RE: Why Sugar Is Public Enemy Number 1

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Why Sugar Is Public Enemy Number 1

in life •  7 years ago 

I think everyone knows that different fruit contain different amounts of sugar. In the same way a dog is different to a cat regarding mammals. It would be a bigger shock if different fruit all contained the same amount of sugar and all of the same type.

The ease of eating/drinking does not change how the various sugars are metabolised

Fiber slows how fast the sugar hits your system, it slows digestion.

Can you show how it does this in scientific terms as it was not what I was taught. It also would counter your argument if it were true - Something that slowed down digestion would not stop ghrelin production fast enough. Thus eating an apple as opposed to drinking the juice would leave you feeling hungry.

Instead of giving me a video that is 1 hour 30 to watch can you link to the times in video that back up your arguments.

As far as the sugar is as bad as alcohol video goes that is a strawman falacy - Pick something which has a negative image and make a tenuous link to it and in doing so spread that negative image to said argument. This is a mendacious practice that is used by populists to bend reality.

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So to the main point on sugar, it is not a straw man. The way the human body metabolizes fructose (50% of sugar) is very similar to how it metabolizes alcohol. That isn't surprising because we just ferment sugar to get alcohol. There isn't any tenuous link, they are very similar compounds that are processed by the body similarly. The video isn't associating them because they have many of the same long term health affects (which they do) or because alcohol is a convenient boogie man but because they are handled by the body the same. The comparison is appropriate, for specifics we can look at these three examples.

Examples of metabolizing 120 calories of glucose, alcohol, and sugar. If you have to watch just one watch the sucrose (sugar) metabolism at 56:30.

Glucose metabolism (50% of sugar, not bad for you)


(starts roughly 45min in and finishes at 51:10)

Ethanol metabolism (alcohol, not good for you. An acute toxin)


(starts at... 51:10, could skip to 53:00 ends roughly 56:30)

Sucrose Metabolism (this is Sugar, made up of 50% glucose and 50% fructose)


(starts roughly 56:30 ends around 1:10)

I included the fruit reference to show that fruit contains different amounts of fructose relative to each other (not sugar) and you're right this line of discussion is probably a distraction from the main point I'm trying to make, which is that fructose (and by extension sugar with is 50% fructose, or "high fructose corn syrup" which is 55% fructose) is bad for you. The fiber discussion is also a distraction at this point. Weather it has no effect, slows or speeds absorption of fructose how the body metabolizes fructose is the same.

So to the main point on sugar, it is not a straw man.

Yes it is. And as you then change topic and talk about the dangers of alcohol you confirm that.

The way the human body metabolizes fructose (50% of sugar) is very similar to how it metabolizes alcohol.

It's not even vaguely similar. Fructose can be metabolised in various places and in various ways whereas ethanol cannot.

That isn't surprising because we just ferment sugar to get alcohol.

The best type of sugar for brewing is glucose. That is why "brewing sugar" is glucose..

Ok now for the videos.

Clip 1. Fructose does not suppress ghrelin. No it doesn't but it does get converted to glucose in the small intestine and that glucose DOES suppress ghrelin.

Low doses of fructose are ∼90% cleared by the intestine,

Let's look at high doses and what is considered a high dose.

High doses of fructose (≥1 g/kg) overwhelm intestinal fructose absorption and clearance, resulting in fructose reaching both the liver and colonic microbiota.

Ok let's translate that. The median healthy weight for a male is 73kg so that would mean an unhealthy dose of fructose is 73g. If the intake is as sucrose that would be 146g. 146g of sugar in one go. That is an insane amount of sugar before the small intestine can no longer efficiently convert the fructose that is there to glucose.

ie. This is nothing like alcohol metabolism.

Clip 2. Ethanol is not a carbohydrate. It has neither analdehyde or ketone group. It is an alcohol.

This is rather basic biochemistry. In fact it is so basic it could be considered basic chemistry. The "professor" in this video is not what he claims to be. Looking at his speciality it appears to be paediatrics and endocrinology and NOT biochemistry.

With that I think we are done.

So,

I wasn't sure what you were referring to and started back at working through it again and I'm not sure the emeded youtube links are working. At least for me, whenever I try to play any of them they all start at the wrong timestamp. Even when I try to edit the reply it still shows the timestamps as correct. Not sure what is up with that but you were probably not viewing what I intended but I did put specific time stamps to start at for each, those should be accurate.

