[HN Gopher] Two conspiracy theories about cola
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Two conspiracy theories about cola
Author : dynm
Score : 101 points
Date : 2021-10-24 15:18 UTC (7 hours ago)
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| ab3rC1te wrote:
| Coke Cola use to be based off cocaine. Like playing Red Dead
| Redemption with the tonic drink mixes back in the day. Was based
| off herbial and natural ingredients, compared to today's standard
| of processed and further processed refinement. I'd rather have
| the damn cocaine to keep me addictive to a drink instead of all
| the bullshit that's processed into a cola drink now a days. You
| open one up and it can't stay fizzy no more then 20 mins. Which
| in reality all soda drinks are root causes of modern day
| deseases.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > conspiracy theories
|
| Aren't those "urban legends" more than conspiracy theories? (Non-
| native English speaker here)
| hairofadog wrote:
| I'd say conspiracy theories are just urban legends but with the
| qualification that the antagonist is a large, powerful, and
| malicious organization, either a real or fictional.
| H8crilA wrote:
| Pretty much all sweet drinks, including natural juices, have
| approx 10% sugar(s) in it. Pretty cool fact that there's a
| universal sweet spot for sugar (pun!).
| ncmncm wrote:
| Thus, all are slow poison. Fruits in nature have enough fiber
| to slow absorption long enough that intestinal bacteria get
| most of it. Stripping necessary fiber out of food and discading
| it is the major task of the food industry.
|
| Juice is wholly as bad as Coke.
| curiousgeorgio wrote:
| Good article, but I'm skeptical of the point raised in the "P.S."
| section (which leads me to doubt some of the other points in the
| article):
|
| > aspartame has basically zero negative effects ...diet cola is
| much safer than real cola.
|
| I won't argue that sugar isn't bad for you, but I don't think the
| science (and my own observation) agrees that diet cola -
| specifically aspartame - is "much safer" or somehow healthier.
| The linked WebMD page mentions this:
|
| > The study found that consuming a low-calorie sweetener was not,
| by itself responsible for slowing metabolism. However, when
| combined with other carbohydrates, or fats, the consumption of
| the non-sucrose sweetener did lead to a significant drop in
| metabolic rate.
|
| We don't generally ingest things in isolation, so you _have to_
| account for what an ingredient does in the context of an average
| diet accompanying the ingredient, and in that sense, aspartame
| absolutely _does_ have significant negative effects. Those
| effects may or may not be worse than real sugar, but after the
| whole switch from "margarine is a healthier butter substitute"
| to "turns out margarine might be worse for you than butter" (and
| other similar upended dietary advice), I'm personally included to
| prefer sugar - in moderation - over sugar substitutes.
|
| And that's another problem with sugar substitutes: claims that
| they have no negative effects encourage people to consume "diet"
| products in very high amounts - often more than the products they
| replace, so you're no longer comparing equal amounts of the
| substances. For me, drinking a sugary soda is an infrequent,
| deliberate decision - one I don't take lightly. There's a guilt
| that comes with it, but I think that's a good thing to make me
| think twice. But I also see people drinking diet soda all day,
| every day, thinking there are essentially no negative
| consequences (when there obviously are).
| nemo44x wrote:
| Is it just me or does soda taste better out of a can than out of
| a plastic bottle?
|
| I've felt this for many years and have even tested by pouring
| into glasses. I like the can one better.
|
| Is this just me?
| Supermancho wrote:
| I used to drink cubes of Pepsi per week...like over 20 years
| ago. My explanation is that it contains aluminum ions (or some
| other chemical hint) from the tearing of the tab. This is why
| it tastes better on the earlier sips. If you leave soda out and
| it gets flat, the small difference is still there for at least
| half the can. Ultimately, since aluminum is a neurotoxin, it's
| probably very bad for you over time.
|
| Fountain soda is noticeably different.
| jwilber wrote:
| As part of my undergrad statistics course on experimental
| design I tested this very hypothesis among about 60 students
| and found no significant difference in preference between cola
| poured from plastic, canned, or glass bottles.
