Huberman LabHow Sugar & Processed Foods Impact Your Health | Dr. Robert Lustig
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,069 words- 0:00 – 2:02
Dr. Robert Lustig
- AHAndrew Huberman
(uptempo music) Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Robert Lustig. Dr. Robert Lustig is an endocrinologist, that is, he's a specialist in the function of hormones in the body, and a professor of pediatric endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco. He has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed studies exploring how different types of nutrients, that is food, impact our cellular functioning, our organ functioning, and thereby our health. During today's discussion, we discuss the idea of whether or not a calorie is indeed a calorie, and whether or not our body weight and body composition only reflects the number of calories we eat versus the calories that we burn. We talk about how different food types, that is how the different macronutrients, protein, fat, and carbohydrates, are processed in the body, and the important role that fiber and the gut microbiome plays in that process. And we pay particular attention to the topic of how different types of sugars, and fructose in particular, can indeed be addictive to the brain and can modify the way that hormones in the body, in particular insulin, impact our liver health, kidney health, and indeed the health of all of our cells and organs. Indeed, Dr. Lustig is an expert in how sugar impacts the brain and body. We talk about how certain types of sugars can indeed be addictive in the same way that certain drugs of abuse and behaviors can become addictive. So in other words, how sugar actually changes the way that the brain works, and we discuss how the food industry, that is the commoditization and sale of particular types of food, has altered the way that we eat, and indeed the foods that we crave. Today's discussion covers all of that, and by the end of today's discussion, you'll have a thorough understanding of how foods are processed when they enter your body, and how those different food choices are impacting your immediate and long-term health. Before
- 2:02 – 6:41
Sponsors: Eight Sleep, Levels & AeroPress
- AHAndrew Huberman
we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero-cost-to-consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Eight Sleep. Eight Sleep makes smart mattress covers with cooling, heating, and sleep tracking capacity. I've spoken many times before on this podcast about the fact that sleep is the foundation of mental health, physical health, and performance. Now, a key component of getting a great night's sleep is that in order to fall and stay deeply asleep, your body temperature actually has to drop by about one to three degrees, and in order to wake up feeling refreshed and energized, your body temperature actually has to increase by about one to three degrees. One of the best ways to make sure that those temperature changes occur at the appropriate times, at the beginning and throughout, and at the end of your night when you wake up, is to control the temperature of your sleeping environment, and that's what Eight Sleep allows you to do. It allows you to program the temperature of your mattress and sleeping environment such that you fall and stay deeply asleep easily and wake up each morning feeling incredibly refreshed and energized. I've been sleeping on an Eight Sleep mattress cover for almost three years now, and it has dramatically improved the quality of my sleep, so much so that when I travel and I'm at a hotel or an Airbnb and I don't have access to my Eight Sleep, I very much look forward to getting home because my sleep is always better when I sleep on my Eight Sleep mattress cover. If you'd like to try Eight Sleep, you can go to EightSleep.com/huberman to get $150 off their Pod 3 mattress cover. Eight Sleep currently ships in the USA, Canada, UK, select countries in the EU, and Australia. Again, that's EightSleep.com/huberman. Today's episode is also brought to us by Levels. Levels is a program that lets you see how different foods affect your health by giving you real-time feedback on your diet using a continuous glucose monitor. One of the most important factors in your immediate and long-term health is your blood sugar or blood glucose regulation. With Levels, you can see how different foods and food combinations, exercise, and sleep patterns impact your blood glucose levels. It's very easy to use. You just put the monitor on the back of your arm, and then you take your phone and you scan it over that monitor now and again, and it downloads the data about your blood sugar levels in the preceding hours. Using Levels has allowed me to learn a tremendous amount about what works best for me in terms of nutrition, exercise, work schedules, and sleep. So if you're interested in learning more about Levels and trying a continuous glucose monitor, you can go to Levels.Link/huberman. Levels has launched a new CGM sensor that is smaller and has even better tracking than the previous version. Right now, they're also offering an additional two free months of membership. Again, that's Levels.Link/huberman to try the new sensor and two free months of membership. Today's episode is also brought to us by AeroPress. AeroPress is similar to a French press for making coffee, but is in fact a much better way to make coffee. I first learned about AeroPress well over 10 years ago, and I've been using one ever since. AeroPress was developed by Alan Adler, who was an engineer at Stanford, and I knew of Alan because he had also built the so-called Aerobie Frisbee, which I believe at one time, perhaps still now, held the Guinness Book of World Records for furthest thrown object. And I used to see Alan, believe it or not, at parks around Palo Alto testing out different Aerobie Frisbees, so he was sort of famous in our community for developing these different feats of engineering that turned into commercial products. Now, I love coffee. I'm somebody that drinks coffee nearly every day, usually about 90 to 120 minutes after I wake up in the morning, although not always. Sometimes if I'm going to exercise, I'll drink coffee first thing in the morning, but I love, love, love coffee, and what I've personally found is that by using the AeroPress, I can make the best possible tasting cup of coffee. I don't know what exactly it is in the AeroPress that allows the same beans to be prepared into a cup of coffee that tastes that much better as compared to any other form of brewing that coffee, even the traditional French press. The AeroPress is extremely easy to use and it's extremely compact. In fact, I take it with me whenever I travel and I use it on the road in hotels, even on planes. I'll just ask for some hot water and I'll brew my coffee or tea right there on the plane. If you'd like to try AeroPress, you can go to AeroPress.com/huberman. That's A-E-R-O-P-R-E-S-S.com/huberman to get 20% off any AeroPress coffee maker. AeroPress ships anywhere in the USA, Canada, and over 60 other countries around the world. Again, that's AeroPress.com/huberman to get 20% off.And now for my discussion with Dr. Robert Lustig.
- 6:41 – 12:15
Calories, Fiber
- AHAndrew Huberman
Dr. Robert Lustig, welcome.
