The Sweet Poison Forum

mikedufty · Joined: 10 Aug 2009 Posts: 55 Location: WA

After listening to radio shows etc , reading all I can on the web and cutting out fructose for a few weeks I finally got my hands on a copy of sweet poison. Tried to buy one on line from doubleday and they took a week to send me a letter saying they'ed run out, bizarre for an online shop. The one I read is from the library but I still need to buy a copy to lend to friends and family.

I've read the whole book over the weekend, very interesting, well written and hard to put down. More importantly the theories seem to be very soundly based and well thought out. There seems to be so much unsupported or wrong advice in this area that it is hard to know what to believe.

I'm pretty keen to get some blood tests done and see if that part is really working for me actually, even though the book has me convinced it should work, direct evidence is good.

A couple of side issues are not entirely satisfying.
Page 15 says we are probably genetically identical to the people who first settled in villages in the Niger delta, but 2 pages earlier you explain how most people with European Middle Eastern and Indian heritage can digest lactose, while most Africans can't.

The other bit is that you say, with what we know about fructose it is a miracle more people are not obese. I know you don't really mean a miracle literally, but it does seem to be an indication there is a bit more to it. My impression is that at least a substantial minority of the population is managing to not be obese despite the prevalance of fructose. It would be interesting to explore how.

It would be nice to see some more research focused specifically on the conclusions of the book. Hopefully that is happening somewhere (is there a dextrose manufacturers association ? Smile

The argument about fructose being too dangerous to experiment on humans with doesn't seem to rule out experimenting with removing it from a typical currently recommended diet.

Really really good book, I'm being picky about the above, its much easier to talk about the few things missing than all the good stuff that is in there. Even the questions I have above are good really in that the book is making me think about the questions.

admin · Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 11:34 am Post subject:

Glad you enjoyed the book and I don't mind the pickiness. It helps dissuade doubters from the possibility that I write these reviews myself Smile

Re some of your points:

Genetic variance: - good pick-up - I should have said except for the lactose variant and possibly one other - there is a theory that gluten intolerance is of a similar ilk ie that we have only recently 'learned' (in a genetic sense) to tolerate eating grass seeds and the intolerant individuals among us are those that have not managed it.

Not obese despite fructose: yes but the proportion is getting smaller - I suspect a reasonable majority may turn out to have some form of fructose malabsorption (further work to be done here).

Re the conclusion on dextrose ... once again very new ground - but I note Lustig (see video) comes to the same conclusion (independantly).

Cheers
David.