Put down that diet soda and back away slowly
February 11, 2008 8:05 AM   Subscribe

An older study that claims artificial sweeteners actually cause weight gain, has resurfaced. In addition to the other health hazards linked to artificial sweeteners, it appears there is yet another reason to go back to nature. Unless of course you take advice from Nancy Appleton, Ph.D, who seems to think sugar is the cause of almost everything.
posted by Mr_Zero (60 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Sure, we could go back to regular soda... or we could, I dunno, not drink that shit.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:07 AM on February 11, 2008 [6 favorites]


100 % of people whom "got" birth will die, we should start fighting "birth"
posted by zouhair at 8:09 AM on February 11, 2008 [2 favorites]


That's why I'm switching to drinking only crystal meth.
posted by L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg at 8:09 AM on February 11, 2008 [2 favorites]


I hear this in some form every time I eat at the McDonald's at work: "I'll take a Big Mac, large fries, apple pie, and a diet coke." I never would have guessed it was the diet coke that made that person heavy.
posted by TedW at 8:14 AM on February 11, 2008 [2 favorites]


Refined white sugar is hardly "back to nature". What we really need to do is go back to squatting in caves and eating raw dead animals and handfuls of grass.
posted by DU at 8:14 AM on February 11, 2008 [4 favorites]


Sure, we could go back to regular soda... or we could, I dunno, not drink that shit.

There is a Quicktrip by my house and sometimes I stop in the morning for coffee. It blows my mind to see people filling up these 64 oz mugs with diet soda. The mugs are as large a their heads. It looks like they are carrying a gallon of milk.
posted by Mr_Zero at 8:21 AM on February 11, 2008


Your stomach has sweetness receptors which respond to sugar substitutes.
posted by caddis at 8:26 AM on February 11, 2008


So those Purdue researches claim there is some sort of "viscosity receptor" somewhere in my GI tract that is tied into my metabolism, or somehow allows my body to treat a non-energy containing food like it where an energy containing food?

Color me dubious.
posted by sourwookie at 8:27 AM on February 11, 2008



I think I'm going to use my grandmother's method of weight control: cigarettes, coffee and Benzedrine.

She's 84, and aside from the fact she blinks one eye at a time, she appears to be AOK.
posted by Bathtub Bobsled at 8:27 AM on February 11, 2008 [15 favorites]


FYI, Nancy Appleton's Ph.D. is from Walden University, a for-profit distance-learning school.

Refined white sugar is hardly "back to nature". What we really need to do is go back to squatting in caves and eating raw dead animals and handfuls of grass.

More like primarily fruits, nuts, insects, and other plants, usually cooked (since about 1.9 million years ago) , with meat on occasion.
posted by The Michael The at 8:29 AM on February 11, 2008


I never would have guessed it was the diet coke that made that person heavy.

I usually figured that, by getting a diet soda, they had "permission" to eat the other junk. Which I guess is what the study is actually saying, though it's on a subconscious level. It's certainly in line with my experience; I'm hungrier after a diet soda than a regular one, but I assumed that was because one gives me calories and one doesn't. But does the diet soda actually increase hunger because you're expecting calories that don't materialize (versus tea or water)?

I recently cut down severely on my Coke Zero habit and am opting for ice water instead. It'll be interesting to see if it has a measurable effect on my eating habits.
posted by almostmanda at 8:33 AM on February 11, 2008


More like primarily fruits, nuts, insects, and other plants, usually cooked...

Cooked?!? Don't you know that alters the chemical structure most foods? Also, fire is a deadly substance--do you really want that in contact with something you eat?
posted by DU at 8:36 AM on February 11, 2008


I read the article and I'm unsure of what reaction they're really measuring here. It isn't blood-sugar levels, that's for sure. Some sort of 'metabolism-related' temperature?

As a Type I diabetic, I can offer concrete numbers showing the difference between corn syrup/refined sugar and sugar substitutes. Admittedly, I'm not jamming a thermometer up my ass to measure my metabolic temperature delta, but it's pretty convincing.

Apparently I'm some sort of evil bastard for enjoying a Diet Pepsi rather than going blind. And only fools believe that drinking diet soda somehow excuses overeating and poor food choices.
posted by unixrat at 8:37 AM on February 11, 2008 [5 favorites]


I like iced tea, and today I was out shopping for groceries and had some other errands to do, so I picked up the only iced tea my grocery store had that wasn't sweetened. Unfortunately, it was lemon-flavored, but how bad could that be? Turned out the there were 180 calories, and the tea was chock full of high fructose syrup. WTF? I came home and poured out what I hadn't already drunk before reading the label and brewed up some good, strong, black tea with no sweetener.

