Fructose As Culprit In the Obesity Epidemic 821
drewtheman writes "According to an interview with Dr. Robert Lustig, Professor of Pediatric Endocrinology from the University of California, San Francisco, fructose, once touted as diabetic-friendly because it doesn't raise insulin levels directly, could be a major culprit for the obesity epidemic, high blood pressure, and elevated blood levels of LDL in Americans and others worldwide as they adopt American-style diets. Fructose comprises 50% of table sugar and up to 90% of high-fructose corn syrup, both ingredients found in copious quantity in most American prepared foods."
Film at 11 (Score:1, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Scaremongering I tells ya! (Score:3, Interesting)
Corn is the one of the most powerful forces in America. This will get filed away with global warming as libral propaganda.
I gave up HFCS for new years... (Score:3, Interesting)
A must read NYTimes story on corn & corn syrup (Score:4, Interesting)
Next up-- ethanol!
Rule of Thumb (Score:3, Interesting)
That fructose corn syrup ain't free. (Score:3, Interesting)
In Soviet Russia CIA spoils Cuban sugar for you.
Have you US cubicle jockeys ever thought about how much you are locked into corn syrup?
A few sick fat 'end users' will not stop the protectionism, tariffs and congress critters.
You have a huge set of new tax credits, grants and loans flowing into big corn for 'ethanol'
Then you have state subsidies.
Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life and own the world?
Re:from the "no shit" dept. (Score:5, Interesting)
There is something to what you write. But, here in Japan vending machines are absolutely everywhere - really, it's crazy; I walked about 3km every morning to my previous job, in a partly rural area and I realized that there was not a single spot along the route where I could not see at least one vending machine. And there has always been lots and lots of fast-food here as well as takeout meals; many traditional Japanese dishes like soba, onigiri, oden and so on are meant to eat quickly from a counter or street vendor cart, or while going from place to place, and the bento meal is ubiquitous. A traditional Japanese meal, furthermore, is an orgy in "grazing" behavior, with dozens of small dishes to eat in turn.
No, while "fast-food" style serving may contribute to creating bad habits, the main culprit is still what people eat, and how much of it, not how you eat it. Most Japanese meals just aren't very fattening; while you often have some part of the meal that is fatty or calorie-rich, you don't get much of it, while you often do get large amounts of vegetables, pickles and other lean stuff. A steak, for instance, may be 100 grams or so, and be just one dish of a dozen you get for your meal.
Personal experience... (Score:4, Interesting)
And all I did was remove HFCS from my diet.
I suspect since the anti-cholesterol medicine has an effect on the liver, and apparently HFCS is mostly processed by the Liver, has something to do with my weight gain once on the meds.
Now this article suggest other sugars also contribute. I suppose I need to further reduce my sugar intake.
But here is a HFCS tip: Bread! I would buy bread that didn't have HFCS in it and git used to which brand I'd buy. Then I discovered that all the bread I was buying had the ingredients changed to include HFCS. And this I discovered after the cola industry said they would stop selling their HFCS drinks at schools. I guess the HFCS industry simply shifted what they include it in. So the school kids still get it????
Nasty corn industry!!
Seems to me the corn industry needs to be heavily taxed where teh tax is used for health care..... like cigarettes..
What is with High Fructose Corn Syrup? (Score:4, Interesting)
So its not quite true to say that America are shipping the crap that is High Fructose Corn Syrup on the rest of the world, its actually that AMERICAN companies are using that on AMERICANS and using more natural ingredients outside of the US. This appears to be due to costs (its cheaper to use HFCS in the US, as sugar imports are penalised) meaning that the world's richest economy is using the cheapest and crappiest ingredients.
Awesome report (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Lustig says:
So if we eat significant fiber with everything we ingest does everything become low GI? Or what? This will definitely make me eat French bread (if that has bran?) and no more white bread (which I have known is a "slab of sugar" but didn't really use that knowledge). And what is a compact source of fiber? I doubt you could drink a cola with HFCS and neutralize its evil with a graham cracker (if that has bran in it?) but what's the score there?
2. The experiment in which a drug was administered to children whose brains could not detect leptin resulted in the kids spontaneously working out, doing sports, eliminating soda from their diet, etc. I'd like to know what the kids thought / felt during the study, and want to know if we can "fool" ourselves into doing the same kind of activities and getting a similar effect, in effect bootstrapping a similar kind of health benefit without taking the drug Octreotide. (and what is that drug, sounds pretty strong!)
3. Extremely refreshing and seemingly sensible comments about why it is important to exercise. This has got to be massively important for geeks. Personally I had an obese father who as a doctor unfortunately must have been an ultrageek since he didn't want to do any sports that could hurt his hands (since he couldn't do surgery). He got diabetes. I've been heavy (not astoundingly, but overweight) since I was little and he encouraged me to sit in my room and play with my Apple II all summer I remember well, and now after he got diabetes and bypasses he said "turns out I was wrong, exercise is important!" I coulda killed him!
