Killer fructose
Taka
According to these 9 videos honey must be a poison ...
Interesting how the experts can make a distinction between glucose and
fructose but not between the saturated and unsaturated fatty acids
such as
in the case of lard. I wonder if they eliminated the "Japanese
revenge from
the World War II" HCFS from the American diet would the people be
getting
still fat?
Taka
montygraham
in my family, among the adults. Why not cite some abstracts rather
than youtube videos? It's highly unlikely that HFCS in small amounts,
even on a regular basis, represent some sort of major threat, relative
to things like oxidized or easily oxidizable lipids.
Taka
Do you think that the PUFAs/EFAs in small amounts do represent a major
threat? IMO the problem is we don't take both in small amounts and if
combined with sedentary lifestyle it's a killer especially during the
postreproductive period when the youthful protective hormones vanish.
The slides from the video are here:
http://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/events/pastmtg/2007/cehr/docs/metabolicsyndromelustig.pdf
And some abstracts are on Robert Lustig's page here:
http://www.ucsf.edu/science-cafe/articles/obesity-and-metabolic-syndrome-driven-by-fructose-sugar-diet/
Sugar Is a Poison, Says UCSF Obesity Expert
The rise of obesity is usually blamed on too much eating and not
enough exercising, but Robert Lustig, MD, a UCSF pediatric
neuroendocrinologist, asks us to look beyond the obvious.
Yes, more Americans are overweight today than 30 years ago. Kids are
still getting heavier, compared with prior generations of kids. That
leads some UCSF researchers to warn that heart disease and other
health problems will grow in future decades.
But behaviors that some might refer to as gluttony and sloth are
merely consequences of the true cause of the epidemic, Lustig says.
Food was just as abundant before obesity’s ascendance. The problem is
the increase in sugar consumption. Sugar both drives fat storage and
makes the brain think it is hungry, setting up a “vicious cycle,”
according to Lustig.
More specifically, it is fructose that is harmful, according to
Lustig. Fructose is a component of the two most popular sugars. One is
table sugar — sucrose. The other is high-fructose corn syrup. High-
fructose corn syrup has become ubiquitous in soft drinks and many
other processed foods.
Lustig presented his case against fructose in a recent UCSF Mini
Medical School course on diet and nutrition, part of a series
sponsored by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Audience members
may have been surprised to hear such unequivocally strong statements
from a researcher. Lustig framed the obesity epidemic as a societal
issue that pits the food-selling agenda of federal agencies and profit-
seeking behavior of major corporations against public health needs.
Lustig quit working in the lab a decade ago. Now he spends more time
with pediatric patients. He is on the front lines of the world’s
weight woes, treating kids who already are obese, a condition that
sets the stage for health problems that begin long before these
children become adults.
Lustig still conducts clinical research. He evaluates dietary
lifestyle, as well as pharmacologic interventions that might hold the
pounds at bay. He tracks down associations between diet, lifestyle and
health outcomes in an effort to identify biological mechanisms that
will explain them.
Insulin and Leptin
Lustig’s own groundbreaking studies more than a decade ago stimulated
the development of his controversial ideas about metabolism and
biological feedback in weight control. One not-yet-popular idea is
that, calorie for calorie, sugar causes more insulin resistance in the
liver than other edibles. The pancreas then has to release more
insulin to satisfy the liver’s needs. High insulin levels, in turn,
interfere with the brain’s receipt of signals from a hormone called
leptin, secreted by fat cells, Lustig believes.
In the 1990s, Lustig worked with children diagnosed with hypothalamic
obesity, a disorder that can occur after brain tumor surgery. The
children were making more insulin than was necessary for normal energy
storage in fat cells. Lustig thought the kids were not receiving
signals from leptin, which helps send a message that the appetite has
been sated.
Lustig concluded that the children’s brains were fooled into thinking
that they were starving. Lustig administered a drug called octreotide,
known to block insulin release. Insulin levels fell; the children ate
less, lost weight, spontaneously became more active and improved their
quality of life.
Lustig tried the same treatment with obese adults, and found that a
subset responded in the same way as the children with hypothalamic
obesity.
Eating stimulates secretion of insulin and leptin. The conventional
view holds that insulin, like leptin, feeds back in the brain to limit
food intake, Lustig explains. But Lustig does not think that
chronically elevated insulin levels feed back negatively to curb
eating. Instead, chronically elevated insulin blocks leptin’s negative
feedback signal, Lustig believes. “Most people think insulin does the
same thing as leptin,” he says. “I think it does just the opposite.”