|
| Still, there's nothing better to me than a cold glass bottle if
| I had to drink soda.
| saila wrote:
| There must be a perception-over-time element to this. Fresh
| from the container, there's probably not much difference, but
| the size of the container, whether it's re-closable, how well
| it conducts heat, how fast the individual drinks, etc must
| have an affect on overall perception of quality/tastiness.
|
| I'm wondering at what point quality is "sampled." There's the
| first sip ... and then the last. Maybe overall perception is
| tied more strongly to the last sip?
| guilhas wrote:
| I find that true comparing with the individual soda bottles,
| but the big litter bottles taste way better than both
| Nasrudith wrote:
| I notice it and I always thougut it is a combination conduction
| related coldness (making you feel it as colder at very least)
| plus small package size meaning it is "fully carbonated" as
| opposed to plastic bottle screw on.
| bluedino wrote:
| Highly scientific test:
|
| https://youtu.be/Hzat3Sv1Vwg
| nemo44x wrote:
| I sort of agree with their comments that they feel like cans
| have "more bite". I think that's what I've noticed too. As if
| the cans have larger bubbles or something. Plastic bottles
| always seemed "smoother" to me like they had lots of really
| small bubbles.
| saila wrote:
| Cola in a plastic bottle seems to go flat faster, but maybe
| that's because it's often a larger size (20oz vs 16 or
| 12oz)? Or maybe with a can you feel compelled to drink it
| more quickly because you can't re-close it?
|
| The test in the video doesn't seem valid because they
| didn't cleanse their palates in between drinks, and
| drinking one after the other would likely affect the taste
| somewhat. They're also influencing each other's decisions.
| bluedino wrote:
| I rate them glass > fountain > can > plastic
| joecool1029 wrote:
| >Is this just me?
|
| I don't think so. Bottles impart a small amount of flavor
| that's almost imperceptible to most people except for warm
| bottled water. Canned water exists but is a little unusual,
| that liquid death company with the energy drink looking cans is
| the only one I could find around here easily. The few times
| I've had it I wasn't able to detect any plastic flavor, even
| when warm. My guess is the lining is way more inert than the
| bottle, or that because the aluminum is blocking light, there's
| no ability for photodegradation of the liner to happen.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Maybe Emetrol is placebo, but it has worked for me in the past on
| a couple of occasions. This included 8 hours of vomiting no mater
| how hard I willed it to stop or other remedies I tried, and it
| didn't work on the first dose. It didn't seem like placebo to me,
| but I am grateful it worked either way.
|
| One thing to note that isn't in the article, is that
| concentration can matter, so comparing one can to a 30ml dose of
| medication might not be a great comparison (although this still
| supports for the author's position that phosphoric acid is not
| added to cola to prevent vomiting).
|
| Is the placebo effect applicable in infants? I would think that
| infants would not be capable of the understanding that something
| will make them better, and thus placebo wouldn't apply to them.
| Unfortunately this paper is pay-walled so we dont have details
| about the methods used, but the summary seems relevant.
|
| https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(51)80084-2/pdf
| silviot wrote:
| Apparently placebo works even with dogs:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19912522/ Given that I would
| not find surprising if it worked for infants too
| giantg2 wrote:
| That's interesting. Yeah, I couldn't find anything about it
| for infants.
|
| I wouldn't put too much stock in this study you linked. It's
| a meta analysis of other studies. These other studies were
| not designed to test placebo effect. The P value also seems
| quite large to me (.17). Seems to me like any benefit may
| have been the conventional drugs they were on...
|
| "In each study, the treatment group received the experimental
| therapeutic intervention in addition to conventional
| antiepileptic drug treatment, and the control group received
| a matching placebo in addition to conventional antiepileptic
| drug treatment."
| ushakov wrote:
| > Unfortunately this paper is pay-walled
|
| not when you use sci-hub
|
| https://sci.bban.top/pdf/10.1016/s0022-3476%252851%252980084...
