it would be extremely difficult to run a marathon without sugar in some form
Also no, it's no more difficult to run a marathon with an all meat, zero carb diet than it is with a carb heavy diet. People run ultramarathons on carnivore diets:
And this is how ancient humans hunted game as well, despite not having access to trail mix and Power Bars, as you can see in the Masaai persistence hunting technique:
Hunter gathers would and still do frequently gorge themselves on honey if they find a hive. They might not have access to a Mars bar but they definitely like sugar.
I have never heard of this. Where did you get this? Did you know that the only way for cancer cells to create/use energy is by fermenting glucose? They can't use fats or ketones.
> On the other hand, red meat and bacon are known direct cancer risks, […]
Bacon aside, there is no proof which shows that red meat causes cancer. Yes, there are studies that show a correlation between red meat and cancer. However those studies did not differentiate between fresh unprocessed red meat and other processed meat like bacon, sausages, etc.
Edit addendum:
> […] you don't really need bacon and red meat at all, it's something that you can easily take out of your diet.
I'd argue the opposite, bacon aside. Red meat is a highly nutrient dense food. Sugar on the hand is just empty carbs, Metabolizing sugar will drain you body of important vitamins (e.g. B1).
I meant that sugar causes cancer through obesity, not that there's an intermediate step between sugar and obesity.
> Bacon aside, there is no proof which shows that red meat causes cancer. Yes, there are studies that show a correlation between red meat and cancer. However those studies did not differentiate between fresh unprocessed red meat and other processed meat like bacon, sausages, etc.
Most studies do differentiate between unprocessed and processed red meat. And the correlation is fairly strong, not to mention the rest of health effects that a diet high in red meat is associated with.
> I'd argue the opposite, bacon aside. Red meat is a highly nutrient dense food. Sugar on the hand is just empty carbs, Metabolizing sugar will drain you body of important vitamins (e.g. B1).
Do you really think it's easier to take out sugar of your diet? I think the only way is to go full carnivore (not even milk or its derivatives). On the other hand, you don't even have to go vegetarian to remove red meat and bacon from your diet.
Yes, I understood that. However this is new information for me. Where did you get that?
> Most studies do differentiate between unprocessed and processed red meat. And the correlation is fairly strong, […]
Where are those studies? In vivo? In humans?
> […] not to mention the rest of health effects that a diet high in red meat is associated with.
You mean greater longevity, better mental health (less depression, less anxiety, …), better cognitive function?
> Do you really think it's easier to take out sugar of your diet?
Let's say processed sugar. And with "easy" I meant - that you won't suffer any negative health effects in the long term. If you stop eating something and in consequence suffer from malnutrition then that won't be "easy" to keep up in the long term.
There's not a lot of evidence that links sugar intake to cancer risk directly, when controlling for weight. Sugars aren't in the IARC list either. And the link between high sugar intake and obesity is clear too.
Obesity, though, is a well known cancer risk, and for quite a lot of cancers there's causal mechanisms proposed.
> Where are those studies? In vivo? In humans?
The IARC monograph has the details of the evidence collected to declare processed red meat as carcinogenic and unprocessed red meat as probable carcinogenic, and of course it includes studies in humans and studies that separated processed/unprocessed https://monographs.iarc.who.int/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/m...
> You mean greater longevity, better mental health (less depression, less anxiety, …), better cognitive function?
I find it funny that you're asking repeatedly for sources for things that are repeated by every health agency in the world, and then just drop these claims with nothing to back them up.
> Let's say processed sugar.
But no one was saying "processed sugar". The diet I started criticizing was an all-meat diet, with the comment even criticizing fruit.
> If you stop eating something and in consequence suffer from malnutrition then that won't be "easy" to keep up in the long term.
You won't suffer from malnutrition by not eating red meat. In fact, most scientific diet recommendations include the limitation of red meats. You will, however, suffer from malnutrition if you withdraw from all foods that contain natural sugars, because that includes almost all fruits and vegetables.
If we talk about added sugar, diet recommendations usually include limiting its intake too. However, the point I was making in my original comment is that there's far more evidence linking red meat consumption to cancer risk than for sugar, and therefore I can't really trust the advice of someone who claims that an all-carnivore diet is better "because it has no sugar".
(Also: not all bacon is processed)
And yes, all bacon, by definition, is processed meat according to WHO's definition. Bacon is salt-cured meat and the WHO considers processed meat as "meat that has been transformed through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, or other processes".
