About
Robert H. Lustig, M.D., M.S.L. is a professor emeritus of pediatrics in the division of endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He specializes in neuroendocrinology, with particular attention to the regulation of energy balance by the central nervous system. His clinical practice and research have focused on pediatric obesity and diabetes. Dr. Lustig has a Bachelor of Science from MIT, a Doctorate in Medicine from Cornell University Medical College, and a Master of Studies in Law from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.
Works
Dr. Lustig has sparked a global debate about metabolic health and nutrition, revealing some of the major fallacies that are at the root of the present diet-related illness epidemic. He argues that by promoting sugary processed foods, the food industry has hacked our bodies and minds into seeking pleasure rather than happiness, fueling today’s epidemics of addiction and unhappiness. However, by focusing on genuine food, we can overcome the chances of sugar, processed food, obesity, and disease. Dr. Robert Lustig is a Levels advisor and the author of six books, including Fat Chance, Hacking the American Mind, and Metabolical, his most recent.
Social Media
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Inspiring Talks by Robert Lustig
Interview
Notable quotes
- “You’ve heard of the ‘fog of war’? What about the ‘fog of food’? Can you wade through the flood of the soft drinks aisle? Or through the tundra of the frozen food aisle? Can you extricate yourself from the debris in the chips aisle? We lost 50,000 lives in Vietnam. But we lose hundreds of thousands every year from the damage done in the supermarket.”
- “Sugar is now the most ubiquitous foodstuff worldwide and has been added to virtually every processed food, limiting consumer choice and the ability to avoid it. Approximately 80 percent of the 6,000,000 consumer packaged foods in the United States have added caloric sweeteners.”
- “Sugar’s not dangerous because of its calories, or because it makes you fat. Sugar is dangerous because it’s sugar. It’s not nutrition. When consumed in excess, it’s a toxin. And it’s addictive.”
- “There is nothing that will improve your health, your well-being, your achievement, your sense of accomplishment, your sense of community, and the health and happiness of your family as much as cooking yourself and enjoying a meal with others.”
- “Every substance and behavior that drives up your reward triggers will just as quickly drive down your reward receptors.”
- “Prevention is not just better than cure, prevention IS the cure.”
- “What’s the difference between marketing and propaganda? The truth. The food industry has propagandized the last 40 years of nutritional information. They got rich, and we got sick. Time to embrace the real science of real food.”
- “It’s not about obesity, it never was. The key to the kingdom is that it is not about obesity, it is about metabolic dysfunction and anyone can get it, and that’s what makes it a public health crisis because obesity is a result of the problem, not the cause. I never want to hear any of you talk about the obesity epidemic ever again, because that is the food industry’s mantra, that is what they use to obfuscate the truth, and you play right into it when you talk about it.”