| jrmg wrote:
| _This included 8 hours of vomiting no mater how hard I willed
| it to stop or other remedies I tried, and it didn 't work on
| the first dose_
|
| It seems very plausible that after 8 hours vomiting would stop
| without intervention.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Why? One could say that about any duration, right?
| exporectomy wrote:
| Yes, whatever the duration, you'll eventually stop vomiting
| some time after taking the medicine. Sometimes by chance it
| will seem like a remarkably short time from medicine to
| cure compared to the duration of the sickness. This is how
| a lot of ineffective traditional medicines "work". For a
| cold or nausea, nearly everyone will experience their
| problem fixing itself after taking the medicine and
| combined with cultural beliefs, use that to convince
| themselves that the medicine treated the disease. Just look
| at the number of people online who credit some (real)
| medicine with some outcome despite the fact that they have
| no way of knowing causation. Or young people who say "I
| don't drink FooBar type of alcohol because it makes me
| vomit." after one occasion getting plastered and ending up
| vomiting. It's good old mind-tricks of correlation vs
| causation.
|
| There's a reason real medicine requires preregistered
| double blind trials. It's just far too easy to get
| causation wrong without using rigorous scientific methods.
| jrmg wrote:
| Totally. And it would be more probable as time goes on,
| since you couldn't really go on vomiting for ever (unless
| the illness was way more serious!)
|
| 8 hours seems pretty 'normal' from the few times I've been
| ill like this though - would basically feel like 'most of a
| day' or 'most of a night'.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I think we are thinking of different things. Continuously
| vomiting every 5-15 minutes for 8 hours to the point of
| just green bile coming up is pretty serious (dehydration
| is a huge concern), in my opinion. This sort of vomiting
| seems to be an uncontrollable involuntary response.
| daveguy wrote:
| Yes. You would have to have a placebo controlled test to
| confirm placebo vs "just happens to last 8 hours". This is
| what placebo controls are for.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I generally agree. The secondary (and more interesting)
| question is whether placebo effect is applicable to
| infants. Based on the theory of how placebo works, it
| seems it might not be. It seems there are no studies on
| that. At least I couldn't find any.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Placebo mostly just means "good effect unrelated to
| intended treatment (active substance, surgical procedure
| etc)". That can include psychological effects of
| treatment (such as in pain management, depression, heart
| rate and blood pressure, and a handful of others).
|
| More commonly though, the placebo effect is just natural
| progression of the disease, errors in data collection
| (such as patients trying to be helpful and confirming
| that vague symptoms have somewhat improved), or errors in
| data analysis (such as lab techs thinking they've seen
| something in the sample that they expected to see there).
|
| The psychological effects may or may not apply to infants
| - that's a somewhat separate question. The other effects
| definitely do - it's perfectly plausible that a lab tech
| looking for an improvement in an infant's blood sample
| after treatment "finds" it.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I would consider those other effects to be bias,
| controlled via some other mechanism like a study being
| double blind. For example, lab techs shouldn't even know
| whose sample they're testing, let alone that patient's
| treatment, whether they're involved in a study, or the
| expected outcome.
|
| So I do agree these other effects exist, but I don't
| think they exist under the classification of placebo
| effect. It's possible one of these is at play in this
| study.
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| Neither of which involve an alleged conspiracy.
|
| I must say that I find the word "conspiracy theory" to have
| rather odd usage in common parlance that does not seem to have
| much to do with conspiracies but I'm not sure what the actual
| definition is either.
|
| If anything, perhaps it's actual semantics are little more than
| "allegations of wrongdoing the speaker considers to be false".
| ncmncm wrote:
| A conspiracy requires a crime. Poisoning millions of people
| should _maybe_ be a crime, but it manifestly is not today, as
| numerous soda company executives move about freely, just as
| paint executives did and tobacco executives still do.
|
| Killing a dozen people by shooting up a bus station is national
| news. Killing millions, year in and year out, slowly enough, is
| just business.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| That's a needlessly specific definition for "conspiracy" in
| common usage, and it's wrong. A conspiracy is a secret plot
| by more than one person to do something that the speaker (and
| presumably listener) considers nefarious. Whether that
| nefarious thing is illegal or not doesn't enter into it,
| unless you're looking at the specific legal term 'conspiracy
| to [...]'.
