Sugar Tax

kinger101

cells wrote: »

Are you sure the science is clear? I'm not saying it isn't I'm just asking if you are certain?

Bear in mind a lot of trials and data are junk. There is a fantastic article in scientific america which deals with and discusses the fact that most scientific trials and data are manipulated junk even some which make it onto top journals. I can also confirm it's always been my observation that the vast majority of experiment's and data are junk. I've even done it myself just turned a blind eye to the data points which don't fit to help reduce the banda of error. Of course I understand manipulation of the data like that takes it away from being science into being junk but I did it anyway just as almost all scientists and humans manipulate data to fit.

So are you certain there have been solid unbiased fully verified long term tests and trials of high sugar diets and that the result clearly shows a negative heath outcome? Bear in mind even the choice of participants and their willibgless to lie too can impact the outcome (just just the willingness of the observers to lie or ignore what doesn't fit)

My guess is no such trial exists vecuase its quite boring and difficult to herd a bunch of people and have them strictly control their diets.


If however you do come across what you believe to be a 100% accurate unbiased unfiddled sufficent trial of a high sugar diet I would be happy to accept it for this thread. Actually you would need to fond 3-4 such trials and they would need to agree with their observation's pretty closely to call it


Once more I'm not suggesting a sugar rich diet is good or bad just challenging that its a given or certainty

I think you're conflating a few things here.

Clinical trials are typically done before new drugs are marketed. Often they go unpublished. Partly because the results aren't always flattering. And partly because nobody in industry has the time to publish negative results.

Although trials are sometimes done on diet, they're typically not done on feeding someone 100 g fructose a day versus water equivalent. It's unethical to make someone do so if you suspect it would cause them harm. So what tends to happen is people make diaries instead.

It usually gets published after peer-review. Which involves an editor, and 2-3 independent referees. This isn't an absolute test for quality, but provided the methodology is provided, other scientists are free to comment on whether they think the data support the conclusions. But sadly, you're right. Much of it will still be junk. Particularly so now the scientific publishing is plagued by what essentially amounts to vanity publishing.

Often, people tend to look at all the available data, judge the quality, and then make a conclusion only on the best data; this is called meta-analysis.

A good example pertinent to sugar is here;

http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.e7492

The conclusion in the summary is rather telling - that last sentence suggests that on an equal calorie basis, simple sugars make you fatter than other forms of energy (e.g., complex carbohydrates).


Conclusions Among free living people involving ad libitum diets, intake of free sugars or sugar sweetened beverages is a determinant of body weight. The change in body fatness that occurs with modifying intakes seems to be mediated via changes in energy intakes, since isoenergetic exchange of sugars with other carbohydrates was not associated with weight change.

cells

chewmylegoff wrote: »

I reckon with two 13 month old babies and a biochemistry degree I am probably in a reasonably informed position; I can't vouch for you.

The sugar in breast milk is lactose anyway, which is not digested in the same way as sucrose which is the most prevalent sugar in poor diets. I think you are barking up the wrong tree with the breast milk point (particularly as many adults lose the ability to digest lactose despite having been able to digest it as babies).

Well feel free to contribute

Once in the body how much if at all does the sugars in milk vary from the sugars in coke?

Also I'm not suggesting adults go and take in 40% of their diet as sugars. Even something like a big Mac meal with 'full fat' coke and fries is 23% sugars or nearly half of what milk is.

My only suggestion has been that I don't know what level of sugar in the diet is beat for heath and that I am very skeptical about any trials of anything because more often than not trials have a lot of junk data in them. I also suggested that lots of adults lead perfectly healthy lives with high sugar intakes and that babies go with approx 41% sugar diets which one would guess is optimal for their wellbeing at that stage

cells

kinger101 wrote: »

I think you're conflating a few things here.

Clinical trials are typically done before new drugs are marketed. Often they go unpublished. Partly because the results aren't always flattering. And partly because nobody in industry has the time to publish negative results.

Although trials are sometimes done on diet, they're typically not done on feeding someone 100 g fructose a day versus water equivalent. It's unethical to make someone do so if you suspect it would cause them harm. So what tends to happen is people make diaries instead.

