Yesterday I felt foolish wearing my hikers - so today I wore sneakers.

Wrong choice.

The sidewalks are all slippery.

It turns out that it rained last night and then the temperatures dropped to below freezing. It's foggy as heck out this morning. I hope that the temps rise above freezing so that the sidewalks are safer this evening.

Luckily, I didn't fall.

New study out of UCSF contends it's sugar, not obesity causing chronic illness.

Lustig has written and talked extensively about the role he believes sugar has played in driving up rates of chronic illness such as heart disease and diabetes. Excessive sugar, he argues, alters people's biochemistry, making them more vulnerable to metabolic conditions that lead to illness, while at the same time making people crave sweets even more.

It's sugar, not obesity, that is the real health threat, Lustig and his co-authors - public health experts Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis - say in their paper. They note that studies show 20 percent of obese people have normal metabolism and no ill health effects resulting from their weight, while 40 percent of normal-weight people have metabolic problems that can lead to diabetes and heart disease. They contend that sugar consumption is the cause.

In other words, not everyone gains a lot of weight from over-indulging in sugar, but a large proportion of the U.S. population is eating enough of it that it's having devastating health effects, they say.

"The gestalt shift is maybe obesity is just a marker for the rise in chronic disease worldwide, and in fact metabolic syndrome, caused by excessive sugar consumption, is the real culprit," said Schmidt, a health policy professor who focuses on alcohol and addiction research.

Americans eat and drink roughly 22 teaspoons of sugar every day - triple what they consumed three decades ago - and most people aren't even aware of the various ways sugars sneak into their diets, often via breads and cereals and processed foods. Terms that identify sugars on labels include sucrose, glucose, fructose, maltose, hydrolysed starch and invert sugar, corn syrup and honey.

New study out of UCSF contends it's sugar, not obesity causing chronic illness.

Since there's no chronic disease that *only* obese people get (i.e., thin people get The Diabetes, too), that's not exactly a shocker. (Er, to me. I know there are tons of people who think that OMGDEATHFATZ, but they are wrong.)

And I believe that sugar is not the healthiest thing in the world. But it's SO TASTY!!!!!!

invert sugar

I'm picturing a bag of sugar hanging upside down from a jungle gym.

I'm picturing a bag of sugar hanging upside down from a jungle gym.

Doing sugar crunches.

Back in the nineteenth century "invert sugar" would mean "gay sugar."

Since there's no chronic disease that *only* obese people get (i.e., thin people get The Diabetes, too), that's not exactly a shocker.

I'm not disputing the research, but this is a logical fallacy. Non-smokers can get lung cancer, that does not mean that smoking can't cause lung cancer.

Duly chastened.

Since there's no chronic disease that *only* obese people get (i.e., thin people get The Diabetes, too), that's not exactly a shocker. (Er, to me. I know there are tons of people who think that OMGDEATHFATZ, but they are wrong.)

I agree (and my overweight self just got a clean bill of health in my last medical visit), but no risk factor is going to give a perfect correlation. There are smokers who still live to a ripe old age, and non-smokers who get lung cancer; it's still pretty clear that smoking elevates one's risk of lung disease (and a whole host of other conditions, of course).

Hee. Crosspost, right down to the choice of counterexample.

I do actually care about correcting people's misperceptions of the deathfatz, so since I seem to love the logical fallacies, what would be a better way to re-state my logical fallacy? (Serious question, not sarcasm. I hate looking like a jackass, and I'm actually really embarrassed -- NOT angry -- at being called out for relying on a logical fallacy.)

I am with Steph- for people who do reading on the subject, not so much a surprise. But still good to hear of a study that might get taken seriously.

WRT Sugar- this weird thing has been happening to me lately. I have been craving sugar. Like super duper and a lot. Like to the point of eating brown sugar. I did this as a kid, but as an adult, I am not really fond of sweets. When I was restricting what I ate in my 20's, I did used to sleep eat cookies and crackers, but I am just not fond of sweets.

I do actually care about correcting people's misperceptions of the deathfatz, so since I seem to love the logical fallacies, what would be a better way to re-state my logical fallacy?

I wish I knew - the problem is that most of the alternative risk factors proposed (like high sugar intake) also correlate with obesity, so it's really difficult to separate the two in people's minds. Humans are generally not good at distinguishing correlation from causation.