Lustig believes that fructose generates greater insulin resistance
than other foodstuffs, and that fructose calories, therefore, fail to
blunt appetite in the same way as other foods.
A Calorie Is Not Just a Calorie
Lustig also is at odds with mainstream scientific viewpoints when it
comes to explaining how fructose is shunted through biochemical
pathways and converted into fat and other molecules.
Unlike conventional calorie counters, Lustig does not believe all food
calories have the same impact on fat storage and energy expenditure,
regardless of whether they come from fat, protein or carbohydrate.
Fructose, a type of carbohydrate, is not metabolized like other
foodstuffs, and not even like glucose, the other major carbohydrate,
Lustig says.
In addition, Lustig claims that fructose is just as bad as alcohol in
causing fat storage in the liver — and in causing fatty liver disease.
Lustig advances these controversial ideas primarily by citing already
published studies, most of them by other researchers. But he also
tries to enlist bench scientists in research collaborations in the
hopes that additional studies will prove to others that these ideas
are correct.
Sugar No Better Than Fat
Each sucrose molecule consists of one molecule of fructose joined to
one molecule of glucose. In the gut, these two components are quickly
split apart. High-fructose corn syrup is a less expensive mixture of
glucose and fructose. There is no point in belaboring the difference,
Lustig says. “High-fructose corn syrup and sucrose are exactly the
same,” Lustig says. “They’re equally bad. They’re both poison in high
doses.”
Over the past century, Americans have increased their fructose
consumption from 15 grams per day to 75 grams per day or more, Lustig
explains. The trend accelerated beginning about three decades ago,
when cheap, easy-to-transport high-fructose corn syrup became widely
available.
Much of processed food labeled “reduced fat” instead has sugar added
to make it more palatable, Lustig says. But when it comes to harmful
health effects, sugar is worse than fat, he claims. Consumption of
either results in elevated levels of artery-clogging fats being made
by the liver and deposited in the bloodstream. But fructose causes
even further damage to the liver and to structural proteins of the
body while fomenting excessive caloric consumption, Lustig says.
Four Simple Guidelines
Lustig prescribes four simple guidelines for parents coping with kids
who are too heavy:
Get rid of every sugared liquid in the house. Kids should drink only
water and milk.
Provide carbohydrates associated with fiber.
Wait 20 minutes before serving second portions.
Have kids buy their “screen time” minute-for-minute with physical
activity.
Fructose is abundant in fruit. Fruit is fine, Lustig says, but we
should think twice before drinking juice or feeding it to our kids.
The fiber in whole fruit contributes to a sense of fullness. Lustig
says it is rare to see a child eat more than one orange, but it is
common for kids to consume much more sugar and calories as orange
juice.
Eating fiber also results in less carbohydrate being absorbed in the
gut, Lustig notes. In addition, he says, fiber consumption allows the
brain to receive a satiety signal sooner than it would otherwise, so
we stop eating sooner.
Exercise burns only a modest amount of calories, Lustig notes. But it
does have other benefits. Exercise improves insulin sensitivity in
skeletal muscle, lowering insulin levels in the bloodstream. Exercise
reduces stress and, therefore, reduces stress-induced eating,
according to Lustig. Lastly, exercise increases metabolic rate.
The directive to balance active play with computer, video and TV time
is the most difficult one to comply with, Lustig says. But failure to
limit sugar intake appears to be the most predictive of poor weight
control in children, he adds.
“You are not what you eat; you are what you do with what you eat,”
Lustig concludes. “And what you do with fructose is particularly
dangerous.”
Taka
The 'skinny' on childhood obesity: how our western environment starves
kids' brains.
Lustig RH.
