Monday, October 20, 2014

The weirdest dietary theory you will see today

Also from this week's letters to the editor, a very strange theory:
What a great scaremongering article “The Case against Sugar” is (C&EN, Aug. 4, page 11). Let’s be a touch more logical. 
So sugar has been bad for generations of people. Nevertheless, removing calories by replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners in soft drinks seems not to have made a difference. Doesn’t that point at the fattening effect coming from another soft-drink ingredient, such as phosphoric acid? 
Just do two Google searches—“phosphate water holding capacity meat” and “phosphate hog fattening”—for a hint at the effective mechanism. First, the tissues swell a little with every phosphate-containing soft drink consumed, then the body fills the new interstitial spaces with fat cells. An obvious study would be a long-term comparison of weight gain after consuming soft drinks with only phosphate (colas) or only citrate (such as Sprite). 
The closest I have found is a study of bone density that probably explains why hog fattening benefits from feeding calcium phosphate. 
Wolfgang H. H. Gunther
West Chester, Pa.
I am probably too skeptical about Mr. Gunther's theory, but perhaps he has not had enough space to fully explain it. Nevertheless, always a fun one to see in C&EN. 

1 comment:

  1. as crazy as this hypothesis sounds, it is perfectly testable. Maybe drinking too much phosphoric acid is not innocuous. High fructose corn syrup is a known appetite stimulant, but maybe there are other ingredients in sodas, that also make people overeat.

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