[HN Gopher] Study links sugar-filled drinks to millions of heart...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Study links sugar-filled drinks to millions of heart disease and
       diabetes cases
        
       Author : hochmartinez
       Score  : 92 points
       Date   : 2025-01-12 19:27 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (bgr.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (bgr.com)
        
       | epicureanideal wrote:
       | IMO a substantial (not 100%) root cause of all this is that many
       | Americans are highly stressed, in precarious financial positions,
       | with toxic work environments, pushed to work at above 100% effort
       | (meaning, unsustainable) permanently, so they turn to excessive
       | amounts of calories, caffeine, prescription or illegal drugs, to
       | try to continue to function as long as possible. This leads to
       | all kinds of medical issues down the road, which then is handled
       | by emergency medical services, or very severe health problems
       | that are very difficult to treat.
        
         | lithocarpus wrote:
         | I imagine this is a substantial cause. And, sugar is also a
         | physical addiction, and many children are given it in varying
         | degrees of excessive amounts from childhood even if they're not
         | particularly subjected to stress. There is a spectrum of kinds
         | of sugars but I imagine they could be weighted by something
         | like glycemic index for measuring the degree of impact.
        
         | swatcoder wrote:
         | Perhaps, and we should continue to work on that, but
         | exploitative and exhausting labor has been an issue for ten
         | millenia or so at least. We may well not see it fixed in our
         | lives.
         | 
         | But the particular failings of the modern western diet are
         | relatively new and might still be remedied or reversed without
         | waiting for the whole labor and exploitation issue to be
         | sorted.
        
           | ethbr1 wrote:
           | The difference is that the previous methods of exhausting
           | labor provided physical exercise as a side effect.
           | 
           | As brutal as that was on the body, it did have some health
           | benefits.
           | 
           | In contrast to modern American/Asian work culture, which is
           | high stress _and_ sedentary.
        
             | swatcoder wrote:
             | While there exists a lot of sedentary work in the US and
             | that has consequences, there's still a great deal of
             | physical work done in the US as well, and a very high
             | number of non-working people with plenty of time for
             | personal exercise if they wanted to pursue it. Yet the
             | profound wellness problems we're talking about apply to all
             | of those groups.
        
             | lithocarpus wrote:
             | There's some truth there, but no matter how active one is,
             | one can still out-eat the exercise with sugar.
        
             | djaouen wrote:
             | > which is high stress and sedentary
             | 
             | Soon, we might even reach _low stress and not back-
             | breaking_! *Gasp*!
        
             | sydbarrett74 wrote:
             | And since the Industrial Revolution, any labour is highly
             | repetitive and therefore leads to RSI.
        
           | AngryData wrote:
           | Before the industrial age sustained exhausting labor was
           | still a temporary thing reserved for planting and harvest
           | times, and even then you were still deciding your own hours,
           | it was just obviously the most profitable time to put in the
           | most work so people did it.
        
           | WalterBright wrote:
           | > exploitative and exhausting labor
           | 
           | That was necessary because of the low productivity of people.
        
           | sapphicsnail wrote:
           | Workers in industrial societies work way more hours than
           | their ancestors did. There's enough resources for people to
           | work less hours.
        
             | s1artibartfast wrote:
             | Which goods would you cut out?
        
               | sapphicsnail wrote:
               | Most people I know spend a lot of time doing unnecessary
               | things for their job. I don't have a magic solution to
               | fix all the bureaucratic bullshit people are subject to
               | but acknowledging it's a problem is a start.
        
               | _DeadFred_ wrote:
               | Stock buybacks. They serve nothing but short term driving
               | up of profits purely to increase the value of
               | management's stock options. They have no place in the
               | functions/purpose of a healthy stock market.
        
             | swatcoder wrote:
             | I'm with you that things suck now and don't need to be this
             | way, having carefully not said otherwise.
             | 
             | But I also think you might be underestimating how many
             | people's ancestors were slaves, serfs, miners, and laborers
             | during hose prior several millenia of settled, urbanizing
             | civilization. We don't all come from aristocratic or even
             | subsistence farming stock.
             | 
             | It can be less bad than it is, we might want to strive to
             | make it less bad than it is, but it's been pretty darn bad
             | for a long while. For pressing modern problems we _also_
             | need to commit to more immediate tactics.
        
