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from the sweets-for-my-sweet,-sugar-for-my-honey-The-Drifters-1961 dept.
Lustig, the maverick scientist, has long argued that sugar is as harmful as cocaine or tobacco – and that the food industry has been adding too much of it to our meals for too long.
If you have any interest at all in diet, obesity, public health, diabetes, epidemiology, your own health or that of other people, you will probably be aware that sugar, not fat, is now considered the devil's food. Dr Robert Lustig's book, Fat Chance: The Hidden Truth About Sugar, Obesity and Disease ( http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jan/25/fat-chance-robert-lustig-review ), for all that it sounds like a Dan Brown novel, is the difference between vaguely knowing something is probably true, and being told it as a fact. Lustig has spent the past 16 years treating childhood obesity. His meta-analysis of the cutting-edge research on large-cohort studies of what sugar does to populations across the world, alongside his own clinical observations, has him credited with starting the war on sugar. When it reaches the enemy status of tobacco, it will be because of Lustig.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/aug/24/robert-lustig-sugar-poison
I think moderation is the key. What do you think ?
(Score: 1) by arashi no garou on Wednesday August 27 2014, @02:39PM
So you're basically saying the "paleo diet" is the best way to eat healthy. But you end with this:
Folks who follow the modern "people of walmart" diet or a fad diet don't turn out as well.
I'm not saying you're wrong, it makes sense and sounds like a healthy diet, as long as one gets the right balance of vitamins and nutrients. But it is my understanding that the paleo diet is an unhealthy fad, just like the gluten-free diet for non-celiacs, and various other high protien/low nutrient diets making the rounds.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday August 27 2014, @03:26PM
"But it is my understanding that the paleo diet is an unhealthy fad"
If its a fad, its a 200K year old fad which had great results. Can't say that for a diet of corn syrup, sugar, grains, or processed junk.
I am curious how not eating gluten containing grains could be unhealthy. Folks who are allergic to gluten seem to do quite well, excellently, in fact, without gluten. Its hardly a trace element or required amino acid, so crossing it off the list simply can't cause any negative health effects.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 27 2014, @04:27PM
Please share with us the life expectancy of its followers over that 200Kyear span. Feel free to include figures like the proportion of its followers who reached 60 whilst still being fit and healthy, say? Reputable sources only, please.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Wednesday August 27 2014, @04:49PM
No problem, I've got google. You should give it a try.
Theres a nice article behind a paywall for most people at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11817904 [nih.gov]
"This paper examines these topics and attempts to show that none of them justifies a priori dismissal of the evolutionary approach to preventive medicine. Evolutionary health promotion may ultimately be invalidated because of its falsification by experiment or because another theory accords better with known facts, but these commonly held prejudices should not forestall its thoughtful consideration and investigative evaluation."
Supposedly this is discussed at
http://paleodiet.com/life-expectancy.htm [paleodiet.com]
although as you can guess given the URL it might have a slight bias (LOL)
Wikipedia, which is only a semi-reputable source, discusses the topic at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy [wikipedia.org]
One problem is if you want to feel good about yourself you pick metrics that make you feel good. Pretty much, if you survive childhood, which is easy now and very difficult in the past, and as a woman avoid dying in childbirth, again a bit of a challenge in the olden days, and you avoid dying in the bubonic plague or cholera, thank you civil engineers, you'll pretty much die in your 60s and that's been more or less constant over human history. So paleo diet / lifestyle + civil engineers + medical doctors = modern or better lifespan.
Its "well known" that agriculture lead to physically stunted people compared to HG lifestyle, although ag supports more sickly people per acre and strongly supports military action.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 27 2014, @06:35PM
[If] you avoid dying in the bubonic plague or [of] cholera, thank you civil engineers
Cholera? OK. (Water-borne.) [google.com]
How so with the rat-borne pestilence?
...and if our ancestors hadn't been so damned superstitious, they wouldn't have killed off nearly all the cats in Europe (the standard "familiar" of a "witch"), and perhaps the vermin problem wouldn't have happened in the first place.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday August 28 2014, @03:32PM
"How so with the rat-borne pestilence?"
At least outside the "urban areas" we have trash collection rather than tossing trash in the streets (which feeds the rats) and it goes to a sanitary landfill which is not an oxymoron if you consider how they could be...
In my little subdivision I'm not sure where rats would live, what they'd eat.
(Score: 1) by Whoever on Thursday August 28 2014, @01:32AM
I think that modern expected lifespan is actually significantly higher than 60 for those people that make it into their early 20s. What I have to look forward to, I don't know. Already well past 30 and most of my grandparents and parents made it into their 90's.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday August 28 2014, @10:25PM
Are you sure that's an improvement - are you an alcoholic Chinese coalminer, or something?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by arashi no garou on Wednesday August 27 2014, @07:52PM
If its a fad, its a 200K year old fad which had great results.
Except it's not. [scientificamerican.com]
I'm not saying you're wrong about sugar and other processed foods; indeed, they are not healthy for us compared to natural or raw foods. But we aren't cave people. We've evolved over the years and adapted to advances in food processing, storage, and preparation. Finding the proper diet is a different process for each individual, no single diet plan is going to be as healthy for one person as it is for another. I'm sure the so-called paleo diet is helpful for people with certain metabolisms, but it's certainly not for everyone.