Some questions about nutrition advice

I'm curious about the general understanding what constitutes a healthy lifestyle. I'm in the UK so I'm particularly interested in how public health advice is being received by UK-based people, but am also interested the perceptions of people from other countries.

A few questions to gauge how people think about certain issues:

• Do you believe, broadly, that weight gain is primarily caused by eating too much and exercising too little, ie calories eaten = calories burned + fat gained?
• Do you believe that fat, and saturated fat in particular, is a leading cause of heart disease, diabetes, obesity and many cancers?
• Do you believe eating large amounts of red meat has a comparable risk to your health to smoking tobacco?
• Without looking it up, what's the rough proportional of saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats in a sirloin steak?
• Do you believe that replacing fat with starchy vegetables (like potatoes), pasta, bread and rice will help obese people lose weight?
• Do you believe that the main problem with sugar, in addition to being bad for your teeth, is that sugary foods contain lots of calories without supplying essential micronutrients like vitamins, i.e. that sugar constitutes "empty calories"?
• Given the choice between two foods, both with equal caloric content, would you choose a lower fat option that replaces the calories from fat with sugar over the full fat (but lower sugar) option?
• Is it better to be fit or to be lean?

Many of these questions are non issues if you simply follow the policy of "in moderation" when it comes to your diet.

That is an oft repeated mantra, whether its true or not kinda depends on what you mean by "moderation". The balance of macronutrients (fat vs carbs)? Portion size, should we just eat less? What level of exercise is needed to remain healthy, eg do we need to take up marathon running? And so on. In other words, I really am interested in the answers to the above questions, they are trying to get at the perception of what exactly a healthy lifestyle entails. I left some out because the list was getting too long, (eg what do you think is better for you, a Coke, a Diet Coke or a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice?), so it could be worse.

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Originally Posted by therother

I'm curious about the general understanding what constitutes a healthy lifestyle. I'm in the UK so I'm particularly interested in how public health advice is being received by UK-based people, but am also interested the perceptions of people from other countries.

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I think nutrition is a very small part of a healthy lifestyle. Like those people who get really into their food are actually less healthy than regular people.

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[LIST][*]Do you believe, broadly, that weight gain is primarily caused by eating too much and exercising too little, ie calories eaten = calories burned + fat gained?

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Yes.

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[*]Do you believe that fat, and saturated fat in particular, is a leading cause of heart disease, diabetes, obesity and many cancers?

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No.

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[*]Do you believe eating large amounts of red meat has a comparable risk to your health to smoking tobacco?

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No.

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[*]Without looking it up, what's the rough proportional of saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats in a sirloin steak?

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No idea.

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[*]Do you believe that replacing fat with starchy vegetables (like potatoes), pasta, bread and rice will help obese people lose weight?

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No.

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[*]Do you believe that the main problem with sugar, in addition to being bad for your teeth, is that sugary foods contain lots of calories without supplying essential micronutrients like vitamins, i.e. that sugar constitutes "empty calories"?

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No I think it's that it tastes so good you keep eating it.

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[*]Given the choice between two foods, both with equal caloric content, would you choose a lower fat option that replaces the calories from fat with sugar over the full fat (but lower sugar) option?

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I would choose full fat though I don't know for what food you could just swap them like that

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[*]Is it better to be fit or to be lean?

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Ehhh fit? Don't understand.

I feel like you know all the answers and are going to score it. But that's what I believe...

Thanks.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

I would choose full fat though I don't know for what food you could just swap them like that

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You might be surprised. It's common for manufacturers to replace fat with sugar (or flour) in many "low fat" products.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

I feel like you know all the answers and are going to score it. But that's what I believe...

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Ah, I should have made this clear: with the exception of the one about steak, there are no "right" answers.

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Originally Posted by therother

That is an oft repeated mantra, whether its true or not kinda depends on what you mean by "moderation". The balance of macronutrients (fat vs carbs)? Portion size, should we just eat less? What level of exercise is needed to remain healthy, eg do we need to take up marathon running? And so on. In other words, I really am interested in the answers to the above questions, they are trying to get at the perception of what exactly a healthy lifestyle entails. I left some out because the list was getting too long, (eg what do you think is better for you, a Coke, a Diet Coke or a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice?), so it could be worse.

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Is the concept of "moderation" really at debate here? This seems to be a common sense thing. 1/3 pound burgers and cokes are not great all the time and neither is a constant diet of rabbit food, tofu and plain water.

If you are trying to elicit more detailed lines to draw then your questions just degenerate into a "depends on the person" answer.

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

Many of these questions are non issues if you simply follow the policy of "in moderation" when it comes to your diet.

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This.

In general 1:1:1 portions of protein:complex carbohydrate:fat.

=][=
"Is it a European swallow or an African swallow?"
BTW as far as the steak is concerned it is more than the cut.
Fat content, type and ratio all depend on:
Is it grass or grain fed?
Lives in a stall or gets to wander a field?
Amount of hilly country.
age of the animal.
Breed of the animal.

All these contribute to the marbling characteristics of the cut.

Add to that is the steak aged, cooked in oil, grilled on a BBQ and there is no absolute answer for the ratio of fats in steak.

There has been more recent interest into a much higher protein and fat diet with little carbohydrate. The argument being that this is closer to what we used to have as hunter / gatherers and is healthier than the high complex sugars that are a very recent alteration to diet.

Some studies have shown that type 2 diabetes disappears on very carbohydrate controlled diets.

Of course sugar is "empty" calories by itself, as is drinking fat or alcohol. The only persons who should be taking large amounts of simple sugars are those recovering from severe starvation as protein or fats could kill them. But sadly I like sweet things and sweetener is either bloody expensive or doesn't taste that nice.

The risk of atherosclerosis is closely linked to one's serum cholesterol level. As the cholesterol level increases, one's risk goes up exponentially. However, how one's serum cholesterol level is linked to diet I am not sure.

The interesting thing about relative risks as one can hear that the contraceptive pill increases one's relative risk of cancer by 2. They never go on to say that smoking increases it by thousands.

Some studies say that red meat increases one's relative risk of dying. Frankly, most things do, and I'd rather the occasional steak than live a very long, uninspired life.

~:smoking:

@Papewaio: you are of course correct about the exact fat composition of steak depends on a number of variables. I was more interested in people's general opinion, mostly whether they thought steak is almost entirely saturated fat (steak is actually mostly protein and water, and only a few percent fat, the majority of which is unsaturated). Many of the preconceptions we have turn out to be wrong. For instance, fish can have twice as much saturated fat as meat.

I'd say your 1:1:1 protein:complex carbs:fat rule is probably fine if you are healthy, although that's quite a lot of protein for the average person. It would probably not be good for someone who is insulin resistant for instance (like most obese people).