               | sapphicsnail wrote:
               | I'm not saying everyone had it better. Chattle slavery is
               | definitely worse. Maybe I'm naive, but I don't think we
               | needed to have slaves to make progress. I want to push
               | back against this idea that it's inevitable to have to
               | work as much as we do. A worker today is significantly
               | more productive. We could probably make life a lot easier
               | for everyone by finding a more equitable way to
               | distribute resources and by breaking up and regulating
               | all the rent-seeking monopolists who makes things more
               | expensive than they need to be.
        
               | swatcoder wrote:
               | > I want to push back against this idea that it's
               | inevitable to have to work as much as we do
               | 
               | I'm with you. Has anyone here said that?
        
               | sapphicsnail wrote:
               | Yes, someone responded to me saying just that and it's
               | also a position I've seen frequently on HN. I think
               | plenty of people have that as a gut reaction to any
               | proposed change in the status quo.
        
             | satvikpendem wrote:
             | Your first sentence is a false factoid repeated online
             | [0][1]. And anyway, there is always more work to be done,
             | so I don't understand why people think working hours would
             | ever decrease; as soon as we build one thing, another
             | problem crops up. We would only stop working until all
             | problems in the world would have been solved, which is
             | never.
             | 
             | [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/z38k5
             | p/i_h...
             | 
             | [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/im1lq
             | u/is_...
        
               | sydbarrett74 wrote:
               | Maybe we could get off the hedonic treadmill and be
               | content with a certain level of material affluence.
        
           | Avshalom wrote:
           | Surviving to adulthood is also relatively new.
        
         | cj wrote:
         | I think this was also true 50 years ago. I'm unconvinced that
         | we're working harder today compared to the past.
         | 
         | I do agree society overall is higher stress mainly due to the
         | internet and constant attention grabbing in all directions.
        
           | abnercoimbre wrote:
           | Couple that with lack of in-person communities. They are
           | ephemeral at best now.
        
           | epicureanideal wrote:
           | It may not be physically as hard but I think the work is more
           | precarious, and the cost of living is much higher for basics
           | like housing, so the stress may be higher.
        
             | WalterBright wrote:
             | > but I think the work is more precarious
             | 
             | It was a lot easier to fire people in those days.
             | 
             | > the cost of living is much higher for basics like housing
             | 
             | Around Seattle there are still a number of older homes.
             | They are tiny and cheaply built compared to modern homes.
        
               | llm_trw wrote:
               | 50 years ago mean 1975, not 1935. It was a lot harder to
               | fire people then.
        
           | _DeadFred_ wrote:
           | The repetitiveness of modern labor has moved full body
           | physical labour to single point of failure on your body tasks
           | with the likelier end result being you will end up crippled
           | in some way (and having to just work with it) or have other
           | overuse injuries which then leads to constant chronic pain.
        
         | hnpolicestate wrote:
         | "toxic work environments, pushed to work at above 100% effort
         | (meaning, unsustainable) permanently, so they turn to excessive
         | amounts of calories, caffeine, prescription or illegal drugs,
         | to try to continue to function as long as possible."
         | 
         | I've basically succumb to everything you list to survive
         | working in a maddeningly dysfunctional school. And it's
         | precisely "function as long as possible ". I have to
         | disassociate somehow from the incompetence and corruption
         | around me. Ativan and diet Coke help.
         | 
         | I assume billions globally are doing the same thing to cope.
         | The best metaphor I've come up with is that it feels like I
         | play for a sub 60 win baseball team.
        
         | jayd16 wrote:
         | You don't need to be busy to guzzle down soda, Gatorade, sweet
         | tea, etc. Its just pervasive.
        
         | ajross wrote:
         | > many Americans are highly stressed, in precarious financial
         | positions, with toxic work environments, pushed to work at
         | above 100% effort
         | 
         | That seems spun. I don't think any of that is substantiated in
         | any kind of rigorous way. Median americans today are wealthier
         | than any population in human history, are working more than
         | their compatriots elsewhere in the world but less than their
         | parents, have more leisure time, travel more, etc...
         | 
         | There's lots of things to complaint about, and there always
         | will be. But really this kind of "Everything is Awful" rhetoric
         | is just vibes. Yes, life sucks. It sucked _worse_ for your
         | ancestors.
        