- RLRobert Lustig
Pleasure. Truly, uh, just being here, being invited, uh, high honor. Really appreciate it. And it's not Doctor, it's just Rob.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay, Rob. I've been looking forward to this conversation for a long time. I've seen your now famous, we also say infamous, but-
- RLRobert Lustig
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
... famous YouTube video about sugar. We'll put a link to it in the show note captions. It's been viewed many, many millions of times.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah, and I still can't figure out why that is, you know?
- AHAndrew Huberman
Well, I can.
- RLRobert Lustig
I didn't think my mother would watch it, and she didn't, but 24 and a half million people did.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Well, I think people are very interested in what to eat, what not to eat, and we'll start off simply talking about what most everyone believes and understands, which is that a calorie is a form of heat energy that's given off during the processing of some food bit or some thing. If that's mysterious to people, just understand that a calorie is a unit of energy, and I was taught and still many, many people worldwide believe that a calorie is a calorie. Meaning if I consume more calories in whatever form than I metabolize by thinking, feeling, moving, exercising, et cetera, then I will gain weight. And if I consume fewer calories than I burn, I will lose weight. And we could talk a lot about where that weight loss comes from. Does it come from adipose, body fat stores, or from muscle, or from protein, or... Muscle, of course, is protein, et cetera. But let's start off with, is a calorie truly a calorie when it comes to the processing of different types of calories?
- RLRobert Lustig
Everyone thinks that obesity is about energy balance. That is, calories in, calories out. Therefore, two behaviors: gluttony and sloth. Therefore, if you're fat, it's your fault. Therefore, diet and exercise. Therefore, any calorie can be part of a balanced diet. Therefore, don't pick on our calories, go pick on somebody else's calories. This is actually what the food industry uses to assuage their culpability for the change in the food supply and the rise in obesity and chronic disease, like diabetes. Now, it is true that a calorie is that unit of energy that raises one gram of water one degree centigrade. And so therefore, a calorie burned is a calorie burned. I don't argue with that. That's true. That's, you know, the first law of thermodynamics. But that doesn't mean a calorie eaten is a calorie eaten. That's not the same. And that's where people get it wrong. So, let me give you some examples of how that calorie eaten is not a calorie eaten. You like almonds?
- AHAndrew Huberman
I do.
- RLRobert Lustig
Me too. Almonds are great, okay? You eat 160 calories in almonds. How many of those do you absorb? 130. You eat 160, you absorb 130, where'd the other 30 go?
- AHAndrew Huberman
In the processing of that f- food energy?
- RLRobert Lustig
No. Turns out the fiber in those almonds, both soluble and insoluble fiber... And by the way, fiber is sort of the key to the kingdom in this story. Forms a gel on the inside of your intestine. The insoluble fiber, the cellulose, forms a fishnet, if you will, a latticework on the inside of your duodenum. The soluble fiber, which are globular, plug the holes in that fishnet. Together, they form a secondary barrier. You can actually see it on electron microscopy, a whitish gel. And that prevents absorption of those 30 calories. So yes, 130 get absorbed, but many of them don't. They end up going further down the intestine to the next part called the jejunum, and that's where the microbiome is. Now, everyone knows about the microbiome nowadays, you know? It's all the bacteria, you know? We always say when women are pregnant, "You're eating for two." Well, y- we're always eating for 100 trillion. Now, they have to eat. Well, what do they eat? They eat what you eat. The question is how much did you get versus how much did they get? Well, if you ate almonds, they're getting those 30 calories. So even though you count the calories at your lips, that doesn't matter. What really matters is counting the calories at your intestinal brush border. Okay? And they're not the same. So, if you feed your gut, that's a good thing, because then your gut will take those calories and turn it into things like short-chain fatty acids, which end up being protective against chronic metabolic disease. Um, acetate, propionate, butyrate, valerate. Those are actually good. They're anti-inflammatory, anti-Alzheimer's, because you fed your microbiome. So, even though you ate 160, you absorbed 130. So a calorie eaten is not a calorie eaten, because if you ate it with fiber, it wasn't for you. It was for your bacteria. But that's not the way you count them up. So, that's problem number one.
- 12:15 – 18:23
Calories, Protein & Fat, Trans Fats
- RLRobert Lustig
Problem number two, amino acids. So, we all eat protein. Let's say you eat too much protein. You have, you know, the porterhouse steak. All right? Now, if you're a bodybuilder, those amino acids might go to muscle and you might increase your muscle mass because you're a bodybuilder, because you're putting, uh, excess, uh, force on those muscles and you're growing those muscles. Okay. But let's say you're not a bodybuilder. Let's say you're a mere mortal like me.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Or let's say you're a kid going through puberty who's synthesizing a lot of muscle...
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Not because they're lifting weights, because they're in a growth spurt.
- RLRobert Lustig
But because testosterone is making it happen.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah. Absolutely. But let's say you're not. Let's say, you know, you're just, you know, just schlump off the, the street like, uh, you know, Joe Schmoe, okay, and you eat that porterhouse. You've taken on all these amino acids. There's no place to store it other than muscle, so your liver takes the excess and deamidates that amino acid, takes the amino group off to turn it from a, amino acid into an organic acid. And then that organic acid can then enter the Krebs cycle, the tricarboxylic acid cycle, what goes on in the mitochondria in order to generate ATP, the chemical energy that your body needs in order to power itself. Okay. Now, that's a good thing. It takes double the amount of energy to prepare that amino acid for burning as it does to pro- uh, prepare a carbohydrate for burning.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Or fat.
- RLRobert Lustig
So that, or, well-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Because when I asked about, when you asked about almonds, why the, the 160 versus 130, I thought it was the processing, turned out it was fiber. You're saying for protein, let's, let's make it realistic for a, a really nice big porterhouse steak, which I love by the way-
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah. Me too.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... let's say, let's say 800 calories.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah. Well, it turns out-
- AHAndrew Huberman
How, how much of that is, is, uh, so that's what goes in your mouth.