| ncmncm wrote:
| There is anyway nothing secret about the amount of sugar is
| sodas.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Pretty sure conspiracy only implies harm, not crime.
| Otherwise "criminal conspiracy" is pretty redundant.
| inpdx wrote:
| When I used to be able to get Kosher for Passover sugar sweetened
| Coke, I absolutely could tell the difference - did multiple blind
| tests. It's possible the sucrose hasn't had time to fully break
| down in recently bottled Coke. The other theory wrt taste
| differences is the chemicals used in extracting HFCS leave a
| small but non-negligible taste.
| pirate787 wrote:
| For context on the Mexican cola, US cola had sugar as well until
| the mid 1980s. The US sugar program restricts imports and keeps
| the domestic price for sugar high, which created a new market for
| milling corn into HFCS. HFCS is uniquely an American invention
| that's the result of massive government subsidies for corn and
| price support for sugar. If the government did not intervene in
| American sugar markets, cola would still be made with sugar
| imported from outside the United States.
| bluedino wrote:
| Unlike the USA, Mexico has warnings on their Coke and Pepsi,
| about excess calories and how it is not meant for children.
| short12 wrote:
| Those warnings sure worked considering childhood obesity of
| mexico
| dylan604 wrote:
| How many people actually read those warnings? See logo, buy
| product, consume product. Much like those mandated warnings
| on tobacco. Guy looks at pack 1 with a warning "May cause
| cancer", puts it back. Guy looks at pack 2 with a warning
| "May cause birth defects". Guy decides that's now his
| brand. (appologies to Bill Hicks)
| tudorw wrote:
| In the UK we get 'candy' imports that are saturated with
| azo-dyes, they are not banned, they just have a warning
| on the packet, yup, a warning on the packet that says
| 'may cause hyperactivity', when I've drawn other parents
| attention, either they have never noticed it, or dismiss
| it as a sugar high, https://hacsg.org.uk/artificial-food-
| colourings-and-adhd-hyp...
| [deleted]
| zionic wrote:
| And recent studies show HFCS alters the folds in your gut,
| lengthening them. This increased surface area significantly
| increases the amount of calories your intestines can extract
| from the same volume of food.
| sdfsdghk wrote:
| Thanks for the tip. I'll be adding more Coke products to my
| survival shelter.
| adamiscool8 wrote:
| In case anyone else is curious about this:
|
| >The research, published August 18 in Nature, focused on the
| effect of a high-fructose diet on villi, the thin, hairlike
| structures that line the inside of the small intestine. Villi
| expand the surface area of the gut and help the body to
| absorb nutrients, including dietary fats, from food as it
| passes through the digestive tract. The study found that mice
| that were fed diets that included fructose had villi that
| were 25 percent to 40 percent longer than those of mice that
| were not fed fructose. Additionally, the increase in villus
| length was associated with increased nutrient absorption,
| weight gain and fat accumulation in the animals.[0]
|
| [0] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/21081813521
| 8.h...
| phonypc wrote:
| Worth noting that the "in mice" qualifier might be
| particularly apropos here.
|
| > _" According to Taylor, the observations in mice make
| sense from an evolutionary perspective. "In mammals,
| especially hibernating mammals in temperate climates, you
| have fructose being very available in the fall months when
| the fruit is ripe," he said. "Eating a lot of fructose may
| help these animals to absorb and convert more nutrients to
| fat, which they need to get through the winter.""_
|
| Humans generally don't hibernate.
| throw63738 wrote:
| Everyone argues about sugar, but the true original is in Peru
| :)
| dghughes wrote:
| Canada has no such requirements but even so we still get stuck
| with pop sweetened with HFCS.
| smegger001 wrote:
| because many corps look at Canada as a just another smaller
| less profitable part of the US market and simply swap Spanish
| print for French.