@rory_20_uk: Yes, we are now doing studies examining higher fat, low carb diets for the first time since the 1960s (when high fat/low carbohydrates was the orthodoxy). Most studies show that increasing fat intake and reducing carbs leads to more sustainable weight loss (particularly for those who are insulin resistant), increased HDL, better LDL (more of the buoyant stuff, less of bad dense stuff), lower blood pressure, better triglyceride levels. The best known general indicator of an impending heart trouble is your HDL to triglyceride ratio, the higher the better. Not that I'm saying that HDL protects again heart disease or that triglycerides cause it, just that the ratio of these biomarkers appear most strongly associated with CHD.

The evidence that our diet for the last 2-3 million years was predominantly animal meat is strong and leads to the question of why, if it is so deleterious to our health, our bodies didn't adapt better. Add in that most populations untouched by the western diet ate a substantial amount of animal meat and saturated fat but still seem to be free of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity (the Inuit are a classic example), and leads me to set a pretty high evidence bar that meat consumption is bad for you. Significant complex carbohydrates only entered our diets when we become agrarian, which is an evolutionary blink of the eye ago. Refined carbohydrates and significant sugar intake is very new to our diet. My initial hypothesis would therefore be that sugar and flour are far more likely candidates for the cause of most of our lifestyle diseases.

The link between atherosclerosis and heart disease is, at best, not fully understood. Egyptian mummies have been shown to have atherosclerosis and the Masai (on their traditional high fat diet) have very high level of serum cholesterol and atherosclerosis but no significant incidence of heart disease, certainly in comparison to western rates. The "plumbing" analogy between our arteries and water pipes is compelling but, it seems, potentially misleading.

Seeing as you've essentially given the answer to question 3, a recent study was put the extra mortality risk of eating red meat at ~10-20%, which worked out at about one extra death per 100. And the problems with that study are legion, so I'd say that's more than likely an overestimate. Similar studies of cigarette smoking put the increased mortality risk for lung cancer at 2000%. So not even close. Why is this important? Because our desire to lower saturated fat led to a massive campaign in the UK and the US to lower total fat consumption. In response, we increased our carbohydrates intake, especially sugar and refined carbohydrates, because manufacturers removed fat and commonly added sugar or flour to make it taste ok. The choice between Coke, Diet Coke and orange juice is a tough one. OJ, removed from the fibre in the orange, is just a sugar solution with some micronutrients. Coke is a sugar solution with none. Diet Coke has no sugar, but has artificial sweeteners that could be potentially harmful. The best choice is probably Diet Coke, but a glass of water would be much better than all three. Surprisingly, Coke plus a multivitamin wins hands down over the OJ as it has less sugar per ml.

The idea of sugar as empty calories (Q6) ties back to question 1. Is isocaloric food isometabolic? The answer is no and sugar is one of the best examples of this. 100g of sugar is metabolised entirely differently to 100g of fat. Indeed, the constituents of sucrose (table sugar) are metabolised differently as well (sucrose is one glucose and one fructose). Glucose can be burned by all cells, fructose is dumped in its entirety on the liver. The energy balance in Q1 is only really applicable by looking at body as a whole (all possible energy intake and outgoings) or, perhaps more usefully, specifically at the fat cells. Fat in fat cells is highly regulated (in healthy people anyway) and so doesn't match this simplistic and misleading interpretation of the first law of thermodynamics. Insulin level are what primarily regulates whether we burn or store fat. And insulin levels are primarily determined by carbohydrate intake. Higher insulin generally means your fat cells seek to store fat, lower levels lead them to release it.

Eating paleo has been en vouge in the gym for years

Ho hum.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

I think nutrition is a very small part of a healthy lifestyle. Like those people who get really into their food are actually less healthy than regular people.



Yes.


No.



No.


No idea.

No.

No I think it's that it tastes so good you keep eating it.


I would choose full fat though I don't know for what food you could just swap them like that


Ehhh fit? Don't understand.

I feel like you know all the answers and are going to score it. But that's what I believe...

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Agreed. I've lost 45 lbs over the past 2 years from simply counting calories. I've gained a lot of muscle from weight training and cardio. Now I'm off several blood pressure medicines and other medications that revolve around weight issues. Your body is a machine, keep it fed well, tune it, and change your oil with high fiber.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

I think nutrition is a very small part of a healthy lifestyle. Like those people who get really into their food are actually less healthy than regular people.



Yes.


No.



No.


No idea.

No.

No I think it's that it tastes so good you keep eating it.


I would choose full fat though I don't know for what food you could just swap them like that


Ehhh fit? Don't understand.

I feel like you know all the answers and are going to score it. But that's what I believe...

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Agreed. I've lost 45 lbs over the past 2 years from simply counting calories. I've gained a lot of muscle from weight training and cardio. Now I'm off several blood pressure medicines and other medications that revolve around weight issues. Your body is a machine, keep it fed well, tune it, and change your oil with high fiber.

Input and output would have to be considered as well as length for life when comparing with previous generations.

Most of us city dwellers sit on our way to work, sit at work, walk to a coffee or a cigarette, sit for more work, sit on our commute home, sit for dinner, sit and watch tv. Then find it difficult to find time to do a half hour of exercise.

Yet we are living close to twice as long as our Roman counterparts. A lot of whom died to minor diseases by modern measures. The diseases we are dying of look like those that take longer than the ancients lived and a lo of these diseases such as gout were limited to the nobility.

We have old rich lazy people diseases that manifest themselves well beyond the average lifespan of most humans who existed before us.

As for evolution and it's speed just look at how quickly being lactose tolerant spread through populations who drink milk. Similarly look at the lack of tolerance to alcohol for populations that had not been exposed to alcohol. A small advantage constantly applied will spread relatively quickly.

Given just these two examples is it not possible that most of us have a higher tolerance for grains than our nomadic ancestors. After all jus look at the high rates of type 2 diabetes in Australa's aborigines. Sure their diet is pretty bad, but they suffer far worse than their western counter parts on similar modern diets of alcohol and junk food.

Input and output would have to be considered as well as length for life when comparing with previous generations.

Most of us city dwellers sit on our way to work, sit at work, walk to a coffee or a cigarette, sit for more work, sit on our commute home, sit for dinner, sit and watch tv. Then find it difficult to find time to do a half hour of exercise.

Yet we are living close to twice as long as our Roman counterparts. A lot of whom died to minor diseases by modern measures. The diseases we are dying of look like those that take longer than the ancients lived and a lo of these diseases such as gout were limited to the nobility.

We have old rich lazy people diseases that manifest themselves well beyond the average lifespan of most humans who existed before us.

