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Dietary Revelations

posted by martyb on Friday November 30 2018, @06:39AM   Printer-friendly
from the what-about-coffee,-bacon,-and-poutine? dept.

hellcat writes:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It's not everyday an issue of Science contains articles about newly discovered "fresh" impact craters (Hiawatha) or fingers the source of the worst year to be alive (534 in case you're time traveling).

But the same issue has these open (no paywall) articles summarizing what we do know about eating and living long healthy lives.

Quick takeaways:

  • The 1977 guidelines that we all grew up with were written by politicians, not scientists.
  • Trans-fats are bad, no matter what.
  • Intermittent fasting can help your brain, kidneys, chemotherapy effectiveness and recovery, AND encourage weight loss.
  • Refined sugars and carbs are generally bad for you.

There's way more than any summary can contain. In fact, almost every section of these four meta-articles could be their own discussion topic.

Since I care for all of you, I want you all to be as healthy and live as long as you want. These articles contain the state of-the-art on how to do that through proper eating habits.

Optimizing the diet.
Dietary fat: From foe to friend?
A time to fast
The gut microbiota at the intersection of diet and human health
Swifter, higher, stronger: What’s on the menu?

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @02:50PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @02:50PM (#768278)

    how can refined sugar per se be unhealthy?

    Refined sugar generally means fructose. Fructose has a double effect on insulin resistance, the precursor for diabetes. It both stimulates production of insulin (because it's a sugar), and it reduces liver function (because it gets stored there as fat).

    source 1: [medium.com]

    Fructose is particularly toxic for several reasons.
    First, metabolism occurs solely within the liver, so virtually all ingested fructose becomes stored as newly created fat [..]
    Secondly, fructose is metabolized without limits. [..] it can overwhelm the export machinery of the liver leading to excessive buildup of fat in the liver [..]
    Thirdly, there is no alternative runoff pathway for fructose. Excess glucose is stored safely and easily in the liver as glycogen. When needed, glycogen is broken back into glucose for easy access to energy. Fructose has no mechanism for easy storage. It is metabolized to fat, which cannot be easily reversed.

    source 2: [nih.gov]

    For thousands of years humans consumed fructose amounting to 16–20 grams per day, largely from fresh fruits. Westernization of diets has resulted in significant increases in added fructose, leading to typical daily consumptions amounting to 85–100 grams of fructose per day. The exposure of the liver to such large quantities of fructose leads to rapid stimulation of lipogenesis and TG accumulation, which in turn contributes to reduced insulin sensitivity and hepatic insulin resistance/glucose intolerance

    Note that this study specifically mentions glucose intolerance. Once a body's metabolism has been affected with insulin resistance, all sugars become toxic and can increase diabetic risk.

    source 3:

    both isocaloric fructose consumption and hypercaloric fructose consumption induce hepatic insulin resistance in normal-weight, nondiabetic adults

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @02:53PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @02:53PM (#768281)

    argh. source 3 [fructosefacts.org].

    • (Score: 1) by doke on Friday November 30 2018, @03:45PM

      by doke (6955) on Friday November 30 2018, @03:45PM (#768308)

      fructosefacts.org is an industry shill site. You can't trust it to be unbiased. There are a lot of other sites saying fructose is bad.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @11:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @11:01PM (#768497)

    'Sugar' without a modifying adjective is sucrose not fructose. Chemically it is basically one glucose and one fructose molecule bonded together. However, the first thing your body does with it is break it into the two parts.
    Glucose is the one used all over the body (and especially the brain) as the main energy source, getting it in a big lump can trigger blood sugar spikes and fat storage, but is generally not too bad for you unless you are a diabetic.
    Fructose is processed in the liver via basically the same metabolic pathways as alcohol. It has pretty much all the same nasty secondary effects as alcohol. If you are an alcoholic trying to give up drinking, you should give up fructose as well.