So anyway this is quite important and felt like a revelation: While calories are one thing I thought exercise was basically to boost the metabolism to burn food faster. Well this article says exercise increases skeletal muscle insulin sensitivity (so less insulin is made so less blood sugar is shunted into fat), lowers cortisol (which is a "megastress hormone" that the article says triggers deposition of bad fat, and finally detoxifies fructose.
These are all awesomely understandable reasons why you gotta exercise and at least to me at this moment it makes me want to throw this glass of diet cola (who cares! anything unhealthy!) off the table and never look a piece of white bread in the face again. Now we need some "best practices" or programming style guides that include exercise with this info in it, of course optimized for maximum concentration and efficiency with minimum weight gain.
Re:from the "no shit" dept. (Score:5, Interesting)
When I asked what happens if people don't have enough change on them, I was told that generally they pay a bit more the next time they ride. I'd love to have a system like that here, since it would save a lot of time with people buying bus tickets when they got on at each stop, but I can't imagine it working with the average British person, who would just see it as a way to avoid paying for the service. It seems to be not so much an issue of how law-abiding the Japanese are as the culture of respect.
Re:What is with High Fructose Corn Syrup? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, I read this post and others and got curious. Going through random pulls of my cupboard I found most of my dry food (bread cereal) contained either HFCS or simply labeld corn syrup.
Wow!
By eating better I have lost weight and as a middle aged IT professional trying to stay fit that is good. Armed with what I have read this morning I can now be on the lookout for foods with frutrose and if not avoid them completely, reduce them in my diet. Amazing that this will moist likely increase my grocery bills which makes me ponder those in poverty conditions are more likely to be in bad shape physically.
Two things to thank
Rice Syrup (Score:5, Interesting)
Use rice syrup, which contains no fructose. You can substitute it 1:1 for corn syrup.
I use it to make all sorts of treats, including marshmallows.
Re:Nasty aftertaste (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I'm an American, but I hate American food. If I could afford it, I'd just shop at the international shops and bring home 50lbs of Japanese snacks. Of course I'm sure your not supposed to eat that in large quantities either, but for some reason pocky and ramen never makes me feel fat.
But more seriously, I think the problem is more cultural than anything else. Most popular American foods are deep fried (Mmmm... Onion Rings) and probably not meant for human consumption (Mmmmm... Pulled Pork Sandwhiches) and that the reason for obesity in America is that we haven't really scaled our fatty foods to match our supply.
As in... These were good for you in the 1920's when the lack of food was an issue for most Americans, but now... Not so good.
We need to focus on just not cooking foods in fat or deep fry them. Plenty of good stuff out there that you can eat a lot of and still not get fat.
Re:from the "no shit" dept. (Score:2, Interesting)
There are quite a few "normal" weird machines here though. I lived in a semi-rural area for a couple of years, and there were rice vending machines (2kg bags), and fresh egg machines. The idea is, people driving by can get local rice and other fresh produce without having to find and disturb a farmer or find some store in the area. Some stores have vending machines for off-time purchases; tourist spots tend to have battery and film vending machines; and there's some food vending machines with stuff like cup Ramen, canned oden and stuff like that. Beer and liquor machines do exist, but mostly in places like hotels, and they're apparently disappearing, outcompeted by convenience stores.
Dang sugary buns. (Score:4, Interesting)
Somewhere over the course of this month, you will begin to realize just how much sugar is hidden in fast food. McDonalds and Burger King buns as well as Pizza Hut pizza sauce taste repulsively sweet once you're no longer used to a certain minimum amount of sugar in each meal. I've tried to avoid fast food ever since I did this a few years ago by accident when I tried to switch to only drinking water to save money and lose weight. It's really obscene.
(Unfortunately, after long enough not drinking sugary drinks, you do become used to the flavor and learn to ignore it in fast food again, but it's still an eye opener as long as you remember it.)
This is why it happens... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:from the "no shit" dept. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yup. Convenience isn't necessarily to blame. What do you buy from the jidouhanbaiki? I get Soukenbicha (tea) every frickin' time. My US friends and family who have come to visit over the years all hate it the first time (like I did), and then can't stop drinking it the rest of the trip, and leave wondering why something like that isn't available in the states. It's even a Coca-Cola product.
Something is very rotten in the state of the US when it comes to foodstuffs. I don't really watch my weight that much here; and I don't even walk/bike very much since I got my yansha 50cc and scored a parking place at work for the rainy days, and I still stay pretty svelt. Every time I see a picture of my in the US, I go, "good lord I was tubby." At the time, I felt thin--I was certainly thinner than my friends and most of the people on the street, but compared to what I look like here, I was right portly.
Even with all the carbs from the gohan and sugar in everything and more work-related alcohol than I'd touch in the US, I still am much more healthy here. And this is the third time I've lived here, and the third time I've noticed this. Hontou ni fushigi da yo. Nanka okashii.
