And another iteration of “it’s a bit more complicated than that”…
Hopefully not behind a paywall.
On the off chance that TL:DR (surely not😉), of note, one of Attia’s observations…
Another flawed paper, another spray of alarming headlines…
3 Likes
VeeEnn,
The better approach in my mind is why have it in your diet? There is no need for this chemical. Yes it occurs in our bodies but do we need it in our sodas? Do we need sodas? The answer is no. That is not an over reaction in my book. That is commonsense.
The sweetness to a larger extent needs to be avoided to avoid weight gain for many of us.
I don’t doubt that. However for a good many others, as much as they might roll this way for a short period (as in, whilst they’re on their current diet) find that maintaining control over the Big Picture with lifestyle choices/dietary habits they can maintain over the long haul require and respond to more flexibility in the diet.
Personally, I don’t care for any of the artificial sweeteners in my diet (including those instances where sucrose/table sugar is the artificial sweetener) …and that’s been the case for over half a century. However, if I do bake a sweet dessert (a rare enough event that my Facebook Friends have to be treated to the obligatory announcement) I use sugar and do so without alarm. That appears to be the case for erythritol.
There are plenty of people who need/choose to take a “moderate” approach to their personal choices and, if occasional sweet beverages are part of the moderation that makes their diet tolerable, so be it. It’s just diet … not a Morality Play
1 Like
The bigger yet picture in an industrialized mechanized society with a majority of people weighing in as obese at least among the younger generations, we need overarching principles to avoid so much diabetes being spurred on by our general diet at large. Yes “regulations” for those who are not mature enough to handle the word. Being against regulations is not a matter of the regulation but the stupidity level of thinking it interferes with getting wealthy.
Why should my Facebook Friends be the only ones to share the temptation. Behold … Paddington’s Pudding
2 Likes
That’s what we call “French Toast” in the USA … specifically the kind of French Toast made in the oven rather than in the skillet. Rather tasty.
1 Like
This is a twist on plain old bread and butter pudding. It’s one of Mary Berry’s upgrades using marmalade sandwiches.
This was interesting…doc
The problem with interpreting these results as a condemnation of erythritol consumption is that diet isn’t the only source of circulating erythritol. This compound is also produced by our own bodies through a process known as the pentose phosphate pathway, one of the pathways by which we metabolize glucose. So how can we tell if dietary erythritol intake in particular is contributing to MACE risk?
We can’t. The investigators did not collect any data on erythritol intake from any of their human cohorts, so we have no way of correlating consumption with MACE risk because we have no way of knowing which participants were regularly consuming erythritol-containing foods. Indeed, Witkowski et al. note that the vast majority of their study participants were enrolled prior to erythritol becoming a common sweetener and food additive. This, combined with the authors’ finding that erythritol levels remain well above the cohort ranges for at least a day after consumption, suggests that none of the cohort patients were consuming erythritol in their diets, and that the levels measured in fasting plasma samples were instead the result of endogenous production. In other words, this study provides no evidence whatsoever that the association between circulating erythritol and MACE has anything to do with dietary erythritol intake.
1 Like
Indeed. What I found interesting…mainly because I hadn’t put the pentose phosphate pathway in context… from other criticisms of the study that I’ve read, this is one of those evolutionary advantageous ways of managing high circulating glucose levels during “feast” times in the feast or famine cycles our ancestors experienced.
The study authors appear to have picked up on…and misrepresented…a situation that’s the direct result of the population studied. Enough to make a person wonder if they were unaware of this … or were hoping the wider readership would be.
1 Like
Most of these scientific findings are non conclusive. I’d be worried if they were conclusive. The entire budget for the study would be different and much further reaching.
It is not one way or the other, it is unstudied. By “findings” I mean simple discoveries.