Keys accuses Yudkin of bias, cherry-picking countries that fit his own hypothesis.
Here are some plots from Keys' 11 Countries article.
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| 5-Year CHD cases/1,000 men vs Sucrose %E. |
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| 5-Year CHD cases/1,000 men vs Sat Fats %E. |
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| Sucrose %E vs Sat Fats %E. |
So there you have it.
7 comments:
From what I have read, Yudkin places a lot less emphasis on the epidemiological surveys that Keys did, but I could be wrong. Whereas, because epidemiological data was key to Keys hypothesis (and therefore criticisms of his famous charts struck a bit deeper, this was less of an issue of Yudkin.
In Pure, White, and Deadly Yudkin states several times that "the epidemiological evidence cannot by itself prove that sugar or any other factor is a cause of coronary disease."p. 98 He relies heavily on experimental results to bolster his hypothesis regarding how replacing fat or starch in the diet's of both animal and human subjects very quickly produces signs of what we now call metabolic syndrome. Keys on the other hand seems to have had much more faith int the epidemiological approach which lends itself to more criticism. Keys from what I can see was unable to prove the causal chain between saturated fat and CVD, whereas Yudkin had much stronger experimental data linking sugar to changes in metabolism and CVD. On a side note, Yudkin does not seem to have bought into the all starch = sugar argument.
From what I have read overfeeding either or both causes metabolic issues. What Yudkin says is that replacing calories of glucose (starch) or fats with sugar (not overfeeding) quickly causes metabolic issues. It is an interesting read and he does mention both animal and human studies. Touching on a topic of recent interest, he also seems to have identified fructose as the main driver behind the changes, but have more reading to do..
I think I have the same PDF that Sheldon has. I feel your pain.
Read his stuff, don't find it all that compelling.
AA is all about the evidence. The evidence doesn't support Lustig.
Sure, too much fructose is bad. Too much of anything is bad, one way or another.
We will have to agree to disagree, I think the emerging evidence does support the view that the current levels of fructose consumption is an issue.
While I am in agreement with some of AA's views, I think he is looking at it the wrong way, through the lens of a personal trainer who works with athletes/fitness enthusiasts who can handle large loads of fructose.
Saying too much of anything is bad doesn't really add anything to this. I think CICO is an extremely poor model of metabolism.
Saying too much of anything is bad is true, but adds nothing to this.. I would argue that question is, does fructose have some unique characteristics that when consumed at current levels is a main contributor to the rise in metabolic/chronic diseases. My view is yes.
People can do quite well on diets either high in starches or fats. The threshold is fairly high for starch, fat, or protein before you start to see the unhealthy effects. I don't think we can say the same about sugar. The threshold is much lower and from what I see on a daily basis a lot of people have crossed it.
I can agree with that. The $64,000 question is this: Why do a lot of people cross the safe fructose threshold on a daily basis?
Government healthy eating guidelines don't encourage high sugar consumption.
I say that it's the food manufacturers who are to blame, churning out 1,000's of different types of sugary crap & bombarding people with advertising. Organisations like the British Sugar Bureau vilified John Yudkin and churn out pro-sugar propaganda.
Whole fruits are a bit higher in sugar content than they used to be, but it's still nowhere near the sugar content of sweets, chocolate, cakes, biscuits, breakfast cereals, sauces etc i.e. manufactured foods. SSB's produce minimal satiety, so are another significant source of sugar.
As HFCS-55 is somewhat sweeter than sucrose, and SSB's have to have just the right amount of sweetness for maximum sales, I don't think that HFCS has worsened the problem.
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