The Glucose Expert: The Only Proven Way To Lose Weight Fast! Calorie Counting Is A Load of BS!

let's be clear and honest about this

calories are not the issue this is all

about that's the problem that's how you

lose weight do Robert lustig is an

endocrinologist whose firsthand research

has explored the role sugar has on

fueling the world's most destructive

human conditions and answerers how we

can regain control of our health if you

consume one sugared beverage per day

your risk for diabetes goes up by 29% so

this is a big problem we also know that

if you have high sugar consumption it's

got multiple detriments effects such as

mental health problems cognitive decline

early death we also know it's the

primary driver of ADD but the problem is

Sugar's addictive and 73% of all of the

items in the grocery store are spiked

with added sugar by the food industry

cuz they know when they add it you buy

more you can't believe what they're

telling you if they say something is

healthy it's usually the opposite and

I'm part of numerous lawsuits suing the

food industry because they knew that

sugar was a problem

but they paid off scientists to say it

wasn't you've been hacked but a lot of

people don't have time to be doing a

fine tooth comb over every single thing

that they're putting into their body

they're not a scientist agreed so what

advice do we give that is simple and

actionable food can be medicine food can

also be poison and the question is how

do you figure out which is which so

here's the

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thank you and enjoy this

episode Dr Robert

lustic on the front of your book it says

the hacking of the Mind very strong

words to use indeed whose mind has been

hacked and who is doing the hacking

yours mine everyone's who's been doing

it

well pretty

much anyone with a A belief system

that's not

yours and that's pretty much everybody

the bottom line is uh we have been sold

a bill of goods we as a society

we as individuals have been sold to bill

of goods and the idea of the book The

reason I put the book together is

because it actually makes us miserable

it has

stolen our Birthright and our birth

right is to be happy and we are not if

anything we're the opposite of happy

we're extraordinarily unhappy just look

at the incidence of depression around

the world not just in America not just

in the UK but

everywhere the World Health Organization

now says that 5% of all of the people on

the planet are clinically depressed and

here in America it's at

22% so we're really

unhappy the question is why is this if

you know our goal is to be happy it's in

the Declaration of Independence life

liberty in the pursuit of happiness well

we're

not so why the reason is is because we

have

substituted pleasure for

happiness what's the difference between

pleasure and

happiness well pleasure is shortlived

happiness is

longlived pleasure is visceral you feel

it in your body happiness is ethereal

you feel it above the neck pleasure is

taking like from a casino happiness is

giving like habitats for Humanity

pleasure is experience

alone happiness is usually experienced

in social

groups pleasure can be achieved with

substances happiness cannot be achieved

with

substances the extremes of pleasure

whether they be substances or behaviors

so substances Like Cocaine amphetamine

nicotine alcohol sugar or behaviors uh

shopping gambling social media internet

gaming pornography in the extreme all

lead to addiction there's an a holic

after every one of those shopaholic

sexaholic chocoholic alcoholic Etc but

there's no such thing as being addicted

to too much happiness and lastly number

seven the one that is the reason for the

book Pleasures dopamine happiness is

serotonin and they are not the

same so two different neurotransmitters

two different sets of receptors two

different areas of the brain two

different mechanisms of action two

different clearance mechanisms don't

dopamine is an excitatory

neurotransmitter what does that mean

means when dopamine is released in the

area of the reward center the nucleus

accumbent it's an actual anatomic

structure in the brain which you can see

on Imaging when dopamine is released

there and it binds to its receptor like

so you get the you transduce the

feelings of reward okay and reward is

good reward is what gets you out of bed

in the morning if you don't have reward

you know basically you shrivel up and

die okay reward is essential to the

survival of the species orgasm is reward

okay you know you need it it's it's part

of daily life but okay too much reward

is a different story and the reason is

because dopamine because it's an

excitatory

neurotransmitter it causes the next cell

to fire well if it causes the next cell

to Fire and Fire and

Fire that cell

dies neurons want to be tickled not

bludgeoned chronic overstimulation of

any neuron leads to neuronal cell death

so that postoptic neuron with the

dopamine receptor it's got a plan B it's

got a way of mitigating that negative

response it

downregulates the receptor so now more

dopamine less receptors less chance that

a molecule will find a receptor to bind

to well that means your the gain the

amplitude on the reward is going down

more and more for less and less the more

law of diminishing returns like an

addiction like a tolerance yeah

tolerance is one half of addiction and

then when the neurons do start to die

that is addiction exactly right so

dopamine drives addiction and it doesn't

matter what the cause of the dopamine

release is in the extreme it will be

addictive now

serotonin does not uh does not

downregulate its own receptor because

it's not an excitatory neurotransmitter

it's an inhibitory one so do you need to

downregulate an in inhibitory response

no an inhibitory means what well it

means puts the next neuron to rest okay

instead of stimulating instead of firing

it's actually calming okay right so

there's no such thing as being addicted

to too much happiness because the

receptors are still there but there's

one thing that downregulates

serotonin and that's dopamine so the

more pleasure you seek the more unhappy

you get and we've been told for the last

100 years that pleasure is

happiness neurologically the pathways

are entirely different as you say and

between pleasure and happiness one of

the ways that we have been h h

act

neurologically and Via our dopamine

receptors is through what we eat and

your book Fat Chance covers this really

profoundly in New York Times bestell the

first word in the subtitle there is the

word sugar MH I've heard a lot about

sugar um I see it in adverts I I I turn

over the back of anything I eat and it

says this word added sugar is sugar

really a problem in society has it

really hijacked us yes the answer is not

only is it a problem I personally think

it's the biggest problem it's not the

only problem but I think it is the

biggest one now why do I say that from a

systemic health issue the biggest

problem was trans fats what's a trans

fat trans fat is a fat that is has a

double bond in it that is flipped so

Norm normal unsaturated fats like olive

oil like canola oil like rap seed oil

like cesame oil like peanut oil okay Etc

they all have a double bond in them but

the double bond is in One Direction a

trans fat has the double bond in the

opposite direction one way to make a

trans fat is to heat it you put enough

heat across the double bond and it will

flip by itself so if you heat olive oil

too high you can actually make trans

fats at home but the food industry used

trans fats for food

stabilization for to increase shelf life

they've been using it in baked goods

since the

1920s the scientist who first figured

out that trans fats were

dangerous Fred Kumo figured this out in

1957 but it wasn't until 1988 that

anybody took him seriously and then we

started doing research on it and ized oh

my God this stuff is killing animals and

killing people and finally in

2013 so over 60 years after the initial

uh

science the FDA finally banned trans

fats in our

food without question trans fats are the

devil incarnate seriously you know

consumable poison no if Sor buts is

sugar poison

sugar is like alcohol so is alcohol

poison depends on the

dose right the dose determines the

poison paracelsus

1537 we have an innate capacity to

metabolize alcohol and if we stay below

that doesn't do too much damage if we go

above it different story same thing with

sugar same thing with this molecule the

sweet molecule fructose and the reason

is because fructose and alcohol are

metabolized virtually identically what's

the difference between sugar and

fructose so sugar dietary sugar the

sweet stuff the crystals the uh stuff

you put in your coffee the stuff I've

got over here yeah like that

stuff yeah that stuff the 10 the 5B bag

right there that's called sucros okay

this is sucrose this is sucrose now

sucrose is two molecules bound together

one molecule called glucose one molecule

called fructose they are not the same

now the food industry will tell you they

are the same they are not the same the

reason they tell you they are the same

is because that's the way they assuage

their own culpability for what they've

done to the food but they are not the

same they will say a sugar is a sugar a

calorie is a calorie a glucose and

fructose both have four calories per

gram why should you care oh you care a

lot you care a whole lot now glucose is

the energy of life every cell on the

planet Burns glucose for energy glucose

is so important that if you don't

consume it your body makes it okay the

Inuit had no carbohydrate they had ice

they had whale blubber they still had a

serum glucose level Inu so the people

that live in the uh North Poles and

stuff that's right yeah the forly known

as Eskimos right but they they didn't

have any carbohydrate they off fat but

they still had a serum glucose level

because your brain runs on glucose they

can also run on ketones too but you know

your brain runs on glucose my brain runs

on

glucose and you need glucose because

certain um hormones and certain proteins

in the body require

glycosilation in order to be effective

an example LH and FSH when you don't

have gly illation of LH and FSH the

hormones that tell your testicle and

your ovary to

work you are

infertile it's that simple so survival

of the species says you need some

glucose but if you're not consuming it

you'll still get it because your body

will make it it will make it out of

amino acids it will make it out of fat

gluconeogenesis it's called so glucose

is essential it's just not essential to

eat fructose on the other hand the a

sweet molecule in that bag which is sort

of one of the two parts of the the the

grain of sugar that I see one one part

of it is fructose that's right it's the

other half it's the the evil twin if you

will what are the two halves again

glucose yeah fructose found together I

need glucose to live my body will figure

that out

