You'd do better to expand upon why you think he's incorrect. What's wrong with a caloric deficit based approach?
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How sugar may make you stupid
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You'd do better to expand upon why you think he's incorrect. What's wrong with a caloric deficit based approach?
Trent Strong
Banned
So someone can burn 2000 calories a day and eat 1000 calories a day and gain weight then?
Pretty much nobody succeeds long term just counting calories. The long term trials on calorie restriction are absolutely dismal. The neuroendocrine system will always trump willpower in the long run. However, you can do things that affect the neuroendocrine system to reach a lower set point so that you will naturally eat less calories and lose body fat.
Almost nobody is capable of overriding hunger in the long run.
Terra Firma
Banned
False.
Insulin does not regulate glucose uptake by the brain which is a VERY fortunate thing indeed. Another organ whose glucose uptake is not maintained by insulin is the kidney.
What insulin may affect is the level of glucose available in the blood. Excessive insulin has a negative effect on the amount of glucose available to the brain (hypoglycemia) and can cause people to lose consciousness.
False. It DOES regulate sugar "levels" since what is meant by sugar "levels" is the amount of glucose present in your blood. The terms hyper- and hypoglycemia refer to glucose levels in the blood.
Otherwise, you might as well forget about glucose altogether, since it is transformed into lipids and glycogen for storage purposes. Sugar barely exists as "glucose" inside the cell, as it enters glycolysis intracellulary, where it is broken down to a more workable energy source or converted to fat.
If you do find excessive glucose inside a cell, that means that there is an enzyme deficiency in the person or he may have some other disease.
It is not just glucose, although it does play a major part.
Fructose is also problematic. It bypasses steps in glycolysis and thus is not as heavily regulated as glucose. People with an enzyme deficiency (aldolase B deficiency) may even die if they consume fructose.
This is a gross oversimplification.
There is a big difference between eating lots of hard sugar-coated candy and eating lots of vegetables.
The variation in the rate of metabolism is one of the biggest differentiating factors. If you merely consume large amounts of sucrose, which is a disaccharide composed of glucose and fructose, your body will readily break down these foods and absorb them rapidly, which would then also be rapidly stored in the liver as glycogen or converted to fat for storage. If you eat more complex sugars, your body has a harder time breaking that down to easily absorbable glucose. Basically, the more steps there are to a reaction, the lower the efficiency of your body in getting the same amount of energy as potentially expected. Complex sugars have to be broken down by enzymes in your mouth and enzymes released by your pancreas. Disaccharides are much more easily broken down. Polysaccharides, which require a longer time to break down, may not even be broken down and absorbed by the time you have a bowel movement.
Basically, the more complex the food you consume are at a macromolecular level, the more time your body will take in breaking them down for absorption, the longer lasting your satiety will be, and thus you'll eat less.
If you eat a box of chocolates, do you feel full? If you eat a salad, do you feel full? The former contains sucrose and lactose. The latter contains more complex carbohydrates, such as cellulose and starch. Furthermore, a simple sugar that is found in plants is not metabolized by the human body, particularly xylose, but since it forms a large part of the plants we eat, it is able to control our hunger merely by its mass (one of the major controllers of satiety is how "full" your stomach is, even if the contents may not be digestible).
This is not relevant to the conversation but I wish you the best.
Type 2 Diabetes has a multifactorial cause. There is a genetic link, there is a link to a person's lifestyle, there is a link to the types of foods he eats.
Again, it isn't as simplistic as you're making it out to be.
And the solution you've provided is something that can only happen effectively if people eat the right kinds of foods. Moderation is fine and all, but what are these limits going to be? The reasons doctors don't discourage eating whole grains and vegetables is because your hunger is satisfied after having a lower caloric intake than it would if all you ate were candies and all you drank was pop.
Most people who suffer from health problems due to improper diet don't do so because they have been gouging on vegetables and whole grains. Eating less complex sugars which are easily absorbed and then rapidly stored leads to a faster recurrence of hunger and thus excessive and/or more frequent eating, which leads to obesity. If people ate a lot of vegetables, for example, they would feel too full to eat after a short while, whereas this threshold is a lot higher if you eat candies and drink pop.
