Neuroendocrinologist Robert Lustig has been leading the crusade against sugar for more than a decade. In this case, the statement he makes is sound, because his idea that obesity can be solved by eating less and exercising more is an artificial construct designed by the food industry. According to Lustig, the real culprit isn’t calories or laziness, but fructose and our body’s insulin response.
A big win for the industry. Where Lustig Gets It Right The food industry has played a role in diverting attention away from physical exercise and its products. For example, we already have data in 1965 Sugar Research Foundation He funded scientific reviews that blamed free sugar on fats for coronary heart disease to keep his business afloat.
More recently, journalistic and academic investigations have shown that Coca-Cola invested millions in financing. Global Energy Balance Network (GEBN). The network’s internal purpose, according to the company’s own email, was to “change the conversation” about obesity to focus on lack of physical activity rather than diet.
currently It is widely supported that more exercise is not a panacea for weight loss, since there is a limit to our daily energy expenditure, whereby our body adapts after a certain level of activity and total expenditure stagnates. Moreover, analysis of large populations over several decades indicates that the explosion in obesity is not due to a dramatic decline in physical activity, but to changes in eating habits.
The increase in obesity is undeniable, but here too Lustig twists the data to find an effect. He says we’ve gone from “5% obesity in 1970 to 45% today” and the reality is that he’s mixed up figures for children (5% in the 70s) with current adults (around 40%). Among adults, the actual jump, though severe, has been from 14.5% in the early 1970s to 40.3% recently.
fructose. One of the most important premises of this neuroendocrine is the criminalization of fructose, since it indicates that it goes directly to the liver and is metabolized like alcohol. But scientific studies here show that, at low and normal doses, the small intestine processes about 90% of fructose, and only at high doses does the intestinal capacity become overwhelming and the fructose reaches the liver in a big way. This disproves the idea that eating a piece of fruit and adding sugar has the same immediate liver effect.
Thus, we know that fructose is harmful, but only when it adds extra calories to the diet in a hypercaloric state. That is, consuming a small amount of fructose does not have a very significant effect, but logically not stopping eating it will have a direct effect on weight.
Insulin model. Lustig’s clinical premise is that insulin automatically makes people eat less and move more. To defend this, he often cites a study in which they used a drug called octreotide to suppress insulin in obese patients, causing them to “eat less and reduce carbohydrates by 47% to 35%.”
And while the premise is pretty interesting, we’re talking about a pilot study without a control group where only a subgroup of people reduced the amount of carbohydrates they ate. However, he himself signed off on a subsequent confirmatory trial that contradicted his own description, since compared to placebo, weight loss was only 2% and there was no significant change in macronutrient intake.
Picture | Facebook Robert Lustig
Through this Men’s Health
In Xataka | We’ve been waiting for years for an ‘ozempic’ that doesn’t require cold or injections. And Europe is going to approve it