           | bluefirebrand wrote:
           | > Yes, life sucks. It sucked worse for your ancestors.
           | 
           | Most of the time you are right, but the Baby Boomers are a
           | pretty big outlier in this regard
           | 
           | There is no question that the average Baby Boomer has had it
           | much better than their children and grandchildren have
        
             | ajross wrote:
             | Not numerically. Median real income today is more than
             | twice what it was in the 60's.
             | 
             | FWIW: there's a... sociological problem with arguments
             | framed around that. When you _measure_ US citizen wealth in
             | the 1960 's it looks unimpressive[1]. When you _picture_ a
             | "baby boomer", you see a working class family with no debt
             | behind a white picket fence in a beautiful new subdivision
             | living a great life on just the one income. And those
             | families existed! So what gives?
             | 
             | You're looking at a family headed by a working class white
             | man. Not everyone could get those "working class" jobs that
             | supported a family in the suburbs. There was _plenty_ of
             | poverty in the 60 's, it was just hidden along with the
             | single moms and minority communities we didn't record.
             | 
             | Things today are a lot more even, which means that the
             | "white picket fence" demographic perceives things going in
             | the opposite direction from what's actually happening.
             | 
             | [1] Relative to today, anyway. The US in the 60's was
             | obviously an extremely wealthy country!
        
             | swatcoder wrote:
             | For the average white Baby Boomer with Anglo or
             | Central/Northern European protestent ancestry and two
             | resident parents, one of whom being unionized or a white
             | collar professional, no question at all.
             | 
             | And while there were enough of those to write and televise
             | a mythos about that America in counterpoint to the
             | communist threat overseas, it actually represents a narrow
             | slow that the "average" Baby Boomer did not get to enjoy
             | and doesn't live in much benefit of today.
        
           | monadINtop wrote:
           | It's always so strange to see this kind of "rigorous"
           | posturing as a reply to people pointing out the obvious
           | declination in their own living standards in the current
           | moment. The vague notion of "national wealth" obscures the
           | staggering wealth inequality that also is unique with respect
           | to the current moment in human history, as does many of the
           | theoretical parameters or models invoked by many economists
           | or journalists in arguments like these.
           | 
           | I'm not going to comment on that sweeping over-generalization
           | of the totality of human history because it is vague to the
           | point of meaninglessness.
        
             | ajross wrote:
             | If it's obvious, maybe you could show numbers?
        
               | monadINtop wrote:
               | Thomas Piketty's book on the matter should have enough
               | for you.
               | 
               | http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Piketty2015AER.pdf
               | 
               | https://wid.world/news-article/whats-new-about-wealth-
               | inequa...
               | 
               | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10888-010-9155
               | -y
        
             | dangus wrote:
             | > people pointing out the obvious declination in living
             | standards and increase in societal problems
             | 
             | But it's not like you're not doing the same thing in the
             | opposite direction.
             | 
             | The only thing really factual here on your list is wealth
             | inequality, although as recently in history as the gilded
             | age it was the same or worse. You barely have to go back
             | more than 100 years to witness children working in
             | factories with no safety standards in the USA.
             | 
             | And really we don't have to involve the totality of human
             | history to talk about major problems in the 1960s/1970s or
             | even 1990s that we don't have anymore.
             | 
             | - Lack of regulations that led to the EPA. Your parents
             | probably grew up in a more polluted environment today
             | breathing leaded gasoline.
             | 
             | - Extremely recent prevalence of easily immunized diseases.
             | Smallpox was eradicated in 1980 which wasn't all that long
             | ago. Polio also comes to mind.
             | 
             | - Developing countries like China where living standards
             | have very obviously shot up by magnitudes in living memory
             | 
             | - Crime in the US at generally declining levels since the
             | 1990s, which has resumed its decline since the pandemic
             | spike.
             | 
             | - Arguably a decent amount less societal friction than the
             | mid-century in America and more recently like with the LA
             | riots. You don't have to go far back in time to have civil
             | rights problems like gay people being excluded from
             | marriage, women being disallowed from opening a bank
             | account on their own, Black people being prohibited from
             | getting mortgages.
             | 
             | - Just the last decade of cancer treatment technology
             | improvements has been incredible for late life longevity,
             | and America's best universal healthcare program (Medicare)
             | has better outcomes than other wealthy countries' universal
             | healthcare systems.
             | 
             | - The continuation of life expectancy gains has only
             | recently stalled and IMO this will likely tick up again as
             | obesity becomes a treatable disease with simple
             | pharmaceuticals.
             | 
             | - Safety standards and behavioral changes related to common
             | causes of premature death. Factors like a more regulated
             | tobacco industry and lower rates of smoking and motor
             | vehicle safety improvements come to mind. A society that
             | allowed cigarette companies to advertise with doctors as
             | spokespeople is a society where you're more likely to die
             | early. A society where the youngest generation has lower
             | usage of alcohol and drugs like Gen Z/Gen Alpha does is one
             | that is going to have better life outcomes compared to one
             | that has higher use rates, and that behavior is a result of
             | improvements to the environment around them.
             | 
             | I could go on and on...yes things like housing and
             | university have become very expensive, yes there are
             | problems, but holistically you'd probably right rather be
             | alive now than in 1970.
        
