[HN Gopher] Sugar Substitutes Surprise
___________________________________________________________________
Sugar Substitutes Surprise
Author : hprotagonist
Score : 350 points
Date : 2022-11-03 15:58 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.science.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.science.org)
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| > since those are benevolent All Natural substances harvested
| under blue skies to a background of chirping birds and gentle
| breezes
|
| Researchers expressing bias like this (or the opposite as well)
| should be disqualified. Science is factual, not emotional nor
| invective.
| TehCorwiz wrote:
| That sounds sarcastic to me.
| falcor84 wrote:
| I don't know, I for one really appreciated that touch. Not all
| scientific content has to be encyclopedic, and this
| specifically is a commentary blog[0], which I think serves a
| valuable purpose.
|
| [0] https://www.science.org/blogs/pipeline
| keepquestioning wrote:
| Is sugar good or bad for you?
| jgerrish wrote:
| > since those are benevolent All Natural substances harvested
| under blue skies to a background of chirping birds and gentle
| breezes.
|
| No shit Science? This is reasoned discourse?
|
| One of the most critical components of our world-wide health
| system, sugar and diabetes. And this is the response.
|
| It makes it difficult to truly (no fucking pun intended) assess
| risk in life.
|
| This isn't about cheap rebellion. That's not the relationship you
| build for.
|
| One reason of hundreds.
| sam345 wrote:
| bot?
| jgerrish wrote:
| ✓ botulism...
|
| No, I'm not a bot. Hello.
| jgerrish wrote:
| We all love Ooey Gooey Cookies, right?
|
| So, how can I make that without killing the crowd? That's
| the question of the day.
|
| Is stevia a decent substitute for sugar? Is sugar ok if
| consumed on weekends only? I know, silly questions.
|
| And then we get Jenny McCarthy provoking editorials,
| targeting the people who could use knowledgeable advice.
|
| And years later, we'll be lectured on bad decisions.
| baxtr wrote:
| Could someone summarize the findings?
| LesZedCB wrote:
| artificial sweeteners aren't physiologically inert.
|
| they increase/change intestinal microbiota. tbd what that
| means.
| dsr_ wrote:
| Yes: that's the article, a summary of the findings.
| bradlys wrote:
| Sounds like aspartame (my artificial sweetener of choice) seems
| to still be basically without side effect besides gut biome
| changes. Which doesn't really mean anything currently because
| they don't know if that has any measurable change in the body
| overall.
| jimmywetnips wrote:
| Take this with a grain of aspartame, but I was also very gung
| ho on artificial sweetners and swept all the fear mongering in
| with gluten and msg. Aka bullshit. For years, I was drinking
| tons of diet soda. Maybe 2L per day of diet root beer.
|
| For whatever reason, 4 years ago, I became super sensitive to
| aspartame. It would make me hyperalert like a more subtle
| version of caffeine. I had insmonia for random days. It took me
| forever to isolate it to aspartame, since I've never had a
| problem, nor suspected there could even be a problem. I don't
| have pku but it is what it is. Sucralose, stevia, regular sugar
| still fine. Bodies are weird. I still believe in science but
| the older I get, the more I give credence that in some people
| things just work differently. I don't just jump to the
| conclusion that they're making something up just because
| official scienctific papers say it's 99.999% safe.
| tuatoru wrote:
| I don't know what artificial sweeteners are used in NZ, but
| they trigger my asthma.
|
| I mostly stick to soda water (only carbon dioxide, no
| flavorings) these days.
| jansan wrote:
| I drank a lot of Coca-Cola life (the one with stevia) and
| thought that I may have found a drink with a good-enough
| taste/sugar balance for me. Then, from one day to the other,
| I got absolutely disgusted by one part of the drink's taste,
| most probably the sweetener. I could not drink a single glass
| anymore and today when I even think about Coca-Cola life, it
| sends me a shiver down the spline. I can drink infinite
| quantities of drinks made with cheap sugar-free lemonade
| sirup, so other sweeteners seem to be fine for me, but not
| stevia.
| layer8 wrote:
| Stevia has a bitter-ish side taste that is truly awful.
| duderific wrote:
| Totally agree, I can't drink anything with Stevia. I can
| taste it immediately. My father in law thinks it's the
| greatest thing ever, doesn't bother him at all. Go
| figure.
| layer8 wrote:
| There are genetic differences in how one tastes
| bitterness (e.g. the TAS2R38 gene), so that might be one
| factor.
| gilrain wrote:
| To me, stevia tastes distinctly like the aroma of burnt
| hair. It's intolerable.
| kyriakos wrote:
| Stevia when used on it's own as a sweetener leaves a bad
| after taste of bitterness. It's better be used in
| combination with another sweetener or sugar (just to
| decrease the amount of regular sugar in a product). Most
| products advertised containing stevia usually include an
| additional sweetener if you pay attention at the
| ingredients list.
| purplerabbit wrote:
| Fascinating. It's like your body gradually figured out that
| you were trying to fool it, and revolted.
|
| I'd bet there are digestion processes that "start up" in
| response to taste. Maybe your body detected that stevia was
| regularly "starting up" one of these processes and then
| withholding the expected glucose spike, and got upset about
| the pattern
| jimmywetnips wrote:
| I think that was some of the findings in the linked
| research. Certain artificial sugars were changing insulin
| response in subjects. I'm just a sample size of 1, and
| they're a sample size of 100 but I think it's clear that
| the beliefe that ALL the artificial sugars are inert and
| pass right through us is false... sometimes.
| LesZedCB wrote:
| how could microbiome changes not have measurable impact on the
| body? bodies are ridiculously complex systems.
|
| and there are plenty of instancess where gut microbiome changes
| _are_ known to be impactful. my partner got SIBO which caused
| lots of problems for a few months and she was basically unable
| to eat anything.
| j2kun wrote:
| Does this say anything significant or new about xylitol? This
| seems like the safest bet...
| gavinmckenzie wrote:
| Unless you own a dog, and then it can be a huge risk. It
| doesn't take much xylitol to kill your dog, and I've watched a
| friend lose their dog due to this. I've had a scare where my
| dog ate a piece of a popsicle on a hot day that, unknown to me
| in the moment, was sweetened with xylitol; thankfully not in a
| fatal concentration but we still had to stay up all night to
| keep an eye on our dog and were hours away from the nearest
| animal hospital. Allulose won't kill your dog.
| pmlamotte wrote:
| Doesn't look like anything new. AFAIK erythritol is the best of
| the sugar alcohols and potentially the safest of the sugar
| substitutes.
|
| Another option that needs to be studied a bit more but seems
| safe so far is allulose, which is nice for baking since it will
| actually brown and doesn't have the cooling effect erythritol
| has.
| curmudgeon22 wrote:
| I recently read some interesting info on xylitol and benefits
| for dental health:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4232036/
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| It tastes the best, it never gets implicated in these studies,
| and is used in many keto/no sugar products today.
|
| I love it, and insulin and allulose. Not sure why people are
| obsessed with the nasty shit like stevia, monk fruit, or blue
| agave...
| mandmandam wrote:
| Agreed. Xylitol is yummy, good for your teeth, inexpensive,
| time tested, and doesn't have a weird aftertaste.
|
| The only downsides are that it doesn't work quite the same as
| sugar in cooking, some are sensitive to it, and if you overdo
| it there can allegedly be some runny side-effects.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Am I the only one that prefers aspartame to sugar? Sugar has this
| aftertaste that tastes like something decaying.
| duderific wrote:
| I wouldn't say I prefer aspartame to sugar, but to me it's the
| least bad tasting sugar substitute.
|
| On the rare occasion when I get Diet Coke at a restaurant, it
| has a really nasty taste because they add saccharine in the
| fountain version. Compared to the canned version which uses
| only aspartame, the fountain version is almost undrinkable.
| donatj wrote:
| > sucralose significantly impaired glycemic response
|
| What's the takeaway from that? Sucralose (Splenda) has long been
| my sweetener of choice. I prefer the taste over actual sugar in
| many things.
|
| Should I be avoiding it? Is that impaired glycemic response a bad
| thing I should be worried about?