Ask a real biologist for details. I know this was covered in my high school classes 30 years ago, but I haven't studied it since so I don't remember details or know anything later research has discovered.
Keto causes fatty liver disease
Some tribes hunt, running for several hours, without having breakfast. Their bodies are able to burn fat more efficiently and easily than us probably due to their lifestyle.
Sugar is not "literally poison". What it literally is is the body's primary energy source and a requirement for survival. The fact that eating too much of it is bad for you doesn't make it poisonous. Everything has a median lethal dose (LD50), including water.
You can perfectly healthy enjoy a moderate amount of sugar as part of a varied diet just like you can healthily eat a moderate amount of any food as part of a varied diet. Extreme diet fads and the demonisation of entire food groups work against moderation and variety which are what we actually need in our eating habits.
None of this is to say there isn't a huge sugar problem in modern society, ofc. What I'm saying is the problem is excess, not the consumption of it at all, and demonising it as "poison" and attempting to eliminate it entirely is not the way to bring about moderation.
Long bouts of exercise like a marathon or the Tour de France or medical conditions like diabetes are the only exceptions I can think of where you'd want to instantly flood yourself with glucose.
1) this claim is much weaker than "Sugar is the worst substance for public health ever. It's literally poison."
2) and it can be a good idea if otherwise someone would suffer from caloric deficit dangerous to health and eating more food is not viable (yes, this situation is unusual)
Its hyperbole meant to convey a sense of how bad sugar (particularly added sugars) is to the health of the population. Sugar is in everything (more hyperbole!) in the U.S. America by and large is addicted to sugar and it’s very bad for us. Everything is over sweetened. Can’t even buy bacon without sugar added in some form or other.
Anyhoo. Yes sugar can be good and sugar can be bad. "It's literally poison and worst thing ever" does not productively move the needle of the conversation, almost regardless of interpretation.
This is in contrast to carbs in general, and to protein and fat, where some level of each is useful in the diet and provides a reduction in mortality and CVD risk.
As far as I know, it could be useful in case of huge need for calories.
Which basically never happens with modern lifestyle. But I guess may apply to firefighters working for several days or soldier lugging around piles of equipment.
But unlikely to apply to anyone reading HN. Unless they climb Mount Everest for fun, or volunteer as firefighters or are unlike enough to end in a war zone.
If you need to rely on hyperbole/lies/propaganda then I am going to assume that you have no case.
Second, they ferment fruit because fruit is always slightly poisonous (fructose).
Third, after being close to our primate relatives for some time, our ancestors spent a lot of time hunting, which is not a trait of monkeys we know. They eat more varied meat diet than any predator known, did that for a long time, much longer than (now) we eat crops.
Fourth, we have much higher normal percentage of fat in our body. For men, the normal fat percentage range is from 18% to 22%. Our primate relatives have much less normal fat, for most primates it is less than 9%. Our primate relatives sport bodybuilder's or high performance athlete's fat range just living their life.
As with alcohol, fructose is not a toxin in small doses, because liver can handle it (especially when it is fermented into lactic acid). But it is a toxin in doses we usually experience now. Look for "non-alcoholic fat liver syndrome".
But in general it's a far more complicated causality chain. When weight gain leads to insulin resistance then sugar is poison. We have lifestyles that maximize both a lack of physical labor and an excess of high sugar foods.
https://anthonycolpo.com/sweet-stupidity-part-2-the-bitter-t...
His understanding of what happens to fructose in the liver is fundamentally incorrect.
The way I understand it, poison is an umbrella term that includes toxins, venoms, and chemicals. Its definition is basically "is harmful to living beings", while the other three are specific types/sources of harmful.
Edit: Ended up looking it up, looks like I got poison and toxin backwards. Toxin is the umbrella term.
If you go in a supermarket in EU almost every food product contains sugar.
Why does a peas can has to contain sugar ?
There is exactly one common brand of mayo that has no added sugar. One.
And there's no way to buy sugar-free versions of many other kinds of food, from fried tomatoes sauce, sausages, etc. that were traditionally made without sugar for centuries.
It's a plague.
That just means that the item contains sugars. It doesn't mean that we've added sugars to it. A fresh apple has sugar. A fresh tomato has sugar. Many if not most fruits and vegetables do. It shouldn't be a surprise that the canned/frozen varieties have a bit of sugar on the label.