It usually gets published after peer-review. Which involves an editor, and 2-3 independent referees. This isn't an absolute test for quality, but provided the methodology is provided, other scientists are free to comment on whether they think the data support the conclusions. But sadly, you're right. Much of it will still be junk. Particularly so now the scientific publishing is plagued by what essentially amounts to vanity publishing.

Often, people tend to look at all the available data, judge the quality, and then make a conclusion only on the best data; this is called meta-analysis.

A good example pertinent to sugar is here;

http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.e7492

The conclusion in the summary is rather telling - that last sentence suggests that on an equal calorie basis, simple sugars make you fatter than other forms of energy (e.g., complex carbohydrates).


Conclusions Among free living people involving ad libitum diets, intake of free sugars or sugar sweetened beverages is a determinant of body weight. The change in body fatness that occurs with modifying intakes seems to be mediated via changes in energy intakes, since isoenergetic exchange of sugars with other carbohydrates was not associated with weight change.

On an equal calories basis simple sugars make you fatter. Sure I can accept that but do people eat equal calories of sugars or carbs. Would a group eating simple sugars eat less calories overall as the body ywnda to regulate itself quite well. I would assume if you feed someone say 500 calories of sugars and it gets absorbed with little to no energy expended on breaking it down and if you feed their twin 500 calories of a complex carb that required an additional 50 calories to digest and break down the the second one will get hungry first and make up for it.

On its most basic I recall an experiment where two groups were given either a sugar drink or its diet version. They did some sort and a time later they let both groups eat what they wanted from the table and the group that had the diet version ate more later. Clearly the body wasn't fooled and it knew what it needed. The simple vs complex carbs would be like the above but more shuttle as the difference in the calories PRE and post breakdown would be a lot less.


So once more short of a proper trial done without bias or junk data it's hard to call. and once more im not interested enough to go looking as one poster said they aren't about to go do their own trials to make sure to prove an internet debate. However if it's abailoble it should be posted or at least someone should stand up and say look its been done its been trialed and its conclusive and multiple trials show the same.

If that doesn't exist then I don't think the debate should take it as gospel that a high sugar diet is certainly negative.


PS a high anything diet is negative if it excludes the other groups of protein carb or fats. So the trials would also need to determine that the trial isn't showing a negative or positive vecuase of a lack of the other groups rather than a high amount of sugars

kinger101

cells wrote: »

Well feel free to contribute

Once in the body how much if at all does the sugars in milk vary from the sugars in coke?

Also I'm not suggesting adults go and take in 40% of their diet as sugars. Even something like a big Mac meal with 'full fat' coke and fries is 23% sugars or nearly half of what milk is.

My only suggestion has been that I don't know what level of sugar in the diet is beat for heath and that I am very skeptical about any trials of anything because more often than not trials have a lot of junk data in them. I also suggested that lots of adults lead perfectly healthy lives with high sugar intakes and that babies go with approx 41% sugar diets which one would guess is optimal for their wellbeing at that stage

Lactose is broken down in the gut to glucose and galactose. Glucose can be used by every cell in the body. Galactose needs converting to glucose, but this also happens in the gut. This is different to fructose, which needs to be converted to glucose in the liver.

Going back to the old false evolutionary argument for adaption to !!!! loads of sweet fizzy drinks, ability of infants to digest lactose is as old as mammal themselves.

The body doesn't just recognize sugar as a single entity. It's pretty much the same for protein and fats.

cells

kinger101 wrote: »

Lactose is broken down in the gut to glucose and galactose. Glucose can be used by every cell in the body. Galactose needs converting to glucose, but this also happens in the gut. This is different to fructose, which needs to be converted to glucose in the liver.

Going back to the old false evolutionary argument for adaption to !!!! loads of sweet fizzy drinks, ability of infants to digest lactose is as old as mammal themselves.

The body doesn't just recognize sugar as a single entity. It's pretty much the same for protein and fats.

So once in the blood the sugars are exactly the same be it from milk or a can of sugar soda with 'table' sugar in it?