               | monadINtop wrote:
               | Cherry picking problems that have been solved in the last
               | few decades are not relevant to a discussion focused on
               | declining standards of living in relation to the economy
               | and it's structure and how the average person experiences
               | it - it's a specific problem related to wages, inflation,
               | productivity, inequality, and how revenue has been chosen
               | to be distributed etc.
               | 
               | For someone interested in "rigor" I'm not sure how useful
               | it is to weigh an arbitrary collection of goods like the
               | EPA, eradicating smallpox and polio, etc. to a time
               | before them in order to encourage me to answer that "I
               | would rather be alive now". Angels on a pinhead etc.
               | Seems a lot more useful to actually acknowledge the
               | problems people complain about and think carefully about
               | the specific dynamics that generate them rather than try
               | convince them that everything's fine actually and they
               | should just think about how good the polio vaccine is
               | compared to Victorian work-houses.
               | 
               | >But it's not like you're not doing the same thing in the
               | opposite direction.
               | 
               | Huh?
        
               | dangus wrote:
               | Let me shorten my point and maybe it'll help you
               | understand what I mean:
               | 
               | Increasing income inequality does not automatically mean
               | that living standards are declining.
               | 
               | It can mean that the living standards of the wealthy is
               | growing faster than the living standards of the less
               | wealthy.
               | 
               | As an example, jump over to your LLM of choice and ask it
               | to compare the rate of air conditioning in homes of
               | people at the poverty line, comparing now to 1995. The
               | numbers have jumped substantially since the cost
               | including running cost (energy efficiency) of that
               | technology has improved greatly.
               | 
               | You were confused at that statement of mine that you
               | quoted. What I was trying to say is that you complained
               | about posturing but then engaged in very similar
               | posturing. You've made the baseline assumption that
               | living standards are decreasing _obviously_ without any
               | substantiation.
               | 
               | And maybe you're right, but you haven't substantiated it,
               | you've just engaged in the same style of posturing that
               | you criticized.
               | 
               | Here's a couple pieces that substantiates my point, which
               | is that global poverty is decreasing (certainly with
               | continuing challenges but overall decreasing):
               | https://www.macrotrends.net/global-
               | metrics/countries/WLD/wor...
               | 
               | https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty-in-brief
        
           | sydbarrett74 wrote:
           | We _may_ be wealthier materially _overall_ , but we're poorer
           | mentally and socially. TANSTAAFL. And as others have pointed
           | out, a higher aggregate level of wealth hides immense
           | disparities.
        
         | pengaru wrote:
         | What matters is that the most conveniently accessible food
         | isn't the damn dear worst thing you should be regularly eating
         | large quantities of.
         | 
         | Our food environment is the opposite of that.
         | 
         | The stress only exacerbates the impulsive/comfort eating side
         | of things, but it wouldn't be such a big deal if everyone were
         | om nomming tasty organic carrots all day every day. Orange
         | skin, sure, but not obesity and heart disease.
        
