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Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by maerF0x0 on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @12:38PM (#10459192)
Do you happen to know the thresholds at which added sugar become detrimental?

I wonder if a tsp a day in my coffee is too much, how about a bubble tea, how about honey nut cheerios once a week etc etc. Without some framework to judge how much is ok we're also left with FUD about any sugar at all.

Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by toephu2 on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @02:55PM (#10460262)
Sugar is a drug, the more you eat it the more you need to satisfy your "sweet tooth" craving. Honey nut cherrios sounds healthy but look at the sugar content, that stuff is not good for you. I've basically eliminated all unnatural sugars from my diet, and I feel great. I don't eat any sweets at all (natural sugars come from the fruits I eat) . Also caffeine is a drug, drinking coffee everyday isn't good for you. The fact that your drinking it every day means you are already addicted, try going 3 days without it. It builds up your tolerance for caffeine and you need more and more of it to get the effects. Also it's bad for your teeth (stains 'em). I am going to get downvoted for this but seriously, Starbucks has a great business model (get people addicted to coffee, and the profits will keep rolling in for a customer's entire lifetime..much like the tobacco industry back in the day.. luckily caffeine isn't nearly as bad as nicotine)
Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by maerF0x0 on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @09:05PM (#10462299)
Coffee's positives extend life[1], therefore i disagree its "not good for you" . As well decaf coffee goes through some gnarly processes, i'd rather risk the caffeine and have unadulterated antioxidants et al.

Any sources that sugar is a drug, addictive or something like that?

Obligatory link because you said "I feel great" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6rE0EakhG8

[1]: http://www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/drinking-coffee... -- sorry its annoying.

Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by delecti on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @04:16PM (#10460787)
> luckily caffeine isn't nearly as bad as nicotine

Nicotine isn't that terrible, but tobacco is way more than just nicotine.

Just like most of the drinks at Starbucks are more than just caffeine, so it's actually a pretty close comparison when you factor in the sugar.

Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by SolaceQuantum on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @03:54PM (#10460646)
Gonna point out that I drink coffee every day and going without it cold turkey also doesn't affect me. I don't suffer any withdrawal symptoms.

> I don't eat any sweets at all (natural sugars come from the fruits I eat)

Yes, but the average apple, banana, or orange has a lot of sugar content. Many fruits are also acidic and will mess your teeth up a lot worse than a bit of coffee stain will.

Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by toephu2 on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @05:21PM (#10461240)
yes but the difference is manufactured sugar vs real sugar found in nature. Think about all the chemicals and the processes Aspartame goes through to get the effect of "200x" sweeter than sucrose.. that stuff doesn't come free. (same goes for anything labelled "Diet" or "Zero"...wow same great taste and 0 calories? what's the catch?..yeah..it's your health)
Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by SolaceQuantum on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @07:20PM (#10461883)
What're the sources that aspartame consumption in regular amounts is more harmful than fructose sources in regular amounts? Fructose is just a chemical, too, isn't it?
Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by pierrec on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @01:37PM (#10459686)
I do not know the thresholds at which added sugar becomes detrimental. That limit probably varies wildly with other conditions such as exercise and intake of other nutrients. However, I do know that added sugar is not necessary for a healthy diet. So you don't have an upper limit, but you do have a lower one!
Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by bsilvereagle on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @12:56PM (#10459313)
A ketogenic diet recommends less than ~30g of carbohydrates a day. A gram of sugar is a gram of carbohydrates.

Ketosis is a multifaceted, complex, biological process that depends on many variables. However, it is potentially somewhere to start investigating a 'critical limit' to judge how much sugar can be processed by your body.

Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by pierrec on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @01:12PM (#10459465)
30g of carbohydrates a day seems extremely low. The ketogenic diet is not a general-purpose diet, it's a therapeutic diet used to treat specific medical conditions. Also, sugars are only a specific type of carbs, so carbohydrate intake should not be compared directly to sugar intake.
Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by toomuchtodo on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @01:45PM (#10459763)
> The ketogenic diet is not a general-purpose diet, it's a therapeutic diet used to treat specific medical conditions.

https://www.reddit.com/r/keto would disagree with you. I myself stay below 20g of carbohydrates per day, and I lose ~3lbs a week on the diet, while eating cheese, meat, and green vegetables. I feel phenomenal, still get to eat food I enjoy, and wouldn't go back to a traditional carbohydrate-heavy diet if I was paid to.

Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by cossatot on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @02:05PM (#10459928)
I don't have any opinions on the diet itself, but if you're losing 3 lbs a week, this means that either you started out very obese or haven't been on the diet for very long. I'm glad it's working for you now but this doesn't necessarily mean that the diet will be the optimal for 10+ years.
Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by toomuchtodo on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @02:16PM (#10460005)
Very true! I started at 200lbs (I'm 5' 6", 32 years old) and cut out soda. That got me down to ~175lbs. Keto is helping me get down to ~150lbs.
Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by kaitai on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @02:42PM (#10460182)
And once you're at 150, it's only 50 weeks until you are weightless!

No disagreements on keto being useful for many. For those who want to maintain their weight, though, it's not often the right diet. So I'd argue it's not "general-purpose."

Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by cossatot on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @11:27PM (#10462709)
That's awesome, I hope it keeps working out for you.
Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by nawitus on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @02:07PM (#10459935)
Since when did the discussion about diet's healthiness turn into weight loss discussion? You can lose 1.36 kg per week on any diet if you restrict calories, for example, but that's not really relevant here.
Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by toomuchtodo on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @02:17PM (#10460010)
> You can lose 1.36 kg per week on any diet if you restrict calories

This line gets parroted around here constantly (its just thermodynamics! calories in calories out!), yet more evidence continues to be provided that macronutrient balance matters, as does gut bacteria.

EDIT: What if dieting turns out to be as easy as naturally selecting bacteria for the gut that can't break down carbohydrates easily, and selling it as a probiotic pill that replaces you're existing gut bacteria? Wouldn't that be a huge win for public health policy?

And before anyone comes in and says that's not possible, check out this women who became obese from a fecal transplant from an overweight donor:

http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2015/02/04/Woman-becomes-obes...

Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by nathan_f77 on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @03:07PM (#10460328)
That pill would be awesome. I would actually be willing to try one of those fecal transplants, if I could find someone who has a very high metabolism. It's a bit of a strange thing to ask someone, though. I have a relative with IBS, and he swore he'd never do it, even if there was a good chance at curing his disease. I guess it grosses out most people, but I don't really care.
Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by toomuchtodo on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @03:18PM (#10460399)
If you're interested: http://www.openbiome.org/
Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by xorcist on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @03:40PM (#10460550)
Isn't a diet you lose weight from the very defintion of an unhealthy diet?

Sure, it might be what you need if you start out in an opposite but equally unhealthy state, but in the long run consistent weight loss is fatal.

It might not feel relevant to you, but large parts of the population in the world find themselves in that very situation through no choice of their own.

Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by dragonwriter on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @05:28PM (#10461276)
> Isn't a diet you lose weight from the very defintion of an unhealthy diet?

No. Really, healthy and unhealthy diets aren't binary categories, diets are more are less healthy than others, and there are usually going to be more healthy options than a diet on which you maintain a pre-existing unhealthy excess of body fat.

And, what those diets will have in common, is that you'll lose body fat on them (probably also weight, though that's less certain.)

> Sure, it might be what you need if you start out in an opposite but equally unhealthy state, but in the long run consistent weight loss is fatal.

In the long run, living is fatal, with a 100% mortality rate. But a diet on which you (with your current body weight) are losing weight is not necessarily one on which you will consistently lose weight without limit; one which would maintain a lower but healthy weight will cause you to lose weight while you are above that weight. And would cause you to gain weight if you are below that weight.

Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by toomuchtodo on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @05:22PM (#10461250)
> Isn't a diet you lose weight from the very defintion of an unhealthy diet?

Not at all. If you're carrying excessive fat around, you should be modifying your diet in order to shed that excessive fat. If your body composition is healthy, then you should be on a diet that a) is providing both a proper ratio of macronutrients and b) enough calories that you're not losing muscle mass.

Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by enraged_camel on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @02:41PM (#10460177)
I don't think a subreddit is an authority on anything. Please provide more substantive evidence, such as peer-reviewed scientific literature.
Re:Cutting Back Sugar Improves Obese Children's Health in Ju... by atomical on Tuesday October 27, 2015 @03:17PM (#10460395)
Everyone who posts lipids on /r/keto has horrible cholesterol. Then the other readers of the sub chime in that it's okay to have high cholesterol. Don't worry about it! Check out this TED talk!