What amazes me is that, since I live in the South, "sweetened" tea is all over the place; it's considered some kind of Southern tradition--they even make commercials where a big Southern family think they are drinking Grandma's tea, but it is really from McDonald's.
posted by misha at 8:38 AM on February 11, 2008


What amazes me is that, since I live in the South, "sweetened" tea is all over the place

Shockingly, some people make food decisions based on taste and not on nutritional value.

This is surprising how?
posted by GuyZero at 8:45 AM on February 11, 2008


The Michael The writes: FYI, Nancy Appleton's Ph.D. is from Walden University, a for-profit distance-learning school.

Some of her claims in the Mercola link sound like the same claims used in the DHMO "study":

11. Sugar can lead to alcoholism.
32. Sugar can impair the structure of your DNA.
61. Decrease in sugar intake can increase emotional stability.
69. Sugar increases your rate of polio.
73. Sugar may induce cell death.
posted by meowzilla at 8:46 AM on February 11, 2008



I usually figured that, by getting a diet soda, they had "permission" to eat the other junk. Which I guess is what the study is actually saying, though it's on a subconscious level.


What I've noticed is that I can't stand the taste of regular Pepsi or Coke after drinking the diet equivalents exclusively for years. Coke in particular tastes like motor oil. Diet Coke, on the other hand, tastes like the kiss of a goddess.

Also, I've actually conducted an experiment to find out how much soda is actually in a 32 oz cup. The answer: 16-18 oz. The rest is ice.
posted by Pastabagel at 8:52 AM on February 11, 2008


What amazes me is that, since I live in the South, "sweetened" tea is all over the place; it's considered some kind of Southern tradition--they even make commercials where a big Southern family think they are drinking Grandma's tea, but it is really from McDonald's.
posted by misha at 11:38 AM on February 11


Well, sweet tea is a Southern tradition, in which the sugar is added during or before brewing to achieve a supersaturated concentration of sugar in the tea. Sweetened tea is tea in which sugar has been added after brewing, has less sugar and is therefore less sweet.
posted by Pastabagel at 8:56 AM on February 11, 2008


Diet cola research typically leads to a dramatic gain in anecdotes.

Research that is consistent with people's food prejudices, such as cola is bad, typically requires far less real scientific evidence before people believe it. The aspartame causes cancer myth is a good example of this. Thousands of studies show no harm. Three bad ones do. What do people believe?

I'll hold off pouring corn syrup down my throat and adding sugar Cals to my diet until they come up with more evidence for the effect combined with a mechanism explaining the results.

Until then I will continue drinking my diet cola cut with a lot of ice because I think it tastes better.

My extra weight is because I am lazy. No other reason.
posted by srboisvert at 8:57 AM on February 11, 2008 [1 favorite]


ZOMG DON'T YOU KNOW YOU CAN STRIP PAINT AND DELAMINATE PLYWOOD WITH COKE
posted by everichon at 9:02 AM on February 11, 2008 [1 favorite]


srboisvert writes "My extra weight is because I am lazy. No other reason."

Your and possibily mine too, as I have noticed that reducing my phyisical activity tends to make me feel worse, heavier and gain some actual mass. But eating too much may not cause extra weight, but certainly all the water/carbos/proteins/vitamins/fats must come from somewhere.
posted by elpapacito at 9:03 AM on February 11, 2008


What I've noticed is that I can't stand the taste of regular Pepsi or Coke after drinking the diet equivalents exclusively for years. Coke in particular tastes like motor oil. Diet Coke, on the other hand, tastes like the kiss of a goddess.

I'm the same way. I drank diet soda for years (like, way too much a day before about a year ago, when I used my spring break for caffeine detox) and Coke Classic tastes unbearably wretched now, like drinking pure soda syrup.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:05 AM on February 11, 2008 [1 favorite]


Just yesterday I was wondering out loud at breakfast why Sweet N' Low no longer has the warning "has been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals" in bright red lettering on the back anymore...
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 9:10 AM on February 11, 2008


Also, fire is a deadly substance--do you really want that in contact with something you eat?

You know you're supposed to put the flames out before you eat the food, right?
posted by Khalad at 9:12 AM on February 11, 2008


59.) Sugar can be intoxicating, similar to alcohol.

11.) Sugar can lead to alcoholism.