Overeating vegetables is not as equally dangerous as eating candies and drinking pop.
Who has said that sugary foods are inherently evil? Who has never eaten a cookie or drank a can of Coke? Most doctors will tell you the same thing: be moderate in your consumption. What people are talking about is when people do not consume in moderation but overindulge. A lot of foods that we eat regularly are high in simple sugars, high in sodium, and/or high in fat. The reason we get any disease associated with these diseases, whether it be diabetes, hypertension, or atherosclerosis respectively, is usually due to excessive indulgence.
You're getting the complete wrong impression from the article. Obviously what is being talked about is the danger of excess. It is idiotic to demonize glucose since that is one of the basic sources of energy and is the only thing that our brain can metabolize for energy.
In medicine, as with other sciences, we deal with majority groups/cohorts. In some people with higher metabolic rates, eating twice or three times as much as an average person has little effect on their body mass and the state of their health. There are never any absolutes. Some people are immune to HIV; does that mean doctors should stop warning about the dangers of unprotected intercourse?
Yeah, I don't disagree there with the psychology and the difficulty...but if we're just talking pure numbers, how does one gain weight if they are on a caloric deficit? Someone mentioned burning off 2000 for every 1000; putting aside the actual number estimates, I'm curious to your reasoning of how someone's body can gain weight from negative calories.
I never said that someone can gain weight with a negative calorie deficit.
Terra Firma
Banned
All those things you have listed are affected by your caloric intake (as well as other factors). Over a long period of time where you restrict your calories, the rate of leptin production, for example, decrease and thus your metabolic rate falls, making it more difficult for you to lose weight after a while by merely restricting your caloric intake but there is a net weight loss. A person has to pick up the slack and exercise as well to increase the metabolic rate.
Ghrelin secretion has little to do with caloric intake and more to do with how much "filled up" your stomach is. That is why ghrelin levels have been seen to be significantly reduced in people who have smaller stomachs, either due to surgery or naturally.
Glucagon is directly related to blood sugar levels, though, and something that actually supports the guy's theory about calories. The less you eat, the lower your blood sugar, the more glucagon induces gluconeogenesis and the more release of glucose from cells. This eventually leads to weight loss since your fat stores have to be broken down to increase blood sugar levels.
The truth is, both hunger and caloric intake are what come into play when talking about weight gain and loss. If you restrict your caloric intake for a substantial amount of time, your body's homeostatic state is affected and thus there is a change in set points. A person would feel satiated with a lesser amount of food if he eats fewer calories over a long period of time.
This is a similar effect as type 2 diabetes, where your body develops resistance to insulin. In this case, your body becomes more resistant to the hunger-inducing hormones or may produce lesser and lesser amounts as it gradually adjusts to the decreased caloric intake.
On first page, but I need to respond to this: consumption of fructose does not trigger an insulin response. Fructose processed primarily by the liver and works a different metabolic pathway. You'd never get full if you drank pure fructose.
HFCS presenting neural damage is pretty well known, although the counting effect of Omega-3 fatty acids is news to me.
Because different types of nutrition are processed by different biological pathways. Proteins, fats, and carbs/sugars are all processed differently. And that's excluding the value of vitamins and other minerals.
It's true that lowering calories can change the neuroendocrine system and allow people to keep weight off, in some people, but it's still a pretty dismal method of keeping weight off. Just this week, the look AHEAD trials was halted 11 years in (it was supposed to be 13.5 years long) because it was obvious that calorie restriction (and other lifestyle interventions -- i.e. exercise) wasn't going to make a difference. Weight loss was minimal and the difference in CVD events was going to be non-significant.
I mentioned the various hormones/peptides because they aren't exactly tied to calorie intake. Ghrelin is also affected by quality of sleep. People who get inadequate amounts of sleep or have a sleep disorder like sleep apnea have higher levels of ghrelin which leads to a greater appetite. Ghrelin is also not just affected by energy density. A meal consisting primarily of fat and protein will suppress ghrelin much longer than a meal consisting primarily of carbohydrate. In fact, carbohydrate strongly suppresses ghrelin initially, but there is a rebound effect ~3 hours later where ghrelin rises above baseline. Protein strongly suppresses ghrelin, without the rebound effect and fat minimally suppresses ghrelin, but does so for a while and without the rebound effect.
