Dr Robert Lustig

Fat Chance: The Bitter Truth About Sugar

If you have any interest in your own health and your diet, you'll understand that sugar provides empty calories and is best minimised in the diet.

Dr Robert Lustig goes further. He agrees with Dr John Yudkin, who thirty years go described sugar as "deadly." Lustig sees sugar companies as evil in the same way as tobacco companies, which took advantage of lax legal constraints to maintain their sales while knowingly robbing millions of people of years of life and good health. Sugar has serious negative consequences in our society, and politicians are unwilling to do anything about it. In the future the negative effects of sugar on the health budget will force a change in policy, but it should happen now, not in 20 years time. Companies should not have free reign to sell their products knowingly making people sick.

Lustig argues that sugar creates an appetite for itself. The problem with obesity is that the brain cannot see the excess weight. The flip switch should be your leptin levels, which should stop you eating when you begin to store fat. But if insulin levels are high, the leptin signal is blocked and the brain can't control the desire to keep eating.

In the early 1980's we didn't know about leptin. Insulin was known, but we didn't understand insulin resistance before 1984. We all live in a Skinner Box, and sugar is the standardized reward.

People eat more when they are worried. That's caused by the hormone cortisol, which raises the blood pressure and raises the glucose level. This makes people want to eat comfort food, often something sweet. But it's only a temporary fix, because as the glucose level spikes and falls, you feel hungry again. The cycle repeats at frequent intervals.

Government are unwilling to take on the food companies. Politicians think they can educate the public to eat less sugar. That won't work. The traffic light system on packaging won't work. It's not a problem that individuals can solve, it's not about personal responsibility. The way to solve this problem is by regulation, and sooner or later we'll be forced to do that.

How to Lose Weight?

Robert Lustig is an endocrinologist, who once specialized in childhood obesity.

Lustig claims that he doesn't know how to lose weight. He admits to being overweight himself.

He thinks our obsession with smoothie's and juices is harmful. The body is designed to digest the whole fruit, and to absorb the nutriment slowly. That mean the spike in your glucose levels will also be slower and smoother and less harmful.

"Telling people to lose weight is no use. It's physiologically impossible. Biochemistry drives your behaviour, its an irresistible force. Sugar causes ill health, it's an independent risk factor. Approximately 80% of the pre-packaged foods sold have added sugar because manufactures have discovered that sweet foods sell more quickly.

Most older adults have metabolic syndrome. Losing weight is only one factor. If you can lose weight, other aspects of metabolic syndrome might still reduce your health status.

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