54.) Sugar can lead to dizziness.

58.) Sugar is an addictive substance


Well shit, knowing all this, I'm just going to skip the sugar and just drink the booze. I mean, at least that makes me charming, right?
posted by quin at 9:17 AM on February 11, 2008


In nature, people were lucky to live to 35.

It wouldn't suprise me if diet soda encouraged people to eat more, but if you actually count your calories it's not a problem.
posted by delmoi at 9:24 AM on February 11, 2008


Just yesterday I was wondering out loud at breakfast why Sweet N' Low no longer has the warning "has been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals" in bright red lettering on the back anymore...

That was sucrose.
posted by delmoi at 9:25 AM on February 11, 2008


The real danger is High Fructose Corn Sweetener. If we just abandon that, and return to sugar, everything will get better again.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 9:38 AM on February 11, 2008


Well, if artificial sweeteners affect our insulin one way or the other, I can see how this can have a metabolic effect. Also I suspect that when one drinks a sweet drink of any kind, you are more prone to keep eating.

But regardless, I have the diet Coke jones now. I agree with the rest of you that the flavor is superior to the regular soda.
posted by konolia at 9:56 AM on February 11, 2008


Off topic question:
I know people who don't drink diet soda dislike the after-taste, and after a few years of drinking diet soda people tend to lose the ability to notice it. In fact, like konolia says, diet drinkers come to prefer the taste. My question is if this can be reversed. Does anyone know if a diet drinker goes back to drinking regular soda if they'll eventually prefer regular soda again?
posted by Crash at 10:00 AM on February 11, 2008


There's evidence, too, that drinking diet soda is associated with incipient metabolic syndrome, although, to me, the logic here would seem to suggest that is is those people who are more at risk who are also drinking diet soda (the big mac, fries, diet coke crowd), rather than the other way around.
posted by OmieWise at 10:09 AM on February 11, 2008


Does anyone know if a diet drinker goes back to drinking regular soda if they'll eventually prefer regular soda again?

I can't empirically state yes or no, but I strongly suspect it is based on nothing more than familiarity and convenience. People can get used to pretty much anything, and turn it into their preferred 'brand'.

When I smoked, anything other than my brand tasted awful. But after enough time of being forced to use a different kind, I got used to it to the point where anything else tasted wrong. Since I've never been in an environment where I couldn't get access to a regular Coke, I have no idea if this analog holds true. But I'd bet a lot that, yeah, if a diet drinker switches to regular soda for long enough, anything else will taste bad.
posted by quin at 10:10 AM on February 11, 2008


Well, if I'm gonna be chubby either way, I'd like to keep my perfect teeth.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 10:12 AM on February 11, 2008 [1 favorite]


Just yesterday I was wondering out loud at breakfast why Sweet N' Low no longer has the warning "has been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals" in bright red lettering on the back anymore...

The cancer pathway in mice who ate a lot of saccharine turns out to not exist in humans.
posted by Comrade_robot at 10:16 AM on February 11, 2008 [1 favorite]


The real danger is High Fructose Corn Sweetener. If we just abandon that, and return to sugar, everything will get better again.

The two are essentially chemically identical. The only reason HFCS is contributing to obesity is because it's cheaper, and thus has been added to everything in higher concentrations.
posted by rocket88 at 10:32 AM on February 11, 2008


Does anyone know if a diet drinker goes back to drinking regular soda if they'll eventually prefer regular soda again?

I drank diet pepsi and diet pepsi Jazz for about a year, preferred to regular pepsi. Lack of access at my current job left me going back to regular pepsi and after a few weeks, I preferred it again. I wasn't as long term a diet soda drinker as some, but I suspect it holds true for most. Just like if you prefer coke or pepsi long enough, but are forced to switch, you'll eventually prefer the other.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 10:34 AM on February 11, 2008


I didn't believe any of the rubbish about diet drinks but when I read that Donald Rumsfeld was the man behind aspartame I stopped:

From 1977 to 1985 Rumsfeld served as Chief Executive Officer, President, and then Chairman of G.D. Searle & Company, a worldwide pharmaceutical company based in Skokie, Illinois, whose products included, among others, Metamucil, Dramamine, Aspartame, and the oral contraceptive pill Enovid. During his tenure at Searle, Rumsfeld led the company's financial turnaround that in turn earned him awards as the Outstanding Chief Executive Officer in the Pharmaceutical Industry from the Wall Street Transcript (1980) and Financial World (1981). Rumsfeld is believed to have earned around $12 million from Searle's sale to Monsanto.