         | JackYoustra wrote:
         | ...or it's just the default choice and people choose the
         | default choice when they're thinking of other things?
        
         | CyberDildonics wrote:
         | These are the same kind of vague, hand wavy distractions that
         | would have been used to excuse or muddy the waters around
         | tobacco 30 years ago. "Probably just stress" is not an excuse
         | that explains the systemic health problems that come from
         | excess sugar.
        
           | dylan604 wrote:
           | Has bigSugar been tweaking the formula of the additives used
           | to make the product more addicting? Let's not forget how
           | heinous bigTobacco behaved.
           | 
           | Refining corn into high fructose corn syrup still isn't the
           | same to me, but their lobbying campaigning is the same. If it
           | comes out that they have knowledge of adverse effects of
           | their product and still pushed that hard, then they should be
           | dealt with in the harshest of punishment.
           | 
           | Otherwise, comparison to bigTobacco isn't quite right
        
             | portaouflop wrote:
             | Of course they have knowledge of the adverse effects of
             | sugar and are lobbying to prevent any legislation trying to
             | curtail putting it into literally everything
        
             | CyberDildonics wrote:
             | Additives have nothing to do with it and are a complete
             | distraction. Sugar has detrimental health effects and
             | excessive sugar has more extreme health effects. The
             | important thing now is that this is accepted and understood
             | instead of people casting doubt like "maybe it's just
             | stress".
        
         | WalterBright wrote:
         | Bone studies of American colonists showed they regularly
         | overloaded their bones, and died young.
        
         | taeric wrote:
         | I confess I'm not clear what you are looking for the root cause
         | of?
         | 
         | I would be interested in seeing the costs of, for example,
         | emergency medical services laid out by demographics. My
         | understanding was that emergency services are very localized to
         | where they are used. With perverse incentives hitting their
         | uses.
         | 
         | That said, in specific context of this article, this comment
         | reads as a deflection away from the high levels of sugar being
         | consumed in the US. Curious to hear why you'd think we are not
         | high on those numbers.
        
         | inglor_cz wrote:
         | Psychologization of disease is often an indicator of the fact
         | that we don't fully understand the cause-and-effect yet.
         | 
         | Note how "stress" has taken approximately the same explanatory
         | role that "sin" used to have two or three centuries ago.
        
         | dangus wrote:
         | What does this have to do with sugary drinks though?
         | 
         | It's very easy to isolate out people who drink sugary drinks to
         | people who don't who are in the same general environment with
         | similar life pressures.
         | 
         | Also, you are getting kind of loose with your definition of
         | negative substances. Coffee is on your list despite being
         | generally known to be neutral to good for you:
         | https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/top-evidence-based-heal...
        
         | the_cat_kittles wrote:
         | japanese diet is low on sugar, so your point is wrong
        
           | portaouflop wrote:
           | They have the same problems of overwork and stress as the US
           | though- plus adding in western diet getting more and more
           | popular. Looking at numbers from 2021 Japan had about half
           | the rate of diabetes compared to the US:
           | https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/diabetes-rates-by-
           | countr...
        
         | from-nibly wrote:
         | Keep it up, how else are nurses going to have a job?
        
         | DiscourseFan wrote:
         | There's always decent paying jobs for more beauracratized
         | elements that require relatively little effort and pay at least
         | enough to live off of! People enjoy working hard, and with a
         | college degree there is often no need to work hard if you don't
         | want to.
        
         | snarf21 wrote:
         | It has more to do with the food industrial complex in the US. A
         | lot of the "sugar" in US foods is corn syrup, which has been
         | subsidized ~$48B in the last 25 years. Most low fat foods are
         | just replaced with double the sugar to make them more
         | palatable.
         | 
         | Although it as gotten slightly better, the food pyramid is
         | somehow still the responsibility of the USDA; whose job it is
         | to great food surplus. It should always been part of HHS
         | because of the massive cost consequences, especially by the
         | time people are on Medicare.
        
