Edit: Please note, I have discovered that Lustig is a controversial figure and some
of this information may be invalid. Please do your own research. I am doing my own research
into some of these topics and may revise or take down this post.
A few days ago I was listening the the Andrew Huberman podcast with Robert Lustig. While I
did not take notes on that, I decided to listen to Lustigs very popular talk on YouTube
called Sugar: The Bitter Truth. I took notes while watching and decided to share
them here. They may be a bit all over the place and not formatted too well but they were
just intended for me to rereference
TL;DR: fructose is a poison and it should be avoided (except for where it is naturally
occuring). Eliminate any processed foods and you will basically be okay.
My Notes
Two popular diets, the Atkins (Keto) diet and the Japanese diet are exact opposites. All fat no carb, and all carb no fat respectively but both work. This is because both eliminate fructose
Lustig believes that its not just about calories in and calories out. The biochemical processes are more important
On average we are eating more calories than we did in each proceeding decade. Lustig says that this must mean our leptin (satiety horomone) is not working. If it was, even if more food was given we would not eat it
These extra calories are coming from carbohyrates
The government recommended less fat and obesity went up
There is a bit of a "coke conspiracy". The caffeine in coke is a diuretic which makes you urinate pure water. There is also salt in a can of coke. This plus the diuretic factor of caffeine will make you thurstier. Lustig said for those that do not think coke knows what they are doing, when they released new coke they upped both the salt and caffeine content
When this talk was given, the average person was consuming 63 POUNDS of high fructose corn syrup a year
High fructose corn syrup and sucrose are the same. Both are one molecule glucose and one of fructose. We have an enzyme called sucrase that breaks the bond between the two molecules. Both are poison (because of fructose)
High fructose corn syrup is much cheaper than sugar. For this reason is has found its way into so many things inside of our grocery stores including bread, ketchup etc
We were told to reduce fat intake to reduce heart disease. This did not work and heart disease has increased (fact check this)
Back in the 70's they realized that dietary fats raised LDL and LDL increased CVD risk. For this reason they made the conclusion that LDL therefore lead to CVD
Ancel Keys did a study where he showed that increased dietary fats increased CVD risk, the seven countries study. But he said that where saturated fat showed up, sucrose also showed up. He did it incorrectly and did not see the impact of sucrose independent of saturated fat. And this study was the basis of 30 years of nutrition
LDL/Fats
LDL-A (large bouyant) are not a problem, they can not get into the endothelium and cause CVD because they are large and "float"
LDL-B (small dense) are the problem, these cause plaque and CVD
When measuring just "LDL" on a blood panel, BOTH of these are measured together. If high triglycerides and low HDL, this means that LDL-B is high.
Triglyceride to HDL ratio is a better predictor of CVD risk than LDL (how does ApoB play into this?)
Dietary fat raises LDL-A and carbohyrates raised LDL-B
100% of fructose is metabolized by the liver while only about 20% of glucose is
Because of this, fructose does not stimulate insulin
Significantly more fructose ends up as fat vs glucose
ApoB and VLDL is created during fructose processing (a bit of VLDL during glucose processing but not much)
Fructose does not stimulate leptin which means you still think you are hungry after eating it
Ethanol and fructose are similar in terms of processing in the liver
Exercise is important in obesity because it:
improves muscle insulin sensitivity
improves mitrochondrial efficiency
Everywhere there is fructose in nature, there is lots of fiber. Fiber makes the fructose okay
This is part of the reason fruit juice is bad, all sugar, no fiber