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| How many fat people do you see drinking Diet Coke? It doesn't
| seem to be helping, does it?
|
| The answer: just indulge your sweet tooth, if you have one, but
| be _real_ moderate about it. A quarter tsp of sugar in the
| coffee, just a couple cookies after dinner. And so forth.
|
| And quit drinking soda, period. Get carbonated water if you have
| to have those bubbles. Don't eat between meals.
|
| Next case.
| AdamH12113 wrote:
| > _Exposure to saccharin and sucralose significantly impaired
| glycemic response, but this was not seen with the aspartame or
| stevia groups. None of the blood markers show real changes in any
| group except for insulin levels going up in the glucose and
| stevia groups (and since everyone was getting glucose as part of
| the dosing, that suggests a lowering of the glucose-driven
| insulin response overall)._
|
| What does impairing glycemic response mean, exactly?
| m463 wrote:
| I was confused by that too.
|
| are saccharin and sucralose good (benign) sweeteners?
|
| or is stevia a good (benign) sweetener?
| VLM wrote:
| "good (benign)"
|
| More accurate word choice would be "less bad".
|
| I don't believe dietary science knows of a benign sweetener
| at this time.
|
| Kind of like the situation with alcohol; there's some that
| are worse than others, none that are beneficial, none that
| are neutral.
| chronogram wrote:
| Hopefully this image helps, because I am still not sure:
| https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S00928674220091...
| pb7 wrote:
| Thanks for the image but to me personally it only raises more
| questions. If sucralose "impairs glycemic response", then why
| does the line go up more aggressive on the "glycemic
| response" chart? Is having a higher response bad? Do I want
| my body's glycemic response to be as inert as possible?
| pb7 wrote:
| Glad someone else got stuck here. I couldn't figure out from
| context whether this is good or bad and looking up "glycemic
| response" still didn't clear up whether it's a desired trait or
| not in terms of sweeteners, health outcomes, and diabetics for
| example.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Defintion: _The Glycemic Index (GI) is a measure of the extent
| of the change in blood glucose content (glycemic response)
| following consumption of digestible carbohydrate, relative to a
| standard such as glucose._
|
| Blood glucose is actively regulated by your body via relying on
| glycogen storage and breakdown in the muscles and liver, in
| healthy humans this system reacts quickly to maintain a
| constant blood glucose level (required for say, active brain
| function). See figure 1 in this review (pdf) of glycogen-
| related inherited diseases for an overview of how it's supposed
| to work (it's all tied into the cellular Krebs, aka
| tricarboxylic acid, cycle):
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Joseph-Wolfsdorf/public...
|
| Practically speaking, flooding your bloodstream with sugar
| (soft drinks, candy) seems to overwhelm the normal functioning
| of that system, but when you eat more complex carbohydrates
| which are slowly digested (potatoes, bread, pasta, etc.) this
| results in a steady but slow input of sugars to the bloodstream
| via the digestive system, which, depending on your resting
| energy level, will be either stored as glycogen or fed into the
| Krebs cycle for cellular energy conversion.
| baby-yoda wrote:
| one point of contention - potatoes and bread (specifically
| white) are some of the highest GI foods available. i
| specifically use these (white bread with peeled boiled
| potatoes) for their quick conversion to available sugars
| prior to exercise. some scales actually use white bread as
| the index point (GI = 100) because of this.
| Max-q wrote:
| Potatoes have gotten an undeserved bad reputation. Boiled
| potatoes can be as 58. Especially if you cool and reheat.
| Mashed or fried is over 100.
| [deleted]
| renewiltord wrote:
| So if glycemic response means
|
| > _change in blood glucose content (glycemic response)_
|
| then does that mean an impaired response is higher or does it
| mean it's lower?
| brnaftr361 wrote:
| If you don't know, insulin signals a process for
| sequestering sugars through glycogenesis.
|
| _Stevia_ and _Glucose_ groups both increased plasma
| insulin. Contrasted with _Saccharine_ and _Sucralose_
| which, the authors suggest, blunted insulin release and
| thus increased blood sugar. They cite a paper indicating
| that combined NNS and caloric sweeteners increase the
| insulin response compared with a NNS itself.
|
| So... both..? It's a disproportion. NNS should have
| negligible impact on blood sugar to be called "inert",
| either when paired or when not, regardless of whether
| glucose is present or not. Addition is changing the whole
| formula. They're saying it's fucking up the signal
| interpretation. At least that's what I've put together.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Thank you. So let me see if I get it correct.
| thing effect on plasma insulin gut result
| glucose baseline increase standard
| g+sucralose increase less than baseline altered
| g+stevia baseline increase altered
| g+aspartame baseline increase altered
|
| So since there was lower than baseline increase in the
| g+sucralose group, we can conclude that the sucralose is
| blunting the response that the glucose would have caused.
|
| So, in this context, that means we got increased blood
| sugar because of the lower plasma insulin? Okay. I think
| I understand now.
| twawaaay wrote:
| It is your body's ability to regulate blood sugar level in
| presence of intakes of food or their absence.
|
| A healthy person should have no problem maintaining blood sugar
| level except for very extreme situations (like running a
| marathon). Impaired response suggests then some kind of
| underlying problem.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| I'm still confused. In the context of this paper, does
| "impaired glycemic response" mean blood sugar levels go up
| but do not come down because insulin production is impaired?
| Or that insulin levels increase and blood sugars still do not
| fall? Or that the glycemic response, that is the blood sugar
| concentrations, do not increase in the first instance?
| noodlenotes wrote:
| I found another paper [1] that implies that "impaired
| glycemic response" is measured by an "oral glucose
| tolerance test" and that high levels of blood glucose in
| the two hours after drinking a glucose solution are what
| they mean by an impaired response. The graphical abstract
| [2] from the paper discussed in the Science article has
| "glycemic response" graphs, which I assume are from this
| oral glucose tolerance test, although I wasn't able to
| access the paper's PDF.
|
| [1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Impaired-glycemic-
| respon...
|
| [2] https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(22)00919-
| 9?_re...
| narag wrote:
| They mixed glucose with the artificial sweeteners so sugar
| level must raise. But it didn't go down, so it seems that
| the sweeteners could be stopping the insulin response.
| secabeen wrote:
| Right, and that's a good thing, because lower
| postprandial glycemia correlates with better health
| outcomes: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20234031/
| smaddox wrote:
| I'm not sure we can equate low glycemic index foods with
| foods that suppress the insulin response. They might have
| a small insulin response in common, but their effect on
| blood sugar concentration is not at all the same.
| narag wrote:
| I have no insight on the studio but that it's only
| logical "impairment" must mean the response was _even
| less_ than the one expected if the same amount of glucose
| and no sweetener was ingested.
|
| Otherwise it's misleading and not surprising at all.
| wrycoder wrote:
| Right, I had the same response to that sentence, see my
| comment infra.
|
| It seems to me that an "impaired" glycemic response is what
| is actually desired, but the word "impaired" has negative
| connotations. It might be typical usage in a journal
| article, but it is not for an article in Science.
| hammock wrote:
| Explain (all of) the findings like I'm five?
| lm28469 wrote:
| Don't eat sugar, don't eat sugar substitutes
| hammock wrote:
| That's not what the study says. It makes distinctions between
| different categories of substitutes
| coldcode wrote:
| It's interesting, but still a small sample size in a single
| country with potentially similar gut microbiomes. It would be
| much more meaningful to do the same study across different parts
| of the world and with a larger number of people. I think in some
| parts of the world it might be difficult to find enough people
| who don't consume any artificial sweeteners. If you never consume
| any and now take the test amounts, is that different than
| consuming it for many years? Could the effect of the test in
| people not continuously exposed to the sweeteners be different
| than those who use it routinely?
| naasking wrote:
| No, I think enough studies have been done to conclude there's
| an issue. For instance, some other recent ones:
|
| * Personalized microbiome-driven effects of non-nutritive
| sweeteners on human glucose tolerance,
| https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(22)00919-9
|
| * Artificial Sweeteners Negatively Regulate Pathogenic
| Characteristics of Two Model Gut Bacteria, E. coli and E.
| faecalis, https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/22/10/5228
|
| * Artificial sweeteners and risk of cardiovascular diseases:
| results from the prospective NutriNet-Sante cohort,
| https://www.bmj.com/content/378/bmj-2022-071204
|
| These are all from different countries.
| polYate wrote:
| OMG!!!
