NYTimes.com: Big Sugar Versus Your Body

I'm going to make some controversial points below related to the battle against "big sugar". But don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm for sugar, I'm not at all and never use the stuff in or on anything, and avoid it to the extent possible in social situations.

The NYT article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/11/opinion/sugar-industry-health.html

My response:

Unfortunately there is a huge lack of true understanding about nutrition, and the lack of same as the cause of chronic diseases (as opposed to infectious diseases). Why? The food industry wants the public to remain confused about basics of nutrition, which really aren't very hard to understand.

- vegetable oils are a fairly benign empty calorie to a high fat paleo

- just as sugar is a fairly benign empty calorie to a high carb low fat person

Both are completely empty calorie substances (not foods) that should not be in any diet! How can anyone mount a solid argument for substantial amounts of empty calories in ANY diet? The vitamin pill diet? Substandard at best.

Here is a report on an early (and crude) version of the plant based high carb diet where patients were actually fed sugar! Read about what happened to them:

https://www.drmcdougall.com/2013/12/31/walter-kempner-md-founder-of-the-rice-diet/

Which diet is faster and more effective in reversing disease, high fat low carb, or high carb low fat?

High carb low fat, no question.

Which diet is better as a maintenance diet? Population studies on longevity and health in centenarian societies give us the same answer. Animal products are used sparingly, and average calo nutrient ratio is still within the 80/10/10 ballpark.

Insulin resistance is the real problem, which occurs where there is a combination of high fat and high carb in the same diet.

And the cause of insulin resistance? High fat in the diet is the precondition, carbs in the diet is the onset where the precondition exists.

We are so acclimated to a high fat diet there is little realization (and much resistance, economic and cultural) that a plant based whole food high carb diet is the species specific diet for humans.

I don't see this state of affairs changing any time soon (cultural habit pattern combined with the GDP problem). The precondition for insulin resistance is present in (guessing) maybe 90-95% of developed world citizens?

But we can be smarter about it on an individual level.

Functional medicine docs such as Mark Hyman get "close enough" by reversing the primary problems of modern diets with a wholesale switch to "real food", and the complete elimination of junk, processed, toxic "food-like" substances. It allows us to retain some animal products in our diets, while controlling for the "insulin resistance precondition" problem by limiting fruits and starchy vegetables, keeping percent of calories from carbs relatively low.

Is it the best diet? The best diet is the one you can follow and sustain over time. It's not the best diet for me, but I've had the benefit of intervention and education most folks will not experience.

So looks to me like the handwriting on the wall says the functional medicine docs will hold sway, and I'm all for it on practical levels because it achieves several goals simultaneously: it fixes the chronic disease problem, which is huge and of primary importance, it does not blow up GDP and destroy already damaged and delicate developed world economies, the healthcare industry remains profitable, and the status quo continues more or less intact with the exception of "goodbye big sugar" (I will not miss you).