As for evolution and it's speed just look at how quickly being lactose tolerant spread through populations who drink milk. Similarly look at the lack of tolerance to alcohol for populations that had not been exposed to alcohol. A small advantage constantly applied will spread relatively quickly.

Given just these two examples is it not possible that most of us have a higher tolerance for grains than our nomadic ancestors. After all jus look at the high rates of type 2 diabetes in Australa's aborigines. Sure their diet is pretty bad, but they suffer far worse than their western counter parts on similar modern diets of alcohol and junk food.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

Input and output would have to be considered as well as length for life when comparing with previous generations.

Most of us city dwellers sit on our way to work, sit at work, walk to a coffee or a cigarette, sit for more work, sit on our commute home, sit for dinner, sit and watch tv. Then find it difficult to find time to do a half hour of exercise.

Yet we are living close to twice as long as our Roman counterparts. A lot of whom died to minor diseases by modern measures. The diseases we are dying of look like those that take longer than the ancients lived and a lo of these diseases such as gout were limited to the nobility.

We have old rich lazy people diseases that manifest themselves well beyond the average lifespan of most humans who existed before us.

As for evolution and it's speed just look at how quickly being lactose tolerant spread through populations who drink milk. Similarly look at the lack of tolerance to alcohol for populations that had not been exposed to alcohol. A small advantage constantly applied will spread relatively quickly.

Given just these two examples is it not possible that most of us have a higher tolerance for grains than our nomadic ancestors. After all jus look at the high rates of type 2 diabetes in Australa's aborigines. Sure their diet is pretty bad, but they suffer far worse than their western counter parts on similar modern diets of alcohol and junk food.

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Be careful with that hypothesis, in the case for lactose, I think all humans have had similar mechanisms for digesting our own mothers milk for millenia. It's not that big of a leap to having that lactose tolerance extend beyond our natural age of typically digesting milk (it cuts off in later years since [I would think] ancient peoples did not drink milk from other animals throughout their life until domestication arrived). However, its a whole other thing for our body to handle something completely brand new and adapt to it for digestive purposes.

But biology isn't exactly my strong suit. The main point being is that evolution promoting a modification in an already established mechanism is going to come about faster then a promotion towards a brand new mechanism being created for a new foreign substance.

In general lactose intolerance for adults is higher in countries whose people have not milked animals for generations.

Alcohol which definitely isn't naturally produced with breasts ... it would be a very popular genetic engineer who does make it happen... Tolerance for alcohol is associated with those societies that drink.

Given that the ice age finished only ten or so millennia ago it shows humans have adapted to at least some parts of our diet in the agrarian age. So it isn't too big a leap to point out the paleo diets might not be 100% in alignment with as as we have been under environmental pressure to adapt to the non-nomadic diets of grain based societies.

The thing we haven't had time to adjust too is the modern knowledge worker who toils at a PC. Lack of exercise is the newest phenomena and would be the key bit to realign with what our grandparents and near ancestors did. So Pre-industrial revolution energy expenditure would be where I'd look for quick lifestyle wins not 10,000 year old diets.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

In general lactose intolerance for adults is higher in countries whose people have not milked animals for generations.

Alcohol which definitely isn't naturally produced with breasts ... it would be a very popular genetic engineer who does make it happen... Tolerance for alcohol is associated with those societies that drink.

Given that the ice age finished only ten or so millennia ago it shows humans have adapted to at least some parts of our diet in the agrarian age. So it isn't too big a leap to point out the paleo diets might not be 100% in alignment with as as we have been under environmental pressure to adapt to the non-nomadic diets of grain based societies.

The thing we haven't had time to adjust too is the modern knowledge worker who toils at a PC. Lack of exercise is the newest phenomena and would be the key bit to realign with what our grandparents and near ancestors did. So Pre-industrial revolution energy expenditure would be where I'd look for quick lifestyle wins not 10,000 year old diets.

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Alcohol is still extremely toxic to humans and provides no benefit nutritionally or energetically to our body as far as I know. It's a poor example in my opinion. Millenia of drinking alcoholic products and we can at most tolerate around 200-250ml of alcohol in a short period (for 180lb males). A standard 12 fl oz (355ml) drink's worth of ethanol (about 23 standard drinks worth if I did my math right) would certainly kill anyone.

Meanwhile, I can drink half a gallon of milk in an hour if I wanted to with no real harm.

Other than that, I would agree with your concluding sentence.

From Wikipedia http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoh...ance#section_3
"The tolerance to alcohol is not equally distributed throughout the world's population, and genetics of alcohol dehydrogenase indicate resistance has arisen independently in different ethnic groups.[2] People of European descent on average have a high alcohol tolerance and are less likely to develop alcoholism compared to Aboriginal Australians, Native Americans and some East Asian groups.[3][4][5] This is related to an average higher body mass, but also to the prevalence of high levels of alcohol dehydrogenase in the population.[6][7] The high alcohol tolerance in Europeans and some other ethnic groups has probably evolved as a consequence of centuries of exposure to alcohol in established agricultural societies.[8][2]"

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

We have old rich lazy people diseases that manifest themselves well beyond the average lifespan of most humans who existed before us.

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Whilst it's probably true that we are living longer than ever before, much of that comes from much lower infant/child mortality, improved treatments for infectious diseases, more secure food supply and a much less hostile environment. For instance, about 1 in 7 Inuit in the 1820s died in their 60s, about 1 in 30 in their 80s, easily long enough to develop cancers, heart disease and diabetes. Infectious diseases and accidents accounted for the vast majority of (premature) Inuit deaths. But the Inuit had virtual no incidence of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity. Similar trends are seen in other non-western populations (the Masai and Tokelau all ate different diets to the Inuit and each other, but all had very little incidence of heart disease despite eating >60% saturated fat). Inuit and Masai (not sure about Tokelau but I suspect so) all get lifestyle diseases when they adopt our diet, even if they retain their physical activity levels (so exercise and genetics don't account for it). There is a reason why they are called lifestyle diseases: as a general rule, you don't get them unless adopt our lifestyle.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

As for evolution and it's speed just look at how quickly being lactose tolerant spread through populations who drink milk. Similarly look at the lack of tolerance to alcohol for populations that had not been exposed to alcohol. A small advantage constantly applied will spread relatively quickly.

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It's probably more like those that were alcohol or lactose intolerant were selected against, meaning genetic variants allowing a diet that contained substantial amounts of milk and alcohol rose to high frequency. The same is probably true of sugar and refined carbohydrates (there are already some of us who can guzzle these to their hearts content without harm) except it's taking longer due to our ability to semi-remove ourselves from selection pressures.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

Given just these two examples is it not possible that most of us have a higher tolerance for grains than our nomadic ancestors. After all jus look at the high rates of type 2 diabetes in Australa's aborigines. Sure their diet is pretty bad, but they suffer far worse than their western counter parts on similar modern diets of alcohol and junk food.

