[Tanada]

Netflix put this documentary on my suggested viewing list and I just finished it. Excellent work and I highly recommend you all view it ASAP.

[Tanada]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4425138/?ref_=nv_sr_1

How did the food industry get us to stop asking the question: is sugar toxic? It all starts with a secret PR campaign dating back to the 1970s. For forty years, Big Sugar deflected all threats to its multi-billion dollar empire, while sweetening the world's food supply. As obesity, diabetes, and heart disease rates skyrocket, doctors are now treating the first generation of children suffering from fatty liver disease. The sugar industry is once again under siege. They dodged the bullet once. Will they do it again?

[dissident]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4425138/?ref_=nv_sr_1

How did the food industry get us to stop asking the question: is sugar toxic? It all starts with a secret PR campaign dating back to the 1970s. For forty years, Big Sugar deflected all threats to its multi-billion dollar empire, while sweetening the world's food supply. As obesity, diabetes, and heart disease rates skyrocket, doctors are now treating the first generation of children suffering from fatty liver disease. The sugar industry is once again under siege. They dodged the bullet once. Will they do it again?

It's not sugar. It's the high carb, low fat diet that has been peddled as healthy from the 1970s. The food pyramid is a food industry created pile of nonsense that prescribes 60% of the food intake should be carbohydrates and on top prescribes an excessive fruit consumption that's the "coup de grace" guaranteed to give a large part of the population heart disease and/or diabetes. Removing refined sugar intake is a diversion there is not that much consumption aside from the fat substitution in the from of glucose-fructose syrup in processed foods. Sugar should be properly lumped with all carbs since that is what it is. If sugar is poison, then so are carbs in general.

[Tanada]

I find it interesting how some people won't even look at something that goes beyond their preconceived ideas. It seems that so many fear learning something that could derail what they already think they know, and they would rather not look, out of fear.

I am not saying this documentary is 100 percent pure new knowledge. The actual stance of the movie is far more about how the media and government are manipulated by huge corporate interests than about the details of how sugar impacts your biology directly.

[yeahbut]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4425138/?ref_=nv_sr_1

How did the food industry get us to stop asking the question: is sugar toxic? It all starts with a secret PR campaign dating back to the 1970s. For forty years, Big Sugar deflected all threats to its multi-billion dollar empire, while sweetening the world's food supply. As obesity, diabetes, and heart disease rates skyrocket, doctors are now treating the first generation of children suffering from fatty liver disease. The sugar industry is once again under siege. They dodged the bullet once. Will they do it again?

It's not sugar. It's the high carb, low fat diet that has been peddled as healthy from the 1970s. The food pyramid is a food industry created pile of nonsense that prescribes 60% of the food intake should be carbohydrates and on top prescribes an excessive fruit consumption that's the "coup de grace" guaranteed to give a large part of the population heart disease and/or diabetes. Removing refined sugar intake is a diversion there is not that much consumption aside from the fat substitution in the from of glucose-fructose syrup in processed foods. Sugar should be properly lumped with all carbssuince that is what it is. If sugar is poison, then so are carbs in general.

I absolutely agree with your take on the stupid food recommendations re carbs, they're a huge part of the obesity/diabetes epidemic sweeping the world. But don't underestimate the impact of sugar. A few titbits from an article in an English newspaper: since 1990, sugar consumption has increased by 31%; British people now eat 1.25 pounds(!!) of sugar per week; and British children get 17% of their calories from sugar.

On top of the massive intake of carbs going on now, getting 17% of your total caloric intake from sugar is an absolute disaster. Only those with an unusual metabolism will not become obese and diabetic on such a diet. The impact on the body of even quite small doses of sugar is powerful, large doses sustained for long periods of time are devastating.

[onlooker]

I would say, yes the science is pretty clear about how bad health wise sugar is. But it is also pretty obvious that deception and a recourse to false science has been employed. This is BAD. Of course a country such as ours founded on freedom would never entertain Govt. or anyone else telling us what to eat. But to me the main point is once again we have confirmation of how low Corporations will stoop to make a profit.

[dissident]

I absolutely agree with your take on the stupid food recommendations re carbs, they're a huge part of the obesity/diabetes epidemic sweeping the world. But don't underestimate the impact of sugar. A few titbits from an article in an English newspaper: since 1990, sugar consumption has increased by 31%; British people now eat 1.25 pounds(!!) of sugar per week; and British children get 17% of their calories from sugar.

