The article, while making copious allusions to damning research, is light on actual damning research and heavy on rhetoric. The linked website (http://sugarscience.ucsf.edu) is also full of references to studies that are suggestive but nothing conclusive.
What's really worrying is the constant refrain that they just "knew" something had to be wrong. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence in their research. They then keep following up with references to diabetes, as if diabetes is obviously a sugar consumption problem, but I understand that that's not the case (https://www.diabetes.org.uk/guide-to-diabetes/enjoy-food/eat...).
All in all, with references to research that is weaker than they suggest, fearmongering rhetoric, and pushing a narrative of Big Sugar stifling honest, brave scientists, this article is indistinguishable to a layman (me) from an antivaxxer screed.
And honestly? The comments here are also indistinguishable from comments on an antivax website.
>They then keep following up with references to diabetes, as if diabetes is obviously a sugar consumption problem, but I understand that that's not the case
In good faith anyone talking about sugar consumption being the cause of diabeties is obviously talking about type 2. Your linked articles is muddying the waters and introducing type 1 highlighting people are born with type 1...no one thinks type 1 has anything to do with sugar consumption. That is elementary and bad faith discussion.
Type 2 is when the body no longer responds to insulin. What triggers insulin? Types of sugar not processed by the liver, which go into the blood and requirie the body to produce insulin to regulate blood sugar levels. With type 2 the body continues to produce insulin normally but the body no longer responds to the insulin...it’s all triggered by sugar.
To put it another way if you remove sugars requiring insulin production from the diet...100% of type 2 cases can be prevented. Only laymen argue this point as it’s not controversial...all thats needed is a single case of type 2 to disprove that, but none exist to date. Further, many cases of type 2 can actually be reversed through diet (ie avoid sugars that trigger insulin spikes) and lifestyle changes.
How about nonalcoholic fatty liver disease? Do you believe that is not caused by the other types of sugar (ie sugar processed in the liver)?
> With Type 2 diabetes, though we know sugar doesn’t directly cause Type 2 diabetes, you are more likely to get it if you are overweight. You gain weight when you take in more calories than your body needs, and sugary foods and drinks contain a lot of calories.
It's misleading to talk about sugar when the problem is obesity.
I don't have answers to your questions as I am not an expert on nutrition and it would be stupid to hold opinions on what I don't know. However, I don't have to be an expert on nutrition to note that the UCSF link is contradicting other domain experts (may or may not be damning) and is being intellectually dishonest (definitely damning).
>It's misleading to talk about sugar when the problem is obesity.
Really because plenty of skinny people have type 2 and plenty of obese people do not have type 2...but everyone who has type 2 has overconsumed sugar that is regulated in the blood by insulin and their bodies has stopped responding to insulin and most who have type 2 can reverse it by cutting out sugar consumption that requires insulin and making other lifestyle changes. No one is saying obesity isn’t linked to higher rates of type 2, but it’s not dispositive like type 2 and sugar consumption.
I don't know enough about diabetes to conclusively respond one way or another, but my understanding is that while being diabetic means that overconsuming sugar will be bad because your body can't regulate blood sugar, a non-diabetic person consuming copious amounts of sugar will not directly cause them to develop diabetes.
Re your first sentence, plenty of smokers don't have cancer while plenty of nonsmokers do. Everything in epidemiology is bound to be confounded to hell and back, which is why I'm going with the conclusions drawn by the British Diabetes Association and not the UCSF people that "just knew" something was wrong.
>but my understanding is that while being diabetic means that overconsuming sugar will be bad because your body can't regulate blood sugar, a non-diabetic person consuming copious amounts of sugar will not directly cause them to develop diabetes.
Again that’s the industry playing words games and being disingenuous.
There are sugars that are processed by the liver and then sugar that can’t be processed by the liver, which are released into the blood triggering an insulin response. That distinction in sugars like the type1/type2 distinction allows the industry to make broad claims to muddy the waters.
Sure if you only consumer sugars processed in the liver you won’t develop type 2 (of course you will likely have non alcoholic fatty liver disease). On the other hand the sugar that is released into the blood triggering insulin is the sugar that if removed from diet can prevent 100% of type 2 diabeties.
Your observation that people who don’t smoke still get cancer is obviously true, but on the flip people who do not consume sugars that cause insulin spikes will not develop type 2. So now Imagine if preventing cancer were as simple as saying if you stop consuming x you will not develop cancer, but a bunch of FUD saying x doesn’t cause cancer (that may be technically correct but the much larger issue is don’t consume x and you won’t develop y). I’m all for the progress of science and all for the continued study, in the meantime though if we want people (especially children) to stop getting y they should immediately stop consuming x, until science provides further insight allow the consumption of x without getting y.
Sugar consumption is a driver of obesity. It's very unclear how much it contributes because epidemiology is ridiculously hard.
The British Diabetes Association specifically states that sugar does not directly cause diabetes. It's important (and honest) to emphasize the distinction because this is the opposite of the prevailing view.
Note that I'm not saying it's fine to eat lots of sugar. Sugar is definitely terrible for your teeth and that alone should be enough to stay away. I'm just saying that the article is being intellectually dishonest, and that's wrong even if the conclusion (eat less sugar) is completely correct.
But skinny people get diabeties also...and if you follow a Twinkie diet and manage to keep your calories consistent and not gain weight you will be priming your body for obesity.
All those twinkies have triggered insulin, a side effect of which increases cell size, with significant impact on fat cells. If your fat cells are enlarged from insulin, then you are primed to become obese because your cells are ready to store more than someone who hasn’t been wrecking their body with insulin spikes from twinkies all day every day.
The Twinkie diet and similar diets are straw men. The fact that it is possible to consume high quantities of sugar and not gain weight is not surprising. The reality is that consumption of high sugar foods (especially high sugar low calorie like many sugary drinks) prime you to eat more. There is a causative relationship between consuming sugary foods and consuming too much. This can be overcome with unnatural levels of attention, however this is a fringe edge case and generally not relevant to discussing the broad impact of sugar in western diets.
Yes, but you're cherrypicking changes based on what feels like should be relevant. A good deal has changed in the last 50 years, we can't (and don't want to) roll everything back, and it's unclear what should be rolled back.
Seriously, there's a reason epidemiology is a field smart people dedicate lifetimes to. This shit is difficult.
Anyway, my point wasn't that current levels of sugar consumption are fine, it's clearly not. I'm saying that the article is being dishonest which should be relevant even if their recommendations are good.
What's really worrying is the constant refrain that they just "knew" something had to be wrong. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence in their research. They then keep following up with references to diabetes, as if diabetes is obviously a sugar consumption problem, but I understand that that's not the case (https://www.diabetes.org.uk/guide-to-diabetes/enjoy-food/eat...).
All in all, with references to research that is weaker than they suggest, fearmongering rhetoric, and pushing a narrative of Big Sugar stifling honest, brave scientists, this article is indistinguishable to a layman (me) from an antivaxxer screed.
And honestly? The comments here are also indistinguishable from comments on an antivax website.