart rate at all times.

~~~
aneth
> It's true that you don't lose weight without caloric deficit.

Are you sure? I've lost plenty of weight following a low carb diet while
eating tons of high calorie dark chocolate and oily meats.

~~~
jwingy
The basic equation is: calories consumed - calories burned = weight loss (or
gain)

If you lost weight it means you burned more calories than you ate.

~~~
Kaizyn
This is widely believed but not true or supported by scientific evidence. Have
a look at Gary Taubes "Good Calories, Bad Calories" for a rundown on much of
the relevant research.

~~~
jcromartie
It's thermodynamics. Living takes energy, and that energy needs to come from
somewhere. We can't photosynthesize energy, and we can't get it from air or
water. So if there's not enough energy in food to sustain our body's
processes, then it must come from stores in the body (fat).

I don't think there's any other possibility.

~~~
wpietri
Weight loss only reduces to simple thermodynamics if the body is functionally
equivalent to a coal furnace. It turns out metabolism is more subtle than
that.

~~~
jcromartie
There are subtleties to nutrition and weight loss, of course. But let's say
you stopped eating, and you didn't just die: do you think it's somehow
possible to NOT lose body mass?

~~~
wpietri
Of course not, and nobody here thinks that.

------
kyasui
I'm a big fan of Alan Aragon, one of the country's leading experts on
nutrition/health (in my and a lot of people's opinion). He did a pretty well
informed takedown of Dr. Lustig's alarmist stance... check it out here and
make up your own minds:

[http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-
ab...](http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-
fructose-alarmism/)

[http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-
of-...](http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-the-
fructose-alarmism-debate/)

~~~
tptacek
Compare:

<http://www.alanaragonblog.com/about/>

to:

<http://chc.ucsf.edu/coast/faculty_lustig.htm>

I'm not saying that's dispositive, but why exactly is Alan Aragon more
credible than a medical doctor and UCSF clinical pediatrics professor?

~~~
teach
I've never heard of Alan Aragon, but he claims to have a master's degree in
nutrition. That's a HELL of a lot more nutrition training than your average MD
gets.

I'm sure both have tons of post-degree self-study in nutrition, and that's
virtually impossible to measure.

The problem of quantifying levels of expertise is a hard one, especially in
the world of nutrition.

~~~
DanBC
In the UK things are slightly easier. The word "dietician" is reserved. It is
illegal to call yourself a dietician unless you have specific qualifications
and are registered.

Anyone can call themselves a nutritionist. I could set up shop tomorrow,
calling myself a nutritionist.

That's made a bit more complex because you have sensible nutritionists working
within public health doing real science, and you have wingnuts.

~~~
teach
The word 'dietitian' is protected similarly in the United States, and the word
'nutritionist' is similarly unprotected.

------
noonespecial
My boss, on my first job, whenever presented with any alarmist "study" of this
nature would mumble:

"If you feed a rat a boxcar of anything, it'll get cancer".

~~~
dataminer
And the point these studies are trying to make is that, we are taking a boxcar
of sugar everyday.

~~~
jobu
I think this is the key. In the amounts that people are consuming it today,
sugar is a toxin.

------
Kaizyn
Yes, sugar is toxic. It was never found in a natural diet for humans in the
high quantities it is now ingested by people. The two major effects it has on
the body is: 1) simultaneously raising blood sugar levels while promoting
insulin resistance when it is eaten, and 2) promoting the glycation process
that badly affects metabolic processes. Do a google search on "Advanced
Glycation End Products" (also called AGEs) for a better understanding of what
exactly sugar does to you.

~~~
sycren
What alternative would you suggest for high short term energy?

~~~
Kaizyn
If you cut the highly processed carbs (sugar and wheat based snack foods
primarily) from your diet, you will stop having the 2-3 hour cycles of hunger,
energy rush, crash, and food cravings. Once your body has corrected itself,
you will no longer need to eat for "high short term energy". Think about human
history for a minute and consider whether it would be an advantage for hunter-
gatherers to have to stop and eat every couple hours. The fact that everyone
generally does now and that people living on traditional diets like the Masai
of Africa do not should tell you something.

While it is an aside, getting enough sleep will also reduce your necessary
daily food requirements by about 400 calories.

------
ericssmith
HN threads on this topic already:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3781829>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2443316>

------
y0ink
Here is Dr. Lustig's UCSF lecture, referenced in the 60 minutes piece:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM>

NYTimes article, same subject:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.ht...](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?_r=2&ref=magazine)

------
hoprocker
Interesting newsstory. Dr Lustig was also features on Science Friday a few
months ago -- <http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201202172>

One concern of the doctor's that's somewhat glossed over is how fructose,
unlike other sugars, is metabolized in the liver. His gripe here is partly
with the glut of sugar in our diet, and partly how all of the sugars in a food
product are lumped together on the nutrition label as "sugar", with no
distinction between the different molecules.

------
JeanPierre
As a person who read about studies like these, how do I filter out the "real"
studies versus the studies blown out of proportions? I've read Ben Goldacre's
_Bad Science_ (which I highly recommend), but I don't have the time to do much
research on every study newspapers/other media come out with. Is there a
simple way to find out whether this - or any other study, for that matter - is
a study to take seriously?