fructose do I need this you not only do

you not need

it but in high dose it's

toxic now your liver has has the innate

ability to

metabolize a small amount on the order

of about 6 to 9 teaspoons per day of

dietary sugar so half of that being

fructose so about 12 grams your liver

can manage about 12 gram of fructose a

day in the same way it can ma manage

about 12 grams of alcohol per day

without showing any signs of any U

metabolic derangement but if you go

above that that now you get problems are

we above that oh we are so above that we

are at 50 gram of fructose per day 100

gram of sugar per day we're supposed to

be at 25 we are at 100 we are quadruple

our limit and and also just because

grams are quite hard to wrap the head

around right okay so if I was to get a

tablespoon well do teaspoons a teaspoon

teaspoons how many teaspoons of sugar

what I have to consume to get to that

level of fructose CU I say this in part

because most of us don't realize that

we're consuming sugar that's right

because it's hidden in all of the food

that's exactly right we don't even know

we say oh I never even add sugar to my

coffee therefore my sugar consumption is

zero

wrong that is not true okay because it

is hidden in plain sight in virtually

every processed food in the entire

grocery store

73% of all of the items in the American

grocery store and in the British grocery

store are spiked with added sugar by the

food industry for its purposes not for

yours because they know when they add it

you buy more and how much does that look

like in teaspoons then the upper limit

is about six teaspoons of added sugar

per day the allowance the re all the re

the the upper limit okay the recommended

allowance is lower than that yeah okay

but the upper limit is about six

teaspoons of added sugar per day so in

alcohol terms that' be like one drink so

if you have a drink a day you're staying

below your threshold and all is fine

what if you have two drinks per

day now it depends on how well your

liver Works maybe how much exercise you

have how much total body mass you have

Etc what about if you have three drinks

a day you're going to get pretty tipsy

maybe you shouldn't be driving a car

right what if you have four drinks per

day you know they might have to you know

uh scrape you off the floor of the bar

with a spatula and what if you have five

drinks per day you're a fraking

alcoholic is what you are all right the

point is the dose determines the poison

well the same is true with sugar so we

have an innate capacity to

metabolize about 12 Gams of fructose per

day by the way that's for adults for

children it's onethird of that four gram

of fructose per

day okay four to six so we're talking

very little talking very little but when

you think about for instance kid in

America what you know 29% of kids in

America consume the National School

breakfast program breakfast in school

okay 29% so what is the National School

breakfast program breakfast it's a bowl

of Froot Loops and a glass of orange

juice that is 41 g of sugar the upper

limit for children in terms of their

metabolism is 12 gram per day they got

41 gam and it's just

breakfast what do you think that's going

to

do now if a calorie were a calorie and

if glucose and fructose were the same

then you say say well you get got to get

your calories

somewhere but because fructose is not

glucose because fructose is more like

alcohol because fructose toxicity has

nothing to do with its

calories that is a huge overdose and it

has metabolic complications has systemic

Health complications it has mental

health complications and ultimately it

has societal complications do you think

it has neurological consequences without

question it's the it's a primary driver

of add it's not the only driver but it's

one of them it's a primary driver

depression because we have the data as

it relates to ADD and ADHD and all those

kinds of things how do we know we have

functional MRI we have performance uh

data showing that when you take the

sugar out PE kids scores get better okay

we did this ourselves at UCSF we did a

study where we took 43 children with

obesity and metabol syndrome all high

sugar consumers all low socioeconomic

status children a Latino and

African-American all high sugar

consumers and what we did was we figured

out what they were eating on their home

diet we studied them on their home diet

and then for the next nine days we

catered their meals no added sugar we

took the added sugar from 28 Tas 28 uh

uh teaspoons of added sugar per day down

to

10 okay so huge reduction we gave them

fruit that was the only place they had

sugar in their diet otherwise we cut the

sugar out now if you do that you're

going to lose 350 to 400 calories per

day out of your diet all right so the

goal was to keep their weight stable

because if they lost weight the critics

would say well of course they got better

they lost weight so we needed to

maintain their weight so we had to put

something back in that was we caloric we

gave them extra starch so in the

vernacular we took the pastries out we

put the bagels in we took the sweeten

yogurt out we put the baked potato chips

in we took the chicken teriyaki out we

put the turkey hot dogs in so we didn't

give them good food we gave them crappy

food we gave them Safeway food you know

just cpg you know uh uh consumer

packaged Goods food you know okay so you

didn't give them vegetables just no we

didn't give them any vegetables okay but

it was no added sugar food okay it

wasn't funky food it was just food we

bought at Safeway but it was chosen to

not be um sugar containing okay and we

gave them a scale and every day we'd

call them up on the phone what your way

and if they were losing weight eat more

in order to maintain their weight for

the whole 10 days of the study and then

we studied them on day 10 every aspect

of their metabolic Health improved blood

pressure went down blood glucose went

down insulin went down their pancreas

has started working right again they had

a serum lactate level you're not

supposed to have a lactate level that

means your mitochondria are

dysfunctional if you have a lactate

level okay their lactate cleared

everything got better most importantly

for the first 5 days of that 10day

window the kids were obnoxious the

parents would complain to us my kid is a

disaster and the reason was because of

withdrawal they were withdrawing off

sugar withdrawing off

fructose and then like you know Moses

the sky

cleared and the

kids started concentrating better they

started doing better in school the

parents noticed they were less irritable

the teachers noticed they weren't

nuisances or trouble in the school

anymore the kids noticed they said this

the first time my head hasn't been in

the

clouds 5 days 5 days and in 10 days we

could see all of the metabolic

benefits even though they maintained

their weight even though they maintain

their calories sounds like a bit of a

scandal when I hear that these kids are

getting 30 almost 30% of kids are

getting you know almost you know three

to four times their recommended daily

allowance of sugar from school and that

it's having these sort of really adverse

consequences on us and the studies are

there to prove that the consequences are

very real MH it sounds like a scandal in

the sense that nobody's doing something

about it ah well yes that way it is the

point is that the food industry is very

powerful and they have you know um swept

virtually every aspect of this under the

rug for 40 to 50 years

they knew back in the

1960s that sugar was a problem but they

paid off scientists to say it wasn't and

we actually have the documents from the

food industry they live at the UCSF food

industry documents library and we are

doing research on corporate interference

in health what do those documents show

they show that in

1965 the sugar industry came to two

Harvard School of Public Health

scientists the head of the Department of

nutrition Fred stair and his associate

Mark hegstad who became the head of the

USDA uh five years later and paid them

$50,000 in today's money to produce two

articles for the New England Journal

saying saturated fat was the bad guy and

that sugar was

exonerated and they did and they did

it that's just one thing they did they

also infiltrated the National Institute

of dental research n IDR their study

sections and their uh executive uh

committee to take money away from

nutrition research for dental health and

put it toward a carries

vaccine a what a dental carries a Cav

vaccine okay how's that cavities vaccine

working for you okay we have all of the

data in their own words to demonstrate

that they knew exactly what they were

doing this is not hallucination this is

this is Hardcore fact and we've

published this and we now have a um a

center at UCSF devoted to understanding

the uh uh corporate determinance of

health and when we look across Society

at the consequences of this sort of

corporate interference some of the crazy

stats in your book fat chance that I

really sort of highlighted were that by

2050 obesity will become the norm not

the exception correct what the World

Health Organization said that the

percentage of obese people globally has

doubled in the last 28 years and in the

UK 28% of adults are obese and 36% of

them are overweight that's not from your

book but that's from some research we

did on the UK numbers as well well you

know the UK is the fat man of Europe yes

that's true having metabolic syndrome is

equal to losing 15 to 20 years of life

that was in your book that's correct um

which is startling um and worldwide

sugar consumption has tripled in just

the last 50 years correct all true now

you could say that's correlation not

causation but we actually have the

causation we have the data we have it in

mechanistic terms terms we have it in um

uh clinical Interventional uh uh efforts

we have it in societal efforts um

there's a method for determining proof

that doesn't need randomized control

trials it's called econometric analysis

this is what we have for for instance

climate change there's no control group

for climate change but we still know

it's true this is what we have for

tobacco and lung cancer you know you

don't have naive people start smoking

that would be illegal immoral get you

thrown in jail but we still know that

tobacco causes lung cancer we know that

football trauma causes chronic traumatic

Andy opathy okay none of these have

control groups but we know it's true

through econometric analysis this is a

method of using natural history data

over time to be able to determine

proximate cause and we have that for

sugar and diabetes and we have it for

sugar and heart disease and we have have

it for sugar and fatty liver disease and

of course we have it for sugar and tooth

decay we're working on sugar and cancer

and sugar and dementia we're not there

yet in your book fat fat chance um on a

on page

120 there was something particularly