While Aspartame was discovered in 1965 it wasn't approved until 1980 during Rumsfeld's tenure.
posted by meech at 11:03 AM on February 11, 2008


Just in case there was any doubt there, my PhD is from a Big 10 university, I do research on feeding and obesity, and I'm claiming Appleton is a quack just based on her website alone. Learning that her PhD was from a mail-order institution, well, that doesn't make me want to change my mind.
posted by caution live frogs at 11:16 AM on February 11, 2008 [2 favorites]


Just to be clear:

Animals fed with artificially sweetened yogurt over a two-week period consumed more calories and gained more weight — mostly in the form of fat — than animals eating yogurt flavored with glucose, a natural, high-calorie sweetener.

The artificial sweeteners are hypothesized to cause the rats to eat more, thereby gaining weight.

Oh, and the sweetener? Not aspartame. Saccharine.
posted by callmejay at 11:24 AM on February 11, 2008


And if you just stop drinking soda at all, having mostly water and tea, and come back to it after a few months, your mouth screams "WTF ARE YOU DRINKING?" because it's naaaaasty. But it only takes a couple sips before you're back on that black horse again, riding, riding.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:38 AM on February 11, 2008 [4 favorites]


As a Type I diabetic, I can offer concrete numbers showing the difference between corn syrup/refined sugar and sugar substitutes...Apparently I'm some sort of evil bastard for enjoying a Diet Pepsi rather than going blind.

THANK YOU, unixrat...every time someone gets on my case for drinking a Diet Coke because "it might have some sort of negative effect sometime in the future, we're not sure but I heard some study sometime," I want to beat them about the head with my insulin pen. Personally, at this point I'll take the thing that inconclusively might kill me sometime down the line than the thing that will kill me now.

This also happens when people express great amusement that someone might order, say, fries and a Diet Coke once in a while. If you're diabetic and occasionally want some fries, yeah, it does make sense not to order a giant tub of fast-acting sugar on top of it.
posted by ilana at 11:59 AM on February 11, 2008


Anecdotaly, rolonged drinking of diet sodas tends to make me crave sweeter foods in general. It has a more dramatic effect on my palate then sugar consumption does. But I'm one of those half-gallon cup of soda in the morning diet coke drinkers. I'm thinking of switching to espresso.
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:00 PM on February 11, 2008


Oh man, fries totally screw up my blood sugar, diet coke or not. It seems like potatoes process faster than table sugar for me.
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:01 PM on February 11, 2008


Correlation is not causation.
posted by oaf at 12:06 PM on February 11, 2008


rocket88's assertion...

The only reason HFCS is contributing to obesity is because it's cheaper, and thus has been added to everything in higher concentrations....

is the most likely reason for obesity.

From Marion Nestle's Book "What to Eat":

Below is the pounds per capita consumption of sweetners here in the US, one in 1980 when HFCS took off, and in 2004.

Total caloric sweeteners
1980 - 120 lbs.
2004 - 142 lbs.

refined sugar
1980 - 84 lbs.
2004 - 61 lbs.

HFCS
1980 - 35 lbs.
2004 - 78 lbs.

others
1980 - 1
2004 - 1.4

What this shows, to me at least, is that the primary reason for the rise in obesity has more to do with the over-consumption of sugar than it does with how our bodies react to either table sugar or HFCS.
posted by AccidentalHedonist at 12:13 PM on February 11, 2008


Every time I hear talk of artificial sweeteners causing weight gain, I think back to a magical time in my life--one of those time periods where everything falls into place, when my creativity and productivity were at at peak, when my mental and physical prowess exceeded even my best estimates of my own ability.

It was my junior year of high school, and it was the year I discovered Magic Diet Pepsi.

It started off as groundbreaking discoveries are known to do--through a combination of boredom, inattention, and desperation. I was in Marketing, a class that existed solely for seniors unable to pass the state-required Economics course and for juniors who were running out of classes to take. Needless to say, I was bored shitless. Even worse, it was located in a separate building from the high school, meaning I had to cross the parking lot after my first period instead of grabbing my usual 9:30 cup of sweet tea from the cafeteria.

It was this lack of sugar and caffeine that pushed me to the comforting electric hum of the vending machines.