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| I suspected this some time ago when I tried to learn more about
| all the potential problems related to gut bacteria.
|
| When you ingest something that you can't digest directly, there
| is a good chance that some bacteria in your guy can. And when
| they do, they multiply, this process is often faster than most
| people realize.
|
| The problem rarely are the bacteria themselves, but the
| byproducts of their own metabolism, that can be benign is trace
| quantities and harmful in larger quantities.
|
| The immune system also constantly monitors and reacts to those
| byproducts and bacteria population.
|
| What we usually call Lactose intolerance or Gluten sensitivity is
| in practice an indirect effect of some species of bacteria
| digesting those, and then the reaction of your immune system.
|
| Overall, the gut microbiome is a fascinating and complex subject,
| unfortunately often oversimplified or misunderstood.
|
| As an example, we've often been told to eat more fibers to
| increase "flow", the flow increase is because the fibers are
| digested by bacteria and the mild toxicity of the process forces
| the digestive system to flush everything.
|
| Same with Sorbitol (contained in dried prunes and often used as a
| soft laxative) but even more toxic.
| ephbit wrote:
| > As an example, we've often been told to eat more fibers to
| increase "flow", the flow increase is because the fibers are
| digested by bacteria and the mild toxicity of the process
| forces the digestive system to flush everything.
|
| Very interesting.
|
| Can you maybe refer to some text(s) about this phenomenon of
| mild toxicity from digestion of fibers?
| wrycoder wrote:
| The flow increases because the bulk increases with more fiber.
| Most fiber is cellulose, and your gut biome can't process that,
| as far as I know.
| astro_robot wrote:
| Would this analysis also extend to drinks like Kombucha which
| add more gut bacteria to your body?
| gunshai wrote:
| Maybe this is lazy commenting, but do we actually have any
| evidence that the bacteria in kombucha even makes it to your
| gut biome?
| benj111 wrote:
| I've seen probiotic yogurts advertising the claim.
| (Scientifically proven). So there must be some truth. I
| haven't delved in further though.
| atombender wrote:
| > the mild toxicity of the process forces the digestive system
| to flush everything
|
| Do you have any more information on this "mild toxicity"? That
| does not sound like a healthy reaction to me.
|
| My understanding was health experts encourage _insoluble_ fiber
| more than anything, precisely because it is essentially inert
| -- not digestable or fermented by microflora -- and therefore
| merely adds bulk to the waste, which helps move stuff through
| the gut. Are you talking about soluble fiber and prebiotics?
| kloch wrote:
| > As an example, we've often been told to eat more fibers to
| increase "flow"
|
| About 10 years ago I switched overnight from a very meat heavy
| diet to mostly plant based (I still eat dairy products and one
| or two servings of fish per week).
|
| Within a week I was shocked at how well my digestive tract was
| suddenly working. Before that I had no idea how broken it was.
|
| All other factors aside, I could never go back to the slow,
| uncomfortable digesting process of a typical USA meat heavy
| diet.
| orangepurple wrote:
| You can run the same experiment with water fasting. We
| overeat.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| My annecdata is that I spent two years eating a healthy
| vegetarian diet (to contrast with french fry vegetarians) and
| my digestive tract never adapted. I switched back to eating
| plenty of lean meat (mostly chicken and fish) and the
| plumbing almost instantly began working properly.
|
| The added benefit is that my diet is much higher in protein
| and lower in carbs, which definitely has helped me build and
| maintain muscle and reduce dad bod.
|
| Again, just annecdata, but maybe individuals have differing
| nutritional profiles that work best for them?
| dendrite9 wrote:
| Or maybe the masses inside those individuals have different
| needs? Different bacteria levels responding differently to
| various diets. I think that's what some of the microbiome
| companies were working on, but I don't think it was ever
| successful.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| From my experience, the worst thing is eating the same thing
| all the time, no matter what it is.
|
| The goal is to keep your microbiota as far as possible to a
| monoculture.
|
| I am absolutely not an expert on this subject, but so far, my
| understanding is that there are not really "healthy"
| bacteria, there are only healthy mixes where different
| species balances and keep the other from growing.
| MacsHeadroom wrote:
| As long as we're sharing anecdotes; about 10 years ago I quit
| being vegan and transitioned into a carnivore diet.
|
| I now eat mostly red meats and my gut has never worked
| better.
|
| When I was vegan I had constant GI issues to the point of
| multiple hospitalizations.
|
| Everyone is different.
| valenaut wrote:
| Just to finish off this Goldilocks story: I've been vegan
| for four years, and previously ate a meat and dairy heavy
| diet. I noticed basically no change to my gut health--it
| has been pretty good, with occasional minor issues, for my
| whole life.
| boplicity wrote:
| > As an example, we've often been told to eat more fibers to
| increase "flow", the flow increase is because the fibers are
| digested by bacteria and the mild toxicity of the process
| forces the digestive system to flush everything.
|
| This isn't an accurate portrayal of the benefits of fiber. The
| laxative effects of fiber are just one of many benefits. For
| example, Fiber can bind to saturated fats, disabling the
| negative affects of them. Specifically, in terms of bacteria,
| many bacteria digest fiber, which in turn creates short chain
| fatty acids, which have many health benefits.
|
| You're right about one thing, though: this is indeed a complex
| subject.
| dilap wrote:
| I belive the viewpoint that many hold that constipation is
| usually caused by a lack of fiber is often mistaken, and
| indeed eating a no or low fiber diet can resolve
| constipation.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3435786/
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15654804/
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| If you're going to share something as fringe as 1) the benefit
| of fiber is that it makes us poop (disregarding it's other
| benefits) and 2) it does so because it's toxic, you're going to
| have to at least share links.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| > What we usually call Lactose intolerance or Gluten
| sensitivity is in practice an indirect effect of some species
| of bacteria digesting those, and then the reaction of your
| immune system.
|
| Citation?
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| This is pretty well understood and documented.
|
| https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/lactose-intolerance/causes/
|
| "Bacteria in the colon break down the lactose, producing
| fatty acids and gases like carbon dioxide, hydrogen and
| methane.
|
| The breakdown of the lactose in the colon, and the resulting
| acids and gases that are produced, cause the symptoms of
| lactose intolerance, such as flatulence and bloating."
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| The tricky part is that there are multiple species of
| bacteria able to digest (ferment) lactose, and the
| composition of your microbiota is highly variable at the
| individual level and also over time.
|
| In practice, your reaction to lactose is difficult to
| predict, regardless of your production of lactase.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| Right. I guess I had misunderstood the comment as implying
| that lactose intolerance was not a result of insufficient
| lactase production.
| b800h wrote:
| Even more interesting because gut microbiome health is also
| associated with autoimmune disease and (apparently - not sure of
| the veracity) ASD.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3337124/
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30747427/
| mabbo wrote:
| I don't save many comments on HN, but I saved this one and re-
| read it about once a year for a chuckle:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9440566
|
| > I have a slight fascination with sweeteners. About five years
| ago I imported a kilo of "Neotame" sweetener from a chem factory
| in Shanghai.
| smaddox wrote:
| Fascinating. Now it's sold in much smaller quantities:
| https://www.amazon.com/EASTCHEM-Neotame-25g/dp/B07YYNZP68
|
| And https://www.amazon.com/T-Miles-Neotame-Sweetener-
| Beverages-P...
| kome wrote:
| that's not a surprise at all...
| mandmandam wrote:
| No, it's not.
|
| But sweetener maxis often say the gut bacteria effect is
| unproven, so every good study there helps.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Good luck finding certain foods without artificial sweeteners.
| 99% of whey protein powders have it. I have to buy pure whey and
| then I add sugar to it (of course I add a much lower amount
| because I am not addicted to insanely sweet foods).
|
| Also, nearly every product that is labeled as low sugar has them.
| I make my own fruit spritzers with 1 part fruit juice and 4 parts
| soda water. Plenty sweet for me...
| mandmandam wrote:
| I don't know if you can get them where you are, but I'll plug
| Ireland's All Real protein bars here.
|
| They're fantastic. They use dates and honey for sweetness, with
| whey from happy grass-fed Irish cows. And they're not even much
| more expensive than the awful alternatives.
| jimmywetnips wrote:
| it's a real shame. There are a few brands who do try natural
| stuff, including some pea protein vegan powders. But they kinda
| taste nasty if im being honest. There just isn't a market
| that's distinctly anti-artificial sugar yet, besides for the
| vegan crowd.
|
| But I hope the trend of companies like spindrift keeps
| increasing. low sugar, no articicial sweetners.
| coliveira wrote:
| I believe any change in diet also causes a possible change in gut
| microbiomes. Is there any reason to be alarmed about this?