I'm not sure about the set point changing just by eating at a calorie deficit for a while. Most people re-gain their weight after calorie restriction. If you take a weight reduced person and match them to someone else who is the same weight but not weight reduced, the person who is weight reduced will have less leptin than the non weight reduced person. Leptin also controls hunger. More leptin = less hunger and higher metabolic rate, thus the weight reduced person will struggle to maintain his/her reduced weight compared to the non weight reduced person. Interesting, overweight people tend to have high levels of circulating leptin, but it isn't acting in the brain (leptin resistance), likely due to elevated triglycerides. So giving an obese person leptin won't reduce their weight, but giving a weight reduced person allows them to much more easily maintain their weight loss.
Terra Firma
Banned
What does that have to do with this discussion?
The trial you're talking about was to determine whether weight loss resulted in decreased frequency of heart disease in the context of type 2 diabetes. What we're talking about is reduced caloric intake in a healthy individual leading to weight loss, which is completely irrelevant.
Yes, I already stated that ghrelin is not directly related to caloric intake, which can explain why eating a lot of calories does not necessarily decrease hunger. I've already mentioned that it is the type of food consumed - i.e. the source of the calories - that determines how long one's satiety is maintained.
Set point changing occurs in chronic conditions, whether it be your metabolic rate or your body temperature or your oxygen requirement. The body becomes accustomed after a while. People who diet for an extended period of time naturally become full faster. The weight is usually gained back either due to increasing caloric intake or becoming more sedentary.
Why do a lot of people gain weight to begin with? Chronic overeating changes the set point of their body to such an extent that they get hungry faster and eat more than they normally would. People these days are fatter than generations before for a variety of reasons, but it can be easily seen that the ease of access to high caloric foods has had a big part in this.
Of course there are many factors to consider, such as the prevalence of a sedentary lifestyle, but even in sedentary occupations of previous generations, you did not see the level of obesity you see today. Going down to the fast food restaurant and eating sometimes as much as what is recommended caloric intake for an entire day has played a big part, not to mention that foods are refined and processed to such an extent that they are easy to digest and absorb, which may results in faster onset of hunger.
If you want to lose weight, you cut down on your calories and stick to whole unprocessed foods as much as possible.
After you've lost the weight you want (over a reasonably long time), you just have to maintain on what you're eating. You'll probably be able to eat slightly more but your weight should be stabilised. You don't have to calorie count for the rest of your life. By now you should be used to your new diet and lifestyle so just carry on with it.
After you've lost the weight you want (over a reasonably long time), you just have to maintain on what you're eating. You'll probably be able to eat slightly more but your weight should be stabilised. You don't have to calorie count for the rest of your life. By now you should be used to your new diet and lifestyle so just carry on with it.
scar tissue
Banned
By that logic, why not put arsenic in food? Or all kinds of carcinogenic substances?
I'm against more regulations in most cases, but the anything concerning health should be regulated strictly.
Paleo diet. Sugar is extremely limited to just fruit or none at all. I am safe here.
Heard interesting things about this diet. Go on...
I eat 4-5 fruits/day, 7 days/week. Mostly bananas but also peaches, oranges, and everything else I can get my hands on. Not apples though because my gall bladder gets a bit cranky.
travisbickle
Member
So this goes part of the way to explaining America.
Only if you're in America.
Here in the UK, HFCS is known as "glucose-fructose syrup" and is nowhere near as common. All our branded soft-drinks (including Coke) use cane sugar and always have done. There are a few specific products it is present in (jaffa cakes, hob-nobs, certain ice creams and dipping sauces) but they're actually few and far between.
Not sure why the US is so obsessed with using HFCS in all their foods instead of cane sugar.
Having said all that, the majority of the UK public is also becoming obese and almost lacking in as much common sense as Americans. So perhaps HFCS isn't the only problem.
Not obsessed. The populace barely cares. It's all big business, corn subsidies and contracts going back decades.