At first, I made the typical soda selections of any bored desk-bound drone. Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, my good friend Mt. Dew, even shitty canned tea were all purchased and consumed. Days turned into weeks. I became comfortable in my ways, then set in them, then confined by them. Seeking the stimulation of the vaguely new, the slightly unknown, my fingers moved down, steadily downward, until they reached the penultimate button on the soda machine

I bought a Diet Pepsi. And a bag of Planter's Peanuts.

The peanuts were the same as any 50 cent back of peanuts--salt, protein, allergens. But when I got to the Diet Pepsi, I noticed something different--the can was a lighter pastel color than normal, with a dated-looking font. The ingredients list looked different, as well--no Nutrasweet logo, no listing of generic aspartame, not even saccharin. Instead, there were bizarre, even more synthetic-sounding ingredients--acesulfame potassium, cyclamate, and any number of other lab-produced, possibly carcinogenic flavor additives.

Feeling the immortality of youth, and thinking that an early death would at least get me out of the rest of the school day, I closed my eyes and drew my first taste of blood from the vein of God.

It tasted a little different than the typical Diet beverage--thinner, somehow, and possibly more tart or bitter, but it still approximated the harsh flavor effectively. I drank, and thought nothing more of my the frothy concoction as I delved into learning how to keep a checkbook.

Thirty minutes later I was experiencing the high of my life. Class was typically non-remarkable, but I felt *good* about its tired normalcy. I skipped lunch--I wasn't hungry. The usual tepid experience of sight-reading music for concert band was... interesting! I went to practice with my rock group later, and my bass playing seemed faster and tighter.

By the next day I was hooked. Every day for weeks, Planter's Peanuts and Magic Diet Pepsi made up my early lunch. My appetitie the rest of the day was lower, and I had more energy. Within months I had dropped 25 pounds and put on muscle--I was faster, stronger, and smarter than ever, and I looked great. My bass playing was improving, I was becoming more popular, classes seemed easier and easier. Pepsi Corp. was stealing my meager high school fortune in fifty-cent increments, but I was becoming something beyond their wildest dreams. At this pace, I would control the world's supply of fifty-cent increments by the time I was thirty.

Then the day every junkie, addict, and steroid freak dreads arrived. My supply disappeared. My fifty cents were swallowed by the machine with an angry mechanical cough and out rolled a shiny new can of Diet Pepsi. Literally a new can--stabbing outward from the smooth aluminum surface, the words "New and Improved" penetrated the bony folds of my skull and begin twisting itself into my fragile cerebral cortex. The ingredients list bore the condemning stamp of aspartame--I envisioned a branding iron sinking into the cold metal skin of the can, burning the word "Impostor" into it in a crisp sans-serif font. I popped the top, and drank of disappointment.

And so I've been clean for five, nearly six years. I've gone on other trips--the swirling confusion of sweet tea, the heady focus of coffee and espresso, the vague energetic itch of accidentally consumed expired allergy medication, all have fallen short of the perfect beverage-induced ecstasy I once knew. I carry a mark on my soul that few others can see, but there are occasional moments of connection--eyes meeting across the wasteland of a cafe, painful stares parting the veil of a cigarette's smoke. I am not alone, but that is little comfort.

So I look upon the world now with hollow eyes, knowing not, exactly, what I desire, but knowing that I desire it.
posted by Benjy at 12:15 PM on February 11, 2008 [8 favorites]


Oh man, fries totally screw up my blood sugar, diet coke or not. It seems like potatoes process faster than table sugar for me.

Well, McDonald's fries have sugar on them, don't they?
posted by agregoli at 12:15 PM on February 11, 2008


As a reminder, Stevia is still non-caloric, natural, and an oh so very delicious sweetener.
posted by munchingzombie at 12:51 PM on February 11, 2008


Some of the reactions to this I've seen around the internet are pretty amusing. If diet soda doesn't make people gain weight, then there's no cosmic punishment for violating the natural order of things by drinking something that tastes good (to them) that's non-caloric. But if diet soda does make people gain weight, then that implies that there's some more complicated reason for weight gain than calories in/calories out; in other words, there are causes for being fat other than being lazy and stupid.

Boy, is this a tough moral quandary -- if you see weight as a moral issue.
posted by transona5 at 1:17 PM on February 11, 2008 [2 favorites]


As with absolutely everything on this planet, the safety of Stevia is up for debate. Natural doesn't always equal better or safer.

Also, it is repulsive. It has a very distinct taste, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying or has defective taste buds. They may like the taste, but the taste is there.
posted by tastybrains at 1:18 PM on February 11, 2008 [1 favorite]


Also, it is repulsive. It has a very distinct taste, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying or has defective taste buds. They may like the taste, but the taste is there.