So it's reasonable to state that babies consume a diet of 40% sugar (as calories). Then your objections must be that what works for babies does not really apply to adults and children. For what reason do you make that jump. The glucose in the blood is the same and the same organs deal with its conversion storage or usage. So why can babies take in 40% as glucose but not children or adults?


I feel the claims of sugar equals bad must be wrong. There would surely be an amount before the bad starts. It night be 5% it night be 10% it night be 40% like with babies but just a linear bad full stop seems likely to be wrong

wotsthat

mwpt wrote: »

I'm not certain because everything is open to question, I only have limited time in my life, I'm not about to become a food and medical research scientist to conduct my own trials.

I will have to form a judgement to believe things such as this:
http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/sites/default/files/short_and_sweet_exec_sum_live.pdf

Or skin through headlines here:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/search/?keyword=sugar+obesity#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=sugar%20obesity&gsc.page=1

Or to believe people on a random house price and economics forum.

I choose to believe the accepted mainstream science.

Got to be careful not to feed the confirmation bias. I think consuming animal based products has a much greater impact on health. When I search science daily and obesity and animal products it tells me exactly what I already believe.

I tend to believe if you're pretty buff already then fine tuning consumption of fat, sugar and protein might make a difference. If your're fat you already know why and it's because you eat too much or don't move enough or both. It's not because you have a great diet but have a thing for fizzy pop.

The sugar tax is for the kids so the question is will it deter poor parents from feeding their kids crap? Maybe but I'm always amazed at the efforts people make to be crap parents.

kinger101

cells wrote: »

So once in the blood the sugars are exactly the same be it from milk or a can of sugar soda with 'table' sugar in it?

No No No. This certainly isn't true. Fructose is nearly useless in the blood. When it hits the liver, it will either be converted to glucose, or, if there is a calorific excess, converted into fat. I don't know how many times it needs explaining to you that the nutritional requirements of a baby differs from an adult. Or that consuming drinks high in fructose is likely to lead to a calorific excess as it doesn't have any much of a satiating effect.

Generali

wotsthat wrote: »

Got to be careful not to feed the confirmation bias. I think consuming animal based products has a much greater impact on health. When I search science daily and obesity and animal products it tells me exactly what I already believe.

I tend to believe if you're pretty buff already then fine tuning consumption of fat, sugar and protein might make a difference. If your're fat you already know why and it's because you eat too much or don't move enough or both. It's not because you have a great diet but have a thing for fizzy pop.

The sugar tax is for the kids so the question is will it deter poor parents from feeding their kids crap? Maybe but I'm always amazed at the efforts people make to be crap parents.

As very cheap soda will either double in price or become a loss leader I think it will have a marked impact on behaviour.

cells

kinger101 wrote: »

No No No. This certainly isn't true. Fructose is nearly useless in the blood. When it hits the liver, it will either be converted to glucose, or, if there is a calorific excess, converted into fat. I don't know how many times it needs explaining to you that the nutritional requirements of a baby differs from an adult. Or that consuming drinks high in fructose is likely to lead to a calorific excess as it doesn't have any much of a satiating effect.

how quickly is fructose converted into glucose when eaten?

in what ways does the nutritional requirements of a baby differ from a child or adult? As a guess they may need more protein but why/how would they need more sugar?

Personally I think you are being silly with the claim babies need different nutrients so high sugar for them is good but its bad for children or adults.

In your shoes my argument would be that adults and babies need sugars most our bodies run on sugars. For babies simple sugars may be preferable as they are easier to digest than complex carbs. That does not necessarily mean sugars are bad for adults but that they are not bad for adults or babies. On an anecdotal note I notice pregnant women crave sugar drinks Ive had this conversation with a few mothers who said they craved sugar drinks while pregnant. Probably for the same reason as babies they need to eat more for their given organs capacity and sugars are easier on the digestive system.

cells

kinger101 wrote: »

Or that consuming drinks high in fructose is likely to lead to a calorific excess as it doesn't have any much of a satiating effect.

I dont believe that to be true