- RLRobert Lustig
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
My mouth.
- RLRobert Lustig
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
How much of it is actually, um, eaten in, uh, to stay with the, your calorie eaten is not a calorie eaten, i- in the processing of that, what percentage is actually goes into your total caloric intake?
- RLRobert Lustig
Right. So about 10% of everything you eat goes to just maintaining body temperature. It's called the thermic effect of food. But when you're eating protein, you actually generate more heat, and the reason is because it takes two ATP to phosphorylate that organic acid as opposed to one ATP to, uh, phosphorylate that carbohydrate for, uh, consumption. So, you actually have a net loss of energy because it was a, an amino acid versus a monosaccharide, a, a, a sugar. Now, you, uh, you brought up fat. Fat doesn't need to be phosphorylated, so it actually doesn't have any, um, thermic effect of food at that point. So, depends on what it is as to whether or not you have loss.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay, so but in this, um, let's make it actually realistic. A 1,600 calorie-
- RLRobert Lustig
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... uh, porterhouse with a nice slab of, of, uh-
- RLRobert Lustig
Butter? (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
... of grass-fed butter on there.
- RLRobert Lustig
Okay.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I do this every once in a while, not, not-
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... often, but-
- RLRobert Lustig
With some cream spinach and maybe some mushrooms along the side?
- AHAndrew Huberman
H- Honestly, I see-
- 18:23 – 26:43
Carbohydrate Calories, Glucose vs. Fructose, Fruit, Processed Foods
- RLRobert Lustig
And finally, the big kahuna, the one that blows everything else out of the water, fructose and glucose. All right. Now, glucose is the energy of life.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So here we're talking carbohydrates. I think most of our audience will be familiar with the so-called macronutrients. We talked about fat, in this case almonds.
- RLRobert Lustig
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
There's some fi- fiber in there, probably a little bit of carbohydrate.
- RLRobert Lustig
A little bit.
- AHAndrew Huberman
A little bit. Talked about the porterhouse with butter.
- RLRobert Lustig
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Making me hungry already. That's protein and fat.
- RLRobert Lustig
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Very little, if any, carbohydrate.
- RLRobert Lustig
That's right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Should be zero essentially, is one-
- RLRobert Lustig
Z- zero. Zero.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah, yeah. Um-And then now we're talking about carbohydrates, and we're gonna subdivide that into glucose and fructose.
- RLRobert Lustig
Right. Galactose basically becomes glucose in the liver, so we, we can dispense with that unless you have a disease called galactosemia, which is about 1 in 20,000, um, and causes neonatal meningitis and, you know, it's a disease, as a pediatric endocrinologist, I would take care of. But we can dispense with that for the moment. All right, so glucose, fructose. Glucose is the energy of life. Every cell on the planet burns glucose for energy. Glucose is so damn important that if you don't consume it, your body makes it. So it will take an amino acid and turn it into glucose.
- AHAndrew Huberman
That's gluconeogenesis.
- RLRobert Lustig
Gluconeogenesis, that's right. It will take a fatty acid and turn it into glucose, and specifically the glycerol portion of the, uh, triglyceride will turn into glucose. So the Inuit, they didn't have any place to grow carbohydrate. They had ice, they had whale blubber. They still had a serum glucose level. And the reason is because you had to. You have to have a serum glucose level in order to power your brain, in order to power your heart. Yes, you, you can use ketones, of course you can, but you know, only if you're in a ketogenic state where you use exclusively ketones. And you also need glucose for structural changes in specific proteins and particularly hormones. So, glucose molecules will stud TSH, LH, FSH, different pituitary hormones, in order to increase their potency. It's one of the reasons why aging leads to defective hormonogenesis. For instance, hypogonadism, hypothyroidism, is the loss of glycosylation on individual, um, uh, uh, peptide hormones, because of, uh, the inability to add glucose to those-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Because of insulin insensitivity?
- RLRobert Lustig
No, no, just, uh, it's an aging phenomenon.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay, we'll come back to this 'cause I think it's really important-
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... the idea that ingestion of carbohydrates and the, as you called it, the studding of carbohydrate molecules on hormones can augment the function of those hormones. And with aging, that's a less efficient process.
- RLRobert Lustig
It's a less efficient process, but it's not because of consumption. It's-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right, people are still, I, I see the, the, uh, plenty of folks who are, uh, 65 and older eating plenty of carbohydrates.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You're saying a lot of them have deficient thyroid, testosterone-
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... estrogen-
- RLRobert Lustig
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... um, prolactin, et cetera, because of the, the way that-
- 26:43 – 31:54
Fructose, Mitochondria & Metabolic Health
- RLRobert Lustig
Now, let's talk about what fructose does. Turns out fructose inhibits three, count them, three separate enzymes necessary for normal mitochondrial function.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Wild.
- RLRobert Lustig
Now, your mitochondria make ATP. Your mitochondria have to work at peak efficiency. That's what metabolic health is, is mitochondria working at peak efficiency. Well, there are three enzymes that are inhibited by fructose. Number one, AMP kinase. All right? Now, AMP kinase is the fuel gauge on the liver cell. It's the thing that tells the liver to make more mitochondria, fresher mitochondria. Because if your AMP levels are high, that means you've dephosphorylated a bunch of ATPs and you have to regenerate them, so you need some more mitochondria. So it's a negative feedback pathway. Well, you need that AMP kinase to generate that mitochondrial biogenesis signal, except that fructose, a metabolite of fructose called methylglyoxal, MGO, sits in the active site of the gamma subunit of that AMP kinase, and actually binds to arginines in that active site, rendering that, uh, uh, enzyme now dead. It's an irreversible inhibition because of the covalent bonding of that methylglyoxal, that aldehyde, to the arginine. And now that enzyme is dead.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay. So it basically acts like a key that doesn't turn the lock, but prevents the, the key that you want in that lock-
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... from entering the, the lock.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah. It's like, it's like gluing a lock shut. Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Got it.
