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Comment by TeeMassive | Hacker News Reader

Imagine we could have a near real time effect of what we eat and then we discover that high fructose products are really really bad.

Also imagine that the corporations that produce those products are the worse when it comes to corruption through lobbying.

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I don't know what really really bad means to you, but we can look around and see people who have eaten fructose their whole lives to no obvious effect. Almost every person I see.

So it's not going to meet my personal definition of really really bad.

It's already clear and well known that it's bad.

Cancer rates will soon be over 50%, and obesity and heart disease have never been higher.

50% of what? Have never been higher per what, a specific age group?

More than 50% of all people will have cancer in their life.

And that’s due to a magically bad meme ingredient rather than the explosion of calorie dense foods and norms in the food supply?

Average calories consumed peaked in the early 2000s, we eat less calories and exercise more since that time period but obesity rates are up by at least +%20. It's not the calorie counts.

> heart disease have never been higher.

As I understand it, this is false, so I'm going to ask for a citation.

Between the decrease in smoking and the usage of statins, it seems that heart disease has dropped dramatically.

Funny, I look around and see people every day in terrible condition who have been consuming oodles of fructose their whole life.

Thing is most people don't actually care, and individual measurements are usually just vanity metrics. We already know that fructose is poisonous. We already know that processed foods are engineered to keep you hungry. But people eat this stuff anyway. I no longer use fitness devices, and the people I know who use them are almost always in suboptimal health and make no progress, no matter how many "steps" or "calories" their devices claim they are producing.

Stop eating poison and one's health usually improves – no tech needed. Better yet if you give your body adequate time to dig in to its own fat stores.

People want easy solutions and to feel smart. Smart watches and Oura rings claim exactly that. Don't research, don't think – just hit a reductive number so your watch can tell you you're "on track" and give you permission to eat some Cheetoes and coke.

"Bad" in what sense? Continuous glucose monitors have been available for several years and can show blood glucose spikes (or lack thereof) after eating certain foods. But you're not going to get any useful data about fructose from a wrist device. The issues with fructose seem to be interrelated with sodium and uric acid.

https://peterattiamd.com/rickjohnson2/

Lately endurance athletes have been increasing their fructose intake during races and hard workouts in order to maximize energy availability.

https://www.trainerroad.com/blog/how-to-use-carbs-for-maximu...

I don’t think that’s true. People with normal endocrine response (not diabetic or otherwise impaired) don’t see significant movement in blood glucose. It would very likely be “in the noise” as far as the light based sensors go.

I don't think we will discover that. Fructose is pretty benign chemically (though it can be inflammatory as fructans). Instead, I think we'll find some kind of food additive or chemical is causing autoimmune issues that create a whole host of secondary effects like hypothyroidism, CFS, and cravings/obesity that potentially link to T2 diabetes.

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