Was There Ever Really A “Sugar Conspiracy”?

Mito

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http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/359/6377/747.full.pdf

We believe that these narratives are wrong. There was no “smoking gun.” There was no “sugar conspiracy”—at least not one which we have identified. Here, we offer a brief review of postwar nutrition research on fat and sugar and attempt to explain the emergence of these conspiratorial stories.
 

Madato

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Sugar is a poison.

It’s the culprit of most modern diseases.

Anyone telling you it fuels your energy and promotes metabolism has an agenda.

Where do you think our ancestors found sugar? That’s right, nowhere
 

Ulysses

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Where do you think our ancestors found sugar? That’s right, nowhere
The prevailing notion of evolution is that it has proceeded by breaking and killing off all organisms not sufficiently adapted to their environment. So, it's a little specious to construct this hypothetical "ancestral environment" and then imply that we must all be perfectly adapted to it. If what you are implying is true, then evolution would have stopped a long time ago. Of course, the environment of the organism is always changing, and the organism changes with it - so what, exactly, is your argument?
 

tara

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Where do you think our ancestors found sugar? That’s right, nowhere
Um. Some of them, abundantly in their local forest.
Then others of them didn't have it as easy to come by. So they ate other stuff too.
 
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"Refined granulated sugar is extremely pure, but it lacks all of the essential nutrients, so it should be considered as a temporary therapeutic material, or as an occasional substitute when good fruit isn't available, or when available honey is allergenic."-RP

Fruit is different than pure sucrose "table" sugar.

Non-flour boiled/steamed starch is different than pure sucrose "table" sugar.

White rice is the sucrose version of starch.

People who are anti-"sugar" always ignore fat and how much fat people eat in the form of condiments like mayo, dressing, dip etc. and the amount of dairy fat people consume and many people eat large amounts of peanut butter. People like Joe Rogan claim it's "sugar" and "refined carbohydrates" that are the problem. The problem with that statement is that people don't consume only sugar and refined carbohydrates, they ingest a lot of fat simultaneously alongside with the sugar and flour.
 
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yerrag

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Sugar is a poison.

It’s the culprit of most modern diseases.

Anyone telling you it fuels your energy and promotes metabolism has an agenda.

Where do you think our ancestors found sugar? That’s right, nowhere

You paint with a broad stroke, catching Ray Peat dead center as one having an agenda. Even if our ancestors didn't find much sugar, how long ago was that? Has the landscape changed since then? Have we evolved and adapted over that long span to rely on sugar for metabolism?

Even if you ignore that argument, you should be able to construct your argument based on our current physiological makeup and the present biochemical needs of humans. Forget our ancestry. Where do you stand now?

Is sugar really the culprit of most modern diseases? Ray Peat believes that it is PUFAs that it the culprit. PUFAs (polyunsaturated fat, in case you are new and haven't read a thing on Ray Peat) block the metabolism of sugar. This leads to sugar being converted to fat. Instead of directly using sugar, the body is made to use this fat, as well as PUFA, for its energy needs. This metabolic pathway leads to chronic stress conditions, and this is the culprit of most modern diseases.

You don't say water is the cause of floods. So don't blame sugar as the cause of disease. If the land cannot absorb water, it will flood. Will you blame water? Of course not. You blame the land for being made barren that trees cannot absorb the water. You blame the land for being plugged up by cement roads and sidewalks that block the land from absorbing water. You blame the river and tributaries for being plugged up by erosion and waste that the water does not drain to the sea. Oh yeah, don't blame the land. Blame the system for messing with a good piece of land.

So please, don't blame sugar. Blame yourself for messing up your body with PUFA. Since you believe the American Heart Association for its "heart-healthy" menu. You just have no idea living with such gullibility.
 
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tara

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You paint with a broad stroke, catching Ray Peat dead center as one having an agenda. Even if our ancestors didn't find much sugar, how long ago was that? Has the landscape changed since then? Have we evolved and adapted over that long span to rely on sugar for metabolism?

Even if you ignore that argument, you should be able to construct your argument based on our current physiological makeup and the present biochemical needs of humans. Forget our ancestry. Where do you stand now?

Is sugar really the culprit of most modern diseases? Ray Peat believes that it is PUFAs that it the culprit. PUFAs (polyunsaturated fat, in case you are new and haven't read a thing on Ray Peat) block the metabolism of sugar. This leads to sugar being converted to fat. Instead of directly using sugar, the body is made to use this fat, as well as PUFA, for its energy needs. This metabolic pathway leads to chronic stress conditions, and this is the culprit of most modern diseases.

You don't say water is the cause of floods. So don't blame sugar as the cause of disease. If the land cannot absorb water, it will flood. Will you blame water? Of course not. You blame the land for being made barren that trees cannot absorb the water. You blame the land for being plugged up by cement roads and sidewalks that block the land from absorbing water. You blame the river and tributaries for being plugged up by erosion and waste that the water does not drain to the sea. Oh yeah, don't blame the land. Blame the system for messing with a good piece of land.

So please, don't blame sugar. Blame yourself for messing up your body with PUFA. Since you believe the American Heart Association for its "heart-healthy" menu. You just have no idea living with such gullibility.

They were being sarcastic.
 

Stefan

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Can someone explain like I'm 5, how PUFA blocks or mitigates carbohydrate metabolism? I mean, my understanding is that the body preferentially burns carbs before fats, but I am unaware of any mechanism by which PUFA interferes with this order.
 
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They? Show me Madato drinking Mexican Coke.

I said they because I don't know their sex.

Where do you think our ancestors found sugar? That’s right, nowhere

Start with any kind of cooked starchy plant and fruit. And honey. And milk (galactose). Even low calorie leafy greens have sugar. And protein is also a source of sugar because it turns into sugar half the time.