curious because I think this is

a um yeah here we go it says the bottom

line is sugar consumption is a problem

33% of sugar consumption comes from

beverages yes

and the biggest abusers are the poor and

underserved indeed so let's talk about

beverages to start with then

MH diet beverages are they fine and how

bad are the sort of fizzy pot beverages

that most of us consume every day

so let's do the um sugar soft drinks

first okay okay they are really bad if

you consume one sugared beverage per day

your risk for diabetes goes up by

29% wow okay that's and diabetes and

that and that's if you have one if you

have two

58% and diabetes is now the main cause

of death in 40% of death certificates

exactly

right so this is a big problem so you

know that's demonstrating its toxicity

at you know shall we say medium dose you

know at low dose you can handle it

but you know as soon as you go above

that dose it's a problem and we have the

data for it okay and all of these are

factored in these are all econometric

analysis we've shown that sugar is a

proximate cause of diabetes whenever

sugar availability changes in any

country diabetes prevalence changes 3

years later and we've also done what's

known as advanced Markoff modeling where

we go into the future and show that when

sugar consumption goes down in any

country diabetes levels change in NE you

know reduce three years later so it's a

threeyear window between the change in

the diet and the change in the metabolic

Health consequences we have those data

and the fact that they work both on the

way up and on the way down is like you

know take it to the

bank now that's for the sugar beverages

you asked me about diet beverages I've

got one here let's let's uh look at it

all right I've covered up the logos cuz

I I've never seen this before I wonder

what that

is um the the data now show I mean for

it it took a while for these data to

come in but the data now show that the

toxicity of one sugared soda equals the

toxicity of two diet sodas half as bad

half as bad does not mean good half as

bad means half is bad well it says zero

sugar here so how can it be bad well so

because it's bad for a different reason

so the yes zero fructose zero calories I

agree but that doesn't make it good

makes it better than the sugared

alternative but it doesn't make it

good why number one you put something

sweet on the tongue message goes tongue

to brain Sugar's coming message goes

brain to pancreas Sugar's coming

release the

insulin so I still get an insulin

release you still get an insulin

response and the more other food you ate

the bigger the insulin response so you

will have an accentuated insulin

response because you were exposed to the

diet sweetener this is work from Yanina

Pino um uh 2013 at Wu St Louis and it's

been corroborated multiple times since

and why does that harm me having an

insulin response because insulin is a

bad guy so we always talk about glucose

being a bad guy in terms of diabetes and

it is of course but insulin's a bad guy

too glucose causes small vessels to be

dysfunctional causes endothelial cell

dysfunction it causes high blood

pressure because it causes those small

vessels to constrict it interferes with

nitric oxide uh which is one of the

things that relaxes the blood vessel and

it will you know basically reduce uh

blood flow to specific organs so high

glucose is not good for you and it's bad

for small vessel disease and that's why

diabetics get retinopathy nephropathy

neuropathy um uh kidney disease nerve

nerve nerve damage and um eye

disease but insulin is also a problem

because what insulin does is it causes

cell growth insulin is a growth factor

and it causes vascular smooth muscle

growth like in your coronary arteries

it causes glandular growth so it is one

of the primary drivers of heart disease

and

cancer so you can be a diabetic a type 2

diabetic and have your hemoglobin A1c

measure of your glucose uh uh uh control

down near normal near normal range

because you're on insulin or oral

hypoglycemics or even glp1 analoges for

that matter okay and you will die just

the same because you will die of a heart

attack or of a of a cancer because

diabetics uh have a much higher

incidence of cancer they also have a

higher incidence of dementia as well and

the reason is because of insulin because

insulin is a bad guy in this story

glucose causes microvascular disease the

insulin causes macrovascular

disease they're both bad you need to

control both of them and this controls

the glucose it doesn't control the

insulin do you drink that stuff of

course not just checking is there any

other physiological consequences to diet

sodas outside of the insulin response

indeed so the other thing that we've

learned about uh uh uh non-nutritive

sweeteners across the board is that they

alter the

microbiome now the microbiome is the

bacteria that live in your gut

now you have to feed your microbiome you

have to feed your bacteria because if

you don't feed your bacteria your

bacteria will feed on you it will strip

the mucin layer a protective physical

barrier right off the surface of your

intestinal epithelial cells and when it

does that it denudes them and allows for

other bacteria toxic bacteria to take up

residence and cause irritable bowel

syndrome inflammatory bowel disease and

the Junctions between the cells become

dysfunctional as well and so they cells

become permeable and so stuff you know

in your intestine the junk in your

intestine the you know sh you know what

can actually make it through into the

bloodstream you can measure the

endotoxins and the whole bacteria the

lipopolysaccharides in the bloodstream

when the intestine is damaged even from

diet soda and what that does is that

ultimately leads to SU systemic

inflammation and that systemic

inflammation also leads to metabolic

disease mental health problems cognitive

decline early death is there a

relationship between sugar and our

hormone levels of course I mean the main

one of course is diabetes I mean you

know insulin but um high sugar uh you

know I mean if you if you have U uh high

sugar consumption it's going to cause

changes in insin response at the level

of the liver it's going to cause fatty

liver disease okay it can change your

kidneys uh uh function uh you know which

can ultimately increase blood pressure

so it's yeah it's got multiple uh uh

potential detrimental effects what

impact does sugar have on our liver

what's going on there so as I mentioned

we have an innate capacity to metabolize

a limited amount

yeah everyone says oh Sugar's

energy

well yeah but not really not really so

let let's disect

that the food industry says glucose is

four calories per gram the food industry

says fructose is four calories per gram

therefore they're equal because they're

four calories per gram and if calories

were the issue then they would be right

but calories are not the

issue okay the whole issue of calories

has has to go down the tubes okay as far

as I'm concerned that's the problem and

I am here to # kill the calorie as a

unit of measure it has no place in our

uh in in our dialogue it has no place in

medicine calories

suck now why do I say

that if you

take a mole of glucose and you throw it

into a bomb calorimeter you will get

four calories per that's true if you

take fructose and you throw it in a bomb

calorimeter you will get four calories

per gram that's true we are not bomb

calorimeters

okay what's a bom calorimeter it's a

contraption that

explodes the whatever you put in it and

measures the heat that's uh given off

from it so it measures the amount of

calories in something effectively using

some that's what calories are is the

amount of heat required to raise one gr

of water degre Centigrade okay so it's a

measure of heat yeah is what it is

that's what calories are now we do our

burning in these little organel inside

each of ourselves called

mitochondria this is all about

mitochondria and when your mitochondri

will work efficiently and well you can

burn

energy uh uh you know to completion and

you can capture that energy in the form

of chemical energy in your cell called

ATP denzine triphosphate and that's what

your cell uses to power all of the

functions that the cell needs the little

molecular Motors and making stuff and

you know basically you know and and also

cleaning house you know and recycling

junk okay in order to keep your cells

Thrive thriving and Alive okay so

mitochondria are essential now

glucose stimulates mitochondria to work

better glucose is actually

good it it stimulates two enzymes

necessary for mitochondria to work it

stimulates an enzyme called

amyas which is a the enzyme that

actually makes more

mitochondria and it's the fuel gauge on

the liver cell so it tells the liver

make

more and it also stimulates an enzyme

called HH hydroxy asil COA dehydrogenase

which is necessary to cleave two carbon

fragments and uh burn them oxidize them

for energy too so glucose we can call

good because it helps

mitochondria fructose on the other hand

this sweet molecule in sugar in

sucrose it inhibits three

enzymes in mitochondria it inhibits that

amp kinase it inhibits an enzyme called

aadl asilo dehydrogenase long chain it

inhibits cpt1 carnitine pidol

transferase one that's the enzyme that

uh regenerates carnitine which is the

shuttle by which fatty acids can get

into the mitochondria to be burned so

the net effect of fructose is to inhibit

mitochondrial

function

so does

fructose constitute energy if fructose

is actually keeping you from making

chemical energy in your

cell this is the conundrum

what do you mean by energy if we're

talking heat then fructose is energy if

you're talking ATP fructose inhibits

ATP and that's what we're talking about

because that's what leads to systemic

health problems not the

heat so all of these people as far as

I'm concerned anyone who ever uses the

word calorie fire

them because they don't get it

they are part of the problem not part of

the

solution many people will say that sort

of counting calories has helped them

with their weight loss goals you tell me

virtually everybody who counts calories

loses a little bit of weight and then

they

plateau and then they get um you know

tired of their diet and the weight comes

rushing back okay 90% of people who try

to diet through caloric restriction

regain and sometimes yoyo back even

higher so are there I don't accept that

are there studies that support this idea

that sort of the the yo-yo dieting is a

BYOD of calic restriction not because of

caloric restriction it's a problem of

insulin resistance it's a problem of

when you gain the weight back did you

gain it in the liver as liver fat

because now you've got high insulin and

Insulin blocks this hormone that goes to

the brain called leptin that is in

charge of that set point so the higher

your insulin goes the less well your

brain can see leptin and so the less

well you can regulate and so that's what