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I would say that's likely to be true. But we would have adapted to a diet high in whole grains and not refined, white flour or sugar.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

The thing we haven't had time to adjust too is the modern knowledge worker who toils at a PC. Lack of exercise is the newest phenomena and would be the key bit to realign with what our grandparents and near ancestors did. So Pre-industrial revolution energy expenditure would be where I'd look for quick lifestyle wins not 10,000 year old diets.

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Then you have the problem of explaining manual labourers in western countries, who probably do much harder physical labour than our grandparents, who have very high incidences of CHD and obesity. Exercise, although very good for you, isn't the silver bullet.

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

Alcohol is still extremely toxic to humans and provides no benefit nutritionally or energetically to our body as far as I know.

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As is sugar: I can't say it any better than Robert Lustig, Professor of Paediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at UCSF:


Sugar: the bitter truth.

My philosophy is just to get a calory surplus and try to get 1 (whatever unit they measure protein in) for each 1lb lean body mass.

I'm one stone away from being obese and have high blood pressure at 22.

I'm doing it right.

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

Alcohol is still extremely toxic to humans and provides no benefit nutritionally or energetically to our body as far as I know. It's a poor example in my opinion. Millenia of drinking alcoholic products and we can at most tolerate around 200-250ml of alcohol in a short period (for 180lb males). A standard 12 fl oz (355ml) drink's worth of ethanol (about 23 standard drinks worth if I did my math right) would certainly kill anyone.

Meanwhile, I can drink half a gallon of milk in an hour if I wanted to with no real harm.

Other than that, I would agree with your concluding sentence.

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Your thinking in terms of today when generally water in the West is safe to drink, back in the day People might often drank beer as a safer alternative to water. Remember these people probably didnt understand that boiling the water would purify it, but they knew fine well not to drink from the local river that was downstream of the local tannery.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

Your thinking in terms of today when generally water in the West is safe to drink, back in the day People might often drank beer as a safer alternative to water. Remember these people probably didnt understand that boiling the water would purify it, but they knew fine well not to drink from the local river that was downstream of the local tannery.

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Indeed. Beer (due to boiling, alcohol content, and hop acidity) was safer than water to drink. Beer was also a way to "store" grains, old-style beers did preserve some nutritional value. Wine was also safer to drink, don't know about nutritional value though.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

From Wikipedia http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoh...ance#section_3
"The tolerance to alcohol is not equally distributed throughout the world's population, and genetics of alcohol dehydrogenase indicate resistance has arisen independently in different ethnic groups.[2] People of European descent on average have a high alcohol tolerance and are less likely to develop alcoholism compared to Aboriginal Australians, Native Americans and some East Asian groups.[3][4][5] This is related to an average higher body mass, but also to the prevalence of high levels of alcohol dehydrogenase in the population.[6][7] The high alcohol tolerance in Europeans and some other ethnic groups has probably evolved as a consequence of centuries of exposure to alcohol in established agricultural societies.[8][2]"

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We must be arguing two different thing because this does not negate my point. I am not denying that a degree of tolerance to relatively new substances can occur. I am saying that when you make the point of being able to create a new mechanism to allow you to not die when you eat relatively large quantities and actually convert the new material into nutritional or energetic benefit, alcohol is a crappy example because despite thousands of years of growing tolerance it still isn't good for us at all. Thus making your point, "won't we just adapt to our new diets" moot unless you are talking about the really, really long term.

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Originally Posted by therother

As is sugar: I can't say it any better than Robert Lustig, Professor of Paediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at UCSF:


Sugar: the bitter truth.

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The poison is the dose, sugar is toxic in the way vitamin A is toxic. We need it for vital purposes but too much will create an imbalance in the mechanisms of our body. You cannot say the same for alcohol.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

Your thinking in terms of today when generally water in the West is safe to drink, back in the day People might often drank beer as a safer alternative to water. Remember these people probably didnt understand that boiling the water would purify it, but they knew fine well not to drink from the local river that was downstream of the local tannery.

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I am not getting at what the purpose of all this is.

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

The poison is the dose, sugar is toxic in the way vitamin A is toxic. We need it for vital purposes but too much will create an imbalance in the mechanisms of our body. You cannot say the same for alcohol.

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Sugar, or at the least fructose in sugar, is essentially metabolised in the same way to alcohol. It's likely to be the main cause of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, for instance. Like alcohol, there is a safe limit to how much and how fast you can absorb. Observational epidemiological studies (*) have associated drinking a glass of red wine a day with decreased risk of heart disease but potentially worse risk of breast cancer (probably lot more by now). For sugar that limit is unknown, but I'd guess about 30g/day (less than one 330ml can of coke) is safe enough and even that should be taken with fibre (e.g. in fruit) to stop your pancreas going mental and over expressing insulin. Also, the body doesn't need sugar (or any dietary carbohydrates, for that matter).

(*) this should be taken with a pinch of salt as such studies can't demonstrate cause, so could be other (unaccounted for) behaviours of red wine drinkers that is responsible for this.

Out of curiosity what's your stance on having an "added sugar tax" like we had a thread about a few weeks ago?

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Originally Posted by therother

Observational epidemiological studies (*) have associated drinking a glass of red wine a day with decreased risk of heart disease but potentially worse risk of breast cancer (probably lot more by now).

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That is due to certain (possibly) beneficial organic compounds within grapes (specifically the skin if I remember correctly) that are present within the wine. Not at all due to the alcohol within it.

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For sugar that limit is unknown, but I'd guess about 30g/day (less than one 330ml can of coke) is safe enough and even that should be taken with fibre (e.g. in fruit) to stop your pancreas going mental and over expressing insulin. Also, the body doesn't need sugar (or any dietary carbohydrates, for that matter).

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Sure it does. Your body needs energy and simple sugars are a high source of energy. Fructose and sucrose found in HFCS is the same as the fructose and sucrose your body gets from cane sugar and fruits. The issue are the high concentrations of it in drinks like soda or in meals. They trigger insulin spikes which is bad, something that fruits generally don't do unless you liquefy a pound of strawberrys and chug that.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

Out of curiosity what's your stance on having an "added sugar tax" like we had a thread about a few weeks ago?

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Hmm. It often annoys me that sugary drinks are often the cheapest available, sometimes cheaper than bottled water. Sugar in liquid form is particularly bad for you. So I'd probably be in favour of a tax similar to the alcohol tax on Coke and the like. For other products, I think I'd be more in favour of proper labelling and banning anything with high sugar content being labelled with words like "diet" or "healthy".

