[elrzn]

> So I can eat a few chicken breasts a day, and then 1,500 kcal of mars bars? Sounds great!

Doesn't it?

The only issue with sugars are the null effect on satiety and promotion of binge eating. The reason some folks work so well on lowcarb diets is because sugars make it easy to overeat, but that's just a way to create a caloric deficit for them.

Now, I bet most folks here on HN are much more quantitative oriented than the average person, so why limiting yourself to a small set of foods (paleo, keto), when you can free yourself and get away eating pretty much whatever you want, as long as you track the calorie intake?

[TomGullen]

> The only issue with sugars are the null effect on satiety and promotion of binge eating.

> sugars make it easy to overeat

Those are issues, for sure! And great reasons why when dieting, a good foundation is exclusion of carbs.

But that's only scratching the surface. Let me give you another downside. Eating sugar causes arterial inflammation. When your arteries inflame, your body packs it with oxidized LDL which can lead to heart problems and strokes due to constriction in your arteries. Guess what causes arterial inflammation?

There's more as well. We need to brush our teeth because of our high carb diets. It causes tooth decay and gum disease. Before high carb diets, our ancestors had healthier mouths than we do today. http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/02/24/172688806/ancient...

> "You're walking around with a permanent immune response, which is not a good thing," says Cooper. "It causes problems all over the place."

More as well! It turns out that calories is an oversimplified model of dieting. Here's a recent interesting study that paints it clearly: http://www.dietdoctor.com/overeating-carbs-worse-overeating-...

But there's more! Garry Taubes explains a lot of reasons very well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6vpFV6Wkl4

There are so many reasons carbs are bad for you, not just from a satiation point of view but also from long term health points of view.

I'm confident this post has actually done a disservice to the question why should we eat less carbs, but hopefully it's something you might find interesting and read more about and maybe change your opinion on. All the information, studies and evidence is out there.

[elrzn]

Assuming LDL is a bad thing, low carb diets (which are usually high fat diets) tend to spike it up as well, and at a greater rate.

People on ketogenic diets and below maintenance calorie intakes end up reporting high levels of LDL, with high levels of HDL to balance it out. Now, give them a hundred more calories above maintenance and things start to get funny.

Calories in vs calories out might be an oversimplified model, but so is blaming everything on insulin as Taubes does, as he still believes it's the only factor promoting fat storage.

> I'm confident this post has actually done a disservice to the question why should we eat less carbs, but hopefully it's something you might find interesting and read more about and maybe change your opinion on.

Been there, done that. I've been in keto for years until I crashed. Not anymore.

[TomGullen]

But the problem is with arterial inflammation. That's what people need to work towards reducing. My understanding is that the inflammation is the root cause of all the problems.

Perhaps Taubes is over simplifying it, but you have to admit that there are far more problems and negative health consequences with eating sugar than simply satiation which you originally asserted.

[elrzn]

Well I'd say inflammation is rather a symptom of problems, but yeah, it sucks and should be avoided.

But can't blame all on sugar, since some processed foods and lean meats (!) promote that cycle as well. So the best way to avoid it is by not overeating.

I agree with you though, that since it's difficult not to overeat when abusing simple sugars, most folks will do better without them.