Re:Film at 11 (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, excess calories certainly are a problem. But Fructose in large doses has the peculiar (and unintuitive) property that much of it is converted more or less directly to fat rather than energy in the liver. Glucose OTOH is metabolized throughout the body. The body seems to be designed to work with a carbohydrate mix that consists of mostly of glucose derived from starch and sugar plus a bit of fructose from fruit and sugar, as well as (for infants and those of European ancestry) a bit of galactose from dairy products.
The body can convert fructose to glucose and burn it. But only in modest doses. When the fructose level gets high, the bod stashes the excess for future consumption ... as fat.
Here's a link to a lengthy article that addresses all this http://www.medbio.info/Horn/Time%201-2/carbohydrat e_metabolism.htm [medbio.info]
Re:That foodstamp challenge is BS (Score:5, Interesting)
Try getting enough servings of fresh green vegetables for a family of four on a budget.
Here's a hint:
Fresh spinach for four ($12) ($9 if you can find the unbagged bunches, seriously!)
Broccoli for four ($3)
Tomatoes (four large) ($3)
I could go on and on.
The "poor" lifestyle staple of rice and beans (arguably probably the most cost effective way) with enough veggies doesn't exist.
You CANT get enough good veggies on that budget. You could get low quality frozen. Or if you are lucky get one of those local "farm share" subscriptions ($30 per month for half share of random crap squash, who the fuck needs a whole case of squash at a time?) The idea you can get tasty veggies for cheap is simply bullshit.
Didn't scientists invent high fructose corn syrup? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:from the "no shit" dept. (Score:4, Interesting)
The innocuous-seeming bun, even, is so loaded with refined carbohydrates that you might as well be eating your hamburger in the middle of a donut sliced in half.
I know you meant this as a joke, but, as always, life is one step ahead, at least if you go to a Gateway Grizzlies Baseball Game. From the press release on "Baseball's Best Burger" [gatewaygrizzlies.com]
They credit at Atlanta restauarant for inspiration, so a bacon donut cheeseburger is probably older than that. And we need studies to figure out why there is an obesity epidemic?
Re:from the "no shit" dept. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Dang sugary buns. (Score:1, Interesting)
Somewhere over the course of this month, you will begin to realize just how much sugar is hidden in fast food. McDonalds and Burger King buns as well as Pizza Hut pizza sauce taste repulsively sweet once you're no longer used to a certain minimum amount of sugar in each meal. I've tried to avoid fast food ever since I did this a few years ago by accident when I tried to switch to only drinking water to save money and lose weight. It's really obscene.
Exercise reduces food intake. What? (Score:3, Interesting)
What is this guy talking about? Ever since I started regularly exercising I am more hungry, more often. And actually hungry, not the confusion of eating out of boredom when I wasn't in shape. Just look at marathon runners, they need to eat tons of food to give them the energy they need. What this guy is saying seems so counterintuitive. Can anyone explain what he means or he is just crackers?
Re:from the "no shit" dept. (Score:4, Interesting)
That's just the opposite of greater Vancouver's SkyTrain system. There are ticket machines in the lobby of every station. You buy a ticket before getting on, or you carry your monthly pass with you. There are no turnstiles, and fare fraud is rampant, up to 40% by some estimates. It's not just walking on without paying, but paying for a lesser fare. (You have to pay more to go into a more distant zone.)
Before adding a second line a few years ago, they did a cost/benefit analysis, and decided that it was cheaper to hire more enforcement staff than to install a mechanical enforcement system. So now, when you ride, there's a one in five chance that a pair of enforcement officers are going to get on and check tickets. Almost every time I've seen enforcement officers on the train, they've caught at least one person.
They're usually pretty lenient if a person seems sincere about forgetting an extra zone fare... total BS almost every time, but they want to maintain good PR. But I saw a couple of kids get caught a little while ago, and they must have shared half a brain cell among the three of them. The officer told them she was giving them a break, and they just had to pay the fare upgrade at the next station. They kept mouthing off to her as she checked other passengers' fares. Sure enough, when she pulled them off at the next station, she got out her ticket book.
I could imagine a couple of Japanese passengers staring dumbfounded at these morons, who were essentially saying, "Yes, I want a ticket! No lenience for me; give me the maximum penalty!"
Re:from the "no shit" dept. (Score:3, Interesting)
It should be noted that colas in Japan (and everywhere in the world except the U.S.) are sweetened with sugar because it is cheaper. In the U.S., due to heavy corn subsidies and import duties on sugar, corn syrup is cheaper, so sodas are made with that instead.
Just as an experiment, I stopped drinking sodas almost entirely a couple of months ago. I found myself eating a lot more (almost twice as much) and my overall calorie intake increased significantly as a result. However, I dropped almost 10 pounds in a single week, and I'm still slowly losing weight, though at a much slower rate.
There is no question whatsoever in my mind that fructose is the primary cause for obesity in the U.S., and the attempt to blame overconsumption for this epidemic is yet another case of the government trying to sidestep responsibility for its poor policy decisions under Gerald Ford more than 30 years ago.
Re:from the "no shit" dept. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:not sugar (Score:3, Interesting)