The FastDay Forum

my quote was a quotation of the words that came out of his mouth on the radio recently. There was no qualification about fibre, but nobody tackled him about fruit sugar so perhaps he didn't get to that.

I would expect him to moderate his views so that the fruit industry lobby and the brainwashed masses don't blast him out of the media.

Having said that, if there's evidence that fibre removes any harmful effects then foods with fibre in as well as sugar would be innocent ? An easy fix for the product formulation labs.

I'll read the 10 peer reviewed papers with Lustig as an author and fructose in the title. I started with http://advances.nutrition.org/content/4/2/226.long which mentions fruit one time and fiber or fibre zero times.

If you live in northern Europe and aim to eat locally sourced, seasonal food, your fruit intake will be naturally modest over a year, while vegetables are more plentiful and easily sourced. I'm fairly strict about buying most of my fresh food from UK only, so have limited fruit outside of the berry season.

BUT I eat a fruit salad of pineapple, melon, orange, kiwi, grapes plus other seasonal fruits every day. Is the fructose in these harmful, am I having too much?

The $64,000 question. Dr Robert Lustig - the man in the video - is very clear on this - "fructose is fructose, the vehicle is irrelevant".

So if you believe fructose is bad, and if you have any intellectual consistency, then fruit is also bad.

Personally I know that fructose is metabolised differently to glucose and in a similar way to alcohol, so it has the potential to impede fat loss or to fatten up your liver. At what level this happens or becomes a problem I don't know.

You've opened a can of worms. I have read or seen perhaps it was Dr Lustig that if you eat your fruit with fibre (whole and not juice it is ok). The fibre slows down absorption and presents it to the liver at a rate it can manage.

Dr Lustig argues that fructose creates visceral fat and it is that that does all the damage. His book Fat Chance is fascinating. Well worth a read,

hahahahaha I should have read the whole thread before I type this, oh well! Too late, hahahaha

Having said that, if there's evidence that fibre removes any harmful effects then foods with fibre in as well as sugar would be innocent ? An easy fix for the product formulation labs.

Maybe not so easy. Ask yourself why they removed it in the first place.

I'll read the 10 peer reviewed papers with Lustig as an author and fructose in the title. I started with http://advances.nutrition.org/content/4/2/226.long which mentions fruit one time and fiber or fibre zero times.

For the chapter which talks about fibre as the antidote - there are 14 refs. in the biblio. of Fat Chance. Most of them relate to diabetes & fibre. None of them Lustig's own work.

I'll broken record. Read the book - radio interviews not a good place to get anything other than a few soundbites.
This Health report (from oz.) radio program goes into the science (of 2007) a little more:
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/pro ... ic/3240406

A few comments on the UK:-

I'd previously looked at the Defra data ... as far as I can see there's very little that relates to trends over the last 30 years or so and I would have thought that that sort of time period would be relevant to increases in obesity levels.

It doesn't help when the ministry changes name from MAFF to DEFRA and new Governments archive previous web sites

The UK sugar beet quota was 1.144m tonnes in 1982 and ACP cane sugar was limited to 1.3m t entering the EU, 1.1m of which went to the UK typically. So supply into the market in 1982 was 2.2 mt of sugar with some imports and exports both as sugar and within products.

So for 30 years the UK has had a domestic sugar supply of around 2m tonnes with a population around 50m trending towards 60m so a consumption around 40 kg/head per year.

Here's another view of the trend

It is therefore simply not credible to claim that sugar is mainly responsible for the UK obesity trend.

Finally, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3257688/ says

In Australia, the UK and USA, per capita consumption of refined sucrose decreased by 23%, 10% and 20% respectively from 1980 to 2003. When all sources of nutritive sweeteners, including high fructose corn syrups, were considered, per capita consumption decreased in Australia (−16%) and the UK (−5%), but increased in the USA (+23%).

I rest the case for the defence.

Having said that, if there's evidence that fibre removes any harmful effects then foods with fibre in as well as sugar would be innocent ? An easy fix for the product formulation labs.

Maybe not so easy. Ask yourself why they removed it in the first place.

Well fibre in juice settles out in storage / transit and blocks nozzles for one thing. Also the dead insects and bits of skin and other stuff you don't want in your drink gets taken out along with the fibre. So I can see why it's removed.