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

That is due to certain (possibly) beneficial organic compounds within grapes (specifically the skin if I remember correctly) that are present within the wine. Not at all due to the alcohol within it.

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Interesting, thanks.

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

Sure it does. Your body needs energy and simple sugars are a high source of energy. Fructose and sucrose found in HFCS is the same as the fructose and sucrose your body gets from cane sugar and fruits. The issue are the high concentrations of it in drinks like soda or in meals. They trigger insulin spikes which is bad, something that fruits generally don't do unless you liquefy a pound of strawberrys and chug that.

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The body requires glucose to function and glucose is a sugar (when we say blood sugar we mean blood glucose). We don't need to eat sugars though: fats can be transformed into glucose. There's a brief description of the process on wikipedia.

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Hmm. It often annoys me that sugary drinks are often the cheapest available, sometimes cheaper than bottled water. Sugar in liquid form is particularly bad for you. So I'd probably be in favour of a tax similar to the alcohol tax on Coke and the like.

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Where do you shop? In my experience, water's usually half the price of a bottle of cola

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Originally Posted by therother

The body requires glucose to function and glucose is a sugar (when we say blood sugar we mean blood glucose). We don't need to eat sugars though: fats can be transformed into glucose. There's a brief description of the process on wikipedia.

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Yes, fats are also another energy source for the body. However, fats have their own problems when consumed in relatively large amounts and relying on fats to be the main provider of energy instead of carbohydrates or sugars is just swapping one set of problems for another. Which leads me back to my original statement of everything in moderation makes most of these non issues.

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Originally Posted by Greyblades

Where do you shop? In my experience, water's usually half the price of a bottle of cola

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In the supermarket, yes. At my local sandwich shops the cheapest drink is often a can of Coke.

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

Yes, fats are also another energy source for the body. However, fats have their own problems when consumed in relatively large amounts and relying on fats to be the main provider of energy instead of carbohydrates or sugars is just swapping one set of problems for another.

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Fats in relatively large amounts appear to have few (if any) side effects. The reason we know this is because of native populations who eat such diets without ill effects and that fat more than likely constituted the majority of calories in pre-agrarian societies. Anyway, even if you don't want to eat a mainly fat diet, you still don't need to eat sucrose or fructose. Starchy foods with a low glycemic index (eg nuts, seeds and beans) are much preferable to both, as starches are just long chains of glucose. BTW, sugars are carbohydrates.

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Originally Posted by therother

Fats in relatively large amounts appear to have few (if any) side effects. The reason we know this is because of native populations who eat such diets without ill effects and that fat more than likely constituted the majority of calories in pre-agrarian societies.

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Those societies do not reflect today's modern societies. The effects of a high fat diet are taking their toll on america right now.

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Anyway, even if you don't want to eat a mainly fat diet, you still don't need to eat sucrose or fructose. Starchy foods with a low glycemic index (eg nuts, seeds and beans) are much preferable to both, as starches are just long chains of glucose.

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Are you advocating for a no fruit diet?

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BTW, sugars are carbohydrates.

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Yes, but for all intents and purposes I talk about sugars as separate to distinguish between having lots of fruit/soda/sugary snacks and having lots of breads and other grain/wheat based foods.

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Originally Posted by therother

Then you have the problem of explaining manual labourers in western countries, who probably do much harder physical labour than our grandparents, who have very high incidences of CHD and obesity. Exercise, although very good for you, isn't the silver bullet.

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Ive worked in jungle exploration with Indonesian locals. They were considerably harder working and fitter then the workers in metal foundries I also worked with Aussie labourers (who are from around the world).

I think we grossly underestimate how much our physical output has decreased, how much we sit around and how much refined food we eat in large sporadic meals.

More exercise and better snacking (more nuts, yogurts and fibre) not to mention more water and sleep would resolve a lot of the health problems.

Our diet is definitely a factor here, but he Aussie workers use far more leverage and tools. So I suspect the Indonesians more accurately reflected the working style from our grandparents age. After seeing one of my exploration team who was a grandfather himself nimbly climb a tree showing off a six pack I realized how different their physical output was. I myself had trouble keeping up in the days hikes and at the time was relatively fit.

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

Those societies do not reflect today's modern societies. The effects of a high fat diet are taking their toll on america right now.

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The effects of a diet that is making people fat is having a severe toll on America (and almost every country that shares that diet). Absent other factors, eating fat doesn't make you gain body fat though. Fatty foods are not particularly fattening. There is some evidence that eating high levels of fat and sugar together could makes things worse, but I think it would be a mistake to blame the fat for that.

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

Are you advocating for a no fruit diet?

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Not quite no fruit, but certainly only restricted amounts and then only fruits with a low glycemic index (high fibre to sugar ratio). So no grapes and bananas...

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

Ive worked in jungle exploration with Indonesian locals. They were considerably harder working and fitter then the workers in metal foundries I also worked with Aussie labourers (who are from around the world).

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There are probably many more differences in their lifestyle than just more physical activity. Take agricultural workers in America, a very physically demanding job. It's perhaps not up there with your Indonesian locals, but who do considerably more exercise than the average office worker, even if they go to the gym after work. If the major problem is a lack of physical activity, you would expect to see lower rates of lifestyle diseases amongst the agricultural workers than office workers. But we don't see that. Take any native population (or one from a country that had very little incidence of the lifestyle diseases, like Japan pre-WWII) and get them to start eating our food and they'll soon start developing obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Even if they otherwise retain their activity levels. The high levels of cancers come after a generation or two.

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Originally Posted by Papewaio

More exercise and better snacking (more nuts, yogurts and fibre) not to mention more water and sleep would resolve a lot of the health problems.

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Agreed.

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Originally Posted by therother

The effects of a diet that is making people fat is having a severe toll on America (and almost every country that shares that diet). Absent other factors, eating fat doesn't make you gain body fat though. Fatty foods are not particularly fattening. There is some evidence that eating high levels of fat and sugar together could makes things worse, but I think it would be a mistake to blame the fat for that.

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But what are people really eating? High fat content, large portion foods. From fast food chains like Taco Bell and Wendy's to the "sit down" restaurants like Applebee's, Ruby Tuesday, Chili's, Outback Steakhouse etc... It is quite apparent what is being eaten and what the trend is. Two plus two is.... indeterminable?

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Not quite no fruit, but certainly only restricted amounts and then only fruits with a low glycemic index (high fibre to sugar ratio). So no grapes and bananas...

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And this is where you start talking crazy. If we are going to portray grapes and banana's in a bad light, then it is suddenly easy to see how our dietary habits have gone so off track.

