• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Oh, what a tangled web we weave. When first we practise to deceive!

DavidGrahamJones

DavidGrahamJones

Well-Known Member
Messages
3,262
Location
Hazlemere
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Other
Dislikes
Newspapers
Just an interesting read, I think we're all aware of why sugar isn't great. Or carbs for that matter. Interesting how they sell sugar (and carbs). Even my GP keeps telling me that I need carbs for energy despite the obvious superfluous adipose tissue (fat to you and me) which is what my body seems to prefer to do with energy, not just excess, because there shouldn't be any.

http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2548255

Found another https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat

Sad really, so many of us have followed so called best advice from our GPs, nurses, NHS in the belief that the scientists who were their source of information are moral truthful people and I expect some are, they just should not be working for big corporations with money at stake.
 
Last edited:
Oh, what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive
But when we've practised quite a while
How vastly we improve our style!

To the point of cognitive dissonance, it seems! :D
 
DavidGrahamJones said:
Just an interesting read, I think we're all aware of why sugar isn't great. Or carbs for that matter. Interesting how they sell sugar (and carbs). Even my GP keeps telling me that I need carbs for energy despite the obvious superfluous adipose tissue (fat to you and me) which is what my body seems to prefer to do with energy, not just excess, because there shouldn't be any.

http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2548255

Found another https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat

Sad really, so many of us have followed so called best advice from our GPs, nurses, NHS in the belief that the scientists who were their source of information are moral truthful people and I expect some are, they just should not be working for big corporations with money at stake.
Click to expand...

It is sad and because of the wrong foods that was recommended to me by well meaning health care providers.
However, I have since learned that our brains do need glucose derived from a food source or if in starvation mode or ketosis from the liver.
Depending on who and how we live our lives, it depends on how much we need. I seem to need very little.
It has been this sort of opinion that has exacerbated the reason for eating the complex carbs scenario. That gave me so many problems.
For those with hyperinsulinaemia and insulinoma, the recommendations for glucose in your diet is arguably different, but, the necessity of carbs isn't!
I have heard so many times how good carbs are beneficial!
It is that opinion that has resulted in so many diabetics struggling unnecessarily with tragic circumstances.
 
There's been a fair bit of information recently about how Robert Yudkin's research was sabotaged by the likes of the charismatic Ancel Keys, and how apparently disastrous this has been for our health.

Having worked with scientist and been married to one (both for many years), i learned early on that though they may have highly specialised knowledge, they can be just as biased, blinkered, ignorant and fallible as the rest of us, and are quite capable on occasion of pursuing their own biased interests irrespective of actual facts - and just ass unwilling to change their stance if challenged. If you shout loud enough and long enough you can override the voice of more diffident truth tellers, but our problem is often knowing how to tell which of all these perceived experts we can believe.

Robbity
 
Robbity said:
Having worked with scientist and been married to one (both for many years),
they can be just as biased, blinkered, ignorant and fallible as the rest of us, and are quite capable on occasion of pursuing their own biased interests irrespective of actual facts - and just ass unwilling to change their stance if challenged. If you shout loud enough and long enough you can override the voice of more diffident truth tellers, but our problem is often knowing how to tell which of all these perceived experts we can believe.Robbity
Click to expand...

Trouble in paradise @Robbity?
 
I enjoyed that, especially this bit.

" Last December, the scientists responsible for the report received a humiliating rebuke from Congress, which passed a measure proposing a review of the way the advice informing the guidelines is compiled. "
 
You may not need carbohydrate for energy, the body can produce it from triglycerides in most cells; however there is one organ that cannot create its energy from triglycerides and has to obtain it from glucose and that is the brain.
 
Squire Fulwood said:
Trouble in paradise @Robbity?
Click to expand...
:D:D Just general frustration: but what else would you expect if you'd been on the receiving end of such erudite comments as "You don't have any clue about low carb diets...", and more recently "All sugar comes from sugar cane" and "It's quite OK to eat food with added sugar because there's less of it...." :wideyed: I expect better.

But my comments are mainly based on working for years for people who know an awful lot about a very narrow subject and often not all that much about life outside it. I have to admit that it came as a shock to discover that highly educated people, who I was initially in awe of, were in general just as ignorant as the rest of us.

Robbity
 
Brewers23 said:
You may not need carbohydrate for energy, the body can produce it from triglycerides in most cells; however there is one organ that cannot create its energy from triglycerides and has to obtain it from glucose and that is the brain.
Click to expand...