| antonzabirko wrote:
| Dynm, i can tell the difference between hfcs and non-hfcs soda. I
| get blockage near the vocal cords about 5 - 15 minutes after
| consuming it, so there's definitely something worse than sugar
| about it.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Sounds like allergy. (I am not a physician. This is not medical
| advice.)
|
| Difference in trace constituents, triggering allergy, is
| completely plausible. But either way, it is the fructose
| identical in both that is actually poisoning you.
| antonzabirko wrote:
| Nah, more like I can feel the side effects of hfcs more
| easily. I can still eat it and be fine, just have that plus a
| bit of indigestion.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Apparently you are not aware of the wide range of allergic
| effects.
|
| For myself, I get tiny blisters on the backs of my hands
| and neck from cranberries. And, onions make my sinuses
| bleed. Indigestion is more common.
| antonzabirko wrote:
| I am indeed, i know allergies vs non-allergies. Consider
| the reactions people have to fried food. You would bin
| that all under allergies with your logic.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Allergy is defined as an anomalous auto-immune reaction
| to an introduced substance. Indigestion from a common
| foodstuff is a good candidate. You would of course need a
| medical examination to reliably determine that your
| particular intolerance is allergy. But that's the way to
| bet.
| antonzabirko wrote:
| Definitely not the way to bet since most reactions to
| food are not allergic in nature. Gut reactions _should_
| constitute the majority.
| ncmncm wrote:
| You miss "anomalous". I.e., it does not happen to almost
| all other people who eat identically the same stuff.
| Indigestion and diarrhea are common responses to dietary
| allergens. Thus, onions make my sinuses bleed _and_ cause
| indigestion.
| gfosco wrote:
| Great piece. This starts out talking about a silly conspiracy
| theory, and after solving that, causes me to question a few
| things I have believed about sugar/hfcs/coke.
| ncmncm wrote:
| It utterly fails to note the massive public health crisis
| caused by fructose unmoderated by dietary fiber.
| kafkaIncarnate wrote:
| All this information is just taking the fun out of life.
|
| /me cracks open a Mexican Coke.
| toomanybeersies wrote:
| Interestingly, my go-to hangover/nausea remedy has always been
| Coca Cola. I had no idea that OTC anti-nausea medication also
| contains phosphoric acid, or that it was even an antiemetic (or
| not, as it seems).
|
| I've always put it down to the fact that Coca Cola is very
| effective at washing out the taste of vomit.
| teh_klev wrote:
| Being Scottish, Barr's Irn Bru (full fat) was my go-to as a
| pick-me-up after a night on the sauce. Sadly now ruined by
| artificial sweeteners replacing some of the sugar due to
| government sugar taxes on pop.
| bluedino wrote:
| Coke slurpees and greasy pizza from the gas station got me
| through a lot of mornings after I had been out drinking
| ryanmarsh wrote:
| Okay but Saudi Arabian Pepsi tastes better than American Pepsi
| and you can't convince me otherwise.
| csydas wrote:
| Kind of tangential to the article but regarding phosphoric acid
| and its use as anti-nausea, is this why bubbly white sodas are a
| household cure for upset stomachs? This was a go-to for my family
| in the US as a kid when I had a stomach flu (saltines and 7-up),
| and i guess it was pretty common
| ashtonkem wrote:
| A long time ago all colas were sold as medicine. I suspect that
| giving kids with a upset stomach cola is a faint cultural echo
| of those times, with each parent teaching their kids that soda
| is a cure for upset stomachs even though they took out the
| cocaine that might do something a century ago. Interestingly in
| my house the drink used for this was ginger ale.
|
| That being said, the placebo effect is strong. When I was a
| little kid, I was only allowed to move from bed to the couch
| once I'd turned the corner on my illness but wasn't yet ready
| to go back to school. To this day I move to the couch when
| sick, and it makes me feel better even though the only
| plausible mechanism is my own head. I bet a lot of colas given
| for upset stomachs are in the same category.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Ginger actually does have noted positive effects on nausea
| and stomach upset, so ginger ale could presumably help.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| The common ginger ale brands contain no ginger.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| 7-up doesn't contain phosphoric acid.