drives your weight up even higher so you

don't regain the weight by eating you

know fish and vegetables you regain the

weight because you you know went for the

bread and the rice and the pasta and the

potatoes and the sugar what's a better

plan then if I'm trying to cut a couple

of pounds what's a better approach to

take versus sort of calorie counting or

these kind of things get the insulin

down there is no weight gain without

insulin insulin is the energy storage

hormone 20 years ago from doing the

research on kids with hypothalamic

tumors who released enormous amounts of

insulin we gave them a drug that

suppressed insulin release they lost

weight and they started exercising

spontaneously because we got their

insulin down we showed that the lower we

got the insulin the more weight they

lost and the better they felt insulin is

the bad guy in The Story So numerous

investigators you know the world over

have now demonstrated that insulin is a

primary driver of both obesity and

diabetes and metabolic syndrome you got

to get the insulin down okay how do you

get insulin down best way don't let it

go up what makes it go up refine

carbohydrate and sugar all the stuff you

have over there in that corner just to

be

clear he's not pointing at my lunch we

have a pile of different sugar products

that we brought for the interview over

in the cor Corner including various

things that you find on a shelf

everything from apple juice to some

popular snacks to um some like some some

other things just don't forget the

peanut butter

The Peanut Butter Cups yeah and even

this this is just sort of um it looks

like water but it's flavored water where

they've added sugar to it right um so

yeah all of that stuff over there all

that stuff so so get the insulin down

all right so cut the refined

carbohydrate cut the sugar the dietary

sugar that is the single best way to

mitigate this process by improving

insulin resistance by getting the

insulin down and we have done this time

and time again basically I turned my

obesity Clinic into an insulin reduction

clinic for this reason a lot of people

at a sort of a prefrontal cortex logical

level understand this they understand

that they shouldn't be having sugar but

it's well they think it's about calories

they do some people do think it's about

calories for sure but even the ones that

know that sugar is not something they

should be having still struggle they do

it's EAS because Sugar's addictive right

they struggle because sugar is addictive

we know because fructose stimulates that

nucleus cumb

yeah when we get stress which is a facet

of daily life now that's right we're

much more likely to to grab a sugary

snack indeed and there's a reason for

that too because when you're stressed

that actually puts a greater uh uh

burden on your amydala and your amydala

requires more energy hippocampus too by

the way amigdala is the emotional center

of the brain the fear center of the

brain okay and so you're trying to calm

it

and so you have to increase the energy

available so because you need more ATP

and even though fructose inhibits ATP

generation you still reach for that

because you're trying to mitigate the

metabolic consequences acutely when I'm

tied I think I have a high propensity to

grabbing sugar as well indeed why is

that because you're tired you're

stressed and your amydala is

dysfunctional and so it basically tells

you hell with it I I don't have any

sugar Cravings in the morning I've come

to come to learn I don't feel the need

for sugar in the morning it's sometimes

when we get later into the evening right

after a long day exactly it's when my my

Cravings you and everyone else and me

too by the way it's not like I'm uh

immune to this I I you know am on record

I gained a lot of weight while I was a

faculty member at UCSF and every

day at 400 p.m. I just ran out of gas

and so I ran across the street to get a

you know large chocolate chip cookie

okay and that was without question the

primary driver of my wak ging okay it

wasn't until I actually started doing

the research on this and seeing that the

kids felt better when we took the sugar

out of their diet that I actually put

two and two together for myself so now I

don't do that and my energy level stays

constant throughout the day what so what

advice do we give that is simple and

actionable for Jennifer or Judith or

Dave who's listening to this now they

are you know 40 years old potentially

they have a nine-to-five job they're

very busy maybe they have some kids to

feed at the same time they they don't

have time to be like you know looking at

doing a fine sort of tooth comb over

every single thing that they're putting

into their body they're not a scientist

agreed it's a it's a problem because the

food industry has made the grocery store

a Minefield and it's really easy to set

off an explosion if you walk in you're

basically lost that's how bad it

is understood so the the simple rule is

eat real food so what's Real Food

well food that came out of the ground or

animals that ate food that came out of

the ground the problem is we all lead

busy lives and we're looking for labor

saving devices cuz people don't even

have time to cook most people 33% of

Americans don't even know how to cook

anymore so like what are they going to

do so we understand this I mean it's a

problem

agreed we need

food that is metabolically healthy for

us not metabolically detrimental and the

problem is that as soon as you put the

added sugar in the food you have made it

metabolically detrimental now the food

industry will say well there are all

these other good things in there like

vitamins and minerals we fortify it Etc

so I'm here to tell you toxin a plus

antidote B still equals

Death okay just because they put some

vitamins in there or you take a dietary

supplement if it's not solving your

mitochondrial

dysfunction what's the

point so you can't believe what the food

industry is telling you okay if they say

something is healthy it's usually the

opposite whatever it says on the package

believe the opposite because they have

an incentive to put wrong stuff on the

package and I'll be honest with you I'm

part of you know uh numerous lawsuits

suing the food industry for deceptive

advertising misbranding mislabeling 70%

of all of the items in the American

Grocery Store are misbranded or

mislabeled in what way they say things

that are not true give me some examples

well first of all any time they use the

word

healthy okay um they say no added

sugar okay but in fact they put in apple

puree or raspberry puree or evaporated

cane juice you know they they there are

262 names for sugar and the food

industry uses all of

them and so they will say that

something's no added suar but that in

fact is actually not the case okay

there's there's a whole you know whole

host of this Kelloggs has been sued for

raisin brand okay everyone thinks raisin

brand well it's just raisins and brand

what color are the raisins in raisin

brand I've never seen it well I mean

raisins are purple yeah you purple brown

yeah yeah yeah yeah normally well the

the raisins in raisin brand are white

why if you take the raisins and raisin

brand that's supposed to be 11 gram of

sugar but on the side of the package it

says that one serving is 18 grams of

sugar where' the other seven come

from it's the white because they've all

been dipped in a sugar solution to make

them

sweeter as an example

okay so post has been sued General Mills

their's theirs was uh dismissed um uh

mandes a whole host of uh uh of

companies are actually under the gun now

to change their practices why do you

care so

much I am a

pediatrician my job is to take care of

children children are

vulnerable in the same way minorities

are vulnerable same way prisoners are

vulnerable okay they need a voice my job

is to give every kid a shot well we now

have neonatal

obesity we have babies being

born Israel South Africa Russia United

States four separate studies showing

that over the past 25 years birth weight

has gone up 200 grams half a pound in

all four countries and when you do dexa

scanning to look at body composition on

those newborns those 200 grams are all

fat we have neonatal obesity these kids

did not get obese by dieting and

exercising by gluttony and sloth they

came out of the

womb behind the

eightball it's my job as a pediatrician

to fix the problem that's what I care

okay can you just give me a little bit

of brief overview of everything you're

talking about the um studies you've

referenced all of that what is the

academic experience background research

that you've done that's built all of the

foundations of your knowledge I spent

the first 20 years of my medical

practice you know in Academia

basically you know doing what they told

me to do you know the way I learned it

and I thought calories were the same and

I thought that you know it didn't matter

and this is not what you do and this is

not how you take care of patients you

you know do prescriptions and you do

procedures and that's how you do it and

then I started doing research because I

was at St Jude Children's Research

Hospital taking care of these massively

obese kids who had brain

tumors that were treated by surgery or

radiation and they became massively

obese because of it because their

hypothalamus was damaged

because they couldn't see that leptin

signal that we talked about earlier

which is the hunger which it is part of

hunger it's not the only hunger related

it's more of an energy sufficiency

signal okay right it's the energy

sufficiency signal anyway when we

suppressed their insulin release with

that drug I mentioned before they lost

weight and they started exercising

spontaneously so we did that with adults

and guess what same thing happened and

we measured their energy expenditure and

instead of it going down as you'd expect

when you lose weight normally your

energy expenditure goes down their

expend energy expenditure went

up so what this told me was that insulin

is blocking leptin and as long as your

leptin's being

blocked you feel like crap and you're

hungry and you don't want to get off the

couch and as soon as your insulin goes

down now your brain can see the leptin

and you're not hungry and you can start

exercising what this showed me was that

the behaviors that we associate with

obesity the gluttony and the sloth are

actually secondary to this biochemical

phenomenon of insulin blocking

leptin and so this put me on the path of

understanding insulin as the problem

rather than insulin as the

result fix the insulin fix the

problem and so I've been doing that for

the last 25 years and that's what

brought you to the subject of sugar

because sugar increases insulin levels

well sugar causes insulin resistance

okay so there are two phenomena in with

insulin insulin release yeah which is an

acute phenomenon so that's when I eat

something there'll be some insulin

