Fructose is a toxin

[WiseOne]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

Interesting analysis based on biochemical pathways offered by a UCSF professor, as well as his explanation of a key error in Ancel Keyes' report on the association between a low fat diet and reduced rates of heart disease (cliff notes version:  he forgot to use multivariate linear regression analysis to separate out the effects of fat from sugar in these diets).  He makes the case that the liver treats fructose as a toxin similar to alcohol, and that the consequences of fructose metabolism accounts for all aspects of "metabolic syndrome".

The video is 1.5 hours but well worth it.  I haven't had time to look up the guy's original papers though.  Too busy searching my kitchen to find all the little ways that sugar is getting sneaked into foods!

[lordmetroid]

I changed my diet from a carbohydrate based diet in march, eliminating bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, sweets and other starchy foods in favor of green vegetables such as broccoli, brussels sprouts, asparagus, bell pepper, etc. and adding more fatty sauces like bearnaise and mayonnaise to fill the gap energy needs.

I previously weighed 115kg and now I weigh 80kg. A drop of 35kg in less than a year. I feel great and my body is much healthier. Never gonna touch that white poison ever again.

[MachineGhost]

I knew I didn't like Ancel Keys, but I didn't know he went the other direction and falsified the high carb propaganda as well.  What a schmuck!

You can add galactose to the toxin list too.  It's the milk sugar.  Fructose is actually metabolized by a pathway that is pro-aging.  Literally.  I saw a flowchart somewhere once showing this.

It's kind of annoying about galactose as I plan on making a low-carb ice cream using stevia when the machine gets here in a few days.  I guess half of one toxin is better than a full two toxins?  Heh!

[MachineGhost]

I previously weighed 115kg and now I weigh 80kg. A drop of 35kg in less than a year. I feel great and my body is much healthier. Never gonna touch that white poison ever again.

It's not necessarily "white poison" so much as it is eating too much of it.  Carb homeostasis is at 30% of calories.  So long as you avoid fructose/galatose and stick to the 30%, you'll be as healthy as optimally possible.  Too low carbs has negative knockon side effects that will show up over time just as too high.

[Reub]

MG, I believe that 30% carbs for people who already have metabolic issues (which is many of us) might be too much.

[moda0306]

In enough doses, most things go from having diminishing returns to negative returns.  I have no doubts that sugars, especially fructose, fit squarely into that mold.

30% carbs miiiight be too much for some people, but if you manage to eat that 30% carbs in the form of potatoes and vegetables with oil and butter (not to mention meat in the meal) to help slow down digestion, I've read this significiantly reduces the negative impact of the carbs you are eating, while still giving your body the raw materials needed to function at optimum health.  If one tries to cut carbs down to <20%, it becomes exceedingly difficult to get the necessary amount of micro-nutrients, to boot.  So unless you're really getting your orange and green vegetables in there to get that 20% of carbs, you might be malnourished.

[MachineGhost]

MG, I believe that 30% carbs for people who already have metabolic issues (which is many of us) might be too much.

30% is the spillover point where too much glucose starts to cause organ damage, especially the pancreas.  There's simply no reason to eat more carbs than that.  Even those long-fabled endurance runners doing carb loading perform better on less carbs and more fat.  The body is designed to optimally run on fat, not carbs.  Throw it in the trashcan along with "aerobic" exercise.  I relish attacking orthodox dogma when it its flat out wrong, but it just gets highly annoying doing it year after year after year after year after year after year after year...

As to post-prandial glucose/insulin spiking, well I think your and my experience shows that even 30% isn't going to solve the problem.  Its two different issues here.

[moda0306]

MG,

Have you explored the ideas in "The Perfect Health Diet?"

I find them to contain the best balance of arguments/priorities in diet theory.  At least from my "diminishing returns" perspective on things.

It's essentially Paleo + Potatoes ...

(with plenty of butter to reduce glycemic index, of course)

[Reub]

But I feel so much better after aerobic exercise....except for my foot, and my knees, and my back...

[moda0306]

I find that "power exercises" done in succession give me the good feeling of aerobic with few drawbacks.

Doing clean & snatch is like the best of all worlds of exercise, IMO... unless you count the last rep where you feel like you miiiiight just lose the bar.

[MachineGhost]

Have you explored the ideas in "The Perfect Health Diet?"