- RLRobert Lustig
All right? So-
- AHAndrew Huberman
So that's one of the enzymes.
- RLRobert Lustig
That's one.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay.
- RLRobert Lustig
Second one, ACADL, acyl-CoA dehydrogenase long chain. So this is necessary to cleave two carbon fragments off fatty acids to prepare them for, um, uh, metabolism. So it inhibits that one. And then finally, it inhibits carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1, now CPT1. Now, that's the enzyme that regenerates carnitine. Carnitine is the shuttle mechanism by which you get the, uh, fatty acids from the outer mitochondrial membrane through to the inner mitochondrial membrane so that they can be beta oxidized for energy. So if you don't have that C, uh, CPT1, you're basically carnitine-less, and therefore you can't generate, um, beta oxidation.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You said fructose inhibits all three of these enzymatic pathways.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
As a biologist, I have to ask you, how potently does it inhibit them? I mean, 'cause there's, there are drugs that block receptors and then there are drugs that block receptors with in- unbelievable affinity.
- RLRobert Lustig
Sure.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So, you know, I mean, uh, mechanistically in a dish, meaning in vitro, you can-
- RLRobert Lustig
Sure.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... see all sorts of things. But how-
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... how significant is this for, like, for obesity, for mitochondrial function in vivo in us?
- RLRobert Lustig
All right. So look, you know, the, the dose determines the poison, right? Paracelsus, 1537. Um, there are toxins that are parts per billion and will kill you, like sarin, ricin, cyanide. By the way, cyanide's a good analogy because it's working on mitochondria. It's basically causing mitochondrial to, on a-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Oh, yeah.
- RLRobert Lustig
... completely defective. All right? Then there are, um, intermediate toxins like arsenic and carbon tetrachloride, parts per million, and they take a little longer to work. They're not gonna kill you on the spot.
- AHAndrew Huberman
That's why I can eat an apple seed that has a little bit of arsenic in it, but I'm not gonna die.
- RLRobert Lustig
Right. And then finally there... Uh, and, uh, by the way, tobacco smoke goes in there. And then finally you have, um, uh, weak toxins. All right? And, you know, where it's not one exposure that will kill you, it's, you know, 10,000 exposures that'll kill you. Like alcohol.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Or toxic people.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah. Or toxic... (laughs) Well-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Sometimes it only takes one.
- 31:54 – 35:33
Trans Fats; Food Industry & Language
- RLRobert Lustig
It's also, you know, um, omega-6s, it's also trans fats, you know, leftover because now they're gone but, you know, people are still suffering the ravages of the trans fats, you know, from the previous generation.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Are they gone? I mean, I do remember as a kid when we had margarine in our refrigerator.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yep, yep.
- AHAndrew Huberman
This was actually a big debate in my home.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yep.
- AHAndrew Huberman
One parent, I won't identify which-
- RLRobert Lustig
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
... um, was pro-margarine. The other was pro-butter, anti-margarine.
- RLRobert Lustig
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, the marriage didn't last-
- RLRobert Lustig
Just-
- AHAndrew Huberman
... but there were other reasons.
- RLRobert Lustig
Tha- that's probably why. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
But, yeah. I went butter.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah. Butter-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, yeah.
- RLRobert Lustig
Butter, butter is fine. In fact, Time declared, you know, uh, front cover, "Butter's Back!" You know? Um, margarine was the bad guy without question, um, and we know now but, you know, back when we thought it was, a calorie was a calorie. We thought, "Oh, margarine, you know, it's the same, you know, nine calories per gram," and we said it lowers your triglycerides. Bad idea. It was because what it did was it lined your liver, because you couldn't break that trans double bond. And, um, you know, so they're, they're now gone from our, uh, food supply, but-
- AHAndrew Huberman
They're illegal.
- RLRobert Lustig
They're illegal, they're banned, but you can make trans fats in your own kitchen by taking olive oil and heating it to beyond the smoking point. So they're not completely gone, they're just gone from ultra-processed food. So now sugar's the big problem because of these three enzymes that you are inhibiting. The point is, we were, we started this with a calorie's a calorie. Well, if you are inhibiting mitochondrial function, then a calorie's not a calorie, is it?
- AHAndrew Huberman
You're reducing the, um, intensity of the furnace.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah, exactly. So this whole calorie's a calorie just makes no sense and it hasn't worked at any level, and there's no study that actually shows that cutting calories makes a difference. And I can show you, you know, voluminous data that shows that virtually every weight loss study that caus- that led to, you know, caloric restriction basically didn't work, not for any length of time.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Just to round out our earlier discussion, 'cause I find it fascinating and I know other people will as well, talked about that 160 calories, that's actually a 130 at the business end of things-
- RLRobert Lustig
Yep.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... uh, of almonds. We talked about the porterhouse steak with butter, and the 25% reduction in what's actually quote unquote eaten. And I'll get back to this 'cause this quote unquote issue, I think the problem is there's a, there's a lack of useful language to dissociate this stuff.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You know, even just calling fat "fat," people think it mean- it's gonna make you gain body fat.
- RLRobert Lustig
Totally.
