Lustig On Sugar On C-SPAN
This is worth watching, said the commenter who sent this to me, and, after watching a half hour of it, I can say he's right:
The description from YouTube:
Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco, spoke to students at the University of California Hastings Law School, where he studied food policy law. Lustig claimed sugar is the reason we are losing the battle against obesity, and that politics is getting in the way of sound food policy.
Previous posts by me on Lustig are here.
As he notes, a calorie is not a calorie -- per the data. Some calories cause disease more than others and are metabolized differently than others.
I haven't watched the whole video -- had to go to bed -- but Lustig is coming from a data-based place on sugar and it is a substance I avoid, along with starchy carbs.
It seems pretty clear from the video: the reduction of fat in our diets and the increase in sugar in our diets (and be sure you count sugars from starches) has turned our population obese and diabetic. But he points out that it isn't just obese people who have metabolic dysfunction. More than half of our population has metabolic dysfunction. This is costing us big in healthcare dollars. How different might our healthcare problems be if we didn't have a population consuming vast quantities of sugar?
A screenshot from the video (from around the 34 minute mark):
(He goes into limitations at 36:00.)
I haven't seen the whole thing yet, but the few minutes I've watched (and the Lustig lecture from a few years ago) suggest that there might be no finer project for human improvement, following the education of women, than construction of a set of principles by which civilization grapples with the power of sugar in all its contexts.
(No, this would NOT be a government program, and thanks for asking.)
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at November 29, 2013 2:18 AM
Was thinking out loud, but it's at least possible that I meant every word of that. All kinds of clarity and enthusiasm and patience would come to a culture that was sensible about its diet.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at November 29, 2013 2:20 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/11/29/lustig_on_sugar.html#comment-4084480">comment from Crid [CridComment at gmail]I watched 40 minutes of this and it is great. I mean to watch the rest today, though it's my prep day for my column.
Part of the thing to do is get out the word about how damaging sugar is and he's been doing a great job of that.
Amy Alkon at November 29, 2013 5:41 AM
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