For particular things you've said. I don't think I've changed topic. We started by discussing sugar and why it is bad for you. It is bad for you because of the fructose content. I'm trying to explain why it is bad

As I've said before, there isn't anything wrong with glucose. It isn't bad for you and your right, even yeast prefer it to fructose.

It's not even vaguely similar. Fructose can be metabolized in various places and in various ways whereas ethanol cannot.

look at video but alcohol is metabolized in liver and brain (which is why it has acute affects). Fructose is almost exclusively metabolized in the liver. You have it backwards.

from wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructolysis

Unlike glucose, which is metabolized widely in the body, fructose is metabolized almost completely in the liver in humans

The link you provide is interesting and great I believe that it supports my position fully. 1g/kg is a pretty low threshold. The study was done on mice and I'm not sure the 1g/kg is the body weight of the individual consuming the fructose as you've indicated but rather the ratio of fructose to weight of the food consumed. That would actually bolster the view that fiber offers a protective effect from fructose consumption. In fact if you find articles interviewing the scientists that conducted the study they have this to say:

"We can offer some reassurance -- at least from these animal studies -- that fructose from moderate amounts of fruits will not reach the liver," he says. However, the small intestine probably starts to get overwhelmed with sugar halfway through a can of soda or large glass of orange juice.

link here to quote (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180206140645.htm) This seems to directly fall in line with my way of thinking that fructose is bad once you get past fruit level purities. It would indicate a fiber or bulk of the food offering a protective effect. Nothing in the article supports that fructose is safe for you in sugary drinks or in the quantities consumed today. The article also indicates that fructose is also metabolized in the liver past the small intestine.

The only thing in that study/article that would contradict my position is that the small intestine is doing some of the heavy lifting to prevent fructose from hitting the liver where previously I'd show studies (older) that indicated it was metabolized primarily through the liver. This isn't distressing so much as provide reasons why people don't have long term health issues from eating fruit but do from highly processed foods or high sugar foods or soda or juice consumption. The article even offers new reasons why fructose is bad, it potentially harms the microbiome past the small intestine which wasn't designed to see sugars.

One can eat an infinite amount of carbohydrates, and there will be nary a molecule of glucose that enters the microbiome. But as soon as you drink the soda or juice, the microbiome is seeing an extremely powerful nutrient that it was designed to never see."

You've posted an article that directly states in the summary that there are "strong ties between fructose and disease" and offers additional information that may have been missing from our discussion that the small intestine protects us from fructose levels you'd find in fruit but not past half of a soda. I find it hard to see this as anything other than agreement with me.

The information on the doctor can be found here: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lustig)
I'm not sure if this is an anti-appeal to authority. He has a newer video here (

) and indicates list of collaborators on at about 1:25:00 (one hour 25 min). Information on fructose metabolism is unchanged from the videos I've linked above.

also this is what endocrinology is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocrinology

endocrine system, its diseases, and its specific secretions known as hormones. It is also concerned with the integration of developmental events proliferation, growth, and differentiation, and the psychological or behavioral activities of metabolism, growth and development, tissue function, sleep, digestion, respiration, excretion...

so basically everything about how the human body uses foods signals within itself with hormones etc. Specifically relevant.

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

The links work fine but that is moot because I've shown that the presenter is deficient on the subject of biochemistry. The rather laughable "Ethanol is a carbohydrate".

The link you provide is interesting and great I believe that it supports my position fully. 1g/kg is a pretty low threshold.

Pardon? That is about 3litres of coke for someone of regular weight and size. As this is the acute consumption limit they would have to down it in one. I think that in most people's books that isn't normal. That is not half a can of soda. I've yet to see 6 litre cans of soda for sale most anywhere.

From your own article

Researchers report that in mice, fructose, a sugar found in fruit, is processed mainly in the small intestine, not in the liver as had previously been suspected.

Are we clear that what you are stating about the liver is outdated and nothing but a populist meme now?

this is what endocrinology is:

So not biochemistry then?

so basically everything about how the human body uses foods signals within itself with hormones etc

That is like saying because a haystack has a pin in it, it must be a pile of pins.

Lol,

you send me an article that states directly in the summary that there are

strong ties between fructose and disease

Interviews of the people doing the study say

that fructose from moderate amounts of fruits will not reach the liver," he says. However, the small intestine probably starts to get overwhelmed with sugar halfway through a can of soda or large glass of orange juice.

to summarize the source you sent me says
1.) fructose is metabolized in the liver after half a can of sugary drink
2.) it is known that fructose is bad for you
3.) Fruit isn't bad for you because the small intestine can take care of small amounts of fructose

That is what I've been trying to say..... You've basically handed my entire argument to me with that article.