         | TuringNYC wrote:
         | >> IMO a substantial (not 100%) root cause of all this is that
         | many Americans are highly stressed, in precarious financial
         | positions, with toxic work environments, pushed to work at
         | above 100% effort (meaning, unsustainable) permanently, so they
         | turn to excessive amounts of calories, caffeine, prescription
         | or illegal drugs, to try to continue to function as long as
         | possible.
         | 
         | I'm sure there are many truths and probably different realities
         | for different cohorts of individuals. I will share a personal
         | story which might seem almost shocking for GenZ+ as they enter
         | the workforce:
         | 
         | - My dad had a normal degree from a normal university in
         | Accounting
         | 
         | - My had had a normal 9-5 job. No family connection/etc, he was
         | an immigrant
         | 
         | - My dad was able to afford a home for us -- in the city -- on
         | his salary alone (not a dual income). The
         | homeprice:annualsalary ratio was 2:1. If he God-forbid lost his
         | salary both my mom and dad would have tried to look for a job
         | to help finances, most normal jobs would cover the
         | mortgage/taxes
         | 
         | Not to say there werent laborers in the 1970s, etc, but this
         | was a very common scenario. It allowed you to work to meet
         | needs and spend the rest of your time with family. You didnt
         | have 5 espressos to try and crank more pull-requests at night
         | after the kids fall asleep.
        
         | _DeadFred_ wrote:
         | Don't forget they are working multiple zero hour jobs. I.E. the
         | job is at most part time so you need at least two, but the job
         | also doesn't only not guaranty what days/shift hours you will
         | work next week, it doesn't guarantee you will work any hours at
         | all. Hence it is a zero hour job.
         | 
         | Personally I think having more than 10% zero hour jobs should
         | be illegal, as well as having multiple 'part time' positions to
         | take the place of having full time positions.
        
       | Luc wrote:
       | Better link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03345-4
        
       | rustdeveloper wrote:
       | Interesting data for sugar in products scraped from Walmart:
       | https://scrapingfish.com/blog/scraping-walmart
        
         | swatcoder wrote:
         | I was really excited to read this, but it's very shallow and
         | barely presents any data at all.
         | 
         | It's main and mostly meaningless conclusion is that there are
         | more skus in the Walmart catalog for sugar-dominated products
         | than for any protein- or fat-dominated ones, and that online
         | reviewers generally tend to leave better reviews for those.
         | 
         | Nothing about actual sales volume, promotional actions by
         | Walmart, or monetary or nuyitional share of food consumed (or
         | even purchased), etc -- any of which might say something more
         | impactful.
        
       | Someone1234 wrote:
       | Previous discussion on this:
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42625193
        
       | ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
       | I stopped eating sugar and carbs completely and it changed my
       | life. No brain fog, more energy, no anxiety, no depression. I
       | cant communicate to people enough how much it improved my life.
       | Nothing else worked, no therapy, no talking through things. It
       | was a biological problem with my diet. I used to think I had
       | ADHD, turns out I just needed to eat healthy. Prime steak and
       | chicken, veggies, some dairy, lots of nuts. That's about it
        
         | oxag3n wrote:
         | Do you mean refined sugars and processed carbs, or carbs in
         | general (i.e. going Keto)?
        
           | ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
           | Full keto
        
             | NovemberWhiskey wrote:
             | But you eat vegetables?
        
               | SoftTalker wrote:
               | Some vegetables are OK on keto IIRC. Leafy greens,
               | asparagus, squash. Avoid the starchy ones.
        
               | swatcoder wrote:
               | Once started, your body will usually stay in ketosis even
               | with a modest and non-trivial budget of carbs, on the
               | order of maybe 10-20g, excluding fiber.
               | 
               | That allows for a wide variety of veggie choices, as well
               | as a some wiggle room for modest servings of nuts,
               | legumes, beans, etc
               | 
               | But basically there's no room at all for stuff like
               | breads or rice or potatoes or sweetened drinks except as
               | the finest accents. Never as the centerpiece of a meal.
               | 
               | It's a very different way of living and eating, but can
               | feel extremely invigorating and seems to be broadly
               | healthy for most people.
        
             | DiscourseFan wrote:
             | https://www.renalandurologynews.com/features/ketogenic-
             | diet-...
             | 
             | You're going to destroy your kidneys. Our bodies are
             | evolved to eat mostly carbs, not protein. It may make your
             | head "clear," but just because you feel good doesn't mean
             | its a genuine improvement to your physical health.
        
