Is Sugar Toxic?

G

Geriatrix

Executive Member
Joined
Nov 22, 2005
Messages
6,554
Reaction score
3
Location
Right here
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?_r=4
On May 26, 2009, Robert Lustig gave a lecture called “Sugar: The Bitter Truth,” which was posted on YouTube the following July. Since then, it has been viewed well over 800,000 times, gaining new viewers at a rate of about 50,000 per month, fairly remarkable numbers for a 90-minute discussion of the nuances of fructose biochemistry and human physiology.

Lustig is a specialist on pediatric hormone disorders and the leading expert in childhood obesity at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, which is one of the best medical schools in the country. He published his first paper on childhood obesity a dozen years ago, and he has been treating patients and doing research on the disorder ever since.

The viral success of his lecture, though, has little to do with Lustig’s impressive credentials and far more with the persuasive case he makes that sugar is a “toxin” or a “poison,” terms he uses together 13 times through the course of the lecture, in addition to the five references to sugar as merely “evil.” And by “sugar,” Lustig means not only the white granulated stuff that we put in coffee and sprinkle on cereal — technically known as sucrose — but also high-fructose corn syrup, which has already become without Lustig’s help what he calls “the most demonized additive known to man.”

It doesn’t hurt Lustig’s cause that he is a compelling public speaker. His critics argue that what makes him compelling is his practice of taking suggestive evidence and insisting that it’s incontrovertible. Lustig certainly doesn’t dabble in shades of gray. Sugar is not just an empty calorie, he says; its effect on us is much more insidious. “It’s not about the calories,” he says. “It has nothing to do with the calories. It’s a poison by itself.”

If Lustig is right, then our excessive consumption of sugar is the primary reason that the numbers of obese and diabetic Americans have skyrocketed in the past 30 years. But his argument implies more than that. If Lustig is right, it would mean that sugar is also the likely dietary cause of several other chronic ailments widely considered to be diseases of Western lifestyles — heart disease, hypertension and many common cancers among them.

The number of viewers Lustig has attracted suggests that people are paying attention to his argument. When I set out to interview public health authorities and researchers for this article, they would often initiate the interview with some variation of the comment “surely you’ve spoken to Robert Lustig,” not because Lustig has done any of the key research on sugar himself, which he hasn’t, but because he’s willing to insist publicly and unambiguously, when most researchers are not, that sugar is a toxic substance that people abuse. In Lustig’s view, sugar should be thought of, like cigarettes and alcohol, as something that’s killing us.

This brings us to the salient question: Can sugar possibly be as bad as Lustig says it is?

It’s one thing to suggest, as most nutritionists will, that a healthful diet includes more fruits and vegetables, and maybe less fat, red meat and salt, or less of everything. It’s entirely different to claim that one particularly cherished aspect of our diet might not just be an unhealthful indulgence but actually be toxic, that when you bake your children a birthday cake or give them lemonade on a hot summer day, you may be doing them more harm than good, despite all the love that goes with it. Suggesting that sugar might kill us is what zealots do. But Lustig, who has genuine expertise, has accumulated and synthesized a mass of evidence, which he finds compelling enough to convict sugar. His critics consider that evidence insufficient, but there’s no way to know who might be right, or what must be done to find out, without discussing it.

If I didn’t buy this argument myself, I wouldn’t be writing about it here. And I also have a disclaimer to acknowledge. I’ve spent much of the last decade doing journalistic research on diet and chronic disease — some of the more contrarian findings, on dietary fat, appeared in this magazine —– and I have come to conclusions similar to Lustig’s.

...

Click Link for more
Click to expand...

Also
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM&feature=related
 
his videos have been posted before. i've watched one, it may have been this one.
i don't really have the biological qualifications to make qualified statements on this.

in the vid i saw he made the case against high-fructose diets.
it was interesting. but i think it's more about eating a healty diet and living a healthy lifestyle than focusing on x.
he made an interesting case for how fructose is metabolised.
perhaps porchrat could offer an opinion on this - lustig made some fairly strong scientific assertions.
the most pertinent point he made was that we should eat foods in their most natural state - not just eat diets of refined single nutrients.
this made sense to me.

from what i understood, his issue was not with sucrose, as that gets easily into glucose, but with fructose, which he said, is metabolised into a toxic compound, or forms toxic compounds which aren't excreted (can't remember which).

i seem to remember him harping on about fda and their gras rating of high-fructose corn syrup, which sounded a bit plaintive tbh.
he also said that coke has a lot of sodium, which i subsequently checked and this didn't seem accurate.
i did agree with his endictment on energy drinks not being appropriate for general consumption.
we've since seen the rise of the coca cola company's "vitamin water", which i do consider to be an ethically dubious product.
 
Last edited:
murraybiscuit said:
from what i understood, his issue was not with sucrose, as that gets easily into glucose, but with fructose, which he said, is metabolised into a toxic compound, or forms toxic compounds which aren't excreted (can't remember which).
Click to expand...
No, he specifically says any sugar is dangerous. He makes no distinction between the different variants.
 
Geriatrix said:
No, he specifically says any sugar is dangerous. He makes no distinction between the different variants.
Click to expand...
I'd like to see how long he lives with no glucose in his body.

murraybiscuit said:
from what i understood, his issue was not with sucrose, as that gets easily into glucose, but with fructose, which he said, is metabolised into a toxic compound, or forms toxic compounds which aren't excreted (can't remember which).
Click to expand...
No more fruit then? It is possibly formaldehyde. It is no big deal. All these anti-sugar zealots are quacks.
 
"Everything is poison, there is poison in everything. Only the dose makes a thing not a poison." - Paracelsus
 
Geriatrix said:
So....How would we know what the appropriate dose of refined sugars be?
Click to expand...

That is pretty much exactly what is done in a phase1 medicine trial. Just follow the same procedure for sugars. It will quickly become apparent at what dose it becomes toxic. It definitely will at some point push your body beyond it's ability to handle it. Any substance will.
 
I do believe that carbohydrates are way more unhealthy for us than most people believe, and fats are a lot healthier (in moderation). Despite the fact that the fat in our diets has decreased, obesity and diabetes has skyrocketed. Its because of sugar and other carbohydrates.
 
More quackery from the quacks.. Gee this recession really brings them to the surface....!!
 
Expect it to be banned in the EUSSR soon
 
Ancalagon said:
I do believe that carbohydrates are way more unhealthy for us than most people believe, and fats are a lot healthier (in moderation). Despite the fact that the fat in our diets has decreased, obesity and diabetes has skyrocketed. Its because of sugar and other carbohydrates.
Click to expand...

OR its because we have many many more "lazy" jobs that dont require much physical exertion.
 
Archer said:
OR its because we have many many more "lazy" jobs that dont require much physical exertion.
Click to expand...

Not if you read the research, the arguments are pretty compelling against carbohydrates unless you are running or something.

It also explains why so many people have stories that go something like, "Back in my day, we ate 5 eggs and 8 rashers of bacon for breakfast, on toast smothered in high fat butter, and we were fine." They actually were fine.

I think even the correlation between high fat diets and heart problems is not as strong as people believed. As far as I know (and I could be wrong) obesity itself is correlated more strongly with heart disease than high fat diets. In other words, if you get fat from carbs but dont eat fat, you are still in trouble. Conversely, if you eat a lot of fat but stay thin, you're not at zero risk but are better off than the fat dude who only eats white bread and coke.
 
I won't mind a ban 'cos food companies put sugar in absolutely everything. For example WTF do they lace peanut butter with the stuff?
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X