On top of the massive intake of carbs going on now, getting 17% of your total caloric intake from sugar is an absolute disaster. Only those with an unusual metabolism will not become obese and diabetic on such a diet. The impact on the body of even quite small doses of sugar is powerful, large doses sustained for long periods of time are devastating.

These figures are shocking. I knew that in the US the intake of sugar went from 12 pounds per year to 120 pounds per year from early 1900 until the turn of our current century, but I did not know that the rate of consumption intake has been accelerating. I don't understand who these people are that they eat sugar like children. I can't stand the sugar level in most sweets, they just taste awful. If they reduced it by two-thirds it may actually start to taste good.

Anyway the diabetes epidemic, including Type II in children and young adults (not Type I), took off after 1980, which is consistent with the high carb diet propaganda that started during the 1970s. They also "established" that eggs are bad for you using ludicrous studies based on feeding powdered eggs to rabbits. 1) Most people never eat powdered eggs and they are full of oxidized cholesterol which is plain nasty, and 2) pure vegetarian rabbits are not a valid animal model for omnivore humans.

[yeahbut]

I don't understand who these people are that they eat sugar like children. I can't stand the sugar level in most sweets, they just taste awful. If they reduced it by two-thirds it may actually start to taste good.

I agree, but again, it's not nearly as straight forward as that. From the same article:

One interesting fact is that, year on year, we’re buying fewer actual bags of sugar — “visible sugar”. The big increases are in “invisible sugar” — the sugar the food industry sneaks into things. Looking around my local supermarket, let me tell you what I found. There is glucose-fructose syrup in one organic yogurt; organic sugar and organic invert sugar syrup in another. There is fructose in Müller Light. There is sugar in Hovis bread, sugar in healthy-looking Burgen bread, dextrose in Warburton’s wholemeal bread. There is fructose syrup in my Forest Feast dried berries. There is sugar in the steak pie. There is sugar in the smoked salmon. There is sugar in the seafood sticks. There’s a cheese I like, Wensleydale with apricots, which is delicious – thanks to the added fructose. There are sausages with sugar.

And it's the same with fruit and veges- apples, carrots, tomatoes, peppers etc contain far more fructose than they did only a few decades ago (never mind how far removed they are from the fibrous, thick skinned, bitter, vitamin-and-mineral-packed plants we bred them from and which we evolved with). Producers of both whole and processed foods have realised just how much more product they can shift if they pack it with fructose, or sucrose, dextrose, maltose, honey etc. Also, producers of that abomination, 'reduced fat' food, have to put in something to replace all the flavour they took out when they removed the fat. Sugar levels are usually sky high in 'low fat' foods.

People have been told for generations now that fat is the very worst thing you could ever eat, so they think they are being healthy when they choose 'low fat'. And many people don't know that sugar is added to such unlikely products as meat pies, bread, cheese, soup, sausages etc. The background levels of sugar hidden in food have been creeping up and up, and that's a bad thing for lots of reasons, not least because sugar makes us want one thing really badly: more sugar.

It all works so well for the food industries because we are genetically programmed to like sugar; to really, really like it. Watch a young child try their first fizzy drink or ice cream. Their eyes widen as that sugar hits, and they want more. That's dopamine being released in the brain, causing a surge of pleasure.
Sugar makes you want more sugar, and we don't have an off switch for it in the same way we do fats, and to some extent proteins. Give anyone some delicious fatty meat and they will enjoy it, but not many will take seconds, because they feel full. But ask them if they want ice cream and most will say yes, please! And a lot of people could quite happily go back and eat the whole tub.

There's a theory about this failure of sugar to produce satiety in humans:

it might be because there was a time of year, harvest time, when ancestral humans had an abundance of fruit, followed by a time of year, winter, when they had almost nothing. So we evolved to overeat at harvest time. Fructose makes us want to eat more; it tells us not to be satisfied. That was good, then, when food was scarce. It wasn’t so good later, when it was less scarce. It’s a disaster now, when it’s everywhere.