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| As with most science it's a "warrants further investigation"
| kind of issue
| xeromal wrote:
| Science compounds so even if this doesn't tell you why the gut
| microbiome changed, it's useful to know that it did.
| kekkidy wrote:
| phyzome wrote:
| Not just "change in microbiome". It caused a change such that a
| gut flora transplant to mice caused the mice to have the same
| glucose reactions. So the artificial sweeteners change glucose
| metabolism, at least partly mediated by gut flora.
|
| (This has actually been known for at least 3 or 4 years.)
| Thrymr wrote:
| "who knows what artificial sweeteners we might have missed out on
| due to lack of sloppy lab technique?" is gem.
| SevenNation wrote:
| Bottom line:
|
| > Collectively, our study suggests that commonly consumed NNS
| [non-nutritive sweeteners] may not be physiologically inert in
| humans as previously contemplated, with some of their effects
| mediated indirectly through impacts exerted on distinct
| configurations of the human microbiome.
|
| In other words, these sweeteners can alter gut bacteria in
| humans, each person can have a different reaction, and the
| consequences of these changes are largely unknown.
| hinkley wrote:
| I strongly feel that it's a good policy not to try to trick
| your body into thinking something is going on when it isn't.
| Tricking it into thinking you are sugar has consequences. So
| does tricking your body into thinking you have an active
| lifestyle (eg, weight lifting for aesthetics vs cross
| training).
| wrycoder wrote:
| The conclusions were at the very end, and I'm not really sure
| what they were. Not a very good article.
| jibe wrote:
| Almost like they expect people to read the whole thing.
| layer8 wrote:
| The article is still inconclusive.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Because the science is inconclusive, but these results
| are interesting anyway.
| Veliladon wrote:
| The holy grail of sugar substitution is ironically sugar. The
| left-handed isomer of glucose still hits our taste buds but
| doesn't get metabolized in the body. It just goes straight
| through. We've tried it before and it worked absolutely perfectly
| but to synthesize and then separate the isomers was prohibitively
| expensive.
|
| Whoever finds a way to make left-handed glucose economically is
| going to be fucking rich.
| Metacelsus wrote:
| Too bad the theoretically cheapest way (mirror-image
| microorganisms) is an enormous ecological risk.
| canadianfella wrote:
| kulahan wrote:
| Can you please elaborate on this? I tried googling it and
| just got a lot of seemingly unrelated stuff.
| [deleted]
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| Mirror image microorganisms process and produce molecules
| of opposite normal chirality as a result of their
| metabolism. Since there's no _a priori_ reason why life
| should prefer either left handed or right handed molecules,
| the way we got here is the result of the first proto-
| metabolic processes billions of years ago just _happening_
| to choose what we use today. If we introduced mirror image
| microorganisms into the ecosystem, the danger is they could
| outcompete existing organisms while simultaneously
| contaminating the environment with their mirror-image waste
| products.
| herrrk wrote:
| Presumably they would be poisoned by the large amount of
| right handed biochemistry thats everywhere already.. It
| might be super hard to keep them alive in nature at all.
|
| But if youre in the lab and thinking about it could ya
| whip us up some C-F eating/mineralizing micros? Talk
| about whats poisoning the biosphere..
| grogenaut wrote:
| in tl;dr scifi parlance, we could make it so that we'd
| have bountiful food and starve because we turned earth
| into an alien planet
| brookst wrote:
| Who you calling "we", l-grogenaut?
| dooglius wrote:
| Wouldn't they be at a strict disadvantage because they
| cannot eat other typical-chirality-producers for
| resources?
| AlanSE wrote:
| I think the idea is that we would keep them in a lab and
| feed them whatever works.
| kibwen wrote:
| For anyone interested in this concept, without spoiling
| too much, you should read the sci-fi book Starfish by
| Peter Watts. He has the entire text of the book up for
| free on his website, in glorious 1990s handcrafted HTML:
| https://www.rifters.com/real/STARFISH.htm
| vazma wrote:
| I am also interested to know that!
| ctoth wrote:
| Curious, did you remove the green goo post because you found
| something wrong with the reasoning or did you judge it to be
| an infohazard?
| antiterra wrote:
| Do we know that it doesnt have an effect on gut-biome though?
| Balgair wrote:
| There would be none:
|
| "..but cannot be used by living organisms as a source of
| energy because it cannot be phosphorylated by hexokinase, the
| first enzyme in the glycolysis pathway. "
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-Glucose
|
| EDIT: Ok, yeah, sorry. I'm sure _some_ bacteria out there
| could do something with it and make you have an upset
| stomach. But it 's not very likely.
| hgsgm wrote:
| That means it has no nutrition, not no effect.
|
| For example:
|
| > l-Glucose was also found to be a laxative
| herrrk wrote:
| Nature laughs at "not very likely".. We gotta get used to
| this as a species.
| nope96 wrote:
| Interesting! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-Glucose
| giarc wrote:
| "L-Glucose was also found to be a laxative," perhaps another
| factor in it's adoption.
| Filligree wrote:
| In what quantities? Often these tests use implausibly large
| amounts.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| I'd imagine it works like lactose, and if that's the case
| a "regular" dose will do plenty.
| malfist wrote:
| This is the source they used: https://www.giejournal.org/
| article/S0016-5107(03)01304-X/ful...
|
| Does was 24 grams. For reference, a 12 ounce can of coke
| has 39 grams of sugar.
|
| However, this was not a double blind study, so mileage my
| vary.
| shagie wrote:
| It is the same/similar mechanism as the infamous sugar
| free gummy bears.
|
| https://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/sugar-
| free-...
| orangepurple wrote:
| If you are looking for high speed mass discharge a
| heaping teaspoon of xylitol or maltitol (what is in sugar
| free gummy bears) plus coffee will do the trick within 15
| minutes.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| Be warned that you risk serious dehydration and/or
| electrolyte imbalance if you try this.
|
| What's used medically for this purpose (e.g. before a
| colonoscopy) is an osmotically balanced solution of
| polyethylene glycol, typically referred to as Macrogol.
|
| Takes a couple of hours of continuous sipping, close to 1
| liter total for an adult to get everything flushed, then
| you'll be discharging almost clear fluid by the end.
| r00fus wrote:
| So wait, is this another Olestra? Guess it depends on what
| kind of response you get in the gut.
| MadcapJake wrote:
| Actually that likely means there is a microbiome component,
| unfortunately
| phyzome wrote:
| Or just an osmotic effect.
| smeagull wrote:
| I never see much in replacing Sucrose with normal Glucose.
| Never understood why.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| L-arabinose is a thing and it's natural. Only really available
| in Japan though. Might give you some gas because some bacteria
| can break it down, but probably not as bad as xylitol,
| erythritol, etc.
| petra wrote:
| Another alternative is duox-matok's technology, that
| increases the surface area of sugar or something similar, and
| this allows to use 30%-50% less sugar for the same sweetness
| effect.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| It's available in the UK but it's quite expensive. Sold as a
| pre-meal supplement from what I can tell.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Any good sources you know of? Unless we are talking crazy
| expensive I feel like it could be pretty useful for a lot of
| home recipes. I don't make that much sugary stuff anyway.
| Does it caramelize like normal sugar when heated?
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| I would be surprised if it didn't caramelize. I don't know
| of any good sources, sorry.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| it does. it behaves identically to regular sugar except in
| how it interacts with other organic compounds.
| dvirsky wrote:
| Doesn't allulose work pretty much the same way?