~~~
refurb
There really isn't a simple way to find out if a study should be taken
seriously or not.

What you need to do is read the original literature and pay attention to the
details. Bad studies are usually bad for a few reasons:

1\. Bad experimental design. If you are testing hypothesis X, but your study
design doesn't control for all the variables, then the data won't really tell
you anything. For example, if you want to see if a high-fat diet increases the
risk of cancer and you don't control for smoking or environmental exposure,
your data is crap whether it supports or rejects your hypothesis.

2\. Bad data. You may have a great experimental design, but if your data isn't
strongly supportive of a conclusion, then it's a weak study. If we take the
above example and compare a high-fat diet to a low-fat diet across 5 different
group and 2 groups show no effect, 2 groups are right on the border of being
statistically significant and one group is strongly positive, it doesn't
really tell you anything.

3\. Bad conclusions. The data says one thing, but the author goes ahead and
concludes it means something else. You see this a LOT in bad science. Again if
we take the above example, the data may strongly support that a high-fat diet
is bad, but then the author goes ahead and says that all fats are bad. The
data doesn't support this. This is sort of what the sugar-is-toxic studies do.
Are diets that are hyper-caloric and have a high percentage of carbohydrates
derived from simple sugars bad for you? Most likely. Should you actively try
and exclude them from your diet? The answer to that is no (and the data
doesn't support that conclusion).

I was formally trained as a scientist, but no longer work in the lab, but the
training on I got in designing experiments (be they in the lab or in
marketing) has served me well in filtering out "crap" of all sorts.

------
kolev
Pretty much everything's toxic depending on the dosage. Salt, water
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication>), and, of course, sugar.

~~~
city41
One of the main points of the story is that sugar intake has increased
dramatically in America. They talked about the reduction of fat in food, and
manufacturers responded by replacing the fat with sugar.

The point being that the average American now consumes sugar at "toxic"
quantities (and of course, the word "toxic" was very much link bait). It's
hard to deny America has an obesity and diabetes problem.

~~~
kolev
Some people take the word "sugar" literary and switch to brown sugar, agave
syrup, evaporated cane juice and so on, which aren't much better and some are
actually worse. The only acceptable form of fructose is the one part of an
organic fruit as you get the full complex of phytochemicals, not just the
fructose. I'm really mad at the organics industry, which puts so much
redundant "healthy" sugars in so many products.

~~~
pyre
Agave syrup has the benefit of being vegan; normal refined sugar is processed
with bone meal. People have various different reasons for wanting
'alternative' sugars. Attempting to move away from refined sugar because it's
'bad' is just one of them.

~~~
jonah
Agave nectar is probably not that healthy either. It's highly processed and
more akin to HFC than sugar.

~~~
pyre
The original post was lamenting the existence of products such as agave nectar
as attempting to falsely lead people astray that are looking for alternatives
to sugar, as a more 'healthier' choice. I posited a completely separate
motivation that someone might have for choosing/using agave nectar (one that I
might add does not necessarily have anything to do with being 'healthy').

The conversation is coming off like:

    
    
      Original Post: "People might choose agave nectar for
                     <reason 1>, but it fails to deliver what
                     they are attempting to do."
    
      Me: "Agave nectar doesn't exist just to satisfy
          people with <reason 1>. There are people that might
          choose it for <reason 2>."
    

People seem to be attempting to 'rebut' me with, "BUT <REASON 1>!" I really
don't understand it.

~~~
jonah
You're right and I apologize. I can't stand when people talk "past" each other
in discussions/arguments. My comment was about Agave in general and not the
particular aspect you spoke of.

Aside 1: I'd heard that Agave wasn't that good nutritionally and did a quick
search to clarify. The first piece I read was actually about how many people
see Agave nectar as a raw food sweetener when in fact it is cooked at 250+
degrees for many hours to break down the starches into simpler fructose.

Aside 2: To be fair, the original discussion was about health effects not the
philosophical/moral considerations our our food choices.

------
nosugar
I quit white sugar for some time and I am not sure if sugar is really toxic
but I can say:

\- Coming through the day w/o white sugar is a completely different
experience: no more downs (or "sugar crashs") through the day and work
motivation is always up

\- These sugar crashs or downs can be severe especially if you are under
stress; then the stress is multiplied which leads to depression and more white
sugar consumption

\- Eating now fruits because of the fructose regularly, before I've never ate
fruits (there was no reason because anything with white sugar was much sweeter
and tastier than fruit)

Now when I accidentally eat something containing white sugar I immediately
"feel" the white sugar: my brain is getting a high like with alcohol or
caffeine—it's a difference compared to fructose. It's a subtle feeling and you
probably won't feel it if your are used to white sugar. Before I related the
downs to the heavy lunch I had before, that I haven't slept well or that the
work is just so boring, etc.

Another observations regarding "white sugar could be drug": Look how many
shelves with sweets you find a grocery store and compare the amount to other
foods and with alcohol (where you usually find similar quantities).

------
DanBC
Please could someone help me unpick the numbers?