released which means my I have an

insulin Spike right and then it comes

back down nicely if I not or not or not

depending on how much and how

consistently I've been eating sugar

exactly right so if your liver has fat

in it and 45% of American adults now

have fat in their liver and 25% of kids

now have fat in their liver and they

never did before I mean before 19 uh 80

if you saw fat in the liver that was

alcohol but if 25% of kids who don't

drink alcohol have fat in their liver

how'd the fat get there sugar cuz sugar

gets turned into fat in the

liver that's the that's the driver of

this what that does is that causes a

phenomenon called insulin resistance

your liver doesn't work right so your

pancreas has to make more insulin to

make your liver work right you know like

you having to put more people on the

assembly line when you know people are

you know goofing off or you know not not

getting their job done right same idea

so you have to basically Goose the liver

to do its job well that raises insulin

levels all over the body and once that

happens now you're taking energy from

your bloodstream and putting it in fat

cells for storage so by getting the

insulin down so if it's insulin

resistance fixing the insulin resistance

by getting rid of the fat in the liver

or if it's the insulin release at the

beginning by lowering your refined

carbohydrate because that's the primary

stimulus of that first

Spike either way it's refined

carbohydrate in your sugar get the

insulin down and diabetes is when your

pancreas can't keep up okay so it's

really so much insulin it goes forget

this I'm done right it's the end result

of both of these um phenomena which

we've now realized is reversible I think

there was a school of thought once upon

a time that diabetes couldn't be

reversed but that's right but it is

reversible it is very reversible for a

while so let's be let's be clear and

honest about this there is absolutely no

doubt that what doctors learn in medical

school is wrong we are told and I know

cuz I was told that diabetes is a

chronic

progressive

unrelenting

disease that never gets better and that

you will need medication whether it be

insulin or oral hypoglycemics or

whatever for the rest of your

life

garbage total complete

trash now

Vera Health numerous other uh studies of

various diets show that you can

absolutely reverse type 2

diabetes in order to do so you have to

get the

pancreas to make insulin properly and

the only way to do that is to get the

liver to respond to insulin

properly one way is to not challenge the

liver give the liver a rest well it's

metabolizing all that refined

carbohydrate and sugar drop the refined

carbohydrate and sugar and make your

liver work better little kit so a

ketogenic diets the extreme version of

this it's not the only way but it is a

way paleo diet is another version

fasting intermittent fasting will give

your liver a chance to burn off the fat

that's accumulated over the last 16

hours there are many ways to skin this

cat calorie counting almost never

calorie

restriction yes calorie restriction but

it's got to be consistent and longterm

and we've shown numerous Studies have

shown that as you restrict calories that

leptin resistance does not get better

quickly it takes years for that leptin

resistance to finally go away like five

years before you change the set point

let's take a step back so what does

leptin do again it's about energy so

leptin is made in your fat cells yeah in

response to driving energy into fat the

cell will make leptin the leptin will

circulate in the bloodstream will go to

your brain go to your hypothalamus and

say hey I've got enough energy on board

okay to engage in expensive metabolic

processes so we don't need anym I don't

need to eat eat more I can engage in

puberty I can engage in pregnancy okay

okay both of which are high

metabolic uh uh processes okay okay so

it is like the servo mechanism like the

thermostat on your house okay you have a

a floor but no ceiling so when you're

when it's cold in your house the heat

kicks in but if you don't have air

conditioning it can go higher right same

idea with leptin floor no ceiling so

when your leptin goes below a certain

threshold your brain will see that as

starvation you get really hungry and so

you will get both hungry and you will

also sit on the couch okay okay

H so that's the way the activity

component comes in because your brain's

saying listen don't waste this energy

exactly conserve okay because we're in

trouble here we're we're in trouble down

here okay so eat more and don't

move that's the biochemistry that drives

the behavior why don't they have leptin

injections well they do oh really but it

turns out it doesn't work in leptin

resistance because the problem is not

that you're missing leptin the problem

is you have too much leptin it's just

not working so adding more leptin is

like throwing kerosene on the fire the

recepto sites have stopped receptor

sites are not there either they've been

downregulated or they're being blocked

one or the other if insulin blocks it

okay or they can be downregulated too

both now if you're leptin

deficient and there are 14 patients with

leptin deficiency and quite a few of

them by the way are in the UK of the 14

and sadf faruki and Steve O'Reilly at

Aden Brook's hos Aden Brook's Hospital

in Cambridge are the people who've done

the most work on leptin deficiency if

you take a patient who's LEP and

deficient they basically start gaining

weight as soon as they're born by age 6

months they're already massively obese

by the age of you know three they they

you you can't they can't even fit

through the

door okay they eat everything in sight

and they don't move you give them a shot

of leptin because they're deficient

you're replacing what's

missing and they slim down like that

they're genetically leptin deficient

they're genetically leptin deficient

they have a mutation in their leptin

Gene so obesity could be genetic in some

very very small cases very small number

of patients it is genetic but that's not

what's going on in the rest of the

population so yes is obesity genetic for

a small fraction sure we have leptin

deficiency we have letin receptor

deficiency we have pc1 deficiency we

have melanocortin 4 receptor deficiency

we have sim1 deficiency we there a whole

host of different genes and nobody has

them nobody has them all right like 14

people have them it's very rare for the

reason for General Garden variety

obesity out in the world to be due to a

genetic problem this is an environmental

problem in your book you talk about

environmental obesogens I've never heard

that term before what does it mean so

obesogens are chemicals in the

environment that actually drive weight

gain they cause the differentiation of

fat cells or they cause the growth of

fat cells now fat cells are

complex okay you have a certain number

but you can increase that number

especially early on in life there's a

critical period before Age 2 where you

can actually increase fat cell number

and once a fat cell is developed it

wants to stay filled I mean we got to

pause here just for a second because I

think most people think that when we eat

food we increase the number of fat cells

we have no we increase the size of the

fat cells we have this was a really I

learned this a couple of a couple of

years ago and it kind of changed the way

I think about a lot of things including

liposuction yeah because with

liposuction you kind of think that

you're taking away fat cells that you've

added to your body through diet but

actually the fat cells stay the same

they grow and Shrink well there's also a

problem with liposuction as well um

there are three fat

Depot okay and they're not the same on

the scale they're the same because you

weigh a certain amount but from a

metabolic standpoint they are not the

same so let's take each of the fat Depot

separately so that your audience will

understand what it is that they're

actually concerned about so the first

fat Depot is the obvious what we call

subcutaneous or big butt fat belly fat

as well no that comes later oh that's

the second one okay subcutaneous

cutanous big butt fat or does this

bathing suit make me look fat fat so are

you saying that's good or bad it's

actually good I agree it's

protective the more of it the less

likely that you will have metabolic

disease it is the place where your body

wants to put excess energy because it's

safe now most of us have a certain

ability to grow that fat to a certain

level before it starts becoming a

problem eventually you can overload that

subcutaneous fat where you will actually

make the fat vacu the little pocket of

of fat within the fat

cell grow so much that it will actually

cause the uh border of the V Ule to

decompensate and now you've spilled the

grease into the cell that will kill the

cell and that will cause um uh

inflammatory cells to congregate to try

to clean up the grease and then they

secrete um proteins called cyto coses

which end up causing the metabolic

dysfunction in any

case you can overload your subcutaneous

fat but you have to work at it so about

how much fat does your sub cutaneous fat

have to grow before you become

metabolically ill on average about 10

kilos 22 pounds some more some less okay

now let's take the second fat Depot

belly fat viseral fat this fat here

everyone's worst type of fat well yes

but not because of

Cosmetics because of

metabolism in any case the the visceral

fat the belly fat is that due to

calories is that due to weight gain that

is actually due to cortisol that's due

to

stress and the reason we know that is

because you can take patients who are

have endogenous clinical depression okay

they are

anhedonic they don't eat because they

generate no reward from Life they

generate no reward from eating

they are losing weight they have to be

admitted to the hospital to keep them

from killing themselves so these are

with people with suicidal ideation who

have to be admitted to psychiatric

hospitals you put them in a scanner and

it turns out they're losing subcutaneous

fat because they're not eating they're

gaining visceral fat because the

cortisol from the stress that goes along

with the depression is actually laying

down more fat in their

belly

why it's what cortisol does because when

you're stressed you need an a readily

available and metabolically active

source of energy in case you're being

chased by the lion so that metabolic fat

that visceral fat is eminently

retrievable rapidly oh okay interesting

okay

now how many pounds or kilos of visceral

fat you have to gain before you become

metabolically

ill I'm going to guess it's it's not a

lot based that's right not a lot so

subcutaneous was 10 kilograms that's

right now we're talking about two

kilograms okay so two kind of bags of

sugar yeah pretty

much okay now finally the third fat

Depot liver

fat now how many kilos of liver fat can

you acrw before you become metabolically