Purified fibres (I have a pack of apple fibre here) could be backmixed if there were a benefit.

Is it not possible that a proportion of the population took Yudkin's message to heart and started avoiding sugar, and spreading the message to anyone who would listen? Those that remain ignorant are maintaining the overall balance by increasing their intake and getting obese as a result?
Just a thought...

Yes there is a distribution effect, covered in the DEFRA stats where they look at obesity and sugar intake by economic status etc. Yes you're likely to find poor fat people with bad diets, but that goes beyond a single substance - they're likely high on processed foods etc etc and spend the day watching daytime TV etc.

It's worth reading the whole of Lustig's book. He says many interesting and complex things about obesity and sugar. He also says you can be fat and healthy and many people are, as indeed are many skinny people unhealthy or 'fat on the inside' (foti).

Interestingly he also tells us in the book that the optimum BMI (although that in itself is a problematic measurement) for longevity is 25-30.

Looking at the OECD figures for their Obesity Review 2012, http://www.oecd.org/health/49716427.pdf it's noted that, for England, the rate of obesity in 1991 was about 14%; in 2001 was 21% and 2012 was 23%. I was wondering why the 50% increase from 1991 to 2001 but only a 10% increase since 2001 to now?

Pass. Recession may be a factor and I'm not sure the sampling is identical throughout. I looked at the numbers some months ago and concluded that the UK does not have an obesity epidemic :-

Joining the debate late, but Lustig indicates that fructose is an appetite suppressant. But it is not that simple. He also argues that fructose bypasses all the organ systems of the body and stuffs up several metabolic paths.

He suggests that companies have researched their beverages and like smoking know the damage they do.

The wiki stuff on leptin is interesting:

Interactions with fructose

The consumption of high amounts of fructose is suggested to cause leptin resistance and elevated triglycerides in rats. The rats consuming the high-fructose diet subsequently ate more and gained more weight than controls when fed a high-fat, high-calorie diet.[73][80][81] These studies, however, did not control against other monosaccharides or polysaccharides, therefore leptin resistance may be a result of a diet that contains high saccharide indices (soda, candy, and other foods with easily liberated sugar).[citation needed]

See Leptin

It is a complex and confusing area with plenty of arguments that sugar/fructose is not the problem. It depends whether you are willing to believe there is some kind of conspiracy like with smoking. Who is going to admit to it?

It is very complex, the best bet is 5:2

There is a longish article about stevia and other artificial sweeteners on the BBC news web site.

There is a longish article about stevia and other artificial sweeteners on the BBC news web site.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22758059

"Coca-Cola dared to alter the recipe for Sprite in the UK, re-launching a new stevia-inspired version in March and claiming a 30% calorie reduction."

didn't know that - thanks.

BUT I eat a fruit salad of pineapple, melon, orange, kiwi, grapes plus other seasonal fruits every day. Is the fructose in these harmful, am I having too much?

The $64,000 question. Dr Robert Lustig - the man in the video - is very clear on this - "fructose is fructose, the vehicle is irrelevant".

So if you believe fructose is bad, and if you have any intellectual consistency, then fruit is also bad.

Personally I know that fructose is metabolised differently to glucose and in a similar way to alcohol, so it has the potential to impede fat loss or to fatten up your liver. At what level this happens or becomes a problem I don't know.

That seems to conflict with this interview:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/undergroun ... d-fructose

Check out 46:50 to 51:30 or thereabouts on that one. He seems very positive regarding whole fruits, as long as you haven't processed the fiber out of them. The vehicle seems very relevant.

Yeah, that was then, and this is now (well at least more recent).

His opening remarks to the BBC and the reply to a listener's question in this item are both along the lines "fruit is of course the same as any other fructose source, but I'll be blowed if I'm going to put that in writing" (nervous cough, shuffle, cough). Audio clip here. (3MB download, too big to attach).

I do not want to be known as someone who comes out against fruit in any way, shape, or form.

So +1 for the intellectual consistency - fructose is fructose, the vehicle is irrelevant, but WTF with the ducking and weaving and avoiding to mention it unless caught out on the radio.

The bitter truth about fructose alarmism is an interesting response to the video.