Fructose is the cause of the obesity epidemic according to Professor Robert Lustig

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Friday, April 02, 2010 12:42 pm Email this article
"Fructose is the cause of the current [obesity] epidemic. It is cause the current epidemic of metabolic syndrome," Robert H. Lustig, M.D. told ABC's Nightline on March 18th, 2010. Dr. Lustig

Dr. Lustig is Professor of Clinical Pediatrics

Dr. Lustig is Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, in the Division of Endocrinology, and Director of the Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health (WATCH) Program at the University of California, San Francisco.

 

We Don’t Need Any Sugar

Sugar is completely unnecessary

“Is sugar good for us?” Lustig asks.

“Do you need sugar to live? Is it necessary? Is there even one reaction in the body the requires fructose? [No.] Zero.”

 

Obesity Epidemic

Obesity epidemic started when high-fructose corn syrup intake started increasing

Dr. Lustig says that level of obesity in America began to climb around the very time that the food industry started using high-fructose corn syrup.

It’s so cheap, it’s everywhere.

 

Bread

31 of 32 commercial breads contain high-fructose corn syrup

“I went to our local supermarket and checked out 32 brands of commercially available breads. Thirty-one of them had high-fructose corn syrup,” Dr. Lustig continued.

 

Sugar

All sugars are bad for you

Lustig says that all sugars are bad for you—high-fructose corn syrup, fructose, even fruit juice.

“[Juice boxes] are a disaster.”

 

Fructose and Hunger

Fructose fools you into eating more

Dr. Lustig says that fructose fools you into eating more.

“It’s not just a liking, but a needing.” So you’re never satisfied.

Fructose overloads the liver. It confuses the brain. Normally rising leptin levels tells the brain we’ve had enough to eat, But fructose does not do this, “so your brain thinks you’re hungry. Because if your brain can’t get the leptin signal, [it interprets it as] starvation.”

“Calories are not just calories,” Dr. Lustig notes.

CONTACT INFO

Robert H. Lustig, MD
University of California, San Francisco
513 Parnassus Avenue
Campus Box 0434, S-679
San Francisco, CA 94143-0434

http://chc.ucsf.edu/coast/faculty_lustig.htm
415-502-8672 phone
415-476-8214 fax
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