The same principle applies to carbs and probably explains why many people need to eat french fries or potato chips or popcorn for a very long time before they reach an off switch. For all of our evolutionary history, carbs were hard to come by and needed to be consumed whenever they were encountered, for the valuable energy hit they provided. When your carb source is dug up bracken root, or tiny wild grains, or aquatic plants (as archaelogical research has found it to have been), it's pretty hard to over-do it.

And really, apart from the short fruiting season of some plants, and some extremely occasional honey, humans would never have encountered sugar at all. We simply didn't evolve to deal with it in large amounts, or carbs either. No wonder there is such a hideous epidemic out there in the world right now.

“The UN Secretary General,” he says, “declared that non-communicable disease — that is, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease — is a bigger threat to the entire world, developed and developing, than is infectious disease.” He tells us that these diseases kill 35 million people every year. He says that there are 30 per cent more obese people in the world than undernourished people. In 2011, there were 366 million diabetics in the world — more than double the number in 1980, and 5 per cent of the population. In the US, by 2030 this figure might be as high as 33 per cent.

It is particularly sobering to realise that only 100 years ago, diabetes was vanishingly rare. And tragic to see so many children obese at 10, diabetic at 20.
It's a strange thing: it's like a slow-release mass poisoning of the world's population is taking place, and nothing is being done about it. Indeed, there is a concerted effort to keep it all going. From the intense mass marketing, and ubiquity, of sugar and carb dense foods, to the lobbying of politicians by industry, to nutritionists sticking stubbornly to their disastrous '60% carbs' advice, we seem determined to keep "doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results".

Anyway the diabetes epidemic, including Type II in children and young adults (not Type I), took off after 1980, which is consistent with the high carb diet propaganda that started during the 1970s. They also "established" that eggs are bad for you using ludicrous studies based on feeding powdered eggs to rabbits. 1) Most people never eat powdered eggs and they are full of oxidized cholesterol which is plain nasty, and 2) pure vegetarian rabbits are not a valid animal model for omnivore humans.

Yep, it will all be looked back on some day as a bizarre and corrupt experiment, with several generations as the unwitting and unfortunate guinea pigs.

[onlooker]

Thanks guys for dissecting the science, stage and consequences of sugar addiction. It though is incomplete without pointing out how sugar can lead to cancer. One, by making the Body's ph more acidic, two by being a source of energy for cancer cells, three by weakening immune system. Indirectly also by making us fatter. So sugar is insidious. Of course the Sugar dealers do not care just like drug dealers do not care about the ravages of drug addiction. Just as long as the profits keep coming.

[KaiserJeep]

The FDA has approved new food labels that emphasize sugar content:


Read the entire article here: http://www.wsj.com/articles/fda-approves-controversial-changes-to-nutrition-facts-panel-1463750195

...first time Obama's done anything I can wholeheartedly support.

[Subjectivist]

Trying to watch tonight. Netflix has crashed four times in the first 45 minutes, very frustrating!

[careinke]

I find it interesting how some people won't even look at something that goes beyond their preconceived ideas. It seems that so many fear learning something that could derail what they already think they know, and they would rather not look, out of fear.

I am not saying this documentary is 100 percent pure new knowledge. The actual stance of the movie is far more about how the media and government are manipulated by huge corporate interests than about the details of how sugar impacts your biology directly.

I watched it and found it both interesting and informative. But then I've been Paleo for the last three months. Thanks for the heads-up.

[vox_mundi]

Sugar Industry Withheld Evidence of Sucrose's Health Effects Nearly 50 Years Ago

A U.S. sugar industry trade group appears to have pulled the plug on a study that was producing animal evidence linking sucrose to disease nearly 50 years ago, researchers argue in a paper publishing on November 21 in the open access journal PLOS Biology.

Researchers Cristin Kearns, Dorie Apollonio and Stanton Glantz from the University of California at San Francisco reviewed internal sugar industry documents and discovered that the Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) funded animal research to evaluate sucrose's effects on cardiovascular health. When the evidence seemed to indicate that sucrose might be associated with heart disease and bladder cancer, they found, the foundation terminated the project without publishing the results.

In a previous analysis of the documents, Kearns and Glantz found that SRF had secretly funded a 1967 review article that downplayed evidence linking sucrose consumption to coronary heart disease. That SRF-funded review noted that gut microbes may explain why rats fed sugar had higher cholesterol levels than those fed starch, but dismissed the relevance of animal studies to understanding human disease.

