RyanF
Member
I've been at home, sick all weekend, and as a feat of productive procrastination, this weekend I sat down and read David Gillespie's book "Sweet Poison: Why Sugar Makes Us Fat" (first published by Penguin Group (Australia) 2008, copyright David Gillespie 2008). As another feat of procrastination, I'm now going to write a little about the book, hopefully to the benefit of whoever reads this post.
Gillespie covers a few topics in Sweet Poison, such as the history of sugar production and commercialisation (which was once a rare, expensive delicacy), statistics on obesity and related health issues adjacent to the commercialisation of sugar, and of course practical information on what to do about sugar for the sake of your health and body composition.
One thing very note-worthy about this book is that Gillespie does not simply villify carbohydrates, or even all sugar. This is the first major issue to gleam from this book. Let's talk about our response to food.
So, according to Gillespie (and he does provide recommended reading at the back of the book to back up his claims, including references to medical journals for those who can read them), our body extracts energy from 4 main sources: fat, alcohol, protein and carbohydrates. Most nutrition and fitness professionals will agree with this. And, our bodies work on hormonal feedback loops to tell us when we're hungry and when we're full. If our feedback loops are working properly, once we've consumed enough fat, we won't want any more; once we've consumed enough protein, we won't want any more; and once we've consumed enough of 2 out of 3 basic forms of sugar, we won't want any more. Our hypothatlamus (the part of the brain that has primary control over our endocrine system, which takes care of hormones, including the hormones that promote or repress hunger) knows how much energy we need, and will tell us we're hungry when it identifies a need for food, and it will tell us that we're full when it identifies that we've had enough. This is consistent with my knowledge of the endocrine system.
The problem is in 1 of the 3 basic forms of sugar. All sugar is some combination of glucose, galactose and/or fructose. Our hypothalamus recognises fat. It recognises protein. It recognises glucose and galatcose. Therefore, if you get enough energy from these sources, your brain will tell your stomach that it's satisfied and doesn't need more food. Fructose, however, doesn't send the message to our hypothalamus that any more energy has been put into the body. Fructose is the sweetest of the natural sugar compounds, and table sugar (ie the stuff you think of as sugar) is 50% glucose, 50% fructose (which combine to make sucrose, but our bodies just break down the compounds and treat it is glucose + fructose). So, if we consume 100kcal worth of fat, our hypothalamus recognises that there's a new 100kcal in the body, and if we consume 100kcal worth of galactose or glucose, the same will occur. But if we consume 100kcal worth of fructose, our brains won't recognise it, and it won't contribute to us feeling full. This results in consuming more energy than we need, which leads to weight gain.
Other than gaining weight, there's another serious issue that Gillespie raises with fructose. According to his research and consquential writing, as soon as fructose goes into the liver, it's converted into fatty acids. Too much fatty acid in the arteries leads to cardiovascular and metabolic disease. Eating too much fat could possibly contribute to this (although my own research indicates that the fat you eat has pretty much nothing to do with the fat in your arteries), but when our feedback loops are working correctly, we won't be inclined to eat enough fat for it to be an issue anyway. Since our hypothalamus doesn't recognise the consumption of fructose, however, we can easily end up putting far more fatty acid into our bloodstreams than should be there, leading to our arteries being clogged up, causing most cardiovascular diseases as well as metabolic syndrome and diabetes. High levels of fructose consumption were also demonstrated to cause cancer in experiments on lab rats, although I didn't pick up on a strong explanation of how fructose might lead to cancer.
All this isn't saying that fructose is the devil, and despite the title of the book, Gillespie isn't trying to convince us not to let fructose pass through our lips under any circumstance. Fructose has been present in human diets for all of human history, and presumably for much longer. The issue is the volume of fructose. In a natural human diet without processed foods, most of the fructose we encounter would be in fruit form, which comes with other properties (in particular fibre, which appears to counteract at least some of the health issues raised by fructose in the first place) that prevent us from eating too much of it. In our modern world, we've stripped fructose of other ingrediants that would inhibit our consumption of it. Our brains know that sweet stuff provides carbohydrates for energy, fructose is the sweetest carbohydrate, and our brains don't know when we've had enough of it. Take away fibre and other components to food that would tell us to stop eating after 1 or 2 servings, and we end up eating ccokies and drinking juice and soft drink without feeling any closer to full than we did before hand. This easily adds up to excessive calories, and thus the obesity epidemic of the last century that's continually growing worse.