- AHAndrew Huberman
If we called it adipose tissue and lipids, we n- would've avoided this confusion. So I don't, I don't wanna get there just yet, but I-
- RLRobert Lustig
Well, the f-
- AHAndrew Huberman
... I want to make sure with c-
- 35:33 – 37:04
Sponsor: AG1
- AHAndrew Huberman
As we all know, quality nutrition influences, of course, our physical health, but also our mental health and our cognitive functioning, our memory, our ability to learn new things and to focus. And we know that one of the most important features of high-quality nutrition is making sure that we get enough vitamins and minerals from high-quality, unprocessed or minimally processed sources, as well as enough probiotics and prebiotics and fiber to support basically all the cellular functions in our body, including the gut microbiome. Now I, like most everybody, try to get optimal nutrition from whole foods, ideally mostly from minimally processed or non-processed foods. However, one of the challenges that I and so many other people face is getting enough servings of high-quality fruits and vegetables per day, as well as fiber and probiotics that often accompany those fruits and vegetables. That's why way back in 2012, long before I ever had a podcast, I started drinking AG1. And so I'm delighted that AG1 is sponsoring the Huberman Lab Podcast. The reason I started taking AG1 and the reason I still drink AG1 once or twice a day is that it provides all of my foundational nutritional needs. That is, it provides insurance that I get the proper amounts of those vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and fiber to ensure optimal mental health, physical health, and performance. If you'd like to try AG1, you can go to drinkag1.com/huberman to claim a special offer. They're giving away five free travel packs plus a year supply of vitamin D3 K2. Again, that's drinkag1.com/huberman to claim that special offer.
- 37:04 – 42:31
Glucose, Insulin, Muscle
- AHAndrew Huberman
For the third category of macronutrients, carbohydrates, you differentiated, um, glucose and fructose.
- RLRobert Lustig
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And-If I ingest, um, let's say, a, half a bagel, um, since we were talking about New York-
- RLRobert Lustig
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
... your city of origin. They have great bagels.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yep.
- AHAndrew Huberman
On the West Coast, mm.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah, no-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- RLRobert Lustig
... it's-
- AHAndrew Huberman
It's not the same.
- RLRobert Lustig
It's, it's pretty pitiful.
- AHAndrew Huberman
The same with the pizza dough. It's like, they claim it's the, the, the water or what-
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Whatever it is, it's different back there and it's better.
- RLRobert Lustig
Indeed.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Half a bagel, let's say 250 calories.
- RLRobert Lustig
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mostly carbohydrate.
- RLRobert Lustig
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
This is an, an unlined, un ... No cream cheese, no shmear as they call it back there.
- RLRobert Lustig
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
No, no cream cheese, no butter, no nothing. Just half a bagel.
- RLRobert Lustig
Just the half a bagel.
- AHAndrew Huberman
250 calories. So that's what I ate. You're saying that a calorie eaten is not a calorie eaten. How much of that carbohydrate, given that it's probably most ... Let's assume it's mostly glucose. Let's do it this way.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah, it is, it's polymerized glucose.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay, polymerized glucose.
- RLRobert Lustig
That's what it is.
- AHAndrew Huberman
How much of that is actually utilized or burned versus, um, you know, the, the original 250?
- RLRobert Lustig
So if you look at what happens to energy in the body, 65% of that which is ingested goes to resting energy expenditure, just to power the body. 10% goes to the thermic effect of food, and then 25% goes to activity. That's the breakdown of where the, uh, energy goes.
- 42:31 – 51:14
Insulin & Cell Growth vs. Burn; Oxygen & Cell Growth, Cancer
- RLRobert Lustig
That insulin rise turns out to be particularly egregious in terms of metabolic disease and I can prove it. There is a mouse, my favorite mouse, I love this mouse. This mouse turns medicine on its head and teaches every doctor why they have to go back to medical school and learn it right. This mouse is called the Podirko mouse, P-O-D-I-R-K-O.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Is it discovered by Podirko?
- RLRobert Lustig
No. (laughs) No. It was, uh, discovered in Rong Kan's lab, it was manufactured in Rong Kan's lab. So this is a tissue specific insulin receptor knockout mouse-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay.
- RLRobert Lustig
... I-R-K-O, insulin receptor-
- AHAndrew Huberman
So lacks the insulin receptor in the specific-
- RLRobert Lustig
In the kidney.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... in the kidney. Interesting.
- RLRobert Lustig
Podirko, con- glomerular podocyte insulin receptor knockout mouse.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay. We haven't talked too much about transgenic models and knock ins and knock outs, so, uh, just-In 10 seconds or less, basically, these are mice that are genetically engineered to lack the receptor for insulin, specifically in the ...
- RLRobert Lustig
Glo- glomerulonephrocyte, the kidney.
- AHAndrew Huberman
In the, in the kidney.
- RLRobert Lustig
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And everywhere else in this mouse-
- RLRobert Lustig
It's fine.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... insulin does its thing normally.
- RLRobert Lustig
Exactly.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay, great.
- RLRobert Lustig
So, these animals are euglycemic, normal blood glucose levels. These animals are normally glucose tolerant. They, you know, they go up, they go down, just like every other mouse. These mice are not fat. These mice are not thin. These mice are mice, except they have the worst diabetic nephropathy on the planet.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So, their ner- oh, their kidney is degenerative.
- RLRobert Lustig
Their kidneys degenerate to nothing.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yikes.
- RLRobert Lustig
Now, they have normal blood glucose levels. They have normal glucose tolerance. They have normal insulin tolerance, whole body, but their kidneys are dying. How come? Can't be the glucose. It's the insulin, because insulin's the bad guy. Insulin's actually making the kidney disease. And so these animals that are insulin resistant, they have diabetic nephropathy without diabetes.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So, the insulin is having a negative, clearly negative effect, on the kidneys without binding to the receptor.
- RLRobert Lustig
Exactly.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So, circulating insulin can do stuff without binding to its receptor?
- RLRobert Lustig
Well, it's, no, it binds to its receptor in different parts of the body.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Other parts of the body.
- RLRobert Lustig
Other parts of the body.
- AHAndrew Huberman
But in the kidney, it can't, 'cause it's a knockout.