In the new paper in PLOS Biology, the team reports that the following year, SRF (which had changed its name in 1968 to the International Sugar Research Foundation, or ISRF) launched a rat study called Project 259 'to measure the nutritional effects of the [bacterial] organisms in the intestinal tract' when sucrose was consumed, compared to starch.

The ISRF-funded research on rats by W.R.F. Pover of the University of Birmingham suggested that gut bacteria help mediate sugar's adverse cardiovascular effects. Pover also reported findings that might indicate an increased risk of bladder cancer. "This incidental finding of Project 259 demonstrated to ISRF that sucrose vs. starch consumption caused different metabolic effects," Kearns and her colleagues argue, "and suggested that sucrose, by stimulating urinary beta-glucuronidase, may have a role in the pathogenesis of bladder cancer."


Conclusion: Observations showed significant increase in serum triglyceride level with rats having conventional [microbiota] on sucrose diets, whereas a decreasing effect was noted with germ-free rats, suggesting the triglycerides were formed from fatty acids produced in the small intestine by the fermentation of sucrose

The ISRF described the finding in a September 1969 internal document as "one of the first demonstrations of a biological difference between sucrose and starch fed rats." But soon after ISRF learned about these results--and shortly before the research project was complete--the group terminated funding for the project, and no findings from the work were published.

In the 1960s, scientists disagreed over whether sugar could elevate triglycerides relative to starch, and Project 259 would have bolstered the case that it could, the authors argue. What's more, terminating Project 259 echoed SRF's earlier efforts to downplay sugar's role in cardiovascular disease.

The results suggest that the current debate on the relative effects of sugar vs. starch may be rooted in more than 60 years of industry manipulation of science. Last year, the Sugar Association criticized a mouse study suggesting a link between sugar and increased tumor growth and metastasis, saying that "no credible link between ingested sugars and cancer has been established."

The analysis by Kearns and her colleagues of the industry's own documents, in contrast, suggests that the industry knew of animal research suggesting this link and halted funding to protect its commercial interests half a century ago.

"The kind of manipulation of research is similar what the tobacco industry does," ... "This kind of behavior calls into question sugar industry-funded studies as a reliable source of information for public policy making."

- Stanton Glantz - co-author

"Our study contributes to a wider body of literature documenting industry manipulation of science," the researchers write in the PLOS Biology paper. "Based on ISRF's interpretation of preliminary results, extending Project 259's funding would have been unfavorable to the sugar industry's commercial interests." SRF cut off funding before that could happen.

Full Access: Cristin E. Kearns, Dorie Apollonio, Stanton A. Glantz, Sugar industry sponsorship of germ-free rodent studies linking sucrose to hyperlipidemia and cancer: An historical analysis of internal documents

Kid died at 34 from lung cancer ...


https://www.buzzfeed.com/copyranter/hea ... arette-ads

[onlooker]

http://time.com/4087775/sugar-is-defini ... tudy-says/


Sugar Is Definitely Toxic, a New Study Says

[onlooker]

Exactly, at some point one should see the pattern. US corporations willing to lie, cheat, steal and even kill for the sake of profits. And the US government every bit the accomplice. So, it stands to reason that the most lucrative Industry Oil, is being a little less than forthright about its status and prognosis. Afterall, huge profits are at the stake at the very least. Sorry for veering off topic

[asg70]

People like sugar the same way they like drugs or alcohol. There's no propagandizing necessary to get kids to want to eat candy, for instance. The outrage on display here is in denial of this. I mean, what do you think yeast in the proverbial petri dish were eating???

I just recoil at the attempt to externalize what is, in large part, merely human frailty.

[onlooker]

People like sugar the same way they like drugs or alcohol. There's no propagandizing necessary to get kids to want to eat candy, for instance. The outrage on display here is in denial of this. I mean, what do you think yeast in the proverbial petri dish were eating???

I just recoil at the attempt to externalize what is, in large part, merely human frailty.

Excuse me externalize? More like exploit human frailty

[asg70]

More like exploit human frailty

Welcome to adulthood.



Don't want to be a victim? Conquer your frailties and stop trying to blame others for succumbing to temptation.

The whole subtext here is a pining away for a nanny-state to avoid facing personal responsibility.