Gillespie's solution to the problem is fairly simple at surface value, although not as simple or easy to get started on as we'd all like. Such is life. His first recommendation is to simply go by what your tongue tells you: if it's sweet (or sweetened to make it palatable), stop buying it, stop drinking it and stop eating it, because it probably contains a relatively high amount of fructose. If you must use some form of sweetener in your food and drinks, hunt down some pure glucose (which, if you can find it, will be sold as "dextrose," and according to Gillespie is more likely to be found in the homewares department than food/cooking department) and use that. It's not as sweet as sugar (ie sucrose, ie glucose + fructose), but your hypothalamus will recognise every calorie consumed by it, and will tell you when you're full. His second recommendation is, once you've cut the sweet stuff out of your diet, use your sense of hunger and satiation to tell you when to eat and when to stop eating. If you get halfway through a meal and your hypothalamus says you're full, don't make yourself finish the meal. Either save it for later, or cut your losses and throw out the rest (personally, it grates my nerves to see food go to waste, so I say save it for later if it's safe and practical to do so). So, avoid sweet stuff (especially if there isn't a boat load of fibre with it) and eat when you're hungry, until you're not hungry anymore.
One funny thing I picked up on was that I've always been taught that if people don't want pure water, it's okay to drink cordial and other flavoured stuff to encourage them to hydrate themselves. Gillespie, onthe other hand, says that if milk or water isn't appealing enough for you to drink it, you're not really thirsty. His rationale for milk is that it has protein in it (recognised by the hypothalamus), fat (recognised by the hypothalamus), and lactose as it's sugar, which is made up of glucose and galactose, not fructose (therefore the sugar in it is also recognised by the hypothalamus), so you'll have to drink more than you're comfortable with to gain weight on it. Obviously, we're talking pure milk, not sweetened or flavoured milk. Full cream is okay because the brain recognises the calories, so you don't have to cut back to trim or skim.
Obviously there will be some mental barriers over the first couple weeks as your pallate adjusts to fructose withdrawal, but, according to Gillespie, once you adjust you won't really want sweet foods anymore, as they will begin to taste sickly sweet and off-putting.
I think that just about sums up the nuts and bolts of the book. Obviously, if you want to know more, you can have a read for yourself. I found it an interesting read, and everything in it made sense to me based on my pre-existing knowledge of the human body and experience with food. Gillespie reports to have lost 40kg over 2 years of avoiding sweet stuff and using hunger as a guide for when to eat or stop eating, then to have stopped losing weight without thinking about once his body composition evened out to a healthy level. I definitely recommend it, and hope that the abridged information here has been helpful.
Good luck, everybody
Gillespie covers a few topics in Sweet Poison, such as the history of sugar production and commercialisation (which was once a rare, expensive delicacy), statistics on obesity and related health issues adjacent to the commercialisation of sugar, and of course practical information on what to do about sugar for the sake of your health and body composition.
One thing very note-worthy about this book is that Gillespie does not simply villify carbohydrates, or even all sugar. This is the first major issue to gleam from this book. Let's talk about our response to food.
So, according to Gillespie (and he does provide recommended reading at the back of the book to back up his claims, including references to medical journals for those who can read them), our body extracts energy from 4 main sources: fat, alcohol, protein and carbohydrates. Most nutrition and fitness professionals will agree with this. And, our bodies work on hormonal feedback loops to tell us when we're hungry and when we're full. If our feedback loops are working properly, once we've consumed enough fat, we won't want any more; once we've consumed enough protein, we won't want any more; and once we've consumed enough of 2 out of 3 basic forms of sugar, we won't want any more. Our hypothatlamus (the part of the brain that has primary control over our endocrine system, which takes care of hormones, including the hormones that promote or repress hunger) knows how much energy we need, and will tell us we're hungry when it identifies a need for food, and it will tell us that we're full when it identifies that we've had enough. This is consistent with my knowledge of the endocrine system.
The problem is in 1 of the 3 basic forms of sugar. All sugar is some combination of glucose, galactose and/or fructose. Our hypothalamus recognises fat. It recognises protein. It recognises glucose and galatcose. Therefore, if you get enough energy from these sources, your brain will tell your stomach that it's satisfied and doesn't need more food. Fructose, however, doesn't send the message to our hypothalamus that any more energy has been put into the body. Fructose is the sweetest of the natural sugar compounds, and table sugar (ie the stuff you think of as sugar) is 50% glucose, 50% fructose (which combine to make sucrose, but our bodies just break down the compounds and treat it is glucose + fructose). So, if we consume 100kcal worth of fat, our hypothalamus recognises that there's a new 100kcal in the body, and if we consume 100kcal worth of galactose or glucose, the same will occur. But if we consume 100kcal worth of fructose, our brains won't recognise it, and it won't contribute to us feeling full. This results in consuming more energy than we need, which leads to weight gain.