               | tdpvb wrote:
               | Ha, man, this link is basically a dialysis industry
               | propaganda page.
               | 
               | Our bodies evolved to survive -- whether with or without
               | glucose. And you liver makes whatever those your body
               | needs, from far, if necessary. Also keep in mind,
               | industrialized wheat products would've been hard to come
               | by back in the stone age -- if you ate at all, depending
               | on whether your hunt was successful.
        
         | ClassyJacket wrote:
         | What are your actual parameters? Are you doing keto? Do you
         | count your carbs - if so what's your limit?
         | 
         | I used keto the first time I lost weight, and it also somehow
         | cured my binge eating forever. But it's hard to keep up long
         | term.
        
           | ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
           | I don't count anything. I just cook all of my own food and
           | never eat carbs or sugar. When I get hungry I eat
        
         | neontomo wrote:
         | you may still have adhd. eating well, having good habits and
         | receiving accountability from your environment are all factors
         | that manage the negative effects of the disorder.
         | 
         | also would be interesting to know your time frame for how long
         | you've done this - to rule out the honey-moon phase
        
           | ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
           | Nah I do't have ADHD, I was sick from the american diet
        
         | Oarch wrote:
         | I've done similar in the last year and can anecdotally say I've
         | seen a huge reduction in brain fog, I feel full for longer and
         | enjoy a far more consistent energy release throughout the day.
         | I'll never go back.
        
           | ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
           | Its obvious there is something really wrong with the food
        
         | satvikpendem wrote:
         | I don't eat a lot of refined sugars but not eating any carbs
         | feels extremely boring to me, and basically anathema to my
         | Asian heritage where we eat rice daily. But yes, if it worked
         | for you then that's great.
        
       | ClassyJacket wrote:
       | How is this news? At this point isn't this like saying "smoking
       | linked to lung cancer cases"?
       | 
       | I'm sure the study itself has merit but I don't get why it's on
       | the front page.
        
       | WalterBright wrote:
       | When I eat a hamburger bun, it tastes like cake. The amount of
       | sugar added to everything is horrific.
       | 
       | Even "healthy" supplements like protein powder are filled with
       | sugar. Sheesh. If I wanted it to be sweet, I could just dump a
       | cup of sugar in it.
       | 
       | And no, I don't want artificial sweeteners instead, either.
        
         | taeric wrote:
         | I'm more than a little curious what buns you are eating. :D
         | That or what cake?
         | 
         | It has surprised me how hard it has been to find a protein
         | powder that isn't sweetened. Usually by stevia, nowadays.
         | 
         | By far the thing with the most sugar added that I was late to
         | give up, is a standard yogurt. Tried making our own vanilla
         | yogurt, once. I don't think we succeeded at making it as sweet
         | as what we went in expecting. Despite an absurd amount of sugar
         | added in.
        
           | Ancalagon wrote:
           | FYI you can buy raw organic pea protein powder at your local
           | sprouts grocery market. I used to use it religiously because
           | whey would give me stomach problems and all the other pea
           | proteins had stevia in them
        
           | BeetleB wrote:
           | > By far the thing with the most sugar added that I was late
           | to give up, is a standard yogurt.
           | 
           | The yogurt Nazi in me feels compelled to point out that
           | standard yogurt has no added sugars, and is offended that
           | someone conflates that with vanilla yogurt. :-)
           | 
           | Reminds me of twenty years ago where stores routinely sold
           | yogurt makers. Except they didn't make yogurt. They made
           | frozen yogurt. You needed yogurt as an ingredient. Face palm.
           | 
           | Plain yogurt - without gelarin, pectin and sugars - is really
           | awesome food. People should try it! Really easy to make at
           | home as well with an instant pot.
           | 
           | And yes. Plain yogurt is sour. It hasn't gone bad.
        
             | portaouflop wrote:
             | I'm currently visiting the Americas and it's insane how
             | hard it is to find yogurt without sugar. Just yesterday I
             | bought some by mistake that looked like plain yogurt- upon
             | closer inspection it turned out it had sugar added to it
             | (masquerading as honey but we all know that that's just
             | sugar in almost all cases)
        
               | pton_xd wrote:
               | Plain greek yogurt usually has no added sugar -- Fage,
               | Siggi's, Oikos, Chobani, etc. It's also significantly
               | higher in protein than regular yogurt.
        
