Subject: Making the rounds
From: David Harrison <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2011 09:45:

Good article making the rounds.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

Taubes is a great story teller and knows where to weave in explanations of unfamiliar concepts.

The whole story is scary. Despite all the accumulating knowledge, few scientists are willing to break ranks. Could it be something to do with the financial incentives for drugs to deal with diabetes, heart disease, obesity etc., and for the processed food industry to continue using sugar. Neither the pharmaceutical industry nor the processed food industry are concerned about human health; their main purpose is the generation of profit. Not also the way Keys shut down Yudkin and those who supported him by ridicule - that's not the way were are told science is supposed to work.

On this point, I saw recently (but sadly, did not keep) research into why people purchase and eat the main foods in their diet. "Health" did not rate among the top reasons, even among people who declared they wanted to eat healthily. The main reasons included taste/mouth feel, price, minimal/no preparation, status (the image promoted by advertising), proximity (availability close to time and place desired), familiarity.

Back to Taubes. He didn't take the opportunity to question the terms "HDL cholesterol - the good cholesterol" and "LDL cholesterol - the bad cholesterol", when both are lipoproteins, not sterols at all, let alone cholesterol. Nor is one good and the other bad: both are essential to a normally-functioning healthy human metabolism and, indeed, are made by our bodies for wholly beneficial reasons. 

Keith