ill live is really small I no idea okay

one qu of a

kilo half a

pound and when you become metabolically

ill then all of the dysfunction we

talked about previously happens that's

right so you can become metabolically

ill and be thin because your

subcutaneous Fat's okay even your

visceral Fat's okay but if you've got

liver fat can you measure a quarter of a

kilo on the scale

no have you had the phrase skinny fat

that's this is skinny

fat so tofi TFI thin on the outside fat

on the inside skinny fat was actually

coined by Dr Jimmy Bell at University

College London okay neuro imager that's

exactly right so just because you're

overweight doesn't mean you're sick and

just because you're thin doesn't mean

you're healthy because of these three

fat Depot this is exactly what we're

talking about so are skinny fat people

typically more stressed if we kind of

they often are often are you they often

are the question is how did that liver

fat get formed the answer is sugar and

alcohol because that's where sugar and

alcohol go in order to be processed okay

and so that's why so many people now

have fatty liver disease that never had

it before that's why children have fatty

liver disease even though they don't

drink alcohol because they drink

something that is metabolized just like

alcohol like apple juice like apple

juice I've got a bottle of apple juice

here in front of me and on it it says 40

in big letters 40% less sugar than 100%

apple juice it says with added vitamins

a c and e they've added all three

vitamins in there that must be so that's

not apple juice that's an apple

drink to be to be clear it says apple

juice beverage here on the front ah they

called it a juice beverage not juice

there's a that that's technically

correct but there's a you know reason

they have to declare that from the FDA

why because they can't call it juice if

it's not juice if they've done something

to it I mean how would I know it says

apple juice beverage I well that that's

part of the

subugu

lawsuits they have to call it a juice

beverage because they've done something

to it okay so I've got this Apple in my

pocket mhm this apple here right this is

healthy that is healthy but if I blend

this down it looks like this no well the

question is what was lost in the process

of blending it

down you took away the good

part the fiber the fiber by the way you

don't know if that apple is as healthy

as it could be and the reason is cuz you

don't know if it was sprayed with

pesticides was it an organic apple or

was it just a standard commercial Apple

was a standard commercial Apple you

might have to wash it first why because

the pesticides can be environmental

obesogens many pesticides such as I mean

the the famous one was DDT now it's been

gone since

1972 Rachel Carson you know Silent

Spring you know was all about how DDT

was you know environmentally affecting

you know the entire world okay we banned

DDT in 1972 but you can measure the

metabolite of DDT called DDE in pregnant

women's urine today 50 years later and

that level of DDE in that pregnant woman

is predicting obesity in her

Offspring 11 years later so let's go

over these two subjects then we've got

environmental obesogens right I think

I've pronounced that correctly um let's

finish off on that and then I want to go

into fiber so environmental obesogens

which might be on this apple what what

are they and where where are they so uh

an obesogen is a chemical that causes

weight gain not because of its

calories okay now you say how can

something cause weight gain if it

doesn't have calories the answer is if

it causes the differentiation or growth

of fat cells it will cause weight gain

unrelated to calories so we have

chemicals in our environment that are

unescapable

you can't escape air pollution you can't

escape forever chemicals like for

instance pasas what's that polyfloral

alal substances

Teflon remember Teflon yeah yeah the

material the material that non-stick

pans were coated with yeah that's pasas

that was per floro octanoic acid turns

out that causes obesity by

itself it causes the differentiation and

growth of fat cells tributal tin this is

what you paint on the bottoms of boats

to keep Barnacles from attaching to the

hull it's in all of our food supply all

of our water supply all over the world

that causes fat cells to grow before

you're

born exposures to all sorts of things um

BPA bisphenol a okay when you get your

receipt your paper receipt from Target

that's bisphenol

a phalates or plasticizers you stick a

binky in a baby's mouth a pacifier

that's a plasticizer that's got phalates

in it that causes

obesity parabens in

cosmetics will cause

obesity vinyl

flooring um flame retardance in

children's clothing and in mattresses

all of these things will drive different

receptors in the body and act as what we

call endocrine

disruptors and those endocrine

disruptors will change the um uh

differentiation and the growth of fat

cells to increase

osity so what's an endocrine disruptor

so our cells have receptors that way

communication from one area of the body

to another can occur like hormones

binding to receptors well sometimes

they're not hormones sometimes they're

other chemicals that cause

differentiation of different uh uh areas

of the body to form different organs for

instance this is one of the things that

goes wrong in congenital uh defects like

congenital heart disease okay receptor

alterations so we have receptors on all

of our cells for different processes for

different

chemicals there are things in our

environment that basically

mimic endogenous signals to our body and

basically tell different tissues to do

different things than they ought to be

doing because those things are present

and one of them is obesity in my head I

think of it like a remember those toys

you used to play with when you were a

kid and it shows like a triangle shape

and a circle shape and a square shape

and you've got to pick up the

corresponding piece and Slot it in the

hole right I I see it as things in our

environment are pretending to be those

shapes so they're sort of impacting with

our recepto site right which is the

whole and causing us to do things that

are dysfunctional that's right and this

is well known has been known for years

we um you know it's one of the reasons

for the decrease in fertility the

changes in reproductive capacity it's

one of the reasons the alligator

population in the Everglades is

disappearing as endocrine disruptors

well it also has effect on

neurocognition and brain development and

potentially I don't want to you know get

too far a field but potentially might

play a role in autism we haven't proven

that yet I want to make that clear but

without question some of these chemicals

can cause fat cells to differentiate and

grow so if they're everywhere what do I

do about it because it's I feels like I

can't touch the floor I can't I can't go

to a I can't lay in a bed I'm like well

you can't do much about air pollution I

mean except as a society we can do

something we can't do much about uh the

Teflon in the in the water or the TBT in

the water except to try to pass

regulations to control those things but

you know get get Congress or Parliament

to do that you know that's a that's a

real trick is that better water that I

can drink sorry just on that point uh

well you can try uh certainly uh tap

water is going to be a problem but the

fact is some of the bottled waters still

have obesogens and to be honest with you

if there if it's bottled the obesogen

might be in the

bottle canned

foods if you look at the inside of the

can what color is it is it silver isn't

it silver or is it

White H if it's white that's

BPA so canned foods have high BPA levels

BPA is an estrogen okay and it doesn't

take much to be an estrogen 22 angst two

hydroxy groups you're an estrogen okay

there are a lot of chemicals in our

environment that masquerade as estrogens

and BPA is one of them and estrogen

causes fat deposition just look at the

curves of a woman that's estrogen

causing fat deposition well BPA can do

that

too so as an example but there are also

things in our food that we think are

food and one example is fructose now

fructose has calories true but fructose

has all these effects on mitochondria

that have nothing to do with its

calories in the same way that alcohol

has calories but alcohol has toxic

effects that have nothing to do with its

calories so just because something has

calories doesn't make it a food what's

the definition of food Stephen I will

tell you you was going to say don't ask

me substrate that contributes to either

growth or burning of an organism so

here's the question does ultra processed

food contribute to growth my colleague

Dr arrat manigo Oran who is the chairman

of nutrition at Hebrew University of

Jerusalem has looked at this question in

fact Ultra processed food inhibits

growth populations that are exposed to

high ultrapress food consumption have

lower final Heights than populations

that are not

so if it's inhibiting growth not a food

okay now let's take burning I've already

told you that there are three enzymes

that fructose which is in 73% of the

items in the American Grocery Store it

inhibits burning because it inhibits

mitochondrial function so if you don't

stimulate growth and you don't stimulate

burning is that a food no so if it's not

a food what is it poison so food can be

medicine food can also be poison and the

question is how do you figure out which

is

which when you walk into the grocery

store it all looks the same but in fact

there are things in there that will

contribute to growth and burning and

there are things that will inhibit it

and we need some method for being able

to

distinguish those we have it we made it

it exists on your computer it will

ultimately soon exist on your phone and

you will actually be able to order your

food to be metabolically healthy without

ever having to walk into that mine field

of a grocery store ever again how would

that be and just buy the stuff that's

good for you instead of chancing the

stuff that's bad for you it's called

perfect and what it does is it will

filter out all of the stuff in the

grocery store that's metabolically

unhealthy for you not for the next guy

for you you can apply specific filters

that will if you're glutenfree it will

take out all the things that have gluten

so you don't have to look at the label

if you are if you have metabolic

syndrome it will take all the refined

carbohydrate and all the sugar things

out so you don't even have to look at

them if you specifically want to avoid

the ultr processed food it will take

those out by the way that will cut

the items that you can see in the

grocery store by

80% how many of you started thinking

about your long-term Health when you hit

30 for me this was a wakeup moment of me

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to start paying a little bit more