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| Ooh, I should try that sometime
| dvirsky wrote:
| It's pretty awesome in terms of taste - it's just a bit
| less sweet but tastes just like sugar. I didn't find too
| much info on impact but it seems pretty safe. And you can
| really use it as a sugar, it even caramelizes. I use it
| to make home made sugar free ice cream with real sugary
| consistency. But for me personally, having too much of it
| makes my stomach rebel.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Do you use an ice cream maker?
| dvirsky wrote:
| Yeah. I can't say that I've gotten to professional
| quality but I'm a bit lazy with the recipes.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| Yeah I think arabinose is likely to have less of a GI
| effect (I have eaten some from the lab on a whim) but I
| can't find any references on this.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| The GI effect should be just directly correlated with how
| well large intestine microbiome can ferment these, IIUC?
| And I guess also with how much you need to have
| equivalent taste of 1 g sugar.
|
| As in, if it tastes sweet but is not absorbed in the
| small intestine, so has "no calories", it will inevitably
| all pass on to the large intestine where it can be
| fermented.
|
| As someone who absolutely hates the synthetic taste of
| aspartame etc. but has to stay on a low-FODMAP diet, I've
| just resigned to eating stuff with ordinary sugar and
| using sufficient moderation.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| According to the big W, part of it is due to inhibiting
| digestion of normal sugar, which tracks my understanding
| of chemistry. So there's a lot of factors.
| hebrox wrote:
| It's not legal yet in Europe, but can't wait to try it out!
| teeray wrote:
| Is there any way to do this (safely) in small batch?
| kccqzy wrote:
| I thought L-glucose and D-glucose would interconvert in water?
| They will reach an equilibrium with both present?
| Vloeck wrote:
| D-fructose and D-glucose interconvert in basic environment.
| You cannot convert L-glucose to D-glucose and vice-versa.
| tomp wrote:
| Why not make both isomers and feed them to bacteria? Only left-
| handed remains.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| It's gotta be something more to than that, even 50-50% sugar
| would be a great product in its own right.
| morepork wrote:
| Fructose is about 50% sweeter than sugar (sucrose), so you
| can save calories by substituting 2/3 of the quantity of
| sucrose with fructose
| tablespoon wrote:
| Maybe the problem is more with synthesizing sugar without
| biological help. After some cursory googling, it sounds
| like many artificial sweeteners are several orders of
| magnitude "sweeter" than table sugar, so you'd have to
| synthesize far more L-sucrose to get a similar effect.
| canadianfella wrote:
| actionfromafar wrote:
| True, you'd need tablespoons of it. :-/
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It seems with all the bacteria out there it seems like
| there would be one that does something obnoxious with
| L-sucrose.
| foxhill wrote:
| if we could make racemic glucose (i.e. a 50:50 split of
| D/L-glucose), the battle would be done.
|
| you'd expect to see this if we had a purely synthetic process
| for the creation of glucose in the lab. but, as far as i
| know, we only have other biological processes that produce
| glucose, and as such, only produce the one isomer.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| It is 100% possible to make glucose synthetically,
| racemically or otherwise. I believe it was done in the 60s
| and iirc sharpless used sugar synthesis to demonstrate the
| power of asymmetric epoxidation (which he won the Nobel
| for).
|
| It is however very _not_ economical to do so
| monkeywork wrote:
| I've seen the economics talked about a few times in this
| thread but having no experience at all with the industry
| - what is the difference between economical and not in
| actual dollar values?
|
| If you were to produce a KG of this vs say our common
| art-sweetners what is the cost multipler
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| Well keep in mind that stuff like sucralose may be more
| expensive to make but it's also selected because it's way
| more potent, so there's a lot of filler (usually
| cyclodextrin?) To fill out a packet and make a
| cooking/flavoring equivalent.
|
| Though I'm not 100% sure maybe sucralose is made by
| enzymatically installing those halogens? I could be very
| wrong.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Speaking of filler, it seems the experiment in question
| didn't control for that? Since there's so little
| artificial sweetener is it possible the gut flora are
| reacting to the filler?
| bribroder wrote:
| The experiment in the article explicitly does control for
| this
|
| > The participants (20 per group) were given sweetener
| packets of aspartame, sucralose, saccharin, or stevia,
| each bulked out with glucose to an equivalent size, with
| another group that got just glucose and another group
| that took no sweeteners at all.
|
| In this experiment, the artificial sweeteners used
| glucose as the filler. They also account for the effects
| of the glucose filler on the insulin response in all
| groups by measuring the difference in the response.
| lazide wrote:
| My guess is a minimum of 5-10x more expensive at scale.
|
| Sugar is _really_ cheap, especially if you don't mind
| which particular local source you use (sugar cane, corn
| syrup, etc).
| Veliladon wrote:
| Because we have effectively infinite amounts of d-glucose in
| the biosphere and that's incredibly hard to compete with on
| cost.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| Also there's more than one stereocenter in "generalized
| glucose"
| gowld wrote:
| > Why not make both isomers and feed them to bacteria? Only
| left-handed remains.
|
| The hard part is synthesis, not separation.
| adwn wrote:
| Just a heads up: you seem to be shadow-banned, all your
| posts are flagged.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| His post looks normal to me...
|
| Apparently he got unshadowbanned recently.
| adwn wrote:
| I vouched for a couple of them; the others are still
| dead.
| eternalban wrote:
| What posts? It shows empty for me.
| Haga wrote:
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Aspartame and asesulfame make my farts smell like literal death -
| have done so for over a decade, took me a long while to figure
| out the reason. _Something_ is going on with my gut bacteria and
| those two.
|
| I could also easily down 1.5 litres of sugar free Pepsi MAX in an
| afternoon. On the other hand a can of sugar coke is more ...
| satiating? Can't drink EU-Pepsi at all, because even the sugar
| version has the two horsemen of the fartocalypse in it =(
| jhassell wrote:
| Doesn't the risk of being overweight completely overwhelm the
| risk of a not-yet-understood gut flora change? We know that even
| being minimally overweight poses a risk; a Nurses' Health Study
| reported that women with BMIs in the range of 24-24.9 had a
| 5-fold greater risk of diabetes when compared with women with
| BMIs of less than 22.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| It seems that despite increased risk of diabetes, being
| slightly overweight actually decreases all-cause mortality and
| being grade 1 obese doesn't affect all-cause mortality. I heard
| of this through a podcast and I'm not super educated, but it
| seems to me that the relationship of weight and health is more
| complicated, since I agree that increasing risk of heart
| disease, diabetes, etc. is bad. It just doesn't seem to bear
| out in actually killing a person. Maybe it decreases their
| quality of life drastically instead?
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4855514/
| stnmtn wrote:
| Reading this study, I believe you are misinterpreting the
| results. It says nothing about if being overweight decreases
| all-cause mortality relative to normal weight. It only says
| being overweight decreases all-cause mortality relative to
| obesity. That is how I read it at least, I can't find a
| baseline for the HR of a normal weight in the study linked.
|
| edit: this is wrong, see reply below
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| The article explicitly compares overweight, grade 1
| obesity, grade 2 & 3 obesity together, obesity generally,
| _relative to normal weight_.
|
| > Random-effects summary all-cause mortality HRs for
| overweight (BMI of 25-<30), obesity (BMI of >=30), grade 1
| obesity (BMI of 30-<35), and grades 2 and 3 obesity (BMI of
| >=35) _were calculated relative to normal weight (BMI of
| 18.5- <25)_.
| stnmtn wrote:
| Great point, I completely misread that. Edited my
| original comment!
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| Yeah I had to read this a few times too! I was totally
| baffled by having 3 categories for obesity, but one of
| the categories is grade 2 & 3 categories together, and
| one of the categories is grade 1, 2, & 3 together.
| eternityforest wrote:
| Why is this such a hard question? You would think a question
| as ubiquitous as "What should I eat?" would have more
| consensus.
|
| Some studies show extra mortality in normal to underweight
| people, including from common causes relevant to average
| people, but there's also a ton of work on calorie
| restriction?
|
| Is low BMI dangerous, or does it just commonly go along with
| a lifestyle that might lead to injuries and rhabdomyolysis
| and a case of diarrhoea in a place without hospitals?
|
| It would be interesting to see adventurousness treated as a
| separate category for controls.
|
| In the past there was no fridge, people stored their own
| energy, and there was no pepper spray and cops and forklifts,
| exercise programs had the extra constraint of physical
| activity being directly needed to survive.
|
| What amount and type of activity should a modern person who
| has reason to believe they'll probably never be in a serious
| fair fight with no weapons or need to walk 3 days to get help
| do?
|
| How much should someone eat when they do not ever plan to
| drink untreated water or go somewhere away from medical help
| if they catch some parasite that causes rapid weight loss?