I have been catching up on supernatural the last few weeks and im about half way through season 7,
quite funny how the leviathan's plans to enslave the human race by making them submissive and stupid using corn syrup in products is so similar to the effect the corn syrup is actually having on us in real life.
storafötter
Member
I cant believe that people are trying to compare grains to sugar. Next is how dangerous it is to eat fruit due to the sugars in fruit!. Nevertheless I find this new science interesting. I remember reading also about how sugar disrupts your hormones. There has never been any good benefits for eating refined sugar. I try to limit my sugar intake but I used to be better at it before.
CornBurrito
Member
You implied "calories in < calories out = lose weight" was wrong.
Nobody argued for meticulous calorie counting as a diet.
ReadingRambo
Member
Here's a great Google talk given by the author of "Why we get fat". He has some great ideas and does a good job explaining why the laws of thermodynamics that work in inanimate objects aren't the best at explaining weight gain or weight loss in humans. Plus a bunch of other useful info.
Google Talk - Gary Taubes
Google Talk - Gary Taubes
There's a lot more to it than just counting calories. Can you achieve success by simply counting calories? Sure. But it's still a gross oversimplification of the matter.
There are plenty of aspects that contribute to this, many of which I simply don't know enough about to go into detail, so I'll just list two:
- People are not bomb calorimeters. Humans will not achieve the same efficiency when extracting energy from foods like bomb calorimeters do.
- Macronutrients do matter. Your body processes fat, carbs, and protein in very different ways. Simple example: if you're doing strength training and you don't intake any protein, you will be unable to build new muscle.
Also, keep in mind the poster was using calories in vs. calories out as an argument against why caloric intake was not the primary factor in weight gain. He was saying that no one had any excuses. This means he was ignoring the metabolic effect in his "calories out" metric. The reality of the matter is that the metabolic rate can vary quite wildly from one individual to another. Not only that, but certain individuals will store fat more efficiently than others. Watch the "Why we get fat" posted above.
Dark Octave
Banned
C'mon man, that stuff is highly toxic, you can't be serious with this argument.
CharlieDigital
Banned
There is a very good reason why governments should regulate sugar and HFCS consumption if it's proven to have an effect on cognitive abilities: economics.
Or more specifically, having a highly trained, highly qualified, well-educated base of workers is an economic advantage. It is why our model of public education - founded in the late 19th century - helped the US become one of the most innovative and productive countries in the world (certainly there were other factors as well, but widely available public education changed the workforce). It is why public education is now the norm in every first world country after centuries where a quality education was largely a domain and a right of the privileged and the wealthy. First-world, post-industrial countries cannot compete without an educated workforce.
In the global, information age that we live in now, it is more important than ever for us to keep an edge as important as the education and quality of our employable adults. If known levels of sugar consumption does indeed affect cognitive abilities in humans, then I think it is the responsibility of the government - a proxy of the people organized in this country - to help regulate the consumption of sugar.
This can take many forms: better education on the effects of sugar, restricting advertisement of products high in sugar from children, perhaps a new initiative to label certain foods that meet certain criteria for sugars with a "Seal of Health" or something, etc. Regulations don't have to involve bans; they can be used as a carrot as well as a prod. But if sugar is indeed detrimental to cognitive abilities, it is most certainly the responsibility of the government to help bring about a change in the population's behavior for the sake of the economy.
Or more specifically, having a highly trained, highly qualified, well-educated base of workers is an economic advantage. It is why our model of public education - founded in the late 19th century - helped the US become one of the most innovative and productive countries in the world (certainly there were other factors as well, but widely available public education changed the workforce). It is why public education is now the norm in every first world country after centuries where a quality education was largely a domain and a right of the privileged and the wealthy. First-world, post-industrial countries cannot compete without an educated workforce.
In the global, information age that we live in now, it is more important than ever for us to keep an edge as important as the education and quality of our employable adults. If known levels of sugar consumption does indeed affect cognitive abilities in humans, then I think it is the responsibility of the government - a proxy of the people organized in this country - to help regulate the consumption of sugar.