> _Americans are now consuming nearly 130 pounds of added sugars per person,
> per year._

This sentence is so vague as to be almost meaningless. Assuming 311,600,000
Americans. I have no way of telling how many Americans are eating a "safe"
level of sugar versus how many Americans are eating a "dangerous" level of
sugar.

130 lb is nearly 60 kg - that's a remarkable amount of sugar. And if that's a
mean then there are people eating considerably more than that.

Scarily, the amount of added sugar has decreased (between 2000 and 2008) -
(<http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db87.htm>)

> _Although the percent of daily calories derived from added sugars declined
> between 1999–2000 and 2007–2008 (2), consumption of added sugars remains
> high in the diets of Americans._

~~~
JackdawX
Actually, the 'average' (mean presumably) intake won't apply to you as an
individual in any meaningful way. You'll have to try and monitor your daily
diet, focusing on known high-sugar foods and most commonly consumed foods.
This data is all over google, thanks for various consumer protection laws.
Example:

60kg/365 = 164g per day sugar in a coke: 39g sugar in starbucks skinny latte:
13.2g / 17.5g / 22.9g (small->large) heinz ketchup: 23.7g / 100g etc.

(Looking at that list, I probably hit 100g or more per day, even though I
stopped adding sugar to my tea and coffee.)

------
readme
To you guys calling this alarmist, it's not. It has been known for a while:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM>

Most of the same dangers as alcohol.

~~~
cinquemb
They also compared it to crack on the show. I doubt the average crackhead
would agree.

~~~
readme
I think there's definitely a strong reward response when someone gets to have
sugar. The thing that they are missing when comparing it to crack is that
sugar withdrawal isn't that bad.

------
ghurlman
The crux of the piece, as I heard it, was that sugar is about as bad as fat
when it comes to causes of heart disease and heart attacks, that HFCS is, in
fact, worse than cane sugar because of the way the liver processes them, AND
that the brain responds to sugar about the same way it does cocaine, and
proves to be about as addictive.

So, toxic might a little strong, but when the doctors that worked on these
studies recommend no more than about 100g/day of added sugars in your diet,
less than what's in a can of soda, "large quantities" may not mean what you
think it means either.

~~~
watmough
I think you heard a couple of things wrong.

For starters, there are pathways for breaking down fat, storing it, and
burning it in the body.

Secondly, refined sugars incorporating fructose are all about equivalently
bad.

Thirdly, when you go over a certain smallish amount of fructose, your liver
has to respond to eliminate this 'toxin' from the body, which produces really
bad LDL cholesterols, which contributes to stroke and heart disease risk.

On the basics, and this is the slightly confusing thing for those new to this
topic, your body really only uses glucose sugar directly. There is a whole
mechanism dedicated to storing glucose as glycogen (in the liver), and then
retransforming it and burning it when you need energy. This does not work with
fructose, which has to be transformed to fat, stored, then burned later.

This nutritional disadvantage of fructose would be enough for me to stop
eating it, even without all the other problems.

The US move from complex carbs like starch that can be broken down to glucose
in the body and readily used by cells, to poorer quality foods with much added
(cheap) fructose, has massively increased the amount of fructose we ingest,
and according to Lustig, increased the damage to our bodies.

I personally don't eat refined / fructose sugar except in fruit and small
amounts of honey or jam, and the times when I have a something like a cookie
with lots of sugar, I really really feel the effects, the worst being a sort
of sugar come-down that manifests as extreme irritability.

~~~
maxerickson
The liver is able to convert fructose into glucose and glycogen.

~~~
watmough
In small quantities.

25% of calorie intake as fructose, like many Americans, and the liver floods
your system with fat.

------
kbronson
As in all articles that have a question as title, the answer is "no".

------
blahedo
I'm betting on April Fools for this one, too.

~~~
firefoxman1
I've concluded humor isn't allowed on HN. Seriously, why the downvotes?

~~~
fragsworth
Most people don't go to HN to read jokes. That said, I've seen humor get
upvoted, but it has to be pretty spectacular humor.

~~~
alexqgb
I don't come to HN for jokes either, but I'm always surprised by the extent to
which incidental displays of cleverness go over like farts in churches. I keep
wondering if the people who feel compelled to police this stuff heavily also
struggle to connect with "the normals" at work.

~~~
corysama
It has been observed that as online communities like HN grow, the signal-to-
noise ratio falls on a progression that can be summarized as HN -> Reddit ->
Digg. As we become more complacent regarding downvotes on well-written
comments because we disagree or not downvoting witty fluff, HN slides farther
and farther into the noise pit. No one yet knows how to permanently stave off
the Diggnation of HN. But, in the mean time, it is worth trying to delay as
much as possible.

------
jcromartie
Of course it is. Why do you think preserved jams and jellies work? Bacteria
love sugar as much as any other creature but it's a preservative in large
quantities.

~~~
secoif
Also it should be pointed out that we aren't made of fruit. We preserve meat
in salts, does that mean salt is toxic to us as well?

~~~
ruethewhirled
High doses of salt is toxic

~~~
Danieru
As is water: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication>