| jay3ss wrote:
| Neither does Sprite
| djbusby wrote:
| Saltines for substance, 7-up for sugar and bubbles. Easy
| filler, energy and helps you burp out the bad feels.
| teh_klev wrote:
| As a kid in the 70's growing up in Scotland we were given
| Lucozade (long before the "energy drink" fad) and quite often
| Ferguzade (a similar product but made in Scotland) when we were
| ill. Both had pretty odd tastes back then, almost salty if I
| remember.
| scoot wrote:
| I don't remember Lucozade being anything _but_ a drink for
| recovery from illness. (Remember the yellow cellophane
| wrapped bottles?!) I have no idea how it attained this
| reputation.
|
| These days, Lucozade Sport (in multiple flavours) has taken
| over, but being "isotonic", presumably has various salts.
| joosters wrote:
| Same here (as a kid growing up in the 80s) - it was always
| a drink for when you were ill. Lucozade also had a
| reputation as being even more sugary than other fizzy
| drinks. I'm sure it was even marketed back then as an
| 'energy' drink.
|
| I see that nowdays even the sugar-free lucozade is
| advertised as an energy drink, I'm not sure quite how that
| works, though!
| h2odragon wrote:
| I wonder how much phosphorus in the wastewater stream can be laid
| at the root cause of soft drinks instead of the fertilizers
| usually blamed.
| toomanybeersies wrote:
| If I drank a can of Coke every day, that would equate to 21 g
| of phosphorus.
|
| Grain fields get fertilised with around 250 kg/ha of
| superphosphate, which contains 20 kg of phosphorus.
| h2odragon wrote:
| All the human waste gets specifically concentrated for
| treatment, usually; so presumably they'd be mitigating larger
| levels at that point. I'd assume. My experience in that field
| ends at leech fields and septic lagoons.
| readflaggedcomm wrote:
| Ginger is also anti-nausea, but I eat it with sushi just because
| it tastes good.
|
| From their study link:
|
| >And, the reason most people say that they prefer Mexican Coke is
| that it contains real cane sugar instead of corn syrup. But
| according to this Time article, a study done by Obesity journal
| found that Mexican Coke did not contain sucrose
|
| What does this mean? Last I looked many years ago, Mexican coke
| has two formulations you can notice *just by looking at the
| ingredients*: sugar or corn syrup. Did they not look? Did they
| not trust it?
|
| The taste difference is noticable, because less-refined cane
| sugar is very tasty.
| MichaelMoser123 wrote:
| You can use Coca Cola for jail breaks: see this article about a
| recent jail break in Israel, where the inmates used cola to get
| through eight inches of concrete floors. So much for the acids
| that they put into this 'soft drink'...
| https://www.timesofisrael.com/captured-fugitives-from-gilboa...
|
| https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3222116/palestinian-...
| smnrchrds wrote:
| Acids are certainly bad for teeth, but is it bad for anything
| else? I imagine stomach acid is more powerful than any soft
| drink and the drink ends up there a second after being
| swallowed. Is there any risk of downstream harm from food
| acids?
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Your stomach pH is consistently monitored and buffered by the
| feedback mechanisms in your body. Depending on your
| sensitivities, infusing a large amount of acidity all at once
| can absolutely cause stomach issues.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| Coca-colas have a pH of 2.4 to 3 [1]. Stomach acid's pH is
| 1.5 to 3.5 [2]. So coca-cola has acidity that is very close
| to that of stomach acid. Water's pH is around 7. I am no
| doctor, but wouldn't that suggest that drinking water will
| unbalance stomach's acidity worse than coca-cola will?
|
| [1] https://www.ada.org/en/~/media/ADA/Public%20Programs/Fi
| les/J...
