It's about time!!! BMI = Bull$hit Mass Index

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IJ
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Post by IJ »

It's hard to argue you should avoid white spaghetti beause the GI is 41, and favor Basmati with a GI of 58. I also wonder where the brown and wild rice is.

Two other things not on this discussion yet are the impact of mixing foods on GI (we rarely eat single foods by themselves and having higher GI foods with proteins and fats reduces their impact) and that we don't need a perfect diet or to only eat perfect foods. Exceptions are ok unless the eater is unwell and really needs to crank down on habits, especially if portions are appropriate and other decisions are wise.

I like my brownies! Chewier with more unsaturated fats than all butter, too ;)
--Ian
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Bill Glasheen
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

Absolutely, Ian.

Dessert at the end of the meal isn't anywhere near as bad as the doughnuts and coffee breakfast.

Meanwhile... eating ANY halfway healthy breakfast is more helpful for keeping the weight down than starving yourself. Would you believe that sumos INTENTIONALLY deny themselves breakfast in their training regimens? It helps them pack the weight on.

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Nice ... uh ... breasts! ;)

- Bill
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Glenn
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Post by Glenn »

Drats, bananas are my favorite fruit!
Bill Glasheen wrote: a high GI snack or drink (like Gatorade) within one hour after pumping iron is a rare treat. So if you like an occasional treat, go for it within that window of time because your body will do good things with that blood sugar spike.
Our doctor recommended Propel for this (as well as for hypoglycemia and dehydration (something the diabetic was diagnosed with once)), which is a lighter beverage produced by Gatorade but still provides a bit of a blood sugar boost...tastes better too in my opinion, I can't stand Gatorade.
eating ANY halfway healthy breakfast is more helpful for keeping the weight down than starving yourself. Would you believe that sumos INTENTIONALLY deny themselves breakfast in their training regimens? It helps them pack the weight on
I have heard that numerous times, but I am decidedly not a breakfast person and rarely eat it. I do not get an appetite until late morning/noon and I've never been inclined to force myself to eat breakfast. This partly might be due to that with my busy schedule I tend to eat dinner very late. MY temporal eating habits have not seemed to affect my weight (so far) though.
Glenn
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Glenn
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Post by Glenn »

What are y'all's thoughts on this news item
Study in Singapore Links Sugary Soft Drinks and Pancreatic Cancer
Factoring in the disclaimers given and other studies that show no relationship, it seems far more inconclusive then the headline portrays. It's also not clear to me how they get an 87% increase from the numbers given in the article.
Sugar Fuels Tumor Growth, Says Major New Study
(Feb. 8 ) -- Sugary soft drinks drastically increase the risk of developing pancreatic cancer, according to a long-term study of 60,000 people in Singapore.

A research team at the University of Minnesota followed thousands of men and women participating in the Singapore Chinese Health Study for 14 years. At the end of the study, published this month in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, the team found that those drank two or more soft drinks a week had an 87 percent higher risk of developing pancreatic cancer.

Dr. Mark Pereira, the study's lead researcher, warns that the findings likely apply to the United States and other industrialized nations as well. "Singapore is a wealthy country with excellent health care," he said. "Favorite pastimes are eating and shopping, so the findings should apply to other Western countries."

Oddly enough, those who drank fruit juice, which can have as much sugar as soda, didn't have the same cancer risk. Pereira suggests that soda drinkers might have poor health habits, which exacerbate their risk of illness. Of those studied in Singapore, individuals who drank soda were more likely to smoke and eat red meat -- two lifestyle factors already linked to cancer.

The connection between sugar and pancreatic cancer makes sense: insulin, which helps the body digest sugar, is made in the pancreas. Researchers suspect that sugary soda interferes with the body's insulin levels, which then contributes to cancerous cell growth in the pancreas.

Diabetes, another illness in which the body's insulin production is compromised, is a known risk factor for pancreatic cancer. The onset of diabetes later in life can also be an early symptom.

Determining the cause of pancreatic cancer could save thousands of lives a year: 230,000 people are diagnosed worldwide each year, and the American Cancer Society estimates that only 5 percent survive for five years.

But the study isn't a definitive answer. Out of the 60,000 individuals studied, 140 developed pancreatic cancer. Of those, 18 cases occurred in patients who'd consumed large quantities of soda, 12 occurred in those who drank soda occasionally, and 110 occurred in those who never consumed the sugary beverages.

In their analysis, the researchers acknowledge that the small numbers limit the power of the data, and "giv[e] potential to a chance association." The team also cites four previous studies that found little or no connection between soda and pancreatic cancer.

There are a handful of definitive or suggested causes for pancreatic cancer, making this study even more difficult to interpret. Aside from red meat consumption, smoking and diabetes, risk factors include genetics, ethnicity, old age, obesity and even excessive alcohol consumption.

The American Heart Association advises that women should consume fewer than 6.5 teaspoons of added sugar a day, and men should limit their consumption to 9.5 teaspoons. Given that a single can of soda contains 13 teaspoons, Americans would be wise to cut down, whether or not they're motivated by a potential cancer risk.
Glenn
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Van Canna
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Post by Van Canna »

Oh damn it Bill...there goes the morning fix of 'brown sugar' :wink:
Van
IJ
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Post by IJ »

That's an observational study and interpreting it will be tough. There are many confounders linked to soda consumption. One is: maybe these people used em to wash down their fast food! Other issues are briefly mentioned in the text. I personally find it hard to believe that the pancreas would be put at risk of cancer by the sugar load of a soda every 3.5 days. That's a small part of the total insulin surges most people would see. What about their other sweets, and processed carbs? What about obesity with insulin resistance and higher insulin levels all the time? Why doesn't similarly sweet juice do it?

As for the risk ratio, they didn't provide all the information needed to make the calculations. We'd need to see the rates of consumption in those 60k people. I can say that if >3x as many cancers developed in NEVER drinkers as in all users, and the users were suffering from nearly a 2-fold rate, there must be a very low prevalence of soda consumption in Singapore.
--Ian
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Bill Glasheen
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Post by Bill Glasheen »

I'm similarly underwhelmed by this observational study with small numbers and many confounding factors. That's the best they could come up with to publish from all those data? There's no reason to even think of suggesting causality at this point. And the proposed mechanism is murky at best.

When you go on a fishing expedition with epidemiological data, don't be surprised if you end up catching a shoe.

- Bill
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