EDIT: And didn't you just tout the benefits of a nice red wine just a few posts ago?

Sugar makes you fat because it tastes really good so you keep eating sweets or drink a whole 16 oz coke...fat makes you fat because it tastes good and there's tons of calories per square inch (non technical units)...in other words, eating too much makes you fat?

I think all that fine tuning your diet (beyond just not eating too much) would do is let you "get a six pack"...someone eating bunches of sugar but not too many calories will probably just carry a few extra pounds around the waste, that's my impression from what I've read...so in other words, like, the optimal diet is over-determined for what most people need to eat to not get fat...

also, doesn't eating hardly any carbs make you tired and lacking energy for exercise?

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

But what are people really eating? High fat content, large portion foods. From fast food chains like Taco Bell and Wendy's to the "sit down" restaurants like Applebee's, Ruby Tuesday, Chili's, Outback Steakhouse etc... It is quite apparent what is being eaten and what the trend is. Two plus two is.... indeterminable?

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Sure, large portion sizes aren't great. The problems with fast food are legion: the food is processed to remove fibre, it's rich in refined carbohydrates like sugar and white flour, got loads of salt, and the meat itself is usually of poor quality and cooked in poor quality oils.

In terms of trends, Americans are getting at least 10% less calories from fat than they were in the 1970s (when obesity rates were much lower). Sadly, and this has been a complete disaster, as most people have replaced those fats with refined carbohydrates (particularly sugar).

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

If we are going to portray grapes and banana's in a bad light, then it is suddenly easy to see how our dietary habits have gone so off track.

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I went a little too far. Bananas and grapes aren't bad per se, especially if you need an injection of energy, just that there are better choices for snacking that have the same benefits without so much sugar.

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

EDIT: And didn't you just tout the benefits of a nice red wine just a few posts ago?

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I said that association studies link moderate red wine consumption with decreased CVD (but increased breast cancer). I also cautioned about confounders: such studies showed that vitamin supplements were good for you. Unfortunately, these studies didn't correct for the fact vitamin supplement use is correlated with how strongly people care about their diet. Follow up studies showed a negative impact for otherwise healthy people.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

Sugar makes you fat because it tastes really good so you keep eating sweets or drink a whole 16 oz coke...fat makes you fat because it tastes good and there's tons of calories per square inch (non technical units)...in other words, eating too much makes you fat?

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It's possible, at least for some. For others, it's more likely is that you eat too much because you are getting fat. Sugar is a special case. If you watch the Lustig video above he'll explain why sugar is very fattening indeed.

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

also, doesn't eating hardly any carbs make you tired and lacking energy for exercise?

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Sugar withdrawal can make you feel tired, but afterwards you should feel fine. Simple carbs (like glucose-based drinks) can be good for giving large boosts to available energy for elite althetes, but the body can respond pretty quickly to a need for lots of extra energy by converting body fat to glucose.

I think this is all a bit unecessary, you don't need a perfect diet. Just as long as it isn't too bad.

I agree with that somewhat, but nailing down what foods are healthy and what aren't is important IMO. There should be general principles that govern what a decent diet is and these should be evidence based (*). But one of the reasons I keep banging on about the Inuit (and the Masai and the Tokelau) is that these populations tell us that preventing many of lifestyle diseases, on which we spend trillions in research and healthcare, is down to modifying our diet. There should also be an appreciation that different diets affect people differently, even within the same population. Some will never have a problem with carbs and can eat away as they like. Some will be lean for life almost no matter what they do, and for such people watching their diet might be more important than anyone else, as they won't have getting fat to tell them something is wrong. The majority of us should probably follow something like what Walter Willett suggests below.

As a brief aside, I suspect we'll start making inroads once personalised medicine based on genetics comes on stream. I reckon by the end of the decade it will be common for most people in relatively rich countries to be whole genome sequenced. Once that happens, nailing down the many genetic variants that are responsible for these sorts of differences between people will become much easier. It's currently around $4000 US to be sequenced at reasonably accuracy, but this should fall to around $1000 by the end of the year due to new developments in DNA sequencing technology. I believe the cost should fall from that price fairly rapidly, probably reaching $100 in a few years. Once it reaches that price point, there will seem little reason not to be sequenced, even if being treated for relatively minor ailments, eg your doctor could tell you that people with your genetics tend to react better to this particular skin cream rather than the alternatives.

(*) This is Dr Walter Willett's, a Harvard nutritionist and epidemiologist, general recommendations on his optimal diet: "most calories would come from a balance of whole grains and plant oils, proteins would be provided by a mix of beans, nuts, fish, eggs, and poultry, and the remaining nutritional needs would be filled by plenty of vegetables and a few fruits." I might quibble about the amount of whole grains and the exclusion of red meat but I believe this is just about the best general advice out there from an authority in the field.

Bacteria, recognition & stress

How much you extract out of food is impacted on bacteria in your digestion path. From mouth to intestine.

I'm sure there was a statistical study showing that being recognized in your job increases your lifespan and other studies showing with identical diets and lifestyles office managers outlive their underlings.

Stress changes our bodies chemistry and how we both respond and digest food.

DNA .... Need to factor in which bits get activated not just which bits are present

meh.

I eat literally whatever I want and have done so since high school when i still had aspirations of college football. I don't count calories I eat out all the time and rarely choose the healthy option. There are a few differences between yself and the most of the population. I have good genes. There are no obese people in my family and im including my extended family as well. i mean yeah of course some relatives have a little pudge but no heinously overweight folks. my parents are both trim for their ages.

Secondly and more importantly i work out like a fiend. i also take protein supplements and amino acids. i have a two hour cardio heavy workout every morning for rotc and then i do weight training in the evening. also i usually play basketball every day. almost non stop for 3-4 hours. hell i played for about 5 hours straight from 5-10 on monday. im like 190 something at 6'1'' with 5% body fat and eat like a nutrionists worst nightmare.

i do do a couple things though. i always choose water or milk over soda or like gatorade given the opportunity, i try to drink more hard alcohols than beer, i dont drink caffeine and dont touch coffee, i never ever eat candy, and i do take a thermogenic fat burner every day.

its all about your genetics and exercise. however, you can blame genetics for about 1% of the obese population its mostly laziness and poor self control.

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Originally Posted by Centurion1

however, you can blame genetics for about 1% of the obese population its mostly laziness and poor self control.

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Genetics likely plays a far greater role than that. But then I'm undoubtedly biased, being a geneticist.

I was writing my usual long winded response to why I think it's not primarily laziness and self control, but a colleague pointed me to a great talk by a science journalist at UC Berkeley who says it all much better than me. As chance would have it, Robert Lustig (the fellow from Sugar: a bitter truth) is one of those asking questions at the end.):



Gary Taubes.