|
| Is the ideal profile of nutrition changed for someone who
| will not be exposed to woodsmoke, bacterial illness, etc?
|
| And then furthermore, if higher BMI isn't helpful by itself,
| what should people who ARE in poverty or otherwise exposed to
| more stresses do?
|
| Is there a subgroup that needs a metabolic reserve? Should
| those people eat less to save money and be able to DoorDash
| if needed and have external reserves like people without
| poverty or adventurousness?
|
| Or is there a real independent benefit to some level of fat?
| adrianN wrote:
| I wonder whether that is true for all age groups. In very old
| patients, being somewhat overweight can act as an important
| energy reserve that allows the patient to survive an illness
| or a hospital visit. Younger patients generally are more
| robust, I assume they benefit less from a couple of extra
| kilos of fat.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| The study accounts for age and shows the phenomenon is
| consistent across multiple age ranges.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| Yes THANK YOU. This is why it is infuriating to me that
| elementary/middle school students are still being graded on
| their BMI in gym class and taught to maintain a "good" BMI.
| With my body composition, I would be absolutely emaciated if
| I was on the lower end of the "healthy" BMI range. As it is I
| am bordering on obese, which if you saw me in person would be
| completely preposterous. The BMI itself is a pretty useless
| metric of body fat, and body fat is a pretty useless metric
| for health.
| cowmoo728 wrote:
| It is possible (likely?) that the observed gut flora changes
| interfere with normal metabolic function, causing long term
| weight gain.
|
| 2020 - "future studies should consider the metabolic pathways
| of different artificial sweeteners. Further (long-term) human
| research investigating the underlying physiological pathways of
| different artificial sweeteners on microbiota alterations and
| its related metabolic pathway is warranted to evaluate the
| potential impact of their use on body weight control and
| glucose homeostasis."
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7817779/
| andrewmutz wrote:
| Yes, there has been some fascinating research coming out
| suggesting that the gut flora composition can have a causal
| effect on obesity. For example, if you transplant feces from
| overweight humans and normal weight humans to mice, the mice
| will gain (or not gain) weight, depending on which person the
| feces came from:
|
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1241214
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| It does feel a bit like "Big Sugar" at work, demonising its
| replacement with FUD.
|
| The way they lump them all together feels really odd to me.
|
| It would be like a report saying non-hydrocarbon vehicles are
| bad for reason X. Why would anyone but the sugar industry care
| about all the different substitutes for sugar in such an
| undifferentiated way?
| rpdillon wrote:
| Last paragraph:
|
| > They make sure to note that they're not calling for
| consumption of sugar instead, because excess sugar is
| absolutely, positively linked to adverse health effects.
|
| I think they care about the substitutes because that's an
| area where the harm is often debated and much is still
| unknown. They don't seem to be suggesting that sugar is
| preferable in any way.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Doesn't the risk of being overweight completely overwhelm the
| risk of a not-yet-understood gut flora change?"
|
| Probably. However those outcomes can be achieved in ways that
| don't involve sugar substitutes (eg question implies a false
| dichotomy).
| shkkmo wrote:
| As far as we know, yes. As other commenter have noted, I
| wouldn't discount the potential role of gut flora changes on
| obesity risk. This is explicitly called out in the
|
| This study isn't saying that everyone should stop eating
| artificial-sweetners. It is saying that the previous
| understanding that artificial sweeteners are biologically inert
| and risk free.
|
| This study shows that we need to do further research to
| understand what the gut biome changes entail. It also suggests
| that we should be a more circumspect about replacing sugars in
| our diet without worrying about trying to reduce our overall
| desire for sweet foods / drinks.
| colordrops wrote:
| Many non overweight people eat these fake sweeteners too.
| hinkley wrote:
| You can be skinny and diabetic too.
|
| One of the American Ninja Warriors last season wore an
| insulin pump. While competing. I've since noticed pictures of
| a few competitive runners with them.
|
| Weight and metabolic function are correlated, not equivalent.
| roxymusic1973 wrote:
| She was type 1 diabetic, so perhaps not relevant:
| https://www.diabetesselfmanagement.com/blog/an-american-
| ninj...
| colordrops wrote:
| That's my point. We shouldn't only be concerned about
| overweight people.
| maxk42 wrote:
| You're making the assumption that artificial sweeteners solve
| the problem of weight gain. The studies that have been
| conducted so far show only a minimal impact to body composition
| by switching from sugar to artificial sweeteners. There are
| more mechanisms at play than are presently understood.
| time_to_smile wrote:
| You're making the implicit assumption that sugar substitutes
| _do_ reduce the risk of being overweight. At least the first
| post I found on the topic suggest there is evidence of "a
| positive correlation between regular use of artificial
| sweetener and weight gain"[0]
|
| 0.https://www.publichealthpost.org/research/can-sugar-
| substitu...
| tuatoru wrote:
| This article suggests a mechanism for that positive
| correlation: impairment of glycaemic response by the most
| commonly used artificial sweeteners.
| [deleted]
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Doesn't the risk of being overweight completely overwhelm the
| risk of a not-yet-understood gut flora change?
|
| It's possible that becoming overweight could cause a gut flora
| change, or a gut flora change could make you likely to become
| overweight.
|
| There's no benefit to ending research into diabetes after you
| find an association between overweight and diabetes, or in
| making an assumption that the condition of one's gut flora and
| being overweight are independent.
| awestroke wrote:
| False dichonomy; you can choose to consume neither sugar nor
| sweeteners
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yep. I used to drink a lot of diet soda. I stopped that
| probably 10 years ago or so. I don't use artificial
| sweeteners in anything. I mostly drink water now. When I
| drink coffee or tea it's unsweetened. For an occasional treat
| such as a milkshake I will use sugar, sparingly.
|
| Incidentally, when I drink diet soft drinks now they taste
| like chemicals. Completely unnatural sweetness. I don't find
| them enjoyable at all. But when I used to drink them daily, I
| liked them, really almost craved them.
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| That, and it's also possible to consume (moderate amounts of)
| sugar and have a good BMI.
| VLM wrote:
| The local minima for diabetes is likely not the overall minima
| for death rate. I would be surprised if the minima for diabetes
| diagnosis was NOT slightly below the minima for overall death
| rate.
|
| The famous JAMA article from 2013 that everyone likes to cite,
| including in comments below, showed no significant increase in
| death rate for grade 1 obesity and the effects really kicked in
| strongly around grade 2 and 3 obesity.
|
| The more recent BMJ article from 2016 that no one wants to
| cite, showed minimum death rate in the 20-24 BMI range
| depending on smoking history. That paper reported the most
| reliable looking studies of 'non-smokers followed up for over
| 20 years' had a minimum total death rate at a BMI around 20-22,
| but that does not support the "Healthy at Every Size" narrative
| so its memoryholed.
|
| I try to keep up to date on diet and supplement journal
| articles; there's probably journal articles newer than 2016
| thats not in my notes yet.
|
| Something EVERY study seems to agree on is the death-curve
| looks very U shaped kind of like computer chip hardware failure
| rates. The point being that studies disagree on the exact
| minima death rate vs BMI which is only relevant for large scale
| population goals, however they all agree that going from,
| perhaps, 22 to 23 will have an effect that although possibly
| measurable if across enough people, will tiny and be deep in
| the decimal places, whereas going from "twenties" to "forties"
| for BMI means the patient is unquestionably going to die very
| young, although EXACTLY how young may vary from study to study.
|
| The problem with BMI of course is it was originally a screening
| criteria to "find the worst quartile and counsel them" but as
| happens with all metrics over time eventually the rough and
| imprecise low resolution screening criteria turned into an
| "optimize for its own sake" metric and people getting very
| weird and hyperfocused about their personal metric calculated
| to five sig figs at least.
| [deleted]
| hinkley wrote:
| In geriatric patients, being slightly overweight has better
| prospects than being underweight.
|
| I'm not sure what the pathology is there, other than hitting
| starvation cycles if you get certain illnesses, and possibly
| bone density.
| googlryas wrote:
| Sure, if sugar sweetener is the only thing keeping you
| overweight.
|
| But it's probably harder for your body to deal with being both
| overweight and having a weird gut biome simultaneously.
| narag wrote:
| _Doesn 't the risk of being overweight completely overwhelm the
| risk of a not-yet-understood gut flora change?_
|
| If you put me in that dilemma, I would choose the artificial
| sweeteners every single time. So yes. Diets are difficult
| enough.
