Both of those studies are too small and too short. The second article even says, "questions remain about long-term effects and mechanisms," so it doesn't address my original concerns. Short-term decreases in blood sugar, cholesterol, and triglycerides are a result of suppression of appetite, followed by semi-starvation, which are the underlying mechanisms of a ketogenic diet, and are not sustainable in the long-term.
And Lustig gets thoroughly demolished here by Alan Aragon, a guy known for very scientific approaches to stuff like this. Lustig is known for cherry-picking the stufies that support his arguments and dismissing those that don't.
I read through that and it seems far from any sort of 'demolishing'.
The one broad point is that fructose is unhealthy in a general sense and that -absorbing- lots of it had many adverse health effects. I say absorbing because there are two sides - too much fructose and not enough fiber.
1. First he says Japanese people do add fructose outside of fruit to their diets. Both sides of this generalization don't really matter in the face of the actual numbers and shades of grey and as a whole this is a small part of the overall point.
2. He talks about factors leading to a more sedentary lifestyle. Is this really a rebuttal? Is he saying that the enormous rise in obesity is causes by this? If it is a contributing factor, does it take away from the main point? Does a rise of two worker households even mean a more sedentary lifestyle (even for the children)? It seems like a lot of words used on something that at most could be pointed to to say that the effects of fructose aren't quite as extreme, but it seems to me that there is a loose correlation between what he lists, decreases physical activity, and then the health data at core of the argument.
3. Then he seems to think that citing a study using 150 grams of sugar (which is the about the equivalent of a pitcher) is not worth looking at because it is too much. Is it not common to use exaggerated doses in studies to be able to exaggerate effects? How is anything contradicted by this?
Overall I expected a lot more from your description, but that page doesn't just lack a smoking gun, it is tiny arguments over points that are almost inconsequential to the main theme.
So then that begs the question of what you would attribute to the enormous increase in obesity and what you would peg as the causation of the correlation between increased fructose consumption and obesity.
That video appears to be talking about epidemiology. That is fine if you are interested in the broader public health concerns, however it cannot possibly give actionable advice to an individual.
Can it not? Stop eating so much fructose and eat more fiber so you don't absorb as much of what you do eat. Can that guarantee the same results for every single person? I would guess not. It is a good indicator of the first thing to try to be healthier and lose weight? Seems like pretty overwhelming evidence to me and in fact mirrors my own experience with intentionally losing and gaining weight.
Most of the time this type of dismissal is more due to someone not wanting to face the idea of giving up sugar, which I can understand.