|
| [2] https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/003883.htm
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Yes, but you are still adding a significant amount of
| acid to the stomach, way more than is supposed to be
| there. If your body can't neutralize the extra acid fast
| enough (to pass to the S. Intestine for adsorption) then
| you are either going to have a stomach ache, acid reflux
| or you may vomit. That's why people take chalky antacids
| to deal with an overly acidic stomach - your body
| naturally produces bicarbonate to do that, Tums provides
| a larger dose.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| No, it just means our body knows very well how to
| regulate less acidic stuff coming in, all day, everyday.
| One can expect in that case that digestive system is not
| perfectly balanced around ph of stomach in both
| directions, but rather overequipped for the most common
| case, and underequipped for the opposite.
| likpok wrote:
| Sure, but stomach acid is more acidic than soda.
| joosters wrote:
| The pH scale is exponential, so a pH of 2.4 compared to
| 1.5 is roughly a tenth as acidic as the stomach's. Is
| that 'close' ? I'm not sure.
| djbusby wrote:
| Heartburn and Acid-Reflux
| Salgat wrote:
| Mind you this only exacerbates already dysfunctional
| stomachs. A normal healthy person can drink large amounts
| of soda without causing acid reflux.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| From what i understand they may as well have used power tools
| to break through. This prison break highlighted the almost
| unbelievable incompetency of the Israeli Prison service. I
| wouldn't be shocked if this coke story is just a lie to divert
| attention from the ineptitude of the prison guards. After all,
| who would expect coke would be used in a breakout attempt?
| varjag wrote:
| A number of natural juices (e.g. grapefruit) are more acidic
| than Coca Cola, so that's not telling much.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| There needs to be much greater emphasis on teaching physics
| and chemistry in middle school and high school.
| ncmncm wrote:
| There is nothing harmless about liquid fructose, or liquid sugar
| (which is half fructose).
|
| The people who know _the most_ about fructose blame it for the
| huge public health crisis that the US (and UK, Pakistan, India,
| and some other countries) are suffering, manifested as insulin
| resistance and type #2 diabetes, "metabolic syndrome". It kills
| way more than COVID.
|
| Specifically: fructose is mostly processed only by the liver.
| (The liver's main job is neutralizing toxins.) Excess fructose is
| processed on the same metabolic pathways as alcohol, a major
| toxin. Large amounts of fructose are turned into fat and stored
| in the liver, like alcohol, and generate uric acid, which causes
| gout and numerous other problems, like alcohol. (Your kidneys
| work to try to clear uric acid, but the spikes are harmful.)
| Today, American children are getting cirrhosis, like alcoholics.
|
| Taken with _enough fiber_ , fructose absorption is delayed long
| enough that gut bacteria get most of it, instead, where it causes
| them no problem. Fruits have fructose and fiber, but juice and
| soda have no fiber. Fructose without enough fiber is slow poison.
|
| A good place to start learning about fructose metabolism is
| Robert Lustig vids on youtube. (I watch them at 1.5x-2x speed
| with subtitles, to save time.) Or read his books. Lustig is a
| respected endocrinologist.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| >and UK, Pakistan, India, and some other countries
|
| But isn't fructose pretty much only a US based sweetener due to
| corn subsidies?
|
| The rest of the world uses sugar in coke which is a better
| mixture of sucrose and fructose.
| ncmncm wrote:
| They are the same, metabolically. It is a fact that UK,
| India, and Pakistan are also suffering from epidemic levels
| of metabolic syndrome, traceable to sugar. The US suffers
| worst because sugar is massively subsidized in the US.
|
| The notion that sugar is less harmful than fructose corn
| syrup is sugar company propaganda. Both are identically
| harmful. As noted in TFA, sucrose gets split into fructose
| and glucose before it gets into the can.
| vetinari wrote:
| I think that the first who was talking about this was Gary
| Taubes. His talks and books are worth a look.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Robert Lustig, as an endocrinologist specializing in liver
| metabolism, is more immediately credible than Gary Taubes, a
| journalist.
|
| That Taubes's critics are wrong (e.g., in first paragraph of
| his Wikipedia page) seems worth mentioning.
