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From: sdyer@bbncc5.UUCP (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Re: The Perils of Nutrasweet (actually, sugar)
Message-ID: <257@bbncc5.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-Aug-85 01:22:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: bbncc5.257
Posted: Thu Aug  1 01:22:15 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Aug-85 22:31:25 EDT
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Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, MA
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> The "empirical findings" that I am familiar with indicate that sugar
> consumption promotes obesity in many people (some are apparently resistant
> to this effect).

Chuck, your most recent comment seems a lot less controversial than your
earlier allegations of cancer, or others' allusions to insanity or
arteriosclerosis directly linked to sugar intake.  Still, it must be
emphasized that sugar is no more special in this regard than any other
highly concentrated source of calories: it is simply that it is easier and
more enjoyable to imbibe excess calories as sugar-laden sweets.  Or, for
that matter, raw-honey-laden sweets.  Too many calories in: obesity, no
matter where the calories came from.  People DO differ in their levels
of activity and metabolism, so one man's burden may be another's guilt-free
delight.

It's worth mentioning an obvious point that might have been obscured in
the commotion: it is certainly no vice, and is probably a virtue, to
decry the amount of sugar gratuitously added to prepared foods, and to
attempt to reduce one's sugar intake.  Not because sugar is intrinsically
harmful, but because the calories are empty, and could be more profitably
spent on a wider, more healthful selection of foods which provide other
nutrients as well as calories.  And, too, people have mentioned the
better sensitivity to the subtlety of flavors they gain when "sweet"
isn't a dominant theme in the taste of their food.  

I don't think anyone here, "defender of sugar" or not, could possibly
argue with this at all.  The controversy arises when zealots take
what is essentially a reasonable position and stretch it way out of
shape, and then surround themselves with unproved hypotheses in the
guise of science.  It's entirely reasonable for the scientific
establishment to try to verify these claims, and what is one to conclude
when it's found that they don't pan out?
-- 
/Steve Dyer
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