Gets a bit technical in places, but the first 10-15 minutes are great for refutating many assumptions about why we get fat.

hmm I watched 40 minutes of that and ran into a big problem. It was interesting and I take his point about human biology being complicated, and things affecting other things...I'd like to see his explanation for the obesity in impoverished communities. But I don't really get his theory there. Children are growing so all their excess calories go into growth not fat. If the women get fat on <2000 calories a day all it shows is that 2000 calories a day can be too much...or various more complicated explanations, but it doesn't really seem that critical of the "eat less, exercise more" rule of thumb.

But he lost me at around the susan sontag "we're saying obese people have a mental defect" stuff.

Obviously people try and lose weight and so they eat less and exercise more and it works for a while. And then they start to gradually eat a bit more and exercise a bit less because they have less energy, and their metabolism changes and all that. He seems to be going for the ridiculous "burning calories on a long run won't make you lose weight because you will be hungry afterwards and then you will eat and we can't blame that as a cause because it's moral bigotry to talk about willpower".

I guess his broad focus is on the obesity epidemic, and he's blaming that on "sugars" rather than diet and exercise. That seems like a reasonable hypothesis to me. Eating more sugar as part of your diet, something or other about insulin, slow fat gain, eventual obesity. But his other criticisms seem silly, especially since saying someone is fat because they eat too many sweets is just as insulting as saying they are fat because they lack willpower.


Basically he seems like he's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You can acquaint people with the idea that all else being equal in terms of calories and exercise, a sugary diet can make someone fat while a less sugary diet would keep them lean, without telling some big story about how all the researchers get it wrong by focusing on this thermodynamics stuff. I've heard the low carb stuff for years anyway.

For the impoverished (starving, really) populations he mentions, the idea is that they are getting very cheap, refined carbohydrates to sustain them. In the case of the Pima, their diet had changed from an abundance of a variety of foods to a diet of sugars and white rice. And it was this that made them have similar levels of obesity to what we have now, despite they were still much more active than we are now (although their activity levels had obviously fallen since being on a reservation). Other observations, such as where the women do most of the work but are considerably more obese than the men argue against it being principally a physical exercise issue.

The message, I believe, isn't that (all) obese people are stupid for eating too many sweets. Rather, it's that they've been told that the diet that will help them lose weight (low fat/high carb) is, in reality, a recipe for gaining more. Which explains the explosion in obesity (and related diseases) since this advice was issued. To quote Walter Willett: "They say, 'You need a high level of proof to change the recommendations,' which is ironic, because they never had a high level of proof to set them." The new guidance flew directly in the face of over 100 years of medical research and practice, and absolutely flies in the face of the basic science worked out in the 1950s and 60s. Doctors are all taught what regulates fat storage in our fat cells yet it appears many don't see this as relevant to what causes us to fatten.

To put it another way, when you start on just about any weight loss diet you probably cut out sugary drinks and sweets, and this helps a lot. You lose a bit of weight. But you are still eating a lot of refined carbohydrates, no reason why you shouldn't as no one tells you they are bad. Pretty easy to do this even without eating foods we all know to be junk. Breakfast cereals are a classic example. Muesli can have as much sugar per bowl as Frosties. Bran flakes too. They might believe baked potatoes are good diet food. They'll choose low fat yoghurts over full fat, despite the former being laced with sugar. They'll cut down on meat and choose white pasta with crusty white bread. They'll choose carb-rich but low fat salad dressing over full fat that's packed with good, heart healthy fats.

The stuff about insulin really matters. Oversimplifying it somewhat, low insulin levels mean your body will burn rather than store fat. No matter how much you eat. This is why type I diabetics can die of starvation even if they are being force fed. On the other hand, starve yourself and exercise with high insulin levels (by eating substantial proportion of refined carbs) and you'll never lose the fat because it will won't be released from your fat tissue.

I don't believe he mentions this specifically, but what kind of exercise matters. Aerobics, which doesn't build much muscle, isn't likely to help most people lose weight; it will just increase hunger leading to failure on a semi-starvation regime. Weight lifting, for instance, which does build muscle, is good at reducing body fat (muscle burns energy and a high protein diet would restrict carb intake). So the best advice for most people shouldn't be "eat less (especially fat) and exercise more", it should be eat better (more good fats, less carbs) and exercise moderately. This will lower insulin levels, releasing the energy in your fat cells, leading to a decrease in the desire to eat and, ultimately, sustainable weight loss. At least in theory. And seems to work pretty well in practice too: people who follow carbohydrate restricted diets tend to lose twice as much weight as low fat diets and find them easier to adhere to.

As for the energy balance stuff, how about a small back of the envelop calculation. Here's some data from a recent paper on red meat consumption, which I mentioned above. It was of two cohorts of medical professionals. In both cohorts (Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS) and the Nurses' Health Study (NHS)) the group that ate the least red meat ate the fewest calories and did the most physical exercise. For the HPFS, they ate an average of 1659 calories and did 27.5 hours/week of exercise. The highest meat eaters ate an average of 2396 calories and did 17.2 hours/week. Even if we assume they did the same amount of exercise (calories out is equal) the calories in/calories out theory would say that the lowest meat eaters should be considerably leaner than the highest meat eaters. One pound of fat is about 3500 calories, so the highest group should gain one pound extra over the lowest every 4-5 weeks over the course of the studies (both have been running for decades). The difference in mean bmi is 24.7 vs 26.0. Assuming an average height of 5'8", that's an average difference of 8.5 pounds. The lowest red meat eaters also ate more fruit, whole grains and vegetables, drank half as much alcohol and 5% vs 14.5% were smokers. The NHS showed similar patterns.

In other words, the lot that ate the lowest amount of red meat were people adhering pretty well to the current recommendations (avoiding fatty foods, exercising 4 hours a day, eating 6 portions of fruit and veg per day, a quarter as likely to smoke as the average American). Their mean bmi is almost overweight (25). And still a significant number of them are dying of CVD and cancer (cf the native populations which have virtually no instance of either).

hmm, I think I see a bit better now.

I have heard most of this stuff--low carbs, fat is fine, best type of exercise. But that's not as important.

He is even arguing that "eat less, exercise more" is a bad rule of thumb. That trying to eat less is a bad idea, presumably. The focus should all be on composition. That we could add 500 calories of protein and fat to our daily diet and not gain much fat? (from your red meat study example). That would be very interesting.

