You need minimum a amount of fat and protein to survive, but glucose can be metabolised from either of those. Sugar has no other nutrients, and the processing of fructose by the liver produces hormones which suppress satiety. Given these, there is no reason why you shouldn't cut it out, meaning that this is the first 'diet fad' I can actually support because, to be honest, I don't see any negatives.

They're all just attempts to simplify. Actual balanced diet and nutrition is really conplicated and has no formal fast rules. Picking an ingredient (sugar) or macronutrient (carbs, protein) and demonizing it makes the story simple, and something that someone with no interest in nutrition can follow.

"Eat all things in moderation" I think is good advice, but it's too vague for anyone to take it.

So we can expect at least a few more generations of bogus diet books before people will accept nutritionally balanced human chow, which is the true simple way to do it right. :)

Eat in moderation is good advice. The problem is that refined sugar is a recent invention that the human body is not designed to handle well. And one consequence is that it tends to fuel hunger and so steers people away from eating in moderation.

Whatever happened to just eat less, exercise often?

Oh that's right, it's so simple that no one believes it works.

Exercise makes your hungry, so it is particularly hard to eat less when exercising more. So it doesn't work for most people, because they aren't able to to both.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/11/28/why-do-i-gain-weigh...

The problem, most scientists agree, is that exercise makes us want to eat. Many studies have shown that if people start a new exercise program, their bodies begin to pump out much higher levels of various hormones that increase appetite. This reaction seems to be most pronounced if someone starts a new, moderate, aerobic exercise routine. (There are hints in some studies that intense exercise, such as interval training, may dampen appetite. But the relevant studies have been few and small.)

'eat less' is not the same as 'eating a balanced diet'. There's plenty of people out there who eat a small but terrible diet. I knew a guy in IT once who lived on a diet of basically chips and Coke. He was rail-thin, but his doctor diagnosed him with scurvy (!)

Well, I am assuming people eat normal food. Like, you know, bread, cheese, eggs, meat, tomatoes and potatoes... Who the hell lives on chips and Coke...

"Who the hell lives on chips and Coke.."

Half the developed world it seems.

There is nothing you need in sugar. Theres nothing extreme about not eating things you dont need -- its just moderation.