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up enjoy and let me know how you get on

let's talk then about fiber we we talked

about it briefly but I want to just

really close off on the point of f

because you said that when we take an

apple here like the Apple in my hand and

we turn it into this thing in my hand

this apple juice right the harm is that

they're removing the fiber why does that

matter so everyone thinks that fiber is

the stuff you throw in the garbage after

you've Juiced the fruit we were told

forever

that the uh uh the juice had the

essential vitamins and minerals like the

vitamin

C or the lopine if you're a

tomato and that's true they do but turns

out the

fiber is essential it's just not

essential for

you it's essential for your bacteria

it's essential for your microbiome

that's what your bacteria want to eat

you have to feed your microbiome you

know always we always say when women are

pregnant you're eating for two well

we're always eating for 100

trillion okay the 100 trillion are in

our intestine and what you feed them

matters because if you feed them well

you will have what we call bacterial

diversity and you will not have one any

one species uh overwhelming any other

species and that will actually

contribute to metabolic Health it will

allow for the barriers in the intestine

to work properly the mucin layer the

tight junctions the uh immunologic

barrier called the th17 cells your

intestine will present the appropriate

barrier so that bad stuff in your

intestine won't get into your

bloodstream to cause systemic

inflammation

so feeding your gut is job one and what

does your gut like to eat it likes to

eat fiber now we humans don't have the

enzymes to digest fiber you need

specialized enzymes the bacteria have

them so the fiber is the food for the

bacteria when you take the fiber out of

the food you're starving the bacteria

now how many grams of fiber are we

supposed to eat every day

our ancestors ate between 50 and 100

grams of fiber a day the USDA says we're

supposed to consume 25 grams of fiber

per day how many grams do we actually

consume here in America and by the way

uke the same mean 12 so we're getting

half the amount the USDA says and one qu

the amount our ancestors did and the

question is does it matter the answer is

oh yeah it matters big

because what happens is when you

feed fiber to the bacteria you get

multiple species instead of one that

basically crowd out all the others okay

and you get this metabolic biodiversity

and it basically improves your metabolic

Health in addition the uh bacteria will

chew that soluble fiber up into a

compound called short chain fatty

acids acetate propionate butyrate

valorate berate is particularly helpful

it is an immune suppressant it keeps

your immune system in check it's one of

the reasons that covid was worse for

people who were obese and who had

pre-existing conditions like metabolic

syndrome and also of course minority

populations because of ultr processed

food consumption and lack of fiber lack

of short chain fatty acids therefore

lack of ability to fend off Foreign

Invaders because their immune systems

were not tamped

down where did the fiber go they took it

out why the because you can't freeze

fiber so that Apple okay yeah okay your

homework assignment for tonight y take

that apple and put it in your freezer

overnight take it out in the morning put

it on the kitchen

countertop let it thaw try to eat it see

what you get what am I going to get mush

oh really now why does that turn it into

mush the ice crystals that form will

mate the cell wall and let all the water

rush in okay okay turn it into mush food

industry knows that so what do they do

squeeze it and freeze it now it lasts

forever now you've you got apple juice

or frozen concentrated orange juice you

have taken a fruit which is food and you

have turned it into a

commodity storable food which you can

sell on the Commodities exchange because

it won't go bad so it has a price and

that price will fluctuate and you can

then bet on the Commodities exchange but

you can't sell fruit like that because

it'll go rancid by the time you've sold

it anywhere so all these people are

doing this to us um what responsibility

do I have on a personal

level because you know if these comp the

big companies with all this money

trillions of dollars they're all

manipulating me bastardizing my food

they you know hacking my brain giving me

these adverts y I am it's easy to fall

into the Trap of thinking listen I'm a

victim here well you are because you've

been hacked as we started this you know

the the podcast okay you you've been

told one thing and the real world is

actually something else okay you've been

hacked you specifically been hacked with

the notion that processed food is

food everyone thinks that because they

called it processed food maybe they

shouldn't call it processed food maybe

they should call it processed

nutrients because the stuff that's in it

are nutrients but it's not

food because it doesn't do what food

does which is contribute to growth or

burning

so the question is what's your

responsibility and what's society's

responsibility so this is a very

important question and it's a question

you know that comes up all the

time personal

responsibility does it exist well in

order to exercise personal

responsibility first you have to

exercise Free Will that's a

prerequisite so we can get into this and

we probably would need about 6

hours okay and we don't have it but do

we have free will yes or

no complicated question it's a

complicated question and it's one I've

actually been researching this week

funly enough for a different project

that I'm working on okay and I was

trying to find get to a point um where I

had a solid answer now there's a couple

of schools of thoughts here one school

of thought when we look at the

neurological um

processes might suggest and there's some

early studies that suggest that we have

much less Free Will than we assume

because things happen in our brain

before we make a decision there's some

studies there um

but do we have free will to make our own

decisions I think we have a lot less

Free Will than we think we have very

little free will yeah if at all here's

the best way to think of it Arthur

shopau famous German philosopher

famously said you are allowed to do what

you want but you are not allowed to want

what you

want those things are actually

predetermined so you have choice in

whether you want the candy bar or the

ice

cream but you don't have choice about

the fact that your nucleus succumbent is

Raging saying give me

sugar that's the choice the choice is

how you satisfy the biochemical drive

but the biochemical drive has you know

is is Way Beyond Free Will so the

question is if you don't have free will

how can you exercise personal

responsibility because that's a

prerequisite in order to be able to do

that because personal responsibility

says take the risks suffer the

consequences but if you can't control

the risks or the consequences how can

you exercise personal

responsibility I have just shown you

that the behaviors associated with

obesity the gluttony and the sloth are

actually secondary to the biochemistry

which you have absolutely no control

over in fact we have

no ability to be able to mitigate that

and that's why we have this obesity

pandemic and you know diet and exercise

hasn't solved it for just that reason

so who do we need to point the finger at

who needs to resolve the issue well it

has to be resolved at several uh levels

it has to be resolved for the public

that's why you and I are doing this

podcast now because they have to

understand what's really at issue okay

blaming the victim has never worked when

did it work did it work for

HIV did it work for tobacco it never

worked okay every personal

responsibility issue becomes a Public

Health

crisis because personal responsibility

hasn't solved any of them it's a loser

it's a loser in terms of its mechanism

and it's a loser in terms of its uh

efficacy doesn't work can I throw a

thought into there as well because in

some areas of Our Lives where we do have

discipline we tend to have a bias

towards assuming everyone else doesn't

have discipline and that's what they're

missing if that makes sense so great way

to blame people were listening to this

that don't struggle with diet and sugar

and all of those things and ex whatever

all those

subjects their brain will probably be

thinking God you can just choose not to

I choose not to all the time I choose

not to have the can of you know fizzy

drink all the time because their nuclear

succumbent is not going off like a

Christmas tree why is it not going off

like a Christmas tree we don't know yet

why do some people smoke and some people

don't why do some people drink and some

people don't look 40% of Americans are

tea tolers never touch the stuff 40% of

social drinkers can pick it up put it

down you know no problem I'm in that

category 20% are binge drinkers I sorry

10% are binge Drinkers and 10% are

chronic

alcoholics what distinguishes the 20%

who have a problem from the 80% who

don't we don't know yet to this day we

still don't know but we know that for

that 20% it is a problem we also know

there this thing called sugar addiction

and there's going to be on May 17th in

London the International Conference on

food addiction I will be the keynote

speaker um to discuss exactly this issue

is there such a thing as food addiction

and if there is such a thing as food

addiction does it portend uh need for

societal

remediation ra or is this really just a

personal responsibility issue well

everything that is both toxic and

addictive has required some sort of

societal intervention okay so you have

things that are toxic but not addictive

Like Oxygen and water you don't have to

regulate those you have things that are

addictive but not toxic like caffeine no

you don't have to really regulate that

either unless you add it to alcohol

which case then you have four Loco and

then you get arhythmia and then you do

have to regulate it but what if you're

both toxic and addictive like cocaine or

alcohol or nicotine or heroin

for those we all have uh uh societal

intervention you know rehab for the

personal and laws for the

societal for sugar for ultra-processed

food we have

nothing it's the same issue nothing

different so you want regulation from

the government on sugar I think that the

industory has to be told what to

do they haven't yet now the question is

would it work the answer is yeah it

would and actually who found out that it

would work the UK you did it it did it

back in the 2000s so in 2003 the Blair

government brought all of the uh UK uh

food manufacturers to the table in

secret so wait Rose and Tesco and M&S

and you know every other cpg uh purveyor

in in uh the UK and had a secret meeting

and were told and told them look

hypertension is running rampant and

stroke is breaking the NHS

bank and it's because of the sodium we

have to get the sodium levels in ultr

proc ESS Foods down so every one of you

is going to play by the same rules so

that there's no competitive disadvantage

and you're all going to reduce the

amount of sodium in each of your items

by 10% per year over a three-year period

so that there will be 30% less

sodium 3 years from now in 20 six it was

2007 I think at the time and they all

did and they didn't tell the public and

in 2011 famous paper in British medical

journal showed a 40% reduction in

hypertension and stroke due to this

public health intervention that the

Blair government did without telling the

public it works should have told the

public no don't tell the public so would

this work for

sugar so I am working with a company in

the Middle East right now okay I don't

take money okay it's a um you know I do

this because it's the right thing to do