| phonypc wrote:
| >fructose absorption is delayed long enough that gut bacteria
| get most of it
|
| Have a reference for this? Seems implausible, bacterial
| fermentation of any sugar in the intestines should result in
| distress, i.e. the same symptoms a lactose intolerant person
| would have upon drinking milk.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Fermentation is not the principal pathway by which bacteria
| process sugar. In particular, sugar is a key raw material for
| growth, when available.
|
| LMGTFY: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bacteria+sugar+pathway
| phonypc wrote:
| Uhh... sure. If you don't want to call it fermentation
| that's ok. Though I don't imagine human gut bacteria are
| respirating, or some other more exotic form of metabolism.
|
| Point is, the products of bacterial metabolism of sugar in
| the human gut tend to cause issues, as in lactose
| intolerance, or the more rare sucrose intolerance. Hence my
| request for a citation on fibre delaying absorption of
| fructose so that "bacteria get most of it".
| latchkey wrote:
| I stopped reading after the covid mention.
|
| [1]
| https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Faulty-...
| ncmncm wrote:
| Death is death.
| latchkey wrote:
| Explain your reasoning for mentioning covid vs. car
| accident, cancer or heart attack.
| ncmncm wrote:
| COVID is not, _unlike fructose_ , a known contributor to
| both cancer and circulatory disease[1]. To compare
| fructose to heart disease would be to compare fructose to
| one of the ways it kills.
|
| Car accidents are not seen as a current public health
| emergency meriting massive interventions; and anyway
| cause way too few deaths to make a meaningful comparison.
|
| [1] Temporary myocardial inflammation notwithstanding
| philipkglass wrote:
| I don't know about the rest of this, but fructose cannot be
| turned into uric acid. Uric acid is a nitrogen compound and
| there is no nitrogen in fructose.
| charbonneau2 wrote:
| > Fructose is known to induce uric acid production by
| increasing ATP degradation to AMP, a uric acid precursor (85,
| 93, 94) and thus, within minutes after fructose infusion,
| serum uric acid levels rise (94).
|
| _The Epidemiology of Uric Acid and Fructose_ -
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3197219/
| mooneater wrote:
| Buffet openly brags about the anti vomiting effect. Saw this in a
| talk he gave to Indian MBA students and I was shocked.
| DerekL wrote:
| Who's Buffet?
| amelius wrote:
| Wait, so if you're in a bar and about to vomit from having had
| too many drinks, you should order a cola?
| LinAGKar wrote:
| >Mexican Coke contains sugar rather than high-fructose corn syrup
|
| You mean US coke contains HFCS rather than sugar? Because it uses
| regular sugar in most of the world. The USA is the outlier here,
| not Mexico.
| muthdra wrote:
| I thought they were going to mention the "new coke" conspiracy
| theory which states that coke ditched the old flavor for a new
| one in 1985 and then changed it back later but this time with
| corn syrup instead of sugar in just enough time for people to
| forget what exactly it tasted like before and not complain
| about the change.
| [deleted]
| 323 wrote:
| Fanta contains exactly as much sugar as Cola, yet it doesn't
| contain phosphoric acid, nor does it cause people to throw up.
|
| Q.E.D.
|
| Also, the whole premise (sugar causing people to throw up) seems
| a bit weird. Think about honey, cakes, ...
| [deleted]
| throw_away wrote:
| Fanta & other non-colas do contain citric acid, however, as
| mentioned under fact #4. If willing, one could simply try the
| sugar water experiment explained in that same section.
|
| I don't drink soda, so I am not willing, but I am interested as
| to whether I could just use any food-type acid mixed in water
| to ease stomach discomfort and dodge this whole
| sugar/hfcs/fructose/sucrose question entirely.
| guilhas wrote:
| Conspiracy theories only cool to be discussed when it is a
| completely irrelevant topic for people lives
| transfire wrote:
| Good analysis but the conclusion that people should drink diet
| cola instead is terrible. For starters just read the warning on
| the aide of the can.
| likpok wrote:
| What warning? About phenylalanine? That only applies to people
| with a specific dysfunction; phenylalanine is found in lots of
| food like meat or cheese or beans.
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