[eljimmy]

I've studied nutrition pretty heavily in the past as it pertained to my bodybuilding.

They could have used so many better ingredients. Maltodextrin is the cheapest and worst complex carb you could have put in it. It's chemically a complex but really your body doesn't react much differently to it than other simple sugars.

[wdewind]

Controlling for calories and assuming you're not diabetic why does it matter what your source of carbohydrate is?

[nopinsight]

Consuming much simple carbs often results in a faster rise in blood sugar and gradual insulin resistance which may lead to diabetes in the long run.

Disclaimer: Not an expert, but here is a reference: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates/c...

[allover]

I think that's too simplistic of a connecting of dots.

You're conflating with overeating. I don't believe healthy people, that stay within a healthy caloric range, that aren't predisposed to diabetes need to fear that the "rise in blood sugar" from simple carbs is going to lead to diabetes. And I'm not aware of any study that shows that or even could (it'd be incredibly hard to study), correct me if wrong.

Most people eat simple carbs every day and don't get diabetes. Athletes eat a lot of carbs and don't get diabetes.

[CuriouslyC]

1.) Carbs are a "hot" fuel, they have been shown to increase markers of oxidative stress and inflammation unless paired with phytonutrients as is typically the case in whole fruits and vegetables. This is because sugars are highly reactive in comparison with fats (particularly fructose).

2.) Highly quality carbs, such as in beans, barley, certain kinds of sweet potatoes, etc, are fermented by by your gut bacteria into short chain fatty acids. Short chain fatty acids have been linked to lower inflammation, improved mood and memory, weight loss, longer life span, the list goes on.

[allover]

Sources please. 'Inflammation' sets off my pseudo-science detector. And your first point is suggesting carbs are inherently bad 'because inflammation', which I just don't buy.

[CuriouslyC]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2859324/ https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jnme/2012/238056/ http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/33/5/991.short http://www.onlinejacc.org/content/48/4/677 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11745-007-3132-7

It will also help if you understand the chemistry of carbohydrates vs fats. Carbohydrates are inherently unstable and are much more likely to undergo spontaneous reactions than fats. This is because sugars are fringed with electrophyllic hydroxyl groups that will take part in dehydration reactions under physiological conditions. The result of this is advanced glycation end (AGE) products. The phytonutrients from plants seem to stabilize carbohydrates, which is probably part the reason the plant made them in the first place.

Carbohydrates aren't so much you body's preferred fuel, rather your body uses them first because letting them float around in circulation is harmful. This is particularly true of fructose, which the liver works very hard to prevent from entering general circulation.

[allover]

Pretty inpenetrable studies for a layman. At no point do they really say how "inflammation" is harmful to the average healthy person? You seem to have drawn pretty broad conclusions from these very specific studies, that only demonstrate findings like:

> "In conclusion, macronutrient composition of the diet may differentially alter the postprandial pro-oxidative milieu, with high-carbohydrate meals potentially leading to greater oxidative stress response. However, both meals increased circulating IL6, regardless of the type of nutrient consumed."

I don't see how that translates into a sentence like your:

"Carbohydrates aren't so much you body's preferred fuel".

If you can connect the dots clearly I'd love to see it, but the impression I get is people like yourself and the 'inflammation' crowd are taking these very specific studies and totally distorting their meaning to make broader truths.

[CuriouslyC]

My conclusions aren't from those studies alone, those are just the ones that popped up quickly for a google scholar search. I don't keep an index of all the studies I read so at times it can be hard to find everything that supports a position I've built up over years of scholarly research (not blogs and lay writing).

I tried to connect the dots a bit with some of the biochemistry of why carbohydrates need to be cleared quickly, it can't simplified much past that. What it comes down to is that oxygen atoms make molecules more chemically reactive than other common elements like carbon and nitrogen. This causes "unintended" reactions, which produce molecules the body doesn't know how to handle. These molecules can directly trigger an immune response, or they can be incorporated into other molecules which causes them to malfunction in various ways. Both cases are bad.

It isn't necessarily the inflammation itself that is bad. Rather, it is a sign that something is going wrong with your body. Usually when inflammation is high, either you have something foreign in your body, or your cells are killing themselves for some reason, and immune cells are being activated to "clean up" the debris.

[L29Ah]

Even if you're not a diabetic, blood glucose spikes affect your mental performance like a weak stimulant, creating mild mood swings. Also, high amounts of high GI foods stimulate body fat production.

[allover]

> Also, high amounts of high GI foods stimulate body fat production.

That idea, 'the insulin hypothesis', has not been proven. In fact there is now evidence that claim is false. (Paywalled study [1], summary in this article [2]).

[1] http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v71/n3/full/ejcn2016260a.... [2] https://www.vox.com/2016/7/6/12105660/do-low-carb-diets-work