uh it's called Kuwaiti Danish Dairy kdd

it's like the Nestle of the Middle East

and they make all sorts of junk they

make flavored milks they make ice cream

they make frozen yogurt they make

biscuits they make confectionary they

make tomato sauce okay like all bad

stuff right they came to me in 2020 and

said we want to be a metabolic healthy

company we want to do the right thing

because right now Kuwait has an 18%

diabetes rate and an 80% obesity rate

and we don't want to be the cause of

it can you help us re-engineer our

product

portfolio to be metabolically

healthy and so we com comen the

scientific advisory team and we've

worked for the past 3 years to develop a

set of guidelines a set of

principles and we have developed what we

call the metabolic

Matrix three principles three precepts

to turn food metabolically healthy and

here they are protect the liver feed the

gut support the brain any food that does

all three of those is healthy whether

it's ultr processed or not any food that

does none of the three is poison whether

it's Ultra processed or not

now why those three organs because if

you the data show in the literature if

you fix those three organs all the

downstream organs also get fixed whereas

if you fix other organs those three

organs don't get fixed so those three

organs are primary and all the data

shows that if you fix those three you

can actually improve both U morbidity

and

mortality so that's the the goal that's

the rubric

protect the liver feed the gut support

the brain so could we apply that

principle to the food supply can any

individual apply it to their own grocery

purchases use perfect you'll get it can

the government do it yeah they did it in

the UK they can do it again it's not

crazy it can be done the fact is we're

all carrying a belief system

around okay and now where did that

belief system come from the belief

system is that ultr processed food is

food yeah where did it come from came

from the food industry they told us so

the scientists and governments told us

so as well though if you look back

through history so how do we know the

scientists and governments are telling

us the truth

now that's a very good question that's a

super

question how do you know what's true

where we're in this problem right now

I'm worried that in 20 years time I'm

going to be sat on this podcast if

people are still listening and I'm going

to be sat with another scientist and

he's going to be saying do you know that

the uh Dr Robert lusting who you had on

20 years ago everything he said has been

disproved and he's going to say fructose

is the key apple juice is really

important we found out that uh

vegetables are causing autism did you

ever see the movie sleeper no Woody

Allen 1973 honestly I've seen no movies

he wakes up after 200 years and

suspended animation and he finds out

that hot fudge and deep fat are good for

you said oh we you know debunked all the

you know stuff from before so I get this

question all the

time everything we knew 10 years ago is

already wrong and everything we know

today will be wrong 10 years from

now so if everything we know today will

be wrong 10 years from now why do

anything about it cuz no matter what it

is is it's likely to be wrong this is

known as the pessimistic meta induction

Theory this is how the Dark Ages

started the idea of Dogma there's only

one Dogma Stephen and the Dogma is that

there is no

Dogma because everything has to be

refined Dogma how do you define the word

dogma Dogma means you take it on faith

okay you take it on faith okay that's

what science is for is to debunk the

previous generation's Dogma if we didn't

do that okay we'd still be using

leeches okay we've debunked that Dogma

we would still think that seizures were

demonic possession we've debunked that

Dogma okay ultimately science is not a

straight line it's a

zigzag okay but it still moves forward

so if I end up being discredited 10

years from now 20 years from now 30

years from now hey I was a cog in the

wheel at least I drove the the the

vehicle

forward that's

okay and science is really a process

isn't it it's exactly process it's not a

religious belief it's not a set of

answers it's just a process to

uncovering um information I guess but

you have to then evaluate each piece of

information for its veracity yeah

because the problem with information is

we are now peppered with disinformation

and how do you determine what's real and

what's not you say that to achieve

contentment you recommend following the

four CES for contentment indeed what are

the four CES by the way if you follow

the four seas you will be a whole lot

better off in terms of your

understanding information versus

disinformation so in my book hacking of

the American or contemporary mind I talk

about ways to lower your

dopamine reduce your cortisol and raise

your

serotonin and they're all four things

your mother told you and they're all

free and they're all available to

everyone on the

planet number

one connect now connect does not mean

through

Facebook connect does not mean digital

connection it means means social

connection it means what we're doing

right now face to face eye to eye now

why does Facebook not work why does Zoom

not work you're looking at somebody eye

to

eye they've they've now done the Imaging

studies okay there are a set of neurons

in the back of your head in the

occipital cortex called mirror neurons

and they are not just reading the lips

of the person you're talking to they are

reading the facial uh structure

and the muscle movements and they are

actually transducing the

emotion from the person you're talking

to when you're watching on a screen it

flattens out you can't tell so you don't

get the same

information that information ultimately

generates a serotonin signal so you get

contentment so social connection

actually drives contentment so that's

number one number two contribute and

does not mean to your retirement account

it means contribute to others okay

contribute with purpose like Habitat for

Humanity B basically giving to others

because when they when you give to

others you feel better yourself okay

that generates the serotonin the signal

okay so you know lottery winners you

know are not

happy but people who actually give their

money away are that's one of the reasons

why we have philanthropy makes people

feel better it's quite selfish in that

regard then isn't it in well yes indeed

it it seems selfless but it's actually

selfish which is fine it works just

great number three cope and cope is

three things it's sleep mindfulness

exercise all of which are necessary to

Tamp down

cortisol because you if you're sleep

deprived your cortisol goes through the

roof if you are um uh distracted

multitasking your cortisol goes through

the roof okay and if you're sedentary

okay you number one you're eating like

crazy and you're also and your cortisol

also goes through the roof sleep

mindfulness exercise all things to get

your cortisol down and finally number

four the last C

cook why because there are three things

that contribute to this dopamine

serotonin imbalance the first

tryptophane tryptophane is the precursor

to serotonin tryptophane is not an ultra

processed food it is the rarest amino

acid you find it in eggs chicken fish

not exactly Ultra processed food number

two fructose fructose reduces serotonin

okay and there's lots of fructose in in

the ultrapress food and finally lastly

omega-3 fatty acids and omega-3 fatty

acids are in again eggs and in um in uh

marine life okay there there's a little

bit of Omega-3s and vegetables you know

ala which is doesn't reach the brain so

that's not a that's not a big winner for

uh fixing this problem so you need high

tryptophane low fructose High Omega-3s

sounds like real food to

me

so uh connect contribute cope cook it

will Tamp down your dopamine reduce your

cortisol raise your serotonin improve

your mental health improve your

metabolic public health and will solve

your

problem it won't solve societies we have

to work on getting the whole world to

understand what the problem is before we

can fix it Dr Robert leting what is the

thing we haven't talked about the most

important topic we haven't talked about

that we should have wow

well we

have a systemic Health crisis

diabetes metabolic

syndrome um dementia cancer we have a

mental health

crisis

depression

suicide

schizophrenia uh autism

add we have a global Health crisis we

have cyber bullying we have social

inequality we have

War we have um climate change planet is

ulating all at the same

time

coincidence or are these

somehow inextricably

related are these the same thing or are

these different things if we believe

they are separate we're going to solve

try to solve each one individual

and never get to the root

cause the root

cause is our amydala the fearce center

of our

brain it's under

attack from all of the things we've

talked about

today that dysfunctional amydala is the

driver of chronic disease it is the

driver of the Mental Health crisis it is

the driver of the global health and

planetary crisis

there are four breaks on the amydala and

they're all dysfunctional today and

they're all dysfunctional because of the

things we've talked about today because

of cortisol because of stress because of

ultra-processed food because of sleep

deprivation because of the um uh change

in the environment because of air

pollution because of um all the things

that ultimately impact our brain's

ability to transduce information

until we recognize where the problem is

we're going to be spinning our

Wheels we can do this we can back out

the same way we drove into the Stitch

but you can't solve a problem until you

know what the problem

is Dr Robert leting thank you so much we

have a closing tradition on this podcast

where the last guest leaves a question

for the next guest not knowing who

they're leaving it for and the question

that's been left for you is here we go

let's have a look

okay nice question um what would you

tell your 20-year-old self that you wish

you knew and that would have positively

impacted your life and avoided

pain I wish I had

known

that I didn't have to please everyone

there's a book called the courage of

being

disliked it's courageous to be disliked

I was afraid of being disliked and

because I was afraid of being disliked I

was

disliked it's such a wish I had

known that nugget of Truth early on in

my career

thank you so much Dr pleasure thank you

I have to say your work is exceptional

um your books are incredible I've

got three of them here but I know there

there's many more um I'd recommend them

all incredibly highly the hacking of the

American mind is a fantastic book that

doesn't just apply to Americans it

applies to um all Industries around the

world um all Western economies around

the world which are set up in in very

similar ways fat chance and another book

that I've been through um in detail is

about beating the odds against sugar

processed food obesity and disease which

covers much of your work in the studies

that you referenced today an incredible

incredible book and I also have this

book called metabolical did I pronounce

that correctly you did metabolical the L

and the lies of processed food nutrition

and modern medicine which is a little

bit of a bigger book but it's um it

gives more of the foundations around

metabolism which I think a lot of people

don't understand so thank you thank you

for um your your Brilliance in so many

ways and but thank you for your life's

work because your life's work is Saving

Lives it's propelling us forward it's

it's driving a conversation forward and

you do it in a way that's so

unbelievably engaging that it's hard not

to pay attention so thank you Robert

well thank you and thank you for you

doing what you do

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