The pure apple in a can can't last for long.
If the ingredient list contains sugar, it was added.
I dont know if you particular peas have added sugar.
A person weighting 100kg should have less than 10 (ten) grams of sugar in a blood. This is less than 40 calories circulating in the blood of this 100kg person. The same person should have less than 10 (ten) grams of ketones in the blood and it is equivalent to less than 90 calories cirrculating.
Ketones are much more efficient energy source, they are twice as energy-dense. Glucose use needs a quarter of energy stored in the glucose, while fat (ketones) need only 3 (three) percents. Glucose needs insulin, fat (ketones) does not.
Glucose (which is not even table sugar!) is not a main source of energy in the body.
I also think that "variety" is a fad, just like other "extremes" you mentioned.
It is a big deal to chug a bottle of Gatorade while lounging in front of some screen when your body has nothing useful to do with all that sugar.
Simple carbohydrates such as pasta and potatoes break down quickly and can also cause one's blood-sugar to spike.
The trick is to not eat pasta with bread. Many people forget about the bread that they commonly combine with pasta and then blame the bloating and weight gain on the pasta that they had.
I'd imagine that cutting out red sauce, which commonly has added sucrose, would be better still.
Pasta is unique in that it seems to be beneficial, in terms of glycemic load, when eaten on its own. But combining it with other foods, but especially bread, may render it more taxing than other foods.
Which is a common trait of food combinations.
But simple pasta and fish dishes appear quite often in the "blue zones" around the globe. Something I should do a better job of eating more of.
I still add sugar and honey and other sweets to my drink and food. Cuz I'm a fiend. But I do now try very hard to avoid straight fructose.
Even strictly cutting out starch becomes problematic after some time, though my experience is also that humans will get unique health benefits from doing that for stretches. Which avoids the trouble of all-in zero carb.
Which chronic diseases are caused by sugar and nothing else?
People who find themselves consulates, irregular, or have to strain when they go should consider more fiber.
It doesn't, it can't. From paper "Stopping or reducing dietary fiber intake reduces constipation and its associated symptoms" - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3435786/ :
"Whilst it is often stated in physiology textbooks that bulking agents improve peristalsis, there is no proof of this in practice nor experimentally. Regardless of the food ingested, small intestinal and right mid colonic contents are fluid and all ingestible dietary fiber is suspended therein. Dietary fiber, therefore, cannot act as solid boluses for the initiation of peristalsis. In fact, dietary fiber had been shown to retard peristalsis and hold up gaseous expulsion in human experiments[22]."
> "People who find themselves consulates, irregular, or have to strain when they go should consider more fiber."
They should consider less fiber; from the same paper:
"Dietary fiber is also associated with increased bloatedness and abdominal discomfort[22]. Insoluble fiber was reported to worsen the clinical outcome of abdominal pain and constipation[18-20]. In our recent study, patients who followed a diet with no or less dietary fiber intake showed a significant improvement, not just in their constipation, but also in their bloatedness. Patients who completely stopped consuming dietary fiber no longer suffered from abdominal bloatedness and pain.[...]"
"Stools only become well-formed in the sigmoid colon and rectum and by this time, especially in constipated subjects, more stools result in more evacuation problems. It is not logical to increase both the volume and size of stool in patients with idiopathic constipation and indeed for anybody with difficulty in passing stools, e.g., due to anismus or anal spasm from anal stricture, fissure or pelvic outlet disorders. We have shown that decreasing the bulk and volume of feces immediately enables the easier evacuation of smaller and thinner stools through the anal sphincter mechanism. This eliminates the need to strain in passing stools, and prevents the tearing of the anal sphincter and bleeding due to large and bulky fecal loads. None of our patients experienced anal bleeding or straining following complete abstinence from dietary fiber."
"The results of this study should lead us to reexamine popular beliefs in benefits of dietary fiber and more studies should be undertaken to confirm or repudiate these results."
I run a small business that sells sports drinks and other healthy beverages aimed at athletes. Our drinks have a few grams of naturally occurring sugar, because some ingredients that are naturally hydrating also contain natural sugars. Nothing wrong with that, as opposed to a 16oz BigCorp (Gatorade, Powerade, Lucozade, Carabao, Body Armor, etc...) sports drink that has over 1oz of added artificial sugars. There's a MASSIVE difference. People don't realize that.