|
| But...
|
| Although I distrust all the studies that seem to nudge me into
| stopping dieting, and the article mentions some of them that
| are now discredited or impossible to reproduce, I don't simply
| ignore them. Maybe it's "Big Sugar", as a fellow HNer called
| it, but maybe not.
|
| Flora disruption seems very real to me. I had to quit Coke
| years ago (don't ask) and now I've quit sodas alltogether. I
| don't like coffee, but fortunately caffeine is sold in pills,
| and much cheaper.
|
| I mention soda specifically because that's what kept me needing
| sweeteners. Now I drink only water, beer when out with friends,
| and tea, that unless I'm actively trying to lose weight, I have
| with one cube or nothing.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Gut flora probably affect calorie and nutrient absorption. It
| seems worth checking whether the gut flora changes increase
| calorie absorption or cause increased appetite (say, by causing
| nutrient deficiency) before deciding which path is better for
| weight loss.
| docandrew wrote:
| Any change in absorption is going to be minuscule in
| comparison to the difference in calories one gets from all
| the excess sugar.
|
| Anecdotally, switching from full-sugar soda to diet has been
| a hugely beneficial change to my own health. Would water be
| better? Maybe, but I'll settle for harm reduction.
| hinkley wrote:
| I switched from soda to tea three or four times in my life
| before swearing off soda entirely. Lost 10 lbs every time.
|
| The problem with artificial sweeteners is that we have
| "taste buds" for sweet in our intestines, and there's a
| theory that reacting to that increases absorption, so your
| body pulls more carbs from French fries you ate with your
| Diet Coke.
|
| This is likely a big part of why lecturing people about
| CICO is such a dick move.
|
| "Calories" in food are net calories, not gross calories. We
| didn't calculate the calories in bread by burning it in a
| sensor chamber. We got it by isolating volunteers,
| measuring the energy in their food versus the energy in
| their poop, assuming the rest ends up in your body.
|
| But of course any heat generated by gut microbes might be
| shed, and the hydrogen bonds in your burps are also lost
| calories.
|
| I was a very gassy person when I was a young beanpole. Not
| so much anymore.
| [deleted]
| layer8 wrote:
| > there's a theory that reacting to that increases
| absorption, so your body pulls more carbs
|
| There doesn't seem to be any good studies about that.
| Anecdotally, as someone who has been drinking 2-3 liters
| of Diet Coke or Coke Zero daily for over two decades, I
| haven't experienced such an effect.
| hinkley wrote:
| George Burns smoked cigars into his nineties. He was
| famous for smoking them while performing.
|
| Anecdotes don't mean shit for public policy.
|
| And is this even an anecdote? Were you overweight before
| you started drinking diet and now you're not, with no
| other lifestyle changes? Food? Mood? Exercise?
| layer8 wrote:
| > Anecdotes don't mean shit for public policy.
|
| Right, and so yours doesn't either.
|
| My point is, the theory that artificial sweeteners
| somehow cause more "net" calorie intake doesn't have much
| grounded evidence. Presenting it as a likely truth is
| fallacious.
| [deleted]
| kenjackson wrote:
| Anecdotally my wife changed her diet and basically tried
| to replace sugar with sucralose wherever she could. The
| end result was a significant weight loss. I should note
| she also did start exercising more at the same time, so
| definitely not a controlled study. But the delta in
| calories from sugar was far greater than the caloric
| expenditure from exercise.
| hinkley wrote:
| I started long distance walking this year, and nearly
| every time I see the calorie count I am reminded of the
| aphorism about not being able to outrun a bad diet. I
| think that's bullshit, with a proviso.
|
| The provision is that you can't outrun a bad diet by
| exercising a half hour a day. That 30 minutes is a number
| doctors settled on not to scare sedentary people into not
| starting an exercise program. You really need an hour or
| more a day.
|
| I'm trying to get my walk route down to 90 minutes, in
| prep for a half marathon next year. If I stop for a
| matcha at the halfway point, I've still burned well over
| twice what I consumed. If I get the smoothie still come
| out ahead.
|
| The real "secret" there is that when I watch TV I nibble.
| Not getting food on books is the only reason I don't
| nibble when reading. What I've done in a 90 minute walk
| is to forestall eating more than one single thing in that
| ninety minutes. And lowered my stress level. Cortisol is
| the other killer here.
|
| Even before that the nearest good coffee shop was a mile
| away and my net calories were ~100. If I avoided a
| certain cream based beverage.
|
| For some people, banning prepared foods does a similar
| thing. Preparing a snack takes fifteen minutes instead of
| fifteen seconds. You just don't have as much time in the
| day to stuff your face once the convenience is gone.
|
| The other aphorism is that you lose weight at the grocery
| store, which I do believe. If you come home with fruit
| instead of pie and chips you've already fought half the
| battle.
| watwut wrote:
| Regular moderate exercise improves your health results
| _whether you loose weight or not_. It is one of the few
| interventions that actually have statistical results. It
| also affects your life positively by making you stronger
| or faster or just able to walk longer depending on how
| exactly you exercise.
|
| If you dont care about health or improvment in things
| like strength stamina, then the "dont exercise it is
| waste" knee jerk response makes some sense. If you care
| about health, it does not at all.
| hinkley wrote:
| I've only lost a few pounds but inches off my waist. To
| the point I'm wondering if I'm going to have to
| repurchase running shorts next year. Muscle is heavy.
|
| To your point on mood: there's definitely a feedback loop
| or three there. Once you say "fuck it" a lot of things
| unravel and everything spirals. Better mood means more
| chores get done, which is both more exercise and improves
| self image and mood. Being happier about the mirror does
| the same thing.
|
| Before the pandemic I wanted to walk a 10k. Now that's
| practically my baseline, and new goals I wouldn't allow
| myself are popping up. You can get a lot of places in 10k
| round trip, especially if you aren't a sweaty mess on the
| other end. That's 75% of the way to downtown for me.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > Any change in absorption is going to be minuscule in
| comparison to the difference in calories one gets from all
| the excess sugar.
|
| I think that depends on how much it takes to have this
| effect. If the equivalent of one diet soda every couple
| days (the doses in the article seemed pretty small to me?)
| is acting like a kind of pesticide, even in small doses,
| and killing a lot of calorie-eating gut flora, the harm
| _might_ exceed the benefit. On the other hand if the
| artificial sweetener is replacing the sugar in 64+oz of
| soda per day rather than 16ish oz every couple days, sure,
| the benefits probably overwhelm any harm.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| The issue is not necessarily just nutrient absorption, but
| also the body's production of GLP-1: that influences appetite
| and blood sugar regulation.
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33820962/
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| I interpreted this headline as "sugar replaces surprise" - if
| people eat enough sugar they don't care to be surprised anymore,
| they loose their curiosity, they get their dopamine hits from the
| sugar rather then from learning surprising things.
| aliqot wrote:
| This would be a good short story writing prompt. I wonder if it
| would be a net-gain, as a developer, to crank out a short story
| each morning as part of normal kata. Seems like it'd juice the
| creativity-piece of the brain.
| ajkjk wrote:
| I feel like this isn't a surprise at all, but I guess it's good
| to have empirical evidence of it. It's abundantly clear
| anecdotally that the people who drink tons of artificial-
| sweetened stuff are _not_ as healthy as those who consume neither
| tons of sugar OR artificial sweetener.
|
| Or put differently: everyone who chugs diet soda seems to be
| weirdly skinny or weirdly fat, so there is clearly some
| microbiome effect going on.
| bena wrote:
| A variation of the "blue car" bias.
|
| You notice the weirdly skinny or fat, then notice what they
| drink.
| ajkjk wrote:
| The existence of a bias doesn't mean the observation is
| invalid, just that the bias has to be taken into account.
|
| Anyway, it's definitely not true in this case. I notice the
| very unusual instance of people drinking soda because it's so
| rare these days (among my extended social circle). In some
| cases I _hear_ about it before I meet the person ("my bf
| drinks like a liter of soda a day" or whatever) -- and then
| meet them and, unsurprisingly, they're weirdly skinny or fat.
| bena wrote:
| Yes, I'm sure you're a completely unbiased source of
| whether or not you're an unbiased source and you're not
| discounting all the times this didn't happen because you
| didn't bother to note the occurrence.
