AHS12 Robert Lustig, MD — Sugar: No Ordinary Commodity
Channel: AncestryFoundation
Date: 2013-03-16

Robert Lustig, M.D., presenting at the Ancestral Health Symposium 2012 (AHS12)

Sugar: No Ordinary Commodity 

Abstract:
Substances of abuse qualify for regulation if they satisfy four criteria: unavoidability, toxicity, abuse, and negative impact on society. The carbohydrate fructose is ubiquitous, impact health negatively beyond it's caloric equivalent, and produces a "vicious cycle of consumption and metabolic disease in large quantities, akin to that seen with ethanol. 

It is time for a paradigm shift in obesity science and policy; one in which sugar, like alcohol, is not treated as an ordinary commodity on the open market. Efforts to reduce fructose consumption should be informed by the extensive body of evidence from international experience and research on alcohol policy. 

This evidence points to inadequacy of public information and education programs, but rather supports taxation and other controls on marketing and distribution, including taxation and other controls on marketing and distribution, including access and zoning restrictions. 

At the national level, removal of fructose from the Food and Drug Administration's GRAS list, the abatement of federal corn subsidies, and cessation of deregulation of farmers' crop plantings are among the most promising policy interventions to address the rising rates of chronic metabolic disease. 

Bio:
Robert H. Lustig, M.D. is Professor of Pediatrics, in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Lustig graduated from MIT in 1976, and received his M.D. from Cornell University Medical College in 1980. His research focuses on the regulation of energy balance by the central nervous system. Dr. Lustig is the past Chairman of the Ad hoc Obesity Task Force of the Pediatric Endocrine Society, a current member of the Obesity Task Force of The Endocrine Society, and a member of the Board of Directors of the American Heart Association of the Bay Area. His new book Fat Chance: beating the odds against sugar, processed food, obesity, and disease is due to be released in January 2013.