Amen. While current artificial sweeteners aren't perfect, they're a helluva lot better than Stevia. (Modern Atkins dieters take note: The hardline '72ers are absolutely right about the diet dangers of Sugar Alcohols and totally wrong about Stevia. It is good for nothing other than exorcisms and punishing kids for swearing. "No, please! The soap! Give me the soap!")
posted by unixrat at 1:51 PM on February 11, 2008


Interesting question you raise transona5. If it is as simple as calories in/calories out (and any fat person is an idiot for not following something so simple), why would diet soda, which has no calories, cause weight gain?

But it's worth remembering that when it comes to counting calories, it's not just the ones you eat that you have to worry about. The calories you give up matter too, and they may very well reappear in that extra helping of pasta or dessert that your body demands. Your body may actually be keeping better count than you are.

Yes, your body knows better than all the diet books and diet gurus in the world. Diet=starvation. Starvation=bad. Fat=protection. The more you diet, the more you mess your body up. It's hard to break old habits, I have a bottle of diet root beer right here. Because hey, if it tastes just as good as regular (which it doesn't, not really, but it's easy to lie to yourself) and it has no calories, it's good even if you're not trying to lose weight. Except, no, it's not. Can't fool the body. And if you don't listen to it, and give it the calories it wants, and if you keep that up, then your metabolism will be lowered in response. No more diet anything for me.
posted by Danila at 3:04 PM on February 11, 2008


The two are essentially chemically identical. (regarding sugar and HFCS)

No, they're not. Table sugar is sucrose, which is a disaccharide made up of one glucose plus one fructose. HFCS is 70-90% fructose, the rest glucose, but not chemically bonded into pairs.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 3:47 PM on February 11, 2008


I hear this in some form every time I eat at the McDonald's at work: "I'll take a Big Mac, large fries, apple pie, and a diet coke." I never would have guessed it was the diet coke that made that person heavy.

It is usually about limiting the badness I would have thought. I personally would prefer Water, but they don't serve that (or if they do, its a tiny thing; Sure we'll give you 500ml of coke, but if you want water, you get 120ml). So the second drink in evilness is diet drink. Fruit juices have just as much sugar as coke.

There are better things to laugh at than that, since that one actually makes sense, if you are opting to eat at a fast food place in the first place.
posted by lundman at 4:16 PM on February 11, 2008 [1 favorite]


then that implies that there's some more complicated reason for weight gain than calories in/calories out;

I've never properly learned physics. For example, I didn't know that the fat acceptance movement has repealed the laws conserving mass and energy.

(To be complete I had to put mass in there, but I don't think much of the current obesity is being caused by the retention of the non-caloric parts of food and drink.)
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 5:59 PM on February 11, 2008


And here there are all these researchers blowing NIH money to study how the body metabolizes energy. It's too bad none of these so-called "endocrinologists" with their fancy complicated research have taken a basic physics class. Someone smarter than them should set them straight.
posted by transona5 at 7:40 PM on February 11, 2008 [1 favorite]


I've never properly learned physics. For example, I didn't know that the fat acceptance movement has repealed the laws conserving mass and energy.

That reminds me of the "proof" that evolution is false because it violates the second law of thermodynamics.
posted by callmejay at 8:18 PM on February 11, 2008


And here there are all these researchers blowing NIH money to study how the body metabolizes energy.

I bet they discovered that people lose weight if their body metabolizes more energy than went in, while they gain weight if their body metabolizes less energy than went in. I'll also bet they discovered that one may reduce the energy in by eating less, and that one may increase the energy out by physical activity, regardless of changes in metabolism that may be caused by changes in diet.

That reminds me of the "proof" that evolution is false because it violates the second law of thermodynamics.


"The earth's not a closed system it's powered by the sun,
so fuck the damn creationists, Doomsday get my gun!"


What flaw invalidates the application of these conservation laws to human weight?
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 10:14 PM on February 11, 2008


Sugar free chocolate is the devil. My 86 year old grandmother kept feeding it to me last week and I didn't have the heart to tell her that I didn't want it. I don't know how many pieces of that crap I ate but I ate enough for it to have the "laxative effect" it warns about in the fine print on the back of the package. I also had burning, fiery farts about every 10 seconds for the rest of the evening.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 11:00 PM on February 11, 2008


MaryDellamorte: That's because it uses Sugar Alcohols. They're awful.
posted by unixrat at 8:34 AM on February 12, 2008


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