this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2025

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Scientists Quantified The Harm of Sugary Drinks, And It's Devastating (www.sciencealert.com)

submitted 2 days ago by cm0002 to c/science

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This was news like 20+ years ago and here we still are.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

here we still are.

Not the ones who got type 2 diabetes 20+ years ago

[–] FenrirIII 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Diabeetus!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

My mom says it that way. It makes me twitch.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 days ago (2 children)

So other than destroying your teeth, it sounds like the conclusion here is more or less that being overweight is unhealthy and overweight people tend to drink sugary drinks. It's just empty calories. If you're naturally lean despite drinking sugar-sweetened drinks then the negative health effects of it are probably significantly lower.

Personally, I just tend to consume mostly artificially sweetened drinks. It takes the edge off when I desire something sweet and to get any significant negative health effects from aspartamine you'd need to be consuming insane amounts of it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29159583/

Artificial sweeteners appear to change the host microbiome, lead to decreased satiety, and alter glucose homeostasis, and are associated with increased caloric consumption and weight gain.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 days ago

Drinking too many of these drinks too often can lead to weight gain and insulin resistance

This sounds like insulin resistance could happen additionally to weight gain.

[+] [email protected] -25 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Drinking soda is like drinking alcohol... But it is socially acceptable to shit on people who consume only of the alcohol.

Hmm

I guess drinking and driving is bad PR

[–] Solumbran 59 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Alcohol is incredibly worse, and it's much less accepted to criticize it. This is inept.

[–] AA5B 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

In this scenario, alcohol is less bad than soda. It has similar calories but they’re not entirely empty - different drinks have different advantages. For example beer tends to have vitamin b and a small amount of fiber, whereas soda is completely empty.

Alcohol is detrimental in different ways, especially when you have more than one

[–] Solumbran 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What scenario exactly? The deaths and health issues caused by each? Because else, there is really no point. You're just grasping for anything you can find to defend alcohol if all you can find is"there are some vitamins in some alcoholic drinks", especially considering that it is also the case for a lot of sweet drinks, even sodas.

Alcohol is extremely unhealthy, causes dangerous behaviours, deaths, cancers and so on, is one of the few things that can kill you from withdrawal, causes permanent defects on kids during pregnancy, and all of that while being not only legal, not only accepted, but actually actively encouraged and seen as a requirement in society. If you don't believe me just try to post anything saying that alcohol is stupid at parties.

[–] AA5B 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I understand alcohol is bad for pretty much everyone and worse for some. There’s no defense.

However in a thread on “the harm of sugary drinks”, it’s not the worst choice.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Both are sins, and should be treated as such.

But sugar gets a pass due to heavy lobby and cultural acceptance.

It should be subject to heavier scrutiny from policy side and socially made unappealing just like how people talk about alcohol in this thread.

[–] AA5B 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

For sure, sugar is also more pervasive, whereas alcohol has always been regulated enough to be its own thing.

Sugar isn’t just a problem in candies, desserts, and sodas, but way too much is added to things like yogurt, juice, ketchup, salad dressing, throughout the food chain.

As an occasional alcohol drinker, I’m all for tightening things up. We did prove that prohibition doesn’t work, but age restrictions and taxes have made a huge impact on underage drinking. Let’s crank that up. Make me pay more vice taxes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Correct, sugar is unchecked and society accepts it.

Tax it and limit social appeal

[–] netvor 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

In this scenario, alcohol is less bad than soda

If by "scenario" you mean you only want to observe single parameter, then fine, but that's not really useful.

Alcohol is much worse than soda.

[–] AA5B 2 points 1 day ago

By this scenario, I me as n “the harm of sugary drinks”. The context is the title.

Of course alcohol is overall much more harmful but if we’re talking about empty calories and insulin insensitivity, there are worse choices

[+] [email protected] -23 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Sugar kills more and more people are certified land whales.

[–] whostosay 26 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You're not going to win this argument, sugar intake is inwardly destructive, while alcohol is inward and outward. The victims of alcohol are not just the people that consume it, whether it be from drinking and driving, spousal abuse, watching someone you love deteriorating their brain and liver, etc.

This is not apples to apples at all.

[–] Solumbran 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

And car accidents are still more dangerous, and that's ignoring the non-deadly dangers of alcohol.