Yes, I've been eating that way for almost two years now.  It wasn't much of a change except to actually eat more net carbs.  It does get a little boring sometimes eating just rice and potatoes.  Fixing everything individually from scratch just doesn't taste as good as meal planning and recipes ahead of time which is a lot more work.  I need to get on the ball with more gluten-free flour recipes than just pizza once a week.

Unfortunately, now I seem to higher FBG and post-prandial issues.  So I'm not sure if pulse-feeding in 8 hours and intermittent fasting for 16 hours is doing my FBG any good.  And its hard to tease out higher FBG from low carb intake apart from insulin insensitivity.

I'm going to follow Reub's lead and try out the SunFiber.  If we're doomed to have relatively higher FBG while low-carb, then I want to minimize the post-prandial damage at the very least.

[WiseOne]

Take a look at the video??  The theory is that carbs are not really a problem, it's the fructose in table sugar & corn syrup that's the issue.

I looked up sweeteners, and even the supposedly healthy ones are chock full of fructose:  honey & agave syrup are the worst.  Brown rice syrup and stevia don't contain fructose, and you can also get dextrose.

[MachineGhost]

I looked up sweeteners, and even the supposedly healthy ones are chock full of fructose:  honey & agave syrup are the worst.  Brown rice syrup and stevia don't contain fructose, and you can also get dextrose.

Yes, I watched the entire video but its a couple of years old, so its a bit dated/narrow in perspective.  But seriously, do you think eating, say, 60% of your calories from dextrose is not going to have a detrimental effect?  Come on!  No only is it empty calories, but it is way past the homeostasis point for glucose.  Even the latest Food Pyramid recommends a max 10% of calories coming from simple sugars.

I didn't know brown rice syrup didn't container fructose, but unfortunately it contains arsenic and other nasty stuff.  I use dextrose myself for a carb source and stevia for everything else.  There's also trehalose which has very interesting anti-aging properties but there seems to be very little research available on its more down-to-earth effects.  Damn, now I have buyer's remorse after buying another 50lb bag of dextrose...

[WiseOne]

Biochemical pathways don't change in two years :-)  and nobody is saying to get 60% of calories from dextrose.  Good to use as a substitute sweetener instead of sucrose, that's all.

Fruit is ok to eat in moderation because the fiber slows the absorption of fructose and mitigates the toxic effects.

[MachineGhost]

Biochemical pathways don't change in two years :-)  and nobody is saying to get 60% of calories from dextrose.  Good to use as a substitute sweetener instead of sucrose, that's all.

My point was as far as obesity goes, there are more variables than just fructose to point the finger at.  It can't be singled out as the primary cause of the obesity epidemic, as easy and tempting as that may be.  But I don't argue with it being a toxin; we already discussed that in here about two years ago actually.  Did you read "The Perfect Health Diet" thread?

Because it is such a literal epidemic and occured so fast, I actually believe the obesity evidence is pointing towards dysfunctional gut microbiota.  No doubt fructose doesn't do that any good.  But neither does junk food and just about every other thing that is a modern marketing fiction of food convenience.

[MachineGhost]

Maybe extrapolating into nonsense....Are you basically saying not to eat fruit, which is obviously a rich source of fructose?

Don't eat high sugared fruits.  So stick to berries and things that are low-sugared.  I don't think there are any high fibered fruits that are also high sugared?  Maybe apples come close.  But as WiseOne indicated, "its the fiber, stupid!"    And for gawd's sake, stay away from fruit juice.  Pure marketing fiction. 

I guarantee if people just switched to drinking filtered water instad of all these flavorful-sugary-overpriced concoctions, they'll drop body fat within the year.  Even Diet Rite causes blood sugar swings and cravings.  Vicious circle.  Only solution is to go cold turkey and break the cycle of sweet fixes.

[MachineGhost]

SugarScience is the authoritative source for evidence-based, scientific information about sugar and its impact on health.

http://www.sugarscience.org/

[WiseOne]

I think I missed the Perfect Health diet thread, but hey, caught up with you guys eventually.  And thanks for the link!

One interesting implication of the analysis presented in the video:  you can safely consume about 24 calories of fructose at a time before the fat-storage pathway kicks in.  Take honey as an example.  There are about 7g fructose per tablespoon of honey, which translates to 28 calories.  So it appears that small amounts are fine, and you can probably get away with a bit more if taken with fiber (e.g. whole what toast).