Did you mean cane sugar? That's just one plant.

Do you believe that the sugar you're are eating in any non-sucrose form is also toxic? Because it all ends up as the same molecule in the blood: glucose aka sugar. It's so not toxic that your body turns your own protein tissue into sugar if it needs to.
 
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yerrag

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Can someone explain like I'm 5, how PUFA blocks or mitigates carbohydrate metabolism? I mean, my understanding is that the body preferentially burns carbs before fats, but I am unaware of any mechanism by which PUFA interferes with this order.

It doesn't seem like the body prefers to burn carbs over fats. Otherwise, there would be no diabetes at all, since that would mean blood sugar would be used, and the blood sugar would not accumulate and go up.

But I just couldn't explain why PUFA would block carbohydrate metabolism. Perhaps it's that all fats would block carbohydrate metabolism, for that matter. But I'll try and welcome the chance to be corrected.



I think that the body prefers to burn saturated fats over PUFAs. So dietary fats not burned and stored would tend to be PUFAs. Over time stored fats accumulate. Stored fats are released continually through lipolysis, where free fatty acids are released to the blood stream. The body prefers to burn these PUFAs over glucose. So when we eat starch and it gets converted to glucose and gets absorbed into the blood stream, the blood sugar increases because the body isn't using up the blood sugar, but the free fatty acids instead. At a certain point, the blood sugar becomes high enough that it triggers insulin to be released from the pancreas. The insulin will convert the glucose to fat, and the fat will be stored for use later. This fat will be used later, and provide a supply of free fatty acids that impede glucose uptake by the body tissues.

PUFAs are also antagonists to thyroid. Lack of thyroid will cause sugar metabolism also to be impaired. Sugar will not be fully utilized in the most efficient manner, and this produces more lactic acid as a by-product. Over time, lactic acid accumulates while carbon dioxide, the product of efficient sugar metabolism, decreases. This further impairs the metabolism of sugar, since less oxygen will be available to fully burn the sugar, as the release of oxygen to body tissues is affected negatively when serum carbon dioxide is low. This drives further the metabolic pathway closer to the anaerobic type, and leads further to production of lactic acid.

Just confining the discussion to the blood, this will lead towards a very low serum CO2 content in the blood, and further restrict the availability of oxygen to the tissues. This further impairs the ability of tissues to burn sugar, as oxygen is needed to be efficiently produce energy. As energy dwindles, the body goes into a chronic stress mode. It will end up relying more on fat metabolism for energy, and less and less on sugar metabolism. Soon enough, it will just be using sugar to produce fats, and merely be burning fats.

By this time, the body is already on a very suboptimal state. It will be producing little energy, it will not be able to warm itself enough to protect itself, it won't have energy to repair itself and to renew and heal itself, it will be very sensitive and become very sensitive to allergies, and it will not have enough energy to provide a good immune response. It will also not have the ability to make stem cells differentiate, and in this mode, cells will just revert to a primitive mode of survival by growing and replicating, and in this mode, cancer cells will spread. And the body, already without energy to counter cancer, will just be a bystander to the destruction that's ongoing.

I think I went beyond answering your question. Sorry.
 

schultz

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They were being sarcastic.

I sort of thought it was supposed to be funny as well... was it not a joke?

Edit: It has to be a joke because you don't have to look far to find sugar... like it breast milk lol. You know, the first food we eat?
 
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Mito

Mito

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Can someone explain like I'm 5, how PUFA blocks or mitigates carbohydrate metabolism?
Thyroid hormone is needed in the cell to promote glucose (carbohydrate) metabolism. One way that PUFA blocks carbohydrate metabolism is by interfering with the transport of thyroid hormone in to the cell. PUFA does this by binding to the protein (transthyretin) that carries thyroid into the cell. So PUFA can “out compete” thyroid for binding to transthyretin and so the effect is lower thyroid function.

Transthyretin (also called prealbumin) is important as a carrier of the thyroid hormone and vitamin A. The unsaturation of vitamin A and of thyroxin allow them to bind firmly with transthyretin and certain other proteins, but the unsaturated fatty acids are able to displace them, with an efficiency that increases with the number of double bonds, from linoleic (with two double bonds) through DHA (with six double bonds). Fats, functions and malfunctions.

I mean, my understanding is that the body preferentially burns carbs before fats
It depends on the tissue. The brain burns almost all glucose (carbs). The heart burns almost all fat. Muscles at rest burn mostly fat.
 
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People who are anti-"sugar" always ignore fat and how much fat people eat in the form of condiments like mayo, dressing, dip etc. and the amount of dairy fat people consume and many people eat large amounts of peanut butter. People like Joe Rogan claim it's "sugar" and "refined carbohydrates" that are the problem. The problem with that statement is that people don't consume only sugar and refined carbohydrates, they ingest a lot of fat simultaneously alongside with the sugar and flour.

Recently, I decided to do a low fat diet. And not "it's low fat because I'm removing all the foods I think are fatty" but actually calculating caloric ratios. You pretty much have to restrict yourself to skim milk, a little meat or cheese, and no other foods with fat. If you eat meat or cheese freely or don't do skim milk, you will break your fat ratio. It's extremely easy to break the 20% fat ratio because fat is so calorically dense. I think most people that are not extremely pro-active about what foods they are eating are probably eating around 50% fat, or at least a lot more than they think. When you add mayo with a sandwich or have a donut, those items are 50% fat.

Because you have to eat so much sugar to compensate for fat's energy density, I question Ray's admonition about refined sugar. Unless you're constantly eating large quantities of fruit, you are not going to get enough calories without drinking soda and adding granulated sugar to things. (A tablespoon of sugar is only 44 calories). So your low fat diet will become a caloric restriction diet.
 
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