| ajkjk wrote:
| I don't think I'm unbiased? I just believe I'm taking the
| bias into consideration. Pointing out an obvious bias
| isn't a useful counterargument, it's just a way of saying
| "whatever you think you've noticed in your life, ignore
| it, you will always be wrong". Intellectually it's a
| complete non-starter, it's just a way to write off
| impressions you don't agree with (instead of, say,
| debating it, offering supporting or counter-evidence,
| etc). Obviously you are free to ignore the opinions of a
| random internet commenter, of course. But I like to
| mention what I've noticed in case it resonates (or anti-
| resonates) with any other casual readers.
| bena wrote:
| What you are calling evidence is useless. You may believe
| you are taking the bias into consideration, but you can't
| actually know if you are or aren't. Your whole bit is the
| non-starter.
|
| But my "counter-evidence" would simply be me saying
| "Well, I don't see that". To which you would respond that
| it was actually _I_ who wasn 't being observant. When
| there is no real way to determine that. And that
| discussion itself is intellectually bankrupt.
|
| My pointing out that your recollection of casual
| observations and your self-assessment of how well you
| "took the bias into consideration" is debate. I'm
| questioning the source of your statistics.
|
| Because even in this study, it's from 120 people. Total.
| Who self-reported they had never had artificial
| sweeteners.
|
| And the other obvious thing is that you are also free to
| ignore my opinions. I like to mention when someone is
| offering biased anecdotes in place of substantive
| discussion. In case it resonates.
| layer8 wrote:
| Anecdotally, I drink a lot of Diet Coke and am neither
| skinny nor fat.
| Spivak wrote:
| You know your own life best but you might be missing the
| underlying causes.
|
| Overweight person A drinks diet soda because they struggle
| with losing weight and use it to avoid drinking calories.
|
| Underweight person B drinks diet soda because they have
| body image issues and/or a mild-to-severe ED and are afraid
| to gain weight.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Yeah, all valid. I guess the reason it seems obvious to
| me that the diet soda is directly affecting weight is
| that so many of the people with weight problems don't
| seem to think the soda can have anything to do with it.
| "But it's diet!" says, for instance, my mom.
| sosborn wrote:
| What is your mom's average daily calorie count?
| beardyw wrote:
| Me too. I thought the surprise was going to be that they are
| good for you!
| pwinnski wrote:
| Correlation/causation question there. It is very plausible that
| people already in categories you consider weird are choosing
| diet soda because they agree with you and are trying to avoid
| making the issue more severe.
| ajkjk wrote:
| true. My intuition is that that's not the case though. I
| should add, I don't know _any_ non-diet soda drinkers, and
| the diet soda drinkers are the ones with weight issues.
| pwinnski wrote:
| I drank non-diet soda semi-regularly before deciding that I
| had put on too much weight, so I started a very austere
| diet. The _only_ reason I 've been able to stick to the
| diet as long as I have is the sweetness of Pepsi Zero Sugar
| Mango. So that soda, in particular, has helped me lose 23
| pounds and counting. Without it, I think I would have
| series trouble staying on a diet so strict.
|
| So yeah, I have a weight issue, and I'm diet soda drinker,
| but for me, at least, you had the cause and effect
| reversed.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Fair enough. I guess the root cause is the need to have
| sweetness in your diet, though? Which, yeah, might be
| mostly unchangeable now that you're already in that state
| (presumably from a long diet of soda).
|
| incidentally as a person who did not grow up drinking
| soda, it's sickeningly sweet to me. It bothers me a lot,
| also, that it is actually much sweeter than it tastes due
| to the carbonation -- if you drink a flat soda you get a
| better impression of what you're "really" drinking, which
| is basically just watered-down syrup.
| [deleted]
| dr_kiszonka wrote:
| Good article!
|
| I spent one evening last week on reviewing the role of sugar
| substitutes in diabetes prevention. Sadly, it seems that most of
| them, except for perhaps Xylitol, mess with our insulin response.
| I decided to starting to cut down on my Coke Zero, but it is a
| struggle...
| lisper wrote:
| TL;DR: sugar substitutes may be bad for you because of how
| bacteria in your gut metabolize them. Or maybe not. Either way,
| sugar is still worse.
|
| Not that much of a surprise actually.
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| So, are monkfruit or stevia bad for you? I'm a heavy user.
| technoooooost wrote:
| Everything bad, eat what makes you happy, we get cancer one way
| or the other
| mandmandam wrote:
| Stevia and Xylitol seem much less disruptive to your gut than
| sucralose or saccharin, but I'm not an expert.
|
| Even a world-class nutritionist can't tell you what their
| effect on _you_ will be with certainty. The only way to be sure
| is to cut them out of your diet for 6 weeks or so and see what
| happens.
| aenis wrote:
| Anecdata. I did quite a few experiments on myself, as I practice
| alternate day fasting and keto diet for extended periods of time,
| and routinely maintain high blood ketone body levels (3-9mmol/l).
| Drinking beverages with artificial sweeteners (coke zero) did not
| change my ketone levels - or interrupted them going up. I think
| it may be overall beneficial since those beverages make low carb
| diets way easier.
| pcorsaro wrote:
| I don't doubt your statement about the artificial sweeteners,
| but how in the hell are you getting to 9mmol/l of ketones? I've
| seen levels around 5 after several days of fasting. You'd have
| to be ingesting ketone esters or something to get to 9.
| aenis wrote:
| TLDR: Long fasted cardio. No exogenous ketones needed.
|
| My wife and I have the same dietary regime when we need to
| lose weight - but I exercise, and she does not. We do
| 0-calorie alternate day fasting + strict keto on the eating
| days. I do quite a bit of fasted cardio - I cycle to the
| office 3 days per week, on my fasting days, and thats 3x72km
| of cycling over hard terrain and usually in the wind.
|
| I am around 6-9 mmol/l on fasting days and 3-4 mmol/l on keto
| days, and she - same diet, but no exercise - is around 1.5-2
| mmol/l on fasting days and 0.5-1mmol/l on keto days. All
| measured around 6pm when our ketone bodies are usually at
| their highest levels.
|
| We reach those levels at around 3-4 weeks of following the
| diet. (We use this diet every year in the autumn, to burn
| what we gained over the summer of beer, eating out and other
| indulgences).
|
| A few other differences: - fasted cardio means I get to
| maintain high ketone body concentrations through the night
| and in the morning. I routinely get 5-6mmol/l at 7am
| following the fasting+cycling days. - fasted cardio makes me
| very satiated the following day; I eat a very small keto
| breakfast and can't stand the sight of food till the evening.
| I maintain high ketosis through the day and have no problem
| with energy levels. Weird. - i have very low blood sugar, at
| around 2-3mmol/l on the fasting+cycling days. First few days
| are hard, then it's getting easier and easier.
|
| I did ADF and ADF+keto many times in my life, usually for 2-3
| months, and it always works, but only when I added long,
| steady-state fasted cardio did I start to experience those
| very high levels of ketone body concentrations. It was very
| scary at first, but nothing bad happened.
|
| For comparison, while doing a multi-day fast - the longest I
| did was 82 hours - I am reaching something like 3mmol/l and
| feel very miserable throughout (not physically, but
| mentally). Short fasts (36hr) and keto are significantly
| easier. Weight drops very, very quickly.
| smaddox wrote:
| Very interesting. Thanks for sharing!
| herrrk wrote:
| Thats freaking fascinating. Thanks!
| dawnerd wrote:
| Same, I do keto about half of the year and diet sodas have zero
| effect at all on ketone and glucose levels.
| wrycoder wrote:
| The article points out that different artificial sweeteners
| have different glycemic responses, so you could try some
| others.
| aenis wrote:
| Yup, it's an interesting research - even if it's poorly
| summarized. I will look for more info, since we use a lot of
| sweeteners. I have a sweet tooth and my wife bakes a lot of
| keto cakes and makes keto desserts with them. Surely some are
| better than others.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > They make sure to note that they're not calling for consumption
| of sugar instead, because excess sugar is absolutely, positively
| linked to adverse health effects. But attempting to replace it
| with artificial sweeteners may not be a good way to go, either
|
| Oh no, what will the food industry that got us addicted to sugar
| will do ?
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