Your reply arguing the half a can of soda point is funny because that is from your own source! (you've misunderstood the 1g/kg, that is the amount of fructose per weight of food you're consuming i.e. 1g of fructose per 1,000g of pear/apple/soda or whatever you're eating. It doesn't have anything to do with the weight of whoever is consuming the fructose that is why those numbers don't make sense to you).

I don't know if we are doing anything productive here when:
1.) you don't want to address the points I bring up or find sources to backup your claims
2.) you fail to ever knock down any of my claims, and the one attempt to find a counterpoint fully supports my position (fructose is bad for you)
3.) when you just decide the highly credentialed sources I've listed aren't good enough without any justification. (the dude wrote the American Heart Associations statement on dietary sugar https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/circulationaha.109.192627).

Its been a lot of fun. I enjoy looking things up and getting into the weeds but if you're done trying and have to resort to taking things out of context we're probably not being productive.

For example you say this:

Are we clear that what you are stating about the liver is outdated and nothing but a populist meme now?

"populist meme" what? lol really? just read the next sentence (and remember these are the people that wrote the article/study you sent originally being interviewed about that study)

The whole quote:

Researchers report that in mice, fructose, a sugar found in fruit, is processed mainly in the small intestine, not in the liver as had previously been suspected. Sugary drinks and processed high-sugar foods overwhelm the small intestine and spill into the liver for processing.

Did you not read the very next sentence?

The go on to say

the small intestine probably starts to get overwhelmed with sugar halfway through a can of soda or large glass of orange juice.

Then were does it go? Well if you read that next sentence straight to the liver. So if you eat a pear small intestine takes 90% of it and the liver the rest. You drink a soda? hello liver.

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

I send you an article that says 90% of fructose is metabolised in the small intestine and NOT the liver as previously thought.

You send me a link by a doctor who thinks ethanol is a carbohydrate.

We are arguing if fructose is bad for human consumption. You've said it isn't, I've said it is. You also previously argued that the liver was not involved in metabolizing fructose. You sent this article (https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/abstract/S1550-4131(17)30729-5) which is a summary of a study completed by several individuals including specifically Joshua D. Rabinowitz.

While we should review/read the entire summary you are interested in this one part here which you repeat a lot:

Low doses of fructose are ~90% cleared by the intestine

but for some reason you want to ignore these other statements that are present in that same summary:

...strong ties between fructose and disease

and this

High doses of fructose (≥1 g/kg) overwhelm intestinal fructose absorption and clearance, resulting in fructose reaching both the liver

You've sent me a study where in the summary they (the authors, in both the study summary and interviews) agree with my position that fructose is strongly associated with diseases in humans and "high" doses of fructose end up being metabolized in the liver and ~10% of "low" doses are metabolized in the liver.

If you read more than just the summary of your study to get a clearer picture on what your source thinks (so far we only have that they think fructose is strongly associated with diseases in humans and that high doses get passed to the liver). We still need to know what they consider a high dose? I sent back this article (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180206140645.htm) which is an interview with one Joshua D. Rabinowitz about the study you referenced (he is one of the authors of that study) in the previous link and he provides us with the information we need.

Joshua says:

the small intestine probably starts to get overwhelmed with sugar halfway through a can of soda or large glass of orange juice.

So we now know the amount of sugar (half a can of soda) that overwhelms the intestine and gets passed onto the liver. Your source says that fructose is bad, fruit is ok because it gets caught by the intestine but half a can of soda's worth of sugar and then it starts hitting the liver.

The source you've provided does just as well for my argument. Your study doesn't overturn anything I've claimed only validated it and offered a reason for why fruits and veggies aren't a health problem (they don't go over the high dose fructose threshold) while half a can of soda, fruit juice, or processed foods go over the limit and are a problem for human health.

Let's get this straight. 1g sugar per kg is the limit not 1/2 a can of soda that's 3 litres. Polishing off the sugar equivalent of 3 litres of Coke in one sitting is not only considered excess but very abnormal.

The American Chemistry Association states that drinking 6 litres of water will kill you. Using the same flawed logic as you water is dangerous and we should not drink it. Taking 40k IU of vitamin D a day is toxic and will kill you therefore we should not take vitamin D.

Where does this nonsense stop? Taking anything to excess is bad for you. Anything.