- 51:14 – 1:00:51
Glucose vs. Fructose, Uric Acid; “Leaky Gut” & Inflammation
- RLRobert Lustig
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay. So-
- RLRobert Lustig
Because you're gonna burn instead of store.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Got it. In terms of the, the, uh, the raw metabolism of carbohydrate though, that glucose.
- RLRobert Lustig
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
If I eat 250 calories of glucose, how much of that did I, quote unquote, actually eat? How much is, is used?
- RLRobert Lustig
How much is used?
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah. Let's assume that I'm, I'm at my desk working or I'm walking around a little bit. I'm not, I'm not exercising hard in the, in the subsequent hour.
- RLRobert Lustig
So used for what is the question? Used for-
- AHAndrew Huberman
I mean, back to the calorie, is, is a calorie a calorie? Clearly the answer is no-
- RLRobert Lustig
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... be- based on the processing of different types of calories. We established it for fat, the almonds, we established it for protein-
- RLRobert Lustig
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... the porterhouse with butter and now we're, we're trying to establish that for the 250 calories of a bagel, which is glucose.
- RLRobert Lustig
Right. So the glucose has to be phosphorylated, so you're gonna lose, uh, an, an ATP in the process. So you're gonna go ATP goes to ADP and then that ADP will go to AMP, adenosine monophosphate, which will then go to IMP, inositol monophosphate, which will then go to uric acid.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay.
- RLRobert Lustig
And that uric acid will be then released from the cell, circulate in the bloodstream and hopefully go out in the kidney.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- RLRobert Lustig
In the process, that uric acid can inhibit mitochondrial function and it can also inhibit endothelial nitric oxide synthase, which is the enzyme in your vasculature that is your endogenous blood pressure lower-
- AHAndrew Huberman
By, by expanding blood vessels and capillaries.
- RLRobert Lustig
Exactly.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right. This is the mechanistics, uh, foundation of the drugs that were originally used for p- uh, improving prostate function but are used to treat erectile dysfunction, which are the-
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... are they PDE-
- RLRobert Lustig
PDE5 inhibitors.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... inhibitors, which allow nitric oxide to be, uh, around longer and more of it, right?
- RLRobert Lustig
Right, right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
People use it for other purposes too.
- RLRobert Lustig
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, now no one will forget if I cue it up with that-
- 1:00:51 – 1:04:13
Supporting the Gut Microbiome, Fasting
- RLRobert Lustig
- AHAndrew Huberman
So in addition to limiting fructose intake-
- RLRobert Lustig
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... what are things that, um, support the tight junctions of, of the intestinal pathway?
- RLRobert Lustig
So there are three barriers in your intestine to keep the junk where it belongs, in the center, so that it can get pooped out the- your behind. All right? Three separate barriers. One is a physical barrier called the mucin layer. So it's a layer of mucus that actually sits on top of the intestinal epithelial cells. Now, that mucin is a polysaccharide and the bacteria can use that mucin layer for its own purposes. It will eat your mucin layer if you don't feed your bacteria. You must feed your bacteria or ba- your bacteria will feed on you.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- RLRobert Lustig
Okay? So you are in concert with your microbiome. If you deprive your microbiome of the food that it needs, it will use you...... as its food. And that's one of the reasons why fiber is so important.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So fiber to build up this mucin layer is one way to reinforce the, the, uh, the-
- RLRobert Lustig
Physical barrier.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... fence that, that is the tight junctions, et cetera-
- RLRobert Lustig
Exactly.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... um, between your intestine and, and the bloodstream.
- RLRobert Lustig
Exactly.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Th-this raises an interesting point about fasting. Uh, many people, including myself, do a sort of pseudo-intermittent fasting.
- RLRobert Lustig
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
I eat my first meal somewhere between 11:00 and noon. I'm not strict about this.
- RLRobert Lustig
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
The 11:00 versus noon thing, and probably eat my last bite of food somewhere around 8:00 PM, and occasionally it's outside that window. I've, I've done this for a long time, it just feels best to me.
- RLRobert Lustig
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Uh, but other people use a shorter eating window. One thing that I learned from a colleague at Yale-
- RLRobert Lustig
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... who studies the gut microbiome that was surprising to me is that when you do... when you eat in that way, there's a long stretch of time, sometimes longer for people that have a shorter eating window-
- RLRobert Lustig
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... longer fasting window that is-
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... where you're actually eating up your own intestinal lining. Th- so this idea that fasting is so great for us on the one hand might be true. On the other hand, you're, you're actually consuming components of your... you're not feeding your gut microbiome and you deplete it. But the... here's where I was surp- uh, positively surprised. When you do eat, provided that you eat enough fiber and in particular high-quality fermented foods-
- RLRobert Lustig
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... low sugar fermented foods-
- RLRobert Lustig
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... it seems that the, the lining of the gut and the gut microbiome is replenished to a level that is greater than if you had eaten for longer periods of the 24-hour cycle.
- 1:04:13 – 1:10:28
Highly Processed Foods, Sugars; “Price Elasticity” & Food Industry
- RLRobert Lustig
- AHAndrew Huberman
If I consume fructose in the, uh, form of, let's say, a highly processed food, has minimal antioxidants but it's got plenty of calories typically (laughs) -
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... uh, and it's disrupting the tight junctions, making my gut leaky-
- RLRobert Lustig
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... but I'm also eating fiber.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You know, I'm having a, you know, a, a meal that includes a salad, I'm having, having some probiotics-
- RLRobert Lustig
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... and then I want, like, a couple Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, like, and the dark chocolate ones in particular.
- RLRobert Lustig
(laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
I don't do this anymore, but I used to eat like that more often. As, as time has gone on, I've, I've become s- I don't like to call it stricter but more I, I, I tend to like healthier foods-
- RLRobert Lustig
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... over time, and I think you can get away with different things at different stages of life. Although you work with young people, so we'll, uh, we'll get to very young people, so we'll get to this. But how, how much damage am I doing by ingesting any fructose in the form of a highly processed food?