This can take many forms: better education on the effects of sugar, restricting advertisement of products high in sugar from children, perhaps a new initiative to label certain foods that meet certain criteria for sugars with a "Seal of Health" or something, etc. Regulations don't have to involve bans; they can be used as a carrot as well as a prod. But if sugar is indeed detrimental to cognitive abilities, it is most certainly the responsibility of the government to help bring about a change in the population's behavior for the sake of the economy.
scar tissue
Banned
I was exaggerating for dramatic effect, but the point is, if we allow obviously harmful substances in our food, where do we draw the line?
At least, they should slap a big sticker "WARNING: Contains HFCS" or something on it.
CharlieDigital
Banned
I can't believe this discussion missed the most obvious example of why this reasoning is bullshit: Asian diets.
Asian (including Indian subcontinent) diets are traditionally very high in carbs in the form of rice, consumables made from rice based flours (noodles, buns, etc), fruits, and vegetables. And yet until Western eating habits started to influence Asian countries, Asians generally suffered very low rates of obesity, low rates of diabetes, and low rates of various diet-linked ailments like heart disease. Both of which have been on the rise due to increased consumption of diets richer in animal based fats (excluding fish) and refined sugars.
CharlieDigital
Banned
Those of you who have young kids should try an experiment: cut as much sugar out of your child's diet as possible for a week and monitor behavioral changes. This is easier with young kids because you can have absolute control over all of the variables.
I have an 18mo and a few weeks back, we noticed she was suddenly becoming whiny, not listening to us, and breaking her normal sleep patterns. Just the terrible-twos? On a hunch, I told my wife to go through her snacks with me and found one "fruit-bar" where the second ingredient was sugar.
Sure enough, we took it out of her diet and it was like night and day. With no other change in her diet, cutting out one snack -- a "fruit bar" -- where she was getting probably over 50% of her daily sugar corrected her behavioral flare ups. We replaced it with another, much funkier tasting fruit bar where the first ingredient is rolled oats and 4/8 ingredients are dried fruits with no additional sugar -- she still seems to like it, luckily. (And by the way, the ability for me to easily look at and compare the ingredients and nutritional information is the result of government regulation on food labeling -- a perfect example of how government regulation can work without taking the form of an onerous ban)
We've generally kept her on a very sugar restricted diet but not carb restricted. She still gets things like grilled cheese sandwiches, pastas, rice, low-sugar cereals, and so on, but cutting out the sugar made a big difference in behavior and sleep patterns.
I have an 18mo and a few weeks back, we noticed she was suddenly becoming whiny, not listening to us, and breaking her normal sleep patterns. Just the terrible-twos? On a hunch, I told my wife to go through her snacks with me and found one "fruit-bar" where the second ingredient was sugar.
Sure enough, we took it out of her diet and it was like night and day. With no other change in her diet, cutting out one snack -- a "fruit bar" -- where she was getting probably over 50% of her daily sugar corrected her behavioral flare ups. We replaced it with another, much funkier tasting fruit bar where the first ingredient is rolled oats and 4/8 ingredients are dried fruits with no additional sugar -- she still seems to like it, luckily. (And by the way, the ability for me to easily look at and compare the ingredients and nutritional information is the result of government regulation on food labeling -- a perfect example of how government regulation can work without taking the form of an onerous ban)
We've generally kept her on a very sugar restricted diet but not carb restricted. She still gets things like grilled cheese sandwiches, pastas, rice, low-sugar cereals, and so on, but cutting out the sugar made a big difference in behavior and sleep patterns.
CadetMahoney
Member
heh
CornBurrito
Member
Yeah. I don't get how the Paleo crowd handwaves this away.
I'm glad her behavior problems went away, but this seems to be post hoc reasoning. You changed one factor of her diet, but did you control for anything else? Social interactions, etc? Did you ever punish her for her whiny behavior, or praise her when she was well behaved during that period?
CharlieDigital
Banned
As I've said, with young kids, it's very easy to control for all other variables because they can't make many choices yet
At 18 months, it's not like she can open doors and get her own snacks.She doesn't go to school yet and we have her on a more or less fixed schedule (including activities she does with the nanny, all mapped out on a calendar) so it's very easy for us to control the variables. Snack times are controlled, snacks are controlled, even juice is never given undiluted. Bathe at 7, snack at 7:30, milk at 8:00, up to bed at 8:30, out of bed at 8 AM (though she usually wakes herself up at 7:30) -- a clockwork regiment most of the time.