Other than gaining weight, there's another serious issue that Gillespie raises with fructose. According to his research and consquential writing, as soon as fructose goes into the liver, it's converted into fatty acids. Too much fatty acid in the arteries leads to cardiovascular and metabolic disease. Eating too much fat could possibly contribute to this (although my own research indicates that the fat you eat has pretty much nothing to do with the fat in your arteries), but when our feedback loops are working correctly, we won't be inclined to eat enough fat for it to be an issue anyway. Since our hypothalamus doesn't recognise the consumption of fructose, however, we can easily end up putting far more fatty acid into our bloodstreams than should be there, leading to our arteries being clogged up, causing most cardiovascular diseases as well as metabolic syndrome and diabetes. High levels of fructose consumption were also demonstrated to cause cancer in experiments on lab rats, although I didn't pick up on a strong explanation of how fructose might lead to cancer.
All this isn't saying that fructose is the devil, and despite the title of the book, Gillespie isn't trying to convince us not to let fructose pass through our lips under any circumstance. Fructose has been present in human diets for all of human history, and presumably for much longer. The issue is the volume of fructose. In a natural human diet without processed foods, most of the fructose we encounter would be in fruit form, which comes with other properties (in particular fibre, which appears to counteract at least some of the health issues raised by fructose in the first place) that prevent us from eating too much of it. In our modern world, we've stripped fructose of other ingrediants that would inhibit our consumption of it. Our brains know that sweet stuff provides carbohydrates for energy, fructose is the sweetest carbohydrate, and our brains don't know when we've had enough of it. Take away fibre and other components to food that would tell us to stop eating after 1 or 2 servings, and we end up eating ccokies and drinking juice and soft drink without feeling any closer to full than we did before hand. This easily adds up to excessive calories, and thus the obesity epidemic of the last century that's continually growing worse.
Gillespie's solution to the problem is fairly simple at surface value, although not as simple or easy to get started on as we'd all like. Such is life. His first recommendation is to simply go by what your tongue tells you: if it's sweet (or sweetened to make it palatable), stop buying it, stop drinking it and stop eating it, because it probably contains a relatively high amount of fructose. If you must use some form of sweetener in your food and drinks, hunt down some pure glucose (which, if you can find it, will be sold as "dextrose," and according to Gillespie is more likely to be found in the homewares department than food/cooking department) and use that. It's not as sweet as sugar (ie sucrose, ie glucose + fructose), but your hypothalamus will recognise every calorie consumed by it, and will tell you when you're full. His second recommendation is, once you've cut the sweet stuff out of your diet, use your sense of hunger and satiation to tell you when to eat and when to stop eating. If you get halfway through a meal and your hypothalamus says you're full, don't make yourself finish the meal. Either save it for later, or cut your losses and throw out the rest (personally, it grates my nerves to see food go to waste, so I say save it for later if it's safe and practical to do so). So, avoid sweet stuff (especially if there isn't a boat load of fibre with it) and eat when you're hungry, until you're not hungry anymore.
One funny thing I picked up on was that I've always been taught that if people don't want pure water, it's okay to drink cordial and other flavoured stuff to encourage them to hydrate themselves. Gillespie, onthe other hand, says that if milk or water isn't appealing enough for you to drink it, you're not really thirsty. His rationale for milk is that it has protein in it (recognised by the hypothalamus), fat (recognised by the hypothalamus), and lactose as it's sugar, which is made up of glucose and galactose, not fructose (therefore the sugar in it is also recognised by the hypothalamus), so you'll have to drink more than you're comfortable with to gain weight on it. Obviously, we're talking pure milk, not sweetened or flavoured milk. Full cream is okay because the brain recognises the calories, so you don't have to cut back to trim or skim.
Obviously there will be some mental barriers over the first couple weeks as your pallate adjusts to fructose withdrawal, but, according to Gillespie, once you adjust you won't really want sweet foods anymore, as they will begin to taste sickly sweet and off-putting.
I think that just about sums up the nuts and bolts of the book. Obviously, if you want to know more, you can have a read for yourself. I found it an interesting read, and everything in it made sense to me based on my pre-existing knowledge of the human body and experience with food. Gillespie reports to have lost 40kg over 2 years of avoiding sweet stuff and using hunger as a guide for when to eat or stop eating, then to have stopped losing weight without thinking about once his body composition evened out to a healthy level. I definitely recommend it, and hope that the abridged information here has been helpful.
Good luck, everybody