In this review, the mechanism of our "toxic environment's" effects on
insulin and weight gain in the genesis of obesity is elaborated. The
composition of our diet is highly insulinogenic. The insulin drives
energy into fat, and interferes with leptin signaling in the VMH. This
results in weight gain and the sense of starvation, which results in
decreased SNS activity, reducing energy expenditure and physical
activity; and increased vagal activity, which promotes yet further
insulin release and energy storage. Thus, hyperinsulinemia turns the
leptin negative feedback system into a "vicious cycle" of obesity (see
Figure 3, page 905). Externally, this appears as "gluttony and sloth"
but it is biochemically driven. How does this work? A thin, insulin-
sensitive, 13-year-old boy might consume a daily allotment of 2,000
kcal, and burn 2,000 kcal daily (or 50 kcal/kg fat-free mass) in order
to remain weight-stable, with a stable leptin level. However, if that
same 13-year-old became hyperinsulinemic and/or insulin resistant,
perhaps as many as 250 kcal of the daily allotment would be shunted to
storage in adipose tissue, promoting a persistent obligate weight
gain. Due to the obligate energy storage, he now only has 1,750 kcal
per day to burn. The hyperinsulinemia also results in a lower level of
leptin signal transduction, conveying a CNS signal of energy
insufficiency. The remaining calories available are lower than his
energy expenditure; the CNS would sense starvation. Through decreased
SNS tone, he would reduce his physical activity, resulting in
decreased quality of life; and through increased vagal tone, he would
increase caloric intake and insulin secretion, but now at a much
higher level. Thus, the vicious cycle of gluttony, sloth, and obesity
is promulgated. Is this personal responsibility, when a kid's brain
thinks it's starving? Is it personal responsibility when the American
Academy of Pediatrics still recommends juice for toddlers? Is it
personal responsibility when the Women, Infant and Children program
subsidizes fruit juice but not fruit? Is it personal responsibility
when the first ingredient in the barbecue sauce is high-fructose corn
syrup? Is it personal responsibility when high-fiber fresh produce is
unavailable in poor neighborhoods? Is it personal responsibility when
the local fast food restaurant is the only neighborhood venue that is
clean and air-conditioned? Is it personal responsibility when in order
to meet the criteria for No Child Left Behind, the school does away
with physical education class? Is it personal responsibility when
children are not allowed out of the house to play for fear of crime?
We must get the insulin down. Fixing the "toxic environment" by
altering the food supply and promoting physical activity for all
children can't be done by government, and won't be done by Big Food.
This will require a grassroots, bottom-up effort on the part of
parents and community leaders. We as pediatricians must lead the way.
PMID: 17236437
Just search PubMed for "Lustig RH"[Author]
jay
> insulin and weight gain in the genesis of obesity is elaborated. The
> composition of our diet is highly insulinogenic. The insulin drives
I wonder if higher amounts of carbs could be a signal that winter is
around the corner, thus eat as much as you can, build fat reserves and
slow down metabolism for leaner times to come? Any studies to support
or refute this?
Taka
The War on Fat
Sugar’s rise to power was really an accidental by-product of three
political winds, beginning with the Nixon administration:
In 1972, Richard Nixon wanted to reduce food costs as part of his “war
on poverty.” He partnered with the USDA to do whatever means necessary
to bring food costs down.
In 1975, HFCS was introduced, replacing sugar because it was cheap and
readily available.
In the mid 1970s, dietary fats were blamed for heart disease (more
about this later), giving rise to the “low-fat craze.” Market response
was an explosion of processed convenience foods, all nonfat and low
fat, most of which tasted like sawdust unless sugar was added.
Fructose was used to make fat-free products more palatable.
In 1982, the American Heart Association (AHA), the American Medical
Association (AMA), and the United Stated Department of Agriculture
(USDA) reduced fats from 40 percent of your diet to 30 percent. You
eagerly complied, believing you were lowering your risks for both
obesity and cardiovascular disease.
Yet, as the low-fat craze spread, so did rates of heart disease,
diabetes, and obesity -- the very illnesses you thought you were
preventing. Clearly, the plan wasn’t working.
Justification for Low-Fat Diet
But how did the war on fat start, in the first place?
It began with a study called the Seven Countries study by Ancel Keys
[ii], a Minnesota epidemiologist who used multivariate regression
analysis to examine diet and disease. He compared the diets of seven
countries, and his main conclusion was that saturated fats were
responsible for cardiovascular disease. After much heated public
debate, this notion that saturated fats caused heart disease was
widely adopted, especially once he made the cover of Time Magazine in
1980.
Keys’ study laid the foundation for nutrition science, education, and
public policy for the next three decades.
There was only one problem. His conclusions were dead wrong.
Keys’ neglected to perform the converse analysis demonstrating that
the effect of saturated fat on cardiovascular disease was independent
of sucrose. In other words, sucrose and saturated fat were co-mingled
into his data. In retrospect, it is impossible to tease out the
relative contributions of sucrose versus saturated fat on
cardiovascular disease in this study because the original data is long
gone and Keys has passed on.
Additionally he never separated out the issue of how the fat was
consumed. There is a major difference in raw and cooked animal fat,
especially fat cooked at high temperatures, which clearly produces
known carcinogens.
Nevertheless, lowering fat (without regard to sugar) became the
nutritional model that persists to this day, despite copious evidence
that it doesn’t work.
As your fats went from 40 percent to 30 percent, your carbohydrates
went from 40 percent to 55 percent. And this carbohydrate increase was
of the worst possible kind: SUGAR.