Additionally, we've observed that when given, for example, a pumpkin cookie which had a sizable amount of sugar in it (that my wife baked), it had the same effect. Once you take most of the sugar out of a small child's diet, you can very easily observe effects of sugar by introducing it in a controlled manner.
It worked for us, but if you have a small child, you should experiment with it and see for yourself.
It makes me cringe when I see other parents and their kids and the sugary stuff they are eating and drinking (in particular) and the parents are practically yelling at their kids to get them to behave.
ReadingRambo
Member
SE Asians have been eating said diets for thousands upon thousands of years. Their diets are also low in sugar. They are not genetically predisposed to store very much fat either. The concept of "lipophilliac-ness" or the degree to which their fat cells are genetically predisposed to grow in the presence of insulin is an important factor in why some races react differently than others. The video presents the example of crossbreeds of cattle that are developed to store the right amounts of fat for the tastes of the time. The "b-b-b-but asians eat rice!" counter doesn't hold up against the evidence or the proposition put forth.
CharlieDigital
Banned
That's lovely, but then the original argument doesn't hold one way or the other:
Non-Asians have also had traditionally carb-heavy diets. Europeans, for example, have diets rich in breads and pastas as well.
Indeed, for most of recorded history, humans have been dependent on a grain heavy diet with only the last two or three centuries seeing refined sugar and animal-based fats becoming a larger and larger part of human diet as the cost has gone down and the availability and accesibility of both have gone up.
The Asian population is a good barometer because refined sugars and animal based fats (excluding fish) have traditionally not been a heavy part of the Asian diet until the last half-century. Incidentally, the rate of diabetes, heart disease, and obesity have been on the rise while rice consumption is still very prevalent.
Jack_AG said:
Non-Asians have also had traditionally carb-heavy diets. Europeans, for example, have diets rich in breads and pastas as well.
Indeed, for most of recorded history, humans have been dependent on a grain heavy diet with only the last two or three centuries seeing refined sugar and animal-based fats becoming a larger and larger part of human diet as the cost has gone down and the availability and accesibility of both have gone up.
The Asian population is a good barometer because refined sugars and animal based fats (excluding fish) have traditionally not been a heavy part of the Asian diet until the last half-century. Incidentally, the rate of diabetes, heart disease, and obesity have been on the rise while rice consumption is still very prevalent.
Everyones a nutrionist scientist these days. I can't stand being around people that only talk about their carb levels.
Just eat decent food made from scratch (junk food is okay once in a while), always go for whole grain, drink no (or very little) soda and do some exercise and you will be fine (ay not apply if you have a disease).
edit: and reduce your intake of snacks, eat small pieces of dark chocolate instead of bars of milk chocolate
Just eat decent food made from scratch (junk food is okay once in a while), always go for whole grain, drink no (or very little) soda and do some exercise and you will be fine (ay not apply if you have a disease).
edit: and reduce your intake of snacks, eat small pieces of dark chocolate instead of bars of milk chocolate
Let me guess.. is it cheaper?
I suppose in some ways, yes, the corn producers and the food manufacturers have worked out a way to undercut the other sugary producers.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Same thing in every nutrition thread, but "calories in calories out" is such a gross simplification that it's overly meaningless. It doesn't help anyone, and is just used by people to attempt to shut down any discussion about how complicated the human body is. We aren't internal combustion engines.
If just cutting out the extremely sugary stuff did that much, just imagine if you went all the way and actually fed her good, real food. You'd see some even more impressive "night and day" changes.
If just cutting out the extremely sugary stuff did that much, just imagine if you went all the way and actually fed her good, real food. You'd see some even more impressive "night and day" changes.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
I'll just stick to diet sodas then, and other products containing sweeteners.
Eteric Rice
Member
There's actually some debate about weather these cause spikes as well. Basically, your body is like, "OH SHIT INCOMING SUGAR" when there isn't any.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
I'm fine with taking that risk, at least they're considering safe for consumption at the moment.
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