Talk:Sugar

Sugar has been listed as one of the Agriculture, food and drink good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
December 16, 2005	Good article nominee	Listed
September 29, 2006	Good article reassessment	Delisted
September 30, 2012	Good article nominee	Listed

Current status: Good article

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Willful and Deliberate Deception in reported Data

The footnote states "The carbohydrate figure is calculated in the USDA database and does not always correspond to the sum of the sugars, the starch, and the dietary fiber."

The problem with this is that the data still doesnt add up and is stilltherefore clearly erroneous, completely desyroying all reasonable credibillity of all the data in the table.

I would submit that if it doesnt add up the whole table should be outright removed from wikipedia in any event becauswle it clearly, by admission of the footnote, isn't factual data in any event regardless of the claimed source, unless there is a reasonable explanation as to exactly why the data is miscalculated in the table as to show that the miscalculation was not reasonably avoidable and was not intended by any party to be a willful and deliberate deception. Otherwise, I would be in favor of removing the entire table as clearly false data as to maintain a factual article and ensure strict WP:NPOV adherance. 2600:8804:6F0F:6D00:10C4:EC80:B6EF:5F7E (talk) 18:32, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Split proposal: sugar (product) vs. sugar (biochemistry)?

I know there's been some previous merging and splitting related to specific products like white sugar, but has anyone considered splitting off much of the chemistry into its own topic?

My thinking is that while there's a carbohydrate article, sugars are technically only a subset of carbohydrates. I know the article specifically says oligosaccharides aren't usually considered sugars, but I would think the actual biochemistry of sugars might be more adjacent to that than the other parts of this article, which are oriented more towards human use. Zar2gar1 (talk) 17:36, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

See Alcohol for one possible treatment. Certes (talk) 17:43, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's actually a perfect example of what I had in mind. I've noticed articles for other products / commodities don't always have the cleanest separation from their source, but this one stood out. Zar2gar1 (talk) 18:17, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It would need to be Sugar and Sugar (biochemistry). I'm not convinced there's enough on the second to justify a split, but I might be wrong. The article is long, but not so long the need for a split is urgent. Johnbod (talk) 19:25, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There's also precedent for that approach: Salt and Salt (chemistry). It's a question of whether the product is a primary topic. Certes (talk) 19:54, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fine with leaving the product the primary topic. I'm used to disambiguating most things by default, but that's just a habit, not a preference. I also agree article length isn't really an issue.

My rationale is more compositional, that even though all food sugars are obviously chemical sugars, they're different enough in aspect and audience to justify separate articles. Besides flowing better, distinct articles might be easier to categorize, infobox, and wikify, plus more focus might attract more future edits. Zar2gar1 (talk) 20:20, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

WP:TITLEDAB has useful guidance on article titles. The base name ("Sugar" rather than "Sugar (whatever)") belongs to its primary topic if any, or to the disambiguation page if there is no primary topic. Certes (talk) 20:48, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"No previous war in history"

The quote "No previous war in history has been fought so largely on sugar and so little on alcohol" that has been somewhat nonsensically anonymized here and referred to Chris Otter, actually origins from Edwin Emery Slosson's Creative Chemistry: Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries (New York: Century, 1920), p. 175. (Otter renames Slosson into "Edward" and repeats it in the index, although the book reference is correct; he also calls Slosson a "journalist", ignoring the fact that Slosson was Wyoming state chemist who had a PhD in organic chemistry, and his "journalism" was postly just popular science. It might be best to name the author of the quote and replace the reference with the original source. --Ehitaja (talk) 18:53, 26 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Glycation end products

This article does not mention the role of glycation end products in the health effects of sugar. Are these effects relevant to this article? Jarble (talk) 18:55, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cancer

There seems to be some contradiction in this article. The top section says "Excessive consumption of free sugar is associated with obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and tooth decay". Then the "Cancer" section says "There is an indirect relationship between sugar consumption and obesity-related cancers". Yet the first sentence of the "Cancer" section plainly states "Sugar does not cause cancer". I've marked that sentence as contradictory, please discuss. Herpesklaus (talk) 09:05, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have deleted one source that failed. The other source points out the *indirect* link between sugar and cancer: obesity. Rephrasing the paragraph accodingly may be sufficient. CarlFromVienna (talk) 10:31, 26 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is no scientific evidence that sugar causes cancer. The source doesn't fail. Here is what it says:

"Can eating sugar cause cancer? You might be wondering whether the sugar in the foods you eat can cause cancer cells to develop. The short answer is no. No studies in people have shown that reducing sugar intake prevents or treats cancer. Furthermore, no studies have shown that eating too much sugar causes cancer. In other words, there is not a direct link between sugar and cancer."

https://web.archive.org/web/20231001021316/https://www.cancer.net/blog/2021-11/does-sugar-cause-cancer

Hi Psychologist Guy, the source does fail for me as it redirects me to a page without the quote you posted above. Here's a screenshot of what I get. Maybe it's some geo-based redirect? CarlFromVienna (talk) 05:54, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes the weblink no longer exists, it was removed a few months ago but this isn't an issue as we have the archive so any reader can just click on that to see what it says [1]. Usually links after a while may be moved or removed, the internet archive is helpful here. There is sadly tonnes of online misinformation about sugar from the low-carb/carnivore diet community. In reality there is no evidence it causes cancer. There is only an indirect relationship through obesity. Psychologist Guy (talk) 15:22, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Herpesklaus, there is major difference between association and cause. There is no contradiction in the article. The reference cited in the lead that says sugar is associated with cancer is this umbrella review [2]. The data was from mostly sugar-sweetened beverages. There is no direct link between cancer and sugar. Sugar is not a carcinogen. We have very good WP:RS on this [3], [4], [5], [6] Psychologist Guy (talk) 11:11, 26 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And yeesh, that was rather misrepresented, turning the source's tentative suggestion into a flat-out assertion in wikivoice. What is more this was WP:LEDEBOMBED. I have attempted to fix. If there's going to be anything about cancer in the lead, it should be a faithful summary of what's in the body, not some kind of separate POV play. Bon courage (talk) 06:14, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

GA concerns

I am concerned that this article no longer meets the good article criteria. Some of my concerns are listed below:

There is a lot of uncited text throughout the article.
The "Health" section has a lot of MOS:OVERSECTION. The information in the Level-3 headings should be more developed or merged together.
There are lots of sources listed in "Further reading". Can these be incorporated as inline citations, or should they be removed?

Is anyone interested in addressing these concerns, or should this go to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 22:16, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In regard to the "health" section, I find the section split up with heading's makes the text easier to read. I don't think we should merge the content on cancer, cognition and tooth decay together. The solution is to probably expand on these sections. The tooth decay section is only 2 lines long and needs updating with a recent review. Psychologist Guy (talk) 22:30, 2 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]