- RLRobert Lustig
So I'll make it very simple, Andrew. I am for dessert. For dessert. I am not for dessert for breakfast, lunch, snacks, and dinner.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- RLRobert Lustig
Okay? So if you wanna have a couple of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups as your dessert in the same way as you might have a cognac for dessert, that's fine. I have no problem with that. The question is are you gonna eat Reese's Peanut Butter Cups for breakfast?
- AHAndrew Huberman
No, I don't eat breakfast-
- RLRobert Lustig
Well-
- AHAndrew Huberman
... but no.
- RLRobert Lustig
... the na-
- AHAndrew Huberman
By go- but I see your point, yeah.
- RLRobert Lustig
The National School Breakfast Program, which 29% of schoolchildren today consume, is a bowl of Froot Loops and a glass of orange juice.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Ugh.
- RLRobert Lustig
That is 41 grams of sugar. American Heart Association says that the upper limit for children should be 12 grams of added sugar per day. That's 41 grams of added sugar, and it's just breakfast.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And that's fr- fructose rich.
- RLRobert Lustig
Totally.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right. Okay.
- RLRobert Lustig
Completely. So the question is which dessert are we talking about?
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay. And... right. And can we, can we adjust that morning meal, um, to a different reality? 'Cause I agree that there are plenty of kids eating that or a muffin that might be the equivalent.
- 1:10:28 – 1:11:51
Sponsor: LMNT
- RLRobert Lustig
- AHAndrew Huberman
I'd like to take a quick break to acknowledge our sponsor, LMNT. LMNT is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means zero sugar and the appropriate ratios of the electrolytes sodium, magnesium, and potassium. And that correct ratio of electrolytes is extremely important because every cell in your body, but especially your nerve cells, your neurons relies on electrolytes in order to function properly. So when you're well-hydrated and you have the appropriate amount of electrolytes in your system, your mental functioning and your physical functioning is improved. I drink one packet of LMNT dissolved in about 16 to 32 ounces of water when I wake up in the morning, as well as while I exercise, and if I've sweat a lot during that exercise, I often will drink a third LMNT packet dissolved in about 32 ounces of water after I exercise. LMNT comes in a variety of different flavors, all of which I find really tasty. I like the citrus, I like the watermelon, I like the raspberry. Frankly, I can't pick just one. It also comes in chocolate and chocolate mint, which I find tastes best if they are put into water dissolved and then heated up. I tend to do that in the winter months because, of course, you don't just need hydration on hot days and in the summer and spring months, but also in the winter when the temperatures are cold and the environment tends to be dry. If you'd like to try LMNT, you can go to DrinkLMNT, spelled L-M-N-T, .com/huberman to try a free sample pack. Again, that's DrinkLMNT.com/huberman.
- 1:11:51 – 1:14:19
Processed Foods & Added Sugars
- AHAndrew Huberman
We talked about dessert for breakfast in the form of cereals-
- RLRobert Lustig
Yep.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... some of which are, um, disguised or couched as healthier, you know? I think of, like, Honey Nut Cheerios. It seems healthier than Froot Loops.
- RLRobert Lustig
It's not-
- AHAndrew Huberman
It looks healthier, like, the co- just by way of color, it looks kind of wheaty, you know, color. So but le- a- and in terms of lunch, I mean, one of the things that I love about Europe is that the breads are amazing.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And-
- RLRobert Lustig
Breads are terrific there.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... and I like, and I like them because they're not as sweet.
- RLRobert Lustig
Exactly.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And so a sandwich from not every deli, but from a typical sandwich shopper that one makes with store-bought bread, sliced bread in the US-
- RLRobert Lustig
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... has a lot of fructose. I looked-
- RLRobert Lustig
It does.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... I looked this up prior to, to our-
- RLRobert Lustig
It does.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... discussion today. So in some ways, dessert is being woven into foods that are, th- that parents and/or kids, everyone thinks are savory, are, were actually eating sweets.
- RLRobert Lustig
Exactly right. (laughs)
- AHAndrew Huberman
But we can't, but we don't taste them as sweet at a conscious level necessarily, right?
- RLRobert Lustig
But our, but our taste buds do.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Right.
- RLRobert Lustig
That's exactly right. So the question is, why do they do that? So question for your audience. You buy a loaf of bread at the local bakery. How soon before it stales?
- AHAndrew Huberman
Two days-
- RLRobert Lustig
Two days.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... at best.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
If it's really great bread.
- RLRobert Lustig
That's right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- RLRobert Lustig
The, the better the bread, the quicker it stales.
- 1:14:19 – 1:18:16
Sugars, High-Fructose Corn Syrup
- RLRobert Lustig
- AHAndrew Huberman
We've pivoted somewhat from carbohydrate divided into glu- glucose and fructose to a discussion of sugar. Could you tell us the link between sugar and fructose?
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So table sugar, what percentage of table sugar is fructose? What percentage of brown sugar is fructose? What percentage of the sugar that's added to food is high fructose corn syrup on average?
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
You know, just, because here what we're talking about is, um, what you're describing as an intentional lacing of food-
- RLRobert Lustig
Indeed.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... with something that's addictive, but that's also processed very differently at the level of the kidney, at the level of the liver, um-
- RLRobert Lustig
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... and it's bad.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It's a bad si- it's a bad situation.
- RLRobert Lustig
Absolutely.
- AHAndrew Huberman
So, so, when we talk about sugar, I think we need to be as careful in describing what we really mean as when we talk about a calorie.