Taka
As people everywhere, especially women in menopause, face yet another
year wondering how to get rid of the belly fat accumulating around
their mid-sections, it might do everyone good to understand the
science behind it all.
If you have a sweet tooth, get ready for the really bad news… because
scientists have finally proved that fructose, a cheap form of sugar
used in thousands of food products and soft drinks, can damage human
metabolism.
As T.S. Wiley said in her book Lights Out, “America in the 1940s and
1950s was already dying in fast forward from fast-food products
preserved in sugar, and from its changing lifestyles thanks to the
light. Longer working hours, cheaper electricity and television kept
people up later at night, and death followed… When you stay up too
late in artificial light, you begin to live in fast forward with every
fiber of your being.”
By the 1970s most food manufacturers switched their sweeteners from
sucrose, otherwise known as table sugar, to corn syrup, because HFCS
was cheaper and much sweeter. This was when the average American's
diet really took a dive for the worse. Why? Because, the human body
metabolizes fructose in a much different way than glucose. When you
consume fructose in large amounts there are profound negative results
to the liver.
Fructose is made out of corn, and it can cause fat cells to grow
around your organs, and it triggers diabetes and heart disease.
Currently the Corn Refiners Association is hoping to convince you that
fructose is as safe and natural as table sugar. It is not. 15 grams a
day of fructose was the average a century ago, while today 73 grams
per day is what a typical adolescent gets from soft drinks, but it is
also in salad dressings, and many other foods. It is these huge doses
of fructose that are so bad. Oh and here’s the irony – most of the low-
fat diet foods have the highest fructose levels.
Wiley points out that, “By keeping the lights on to create endless
summer, and having access to endless carbohydrates, all of our
hormones are in summer mode, too… Not only our minds but our hearts
live in the constant “panic” of mating season (competition for
resources, high hormonal mood swings, and, ultimately loss), which
used to coincide with real summer. So, day and night, year-round,
decade after decade, our sex hormones are in high gear and we’re ready
for a fight. The low fat lies of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s have only
exhacerbated an enormous evolutionary glitch by prescribing a diet of
more carbohydrates and exercise, which induce cortisone and insulin
highs that have never been seen before in humans. The real bottom line
is that when you don’t sleep, your heart dies… Our heart has a
seasonal metabolism, just like your brain. Your summer heart runs on
straight sugar, (glucose) and your winter heart runs on free fatty
acids.”
The metabolism of fructose by your liver also creates toxins like uric
acid, which drives up blood pressure and can also cause gout. Fructose
leads to increased belly fat, insulin resistance and metabolic
syndrome.
It's no wonder the food and beverage industry doesn’t want you to know
how bad HFCS is because after its introduction in 1975, it has become
a multi-billion dollar boost to the corn industry. It is in every
processed food.
Today about one-quarter of the calories consumed by the average
American are comprised of added sugars, mostly HFCS with little to no
nutrient values. We consume 142 pounds a year of sugar and 55 percent
of the sweeteners used in foods and beverages are made from corn. The
worst kinds of fructose include high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and
crystalline fructose, both major contributors to: insulin resistance,
obesity, elevated blood pressure, triglycerides and LDL, depletion of
vitamins and minerals and cardiovascular and liver diseases, cancer,
gout and arthritis.
Wiley teaches medical practitioners who come to her environmental
endocrinology seminars that every living thing on the earth gets
energy from glucose, and it originates from healthy fruits and
vegetables filled with fiber, minerals, vitamins, enzymes, and
phytonutrients, moderating any negative metabolic effects. Every human
cell utilizes glucose but much of it is burned up right after you
consume it, while fructose is turned into free fatty acids (FFAs), the
damaging form of cholesterol known as VLDL, and triglycerides, which
are stored as fat.
So the bottom line is - if you have a sweet tooth, stick to organic
cane sugar, or raw honey in small amounts. Do not use any artificial
sweeteners, which are worse for your health than fructose. And
remember, even agave syrup is fructose.
And as the women who are taking the Wiley Protocol rhythmic
bioidentical hormones know, replacing hormones naturally in the way
they were originally produced, biomimetically, has a profound effect
on energy and metabolism. So why would anyone want to destroy that by
eating fructose?
SOURCE: http://www.thewileyprotocol.com/blog/blog1.php/fructose-and-metabolism
----------------------
Sounds like grains in the summer and lard in the winter with some
seasonal fruit to achieve successful reproduction ... But I wonder,
why is then Wiley so fat?
Taka