               | portaouflop wrote:
               | That's what I thought too - but I'll just read the labels
               | extra carefully next time and don't rely on the "natural
               | Greek yogurt" title
        
             | ndsipa_pomu wrote:
             | Kefir is a lot easier to make than yoghurt as it's not very
             | temperature sensitive - cold temps just make it slow down a
             | bit and room temp is fine for it to ferment. It's also
             | cheaper as once you have some Kefir grains you just keep
             | feeding them with milk and they'll continue growing so you
             | end up throwing away unwanted grains.
        
           | nerdix wrote:
           | I use protein from Naked Nutrition. Its fairly expensive but
           | the version I buy is plain protein. No added favors or
           | sweeteners.
           | 
           | https://nakednutrition.com/products/grass-fed-whey-
           | protein-p...
        
         | dylan604 wrote:
         | We've already seen EU courts saying Subway bread couldn't be
         | called bread and listed it as cake because of the sugar. At
         | some point one has to hope moments of clarity will break out on
         | this side of the pond too
        
           | klohto wrote:
           | Actually, that's not correct. The controversy you might be
           | thinking of was about Subway's bread in Ireland, where in
           | 2020 the Supreme Court ruled that Subway's bread couldn't be
           | legally classified as "bread" for tax purposes because it
           | contained about 5 times more sugar than allowed under Irish
           | law - around 10% of the flour's weight, not 10% of the total
           | bread composition.
           | 
           | The Irish law stated that for bread to be considered a
           | "staple food" (and thus qualify for tax exemption), the sugar
           | content couldn't exceed 2% of the flour's weight. This is
           | different from saying the bread is 10% sugar overall.
           | 
           | The actual sugar content in Subway bread varies, but it's
           | typically around 5-6 grams of sugar per half a bread. That's
           | higher than traditional bread but lower than many other
           | commercial ones.
        
             | dylan604 wrote:
             | Yeah, well in typical 'murican style, anything from that
             | side of the pond is EU. The differences are too small for
             | me to care to learn the details. All I know is that what
             | 'muricans call food is not what Europeans call food, and
             | 'muricans are wrong
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _differences are too small for me to care to learn the
               | details_
               | 
               | Better response than doubling down on being corrected,
               | which makes the original comment look like a lie, might
               | be in editing.
        
               | sydbarrett74 wrote:
               | Ireland _is_ within the EU and uses the Euro as its
               | currency (unlike when the UK was in the EU and stuck to
               | the Pound Sterling), so you were never wrong.
        
       | hedora wrote:
       | It's worth mentioning that artificial sweeteners and ultra-
       | processed foods that are advertised as low-carb/low-sugar are
       | probably worse for you than sugar water.
       | 
       | Minimally processed foods that don't have all the fiber ripped
       | out of them (like sugar and white flour do) seem to be the best
       | bet these days.
        
       | xyst wrote:
       | The number of companies peddling "0 sugar" drinks but the list of
       | ingredients shows a shit ton of sugar substitutes is wild to me.
       | 
       | Have met people that think their "diet" drink is healthy because
       | the stupid label says "zero sugar!!" Thus this gives them a
       | reason to consume it many times in the day.
       | 
       | Yet a glance at the ingredients list shows synthetic sugar or
       | "sugar substitute".
        
       | bilsbie wrote:
       | I always thought it curious that we crave sugar so much yet have
       | zero interest in eating straight sugar.
        
         | Ylpertnodi wrote:
         | Try cycling (the world of).
         | 
         |  _Explain.... On long rides, I drink 500ml of water to 200g of
         | sugar. Actual sugar. My max-best is greater than 400km in
         | 24hrs. No sugar, no go. Monday (tomorrow for me) I have an up-
         | to-125k group ride planned. I added 25g of sugar, to get my
         | body fueled, and ready, to my potatoe-based meal. I try not to
         | bonk (sugar crash), but gummi bears and Coke (ahem! [_ tm]) are
         | your friends.
        
       | m3kw9 wrote:
       | I can see people that drink a lot of coke type sodas are trying
       | to find a different study to dispute it.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2025-01-12 23:01 UTC)