- RLRobert Lustig
I completely agree. So let, for your audience, let's be very, very clear on definitions. Okay. Let's not use the word sugar, because it has multiple definitions. Let's use sucrose. Sucrose is what you put in your coffee. It's the crystals, all right? It's cane sugar, beet sugar, you know, the, you know, the stuff that you, teaspoons of, right? This was all that was available for many, many years. That is one molecule of glucose, one molecule of fructose bound together, uh, for the chemists out there, in O-glycosidic linkage. Okay? The enzyme in your intestine called sucrase cleaves this O-glycosidic linkage in about a nanosecond. You absorb the two molecules separately. The glucose goes to the entire body, generates an insulin response. The fructose goes straight to your liver, generates fat. That's sucrose. High fructose corn syrup is essentially one molecule of glucose, one molecule of fructose, not bound together. No glo- O-glycosidic linkage. So they're free. The enzyme sucrase doesn't care (laughs) 'cause the bond's already broken. Ultimately, they do the same thing, and that's why high fructose corn syrup and sucrose are indistinguishable metabolically. What they are is, they're very different economically. And the reason is because high fructose corn syrup's half the price of sucrose, because sucrose we get from importing and high fructose corn syrup we make at home. Sucrose is in bags. High fructose corn syrup is in barrels. Sucrose you can sell at the store. High fructose corn syrup you sell to the, you know, ultra-processed food manufacturer. You can't buy high fructose corn syrup at the, uh, you know, at the grocery store. So they're very different in terms of w- what they're used for. High fructose corn syrup is particularly egregious because it's so miscible, because it's already a liquid. So you probably remember Chips Ahoy cookies in the old days. Okay. They would of- often would seem like the sugar in the, uh, cookie had crystallized-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Mm-hmm.
- RLRobert Lustig
... 'cause the sugar content was so high.
- AHAndrew Huberman
It's been a while since I've had one. They weren't particularly good.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah. Well now-
- AHAndrew Huberman
But, but you eat two of them and then you think they're good and then you wanna eat four.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
That's what's so odd. The first bite is kind of like bleh-
- RLRobert Lustig
Indeed.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... and then it's bombs away.
- RLRobert Lustig
There you go. Well now, it's Chewy Chips Ahoy cookies.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Oh, I remember the Chewy Chips Ahoy cookies.
- RLRobert Lustig
And the reason, remember Chewy Chips?
- AHAndrew Huberman
Yeah.
- RLRobert Lustig
Well that, that's high fructose corn syrup, because, because the two molecules are free, they don't crystallize. So you can actually up the dose.
- 1:18:16 – 1:30:04
Food Industry & Added Sugar, Personal Responsibility, Public Health
- RLRobert Lustig
- AHAndrew Huberman
Several times throughout today's discussion you've been talking about the quote unquote food industry.
- RLRobert Lustig
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Okay, so I'm not a conspiracy theorist.
- RLRobert Lustig
I am (laughs) .
- AHAndrew Huberman
But I-
- RLRobert Lustig
Now (laughs) .
- AHAndrew Huberman
(laughs) But I understand, um, you know, that most businesses exist to make money.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Many businesses start off with good intentions and drift-
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... in order to stay, um, to stay competitive.
- RLRobert Lustig
Right.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Um, and many, many businesses, as we know, um, not all of which are entirely bad, such as the pharmaceutical industry, right? You, there are bad, there are instances of like the opioid crisis, but then there are drugs from the pharmaceutical industry that help save lives. I mean, that's my, my stance. Um, the food industry, I think there are good actors and there are bad actors. But we're talking about the food industry here, okay? When we talk about the exercise industry, we talk about the podcast industry, I mean, you got good actors and bad actors, but-
- RLRobert Lustig
Indeed.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... but what you've alluded to several times here, and you're more informed than I am, is a, uh, a concerted effort to lace food with a form of sugar that makes people crave more of that food and that is causing metabolic illness, disrupting mitochondria, and on and on.
- RLRobert Lustig
Exactly.
- AHAndrew Huberman
And you're the physician, not me. Um, you've worked with patients who struggle with obesity and, for various reasons-
- RLRobert Lustig
Mm-hmm.
- AHAndrew Huberman
... um, not me. And, um, so we could probably spend hours, if not days, talking about all the terrible things that the quote unquote food industry has done. But what do you think is the, the pure motivation, right? I don't think that they want people to be sick. But they wanna sell product, and this sells more product. So then it raises two questions.If-- why is it that more people don't know about-- know this information? Although many more will know after today's conversation. But-- and certainly in government, it's a-- it's a mix, regardless of what side of the aisle you're on or if you're right in between.
- RLRobert Lustig
Yeah.
- AHAndrew Huberman
There-- there are clearly people that care about the health of themselves and others, so I can understand how things might have gotten to this point, but what do you think are the barriers to getting people to appreciate just what a problem this is and-- and getting people to change their choices in terms of what they're eating? Are they truly addicted to the point where they are sick, they can't make good decisions? Like a-- like a drug addict who's highly addicted to heroin is a sick person, they have an illness and they need treatment, but until they get that treatment, they can't make good decisions.
- RLRobert Lustig
Let's take an analogy. Alcohol. 40% of Americans are teetotalers, never touch the stuff.
- AHAndrew Huberman
40% don't drink?
- RLRobert Lustig
40% don't drink.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Great. I'm not a big fan of alcohol. I've never seen it make anyone better at anything that really matters.
- RLRobert Lustig
No, because it's-
- AHAndrew Huberman
Except drinking, and that doesn't really matter.
- RLRobert Lustig
... it's also completely vestigial. There's no, uh, biochemical reaction in the body that requires alcohol. Okay? For the same reason, by the way, fructose. Um, 40% are social drinkers. You know, you can pick up a beer, put it down. I'm in that category. 10% are binge drinkers and 10% are chronic alcoholics. Okay? Now, do you deprive the 40% of social drinkers because of the 20% of binge drinkers and chronic alcoholics? No.
- AHAndrew Huberman
Well, I believe people should be in choice, but I believe people should know what they are doing so that they can be in choice.
Episode duration: 3:29:20
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