I think this point is somewhat subtle, and I guess he doesn't make it very well (I've only seen the talk once). The old carb-restricted diets (*), which doctors commonly gave out until the 70s, let people eat as much as they wanted but asked them to stop eating starchy and saccharine foods. Recent studies have shown that, when eating a high fat, low carb diet, people start to naturally eat less. So the idea is to address the underlying cause (insulin is too high), return the body to balance and let it take care of itself. Insisting that people eat less and exercise more without addressing the underlying cause of the disorder is what he's railing about. The fact that obese people eat more is likely to be a symptom rather than a cause of the problem (if you are storing 100 calories a day as fat, you need to eat 100 extra calories to have the same level of energy available).

(*) Raymond Greene's The Practice of Endocrinology (1951), prescribed this diet for obesity:

Foods to be avoided:
1. Bread, and everything else made with flour…
2. Cereals, including breakfast cereals and milk puddings
3. Potatoes and all other white root vegetables
4. Foods containing much sugar
5. All sweets…
You can eat as much as you like of the following foods:
1. Meat, fish, birds
2. All green vegetables
3. Eggs, dried or fresh
4. Cheese
5. Fruit, if unsweetened or sweetened with saccharin, except bananas and grapes

Edit: This version in the talk is I think a bit more clear and well structured.


Dartmouth.

He never says anything like "eat less, exercise more is bad for you". That's failing to listen; perhaps injecting things you expect to hear or making logical jumps. But he doesn't actually connect those dots. What he says is (paraphrased) that "it doesn't work", not when it comes to curing obesity. (As in do better than temporarily lose you some weight.) That's different when the objective is purely to reduce obesity as then it becomes an issue of using cures which exacerbate the disease. He calls for a re-examination of diets and diet studies in the light of scientific view from the 1960's and early 1970's with respect to obesity. What he glosses over is the issue with heart and other diseases which are linked to a high fat type diet, and unfortunately a high fat + protein diet is apparently one of the few "cures" for obesity by forcing the body to adjust and work with lower levels of insulin.

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

What he glosses over is the issue with heart and other diseases which are linked to a high fat type diet, and unfortunately a high fat + protein diet is apparently one of the few "cures" for obesity by forcing the body to adjust and work with lower levels of insulin.

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And this, in a nutshell, is the tragedy of the whole affair. Metastudy after metastudy has shown little or no evidence of a link between saturated fat and heart disease (*) (there was never any for women). The Masai, Tokelau and Inuit all but rule it out as a primary factor. In any case, in the 70s and 80s, when the advice to avoid all fat was made the goal was to reduce saturated fat intake (all fat-containing foods are a mix of fats): they had no evidence that unsaturated fats were bad for you until we studied transfats. Everyone agrees that they are deleterious and their use has been markedly reduced. Some studies show increased risk of a number of diseases if you have a high ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids (both are unsaturated), but that could be explained by a) omega-3s are either particularly good for you and/or a signature of more healthy foods (like fish) and/or b) high(er) omega-6 are bad for you and/or levels is a signature of less healthy food intake. Almost impossible to say why there is this association without a proper, randomised double-blind clinical trial though.

(*) Edit: found a study that's open access in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: http://www.ajcn.org/content/91/3/535.full. This is the Background and Conclusions part of the abstract:

Background: A reduction in dietary saturated fat has generally been thought to improve cardiovascular health.
Conclusions: A meta-analysis of prospective epidemiologic studies showed that there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CHD or CVD. More data are needed to elucidate whether CVD risks are likely to be influenced by the specific nutrients used to replace saturated fat.

I want to reply, but I am still trying to watch all these videos before I do....

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Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name

I want to reply, but I am still trying to watch all these videos before I do....

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:mellow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B56Gpf1f5_A&list=FLsN32BtMd0IoByjJRNF12cw&index=2&feature=plcp

(as usual the 60 minutes guys don't quite get what the people the are interviewing are saying and try to sensationalize it a bit)

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Originally Posted by Sasaki Kojiro

:mellow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B56Gpf1f5_A&list=FLsN32BtMd0IoByjJRNF12cw&index=2&feature=plcp

(as usual the 60 minutes guys don't quite get what the people the are interviewing are saying and try to sensationalize it a bit)

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Well, so far through all these videos, I have learned I may not know the latest scientific studies about sugar but also that so far these types of studies are in their infancy (one study means nothing, no matter how well controlled).

I am skeptical about the impacts they are attributing to sugar (attempting to ignore the hyperbole of 60 minutes [COCAINE!?!] when making this judgement) but I think I will bow out of this for now since I am now up in air about what to make of all this.

Yes, I'm rather skeptical about the connections to other diseases and cancer.

But I am convinced that our diet is very out of wack when it comes to sugar, especially the "getting used to it, needing more for same effect".

A tax on added sugar and perhaps a law restricting the size of beverages available in vending machines. Unlike tobacco and alcohol people still give their kids this stuff to gobble down. It's callous to wait for education to have it's effect. Give the process a governmental boost and undo the legislation later to satisfy our libertarianess.

Afraid that video is not available in the UK. I can guess from the comments (here and on YouTube) roughly what it says though. I don't think sensational claims is really the way to go about convincing people.

The basic biochemistry of why sugar is particularly fattening is well established. If it does cause excess fat accumulation (obesity) as well as cholesterol and blood pressure problems (many observational studies suggest this is the case), that would have an impact on heart disease. The effects of long term exposure to high levels of sugar on the pancreas (diabetes) and the liver (fatty liver disease) aren't too much of leap of faith. Cancer is somewhat harder to explain, could be quite a number of things, and here I'd probably say that other environmental conditions are likely to play a major role, as with asthma. But we know that high levels of some cancers are not inevitable and our diet is likely to be a major causal factor.

Our bodies have adapted over millions of years to eat meat, vegetables and relatively small amounts of seasonal fruits. Many have also adapted to unrefined, whole grain carbohydrates (like brown rice). There's been virtually no time to adapt to substantially increased sugar levels we are consuming now though. Unless you eat almost entirely non-processed foods, it's likely you're eating too much sugar even if you don't drink sugary drinks. If I were to guess and bet the health of the public, which is essentially what our governments and public health authorities did in the 70s and 80s, I'd say sugar is the thing we should be targeting and not saturated fat.

Anyhow, continuing the theme of ludicrous products, I saw "low fat" olive fat in the supermarket yesterday. Have we really got so messed up that we believe even the healthy fats need to be processed to remove stuff everyone agrees is good for us?

What he says about cancer is that tumors use the glucose to grow rapidly.

I believe the food pyramid is a good idea but I tend to favor a more vegetarian-like diet. I am not a vegetarian, because I like to eat seafood and dairy, but I am very close to being one. I avoid fast food and prepared food and make my own food from natural ingredients when I can help it. When eating out, or buying anything in general, I favor individually owned establishments.

As far as exercise goes I focus on exercises that build stamina. Endurance is more important to me than strength.