Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, explores the damage caused by sugary foods. He argues that fructose (too much) and fiber (not enough) appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic through their effects on insulin. Series: UCSF Mini Medical School for the Public [7/2009] [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 16717]. Photo Illustration by Kenji Aoki for The New York Times
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IS SUGAR TOXIC?
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by Gary Taubes
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May 26, 2009, Robert Lustig gave a lecture called “Sugar: The Bitter Truth,” which was posted on YouTube the following July. Since then, it has been viewed well over 800,000 times, gaining new viewers at a rate of about 50,000 per month, fairly remarkable numbers for a 90-minute discussion of the nuances of fructose biochemistry and human physiology.
Lustig is a specialist on pediatric hormone disorders and the leading expert in childhood obesity at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, which is one of the best medical schools in the country. He published his first paper on childhood obesity a dozen years ago, and he has been treating patients and doing research on the disorder ever since.
The viral success of his lecture, though, has little to do with Lustig’s impressive credentials and far more with the persuasive case he makes that sugar is a “toxin” or a “poison,” terms he uses together 13 times through the course of the lecture, in addition to the five references to sugar as merely “evil.” And by “sugar,” Lustig means not only the white granulated stuff that we put in coffee and sprinkle on cereal — technically known as sucrose — but also high-fructose corn syrup, which has already become without Lustig’s help what he calls “the most demonized additive known to man.”
It doesn’t hurt Lustig’s cause that he is a compelling public speaker. His critics argue that what makes him compelling is his practice of taking suggestive evidence and insisting that it’s incontrovertible. Lustig certainly doesn’t dabble in shades of gray. Sugar is not just an empty calorie, he says; its effect on us is much more insidious. “It’s not about the calories,” he says. “It has nothing to do with the calories. It’s a poison by itself.”
If Lustig is right, then our excessive consumption of sugar is the primary reason that the numbers of obese and diabetic Americans have skyrocketed in the past 30 years. But his argument implies more than that. If Lustig is right, it would mean that sugar is also the likely dietary cause of several other chronic ailments widely considered to be diseases of Western lifestyles — heart disease, hypertension and many common cancers among them…
This brings us to the salient question: Can sugar possibly be as bad as Lustig says it is?
RTFA. It is several pages in length, packed with content. If you care to research further, there are suggestions. Set aside some time to watch Lustig’s lecture.
I haven’t an opinion other than what I believe is supported by paleo-anthropology. As we evolved, sweetened substances were necessary to life’s maintenance. The amount of sugars, though, was miniscule compared even to the amount consumed in workingclass communities a century ago – much less the avalanche of sweet stuff made possible and profitable by modern packaging since WW2.
Read further. The lives of people who listen to you are part of your consideration, you know.
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Source, Title image
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Percentage of carbon dioxide is high and %age of oxygen is low in the urban areas. At the same time higher calorie intake but less physical labour leads to gastric problem in most of the urbanites, resulting in dysfunction of the Beta cells. Such lifestyle particularly w. r. t. human body results in ecosystem imbalance and is a major cause of diabetes among city dwellers.
Better be vegetarian and avoid the adverse impacts of biomagnification of pollution if you wish to lead a healthy life in this ecologically imbalanced world.
Have faith on AHIMSA, nonviolence because that is the [only] way to ensure world peace.