The conflicting arguments from all sources I have read, is how much!
It seems I don't need much at all!
The need for a form of glucose is indeed necessary, but it can be derived as well from the liver! Either glucagon or glycogen, can't remember which!
 
Brewers23 said:
You may not need carbohydrate for energy, the body can produce it from triglycerides in most cells; however there is one organ that cannot create its energy from triglycerides and has to obtain it from glucose and that is the brain.
Click to expand...
In which case I'm most of the way to being brain dead!

In spite of the fact that I've dramatically reduced my carbohydrate consumption to well below the supposed 130g carbs threshold we're told are needed to fuel our brains, cutting those carbs right down has cleared years of zombie brain fog and enabled me to think clearly and function like an real person again. Energy from fat/ketones works best for me.

Robbity
 
DavidGrahamJones said:
Just an interesting read, I think we're all aware of why sugar isn't great. Or carbs for that matter. Interesting how they sell sugar (and carbs). Even my GP keeps telling me that I need carbs for energy despite the obvious superfluous adipose tissue (fat to you and me) which is what my body seems to prefer to do with energy, not just excess, because there shouldn't be any.

http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2548255

Found another https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat

Sad really, so many of us have followed so called best advice from our GPs, nurses, NHS in the belief that the scientists who were their source of information are moral truthful people and I expect some are, they just should not be working for big corporations with money at stake.
Click to expand...
Yes. Thanks for that.
 
Robbity said:
But my comments are mainly based on working for years for people who know an awful lot about a very narrow subject and often not all that much about life outside it. I have to admit that it came as a shock to discover that highly educated people, who I was initially in awe of, were in general just as ignorant as the rest of us.
Robbity
Click to expand...

I witnessed that myself as a young person. Having been an apprentice and then worker I was surprised at the university graduates that were inserted into our hierarchy. Highly educated bright people who had never actually done any of the work they were now expected to do. They showed a surprising ignorance of how things actually worked but somehow maintained a high opinion of themselves. It wasn't their fault I suppose. Having been fed royal jelly I suppose they thought it was the answer.
 
Brewers23 said:
You may not need carbohydrate for energy, the body can produce it from triglycerides in most cells; however there is one organ that cannot create its energy from triglycerides and has to obtain it from glucose and that is the brain.
Click to expand...
The brain does need glucose yes however it can get this from the liver converting protein. Humans are designed to eat protein and fat, carbs in the diet are not needed at all, many people eating meat only diets (some for as long as 50 years) prove this
 
I doubt if this bit surprises many of us:

Link Between Sucrose and Elevated Serum Triglyceride Level
On July 1, 1965, the SRF’s Hickson visited D. Mark Hegsted, a faculty member of Stare’s department,24,25after publication of articles in Annals of Internal Medicine in June 196526- 29 linking sucrose to CHD. The first 2 articles26,27 reported results from an epidemiological study suggesting that blood glucose levels were a better predictor of atherosclerosis than serum cholesterol level or hypertension. The third28(p210)demonstrated that sucrose, more than starches, aggravated carbohydrate-induced hypertriglyceridemia and hypothesized that “perhaps fructose, a constituent of sucrose but not of starch, [was] the agent mainly responsible.” An accompanying editorial29(p1330) argued that these findings corroborated Yudkin’s research and that if elevated serum triglyceride levels were a CHD risk factor, then “sucrose must be atherogenic.”

On July 11, 1965, the New York Herald Tribune ran a full-page article on the Annals articles stating that new research “threatened to tie the whole business [of diet and heart disease] in a knot.”30 It explained that, while sugar’s association with atherosclerosis was once thought to be theoretical and supported by limited studies, the new research strengthened the case that sugar increased the risk of heart attacks.

(from the first link in the OP)
 
Scientists are just people - subject to the same vanities, biases, prejudices and self-interest as the rest of humanity. Recently watched a very interesting talk from the Sydney Opera House "Dangerous Ideas" series on what goes on behind the scenes in academia and research funding. It virtually guarantees self-interest rules. I sometimes wonder if we're kidding ourselves that anyone is truly unbiased - I think it's impossible.

 
The Sugar industry used the same scientists and the same methodology as the Tobacco industry had used previously to cloud the issues. And get the result they wanted.
 
Back
Top