Dr. Lustig's Summary

Dr. Lustig’s talk about how fructose is basically a poison was something that I never heard before. I have heard that we should limit our sugar intake, but I did not know that fructose was so bad for you. Dr. Lustig believes that sugar is a poison based on observations of current obesity trends, especially in children, and based on the pathways of the chemical breakdowns of different types of sugar. He shows the different pathways that glucose, ethanol and fructose are broken down and the similarities between fructose and ethanol are shocking. Fructose is completely broken down by the liver because our body is unable to break it down anywhere else. That is the whole reason people believe alcohol is so bad for you, and they consider it a poison. Based on his research he has found that fructose causes many of the same symptoms that alcoholics face because the breakdown is so similar to ethanol. He basically says that fructose causes almost all of the terrible side effects of alcohol, but since the fructose is not absorbed by the brain resulting in no acute side effects we don’t realize that it …show more content…
Since there is a direct link between type II diabetes and obesity I think it is best to try and promote a healthy lifestyle so that you can prevent ever getting type II diabetes. For patients that are already obese or diabetic I would still promote a healthy lifestyle. I would just try to have them shoot for little goal in order to lose weight and become healthier. I would see if they would like to be set up with a dietary specialist because every little bit of weight they lose will help them manage side effects. Overall I was shocked by the fructose talk Dr. Lustig gave. I personally did not know almost everything he said. You would think that if the government truly cared about health they would push fructose out of everything like they did with trans