Huh? You said:
That would mean fruit and honey are really bad, unless you think there is a lot of fiber in honey.
everywhere you get Fructose in nature it is accompanied by Fiber, which is the only known antidote to Fructose
Antidote for fructose?......it's stuff like this that gives me headaches. This is crazy talk and you should stop. Fiber neutralizes the damaging effects? Crazy talk squared. Honey doesn't have fiber but people have been eating it for thousands of years.
I'd ask how fiber is able to forestall the toxic effects of fructose but I really don't want to know. It's all nuts, and Lustig is the nut king.
1) HFCS is apx 90% Fructose and only 10% Glucose
Huh? In what products? HFCS is commercialized in two formulas. One has 42% fructose and 55% glucose, while the other is 55% fructose and 45% glucose. This composition is almost identical to sucrose (table sugar).
2) only 20% of Glucose is metabolized by the liver leaving 80% for other processes
Huh? This makes no sense.
but 100% of Fructose is metabolized by the liver
So what? The liver easily converts fructose to glucose.
Only the liver can metabolize Fructose. Since the purpose of the human liver is convert glucose to glycogen, to produce bile to break down fats, and to filter foreign substances that can’t be metabolized by other processes, this is the basis for the assertion is Fructose is a toxin.
But the liver easily converts fructose to glucose. That being the case, it's clear that the liver was designed to to that very thing. Therefore, I don't have any idea what you're talking about.
He goes on to show that the average person is consuming 15% of his/her daily caloric intake from Fructose (particularly HFCS) as it is in all kinds of pre-prepared food, fast food and packaged ready-to-eat foods.
Fructose is also found in sucrose (table sugar). It accounts for 50% of the total make up of sugar. Does that mean that regular old sugar is also highly toxic? Since you can't explain how fiber negates the toxic impact of fructose, I'd say that Lustig has an agenda that has nothing to do with sound science.
The average person in America consumes over 140 lbs of sugar (glucose, fructose, sucrose et al) each year.
Again, so what? That consumption isn't all that much different than it was 40 years ago. Maybe our sedentary lifestyle has something to do with the problems you see?
There is a clear correlation between the increase in sugar intake and the increase in Cardiovascular and Metabolic diseases (diabetes, heart disease, and dislipidemia etc, where we know Diabetes leads to increased risk of heart attack and stroke
There is also a clear correlation between obesity and the maladies you cite. I trust you've heard the old adage about correlation and causation?
To me this is a clear link between sugar and the heart
Based on what, feelings? There is also a clear correlation between obesity and heart disease. There is also a clear correlation between family history of heart disease and heart disease. This statement of yours is ridiculous.
When “they” told us to reduce fat intake, the substitution of Fat for Sugar may have been seriously detrimental
One reason they told you to reduce fat intake is because fat offers more than twice the calories, per gram, as carbs and amino acids.
Its impossible really to burn calories.
Yet we do it every day through necessary metabolic processes and exercise. I can't imagine that Lustig would ever say something as silly as this.
He claims this is worse than the other two options in terms of creating and storing fat.
And people without any understanding of the subject eagerly purchase his books. In the meantime, rational people continue to understand that if you burn more energy than you consume, you will lose weight. Same as it ever was....
He claims Sugar and Ethanol both metabolize the same way, except that Ethanol has an effect on the brain (you get drunk) and sugar doesn’t.......He is really trying to compare Ethanol metabolisis to Fructose matabolisis.
Yeah, right. Lustig likes saying that fructose is ethanol without the buzz. He does claim that they are both metabolized in the same manner. That's idiocy. Ethanol and fructose utilize completely different pathways. Alcohol converts to acid aldehyde and then into acetyl CoA. To do so, an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase is employed. This enzyme doesn't even figure in fructose metabolization. The metabolization of fructose and ethanol are not similar at all. Prolonged excessive consumption of ethanol can lead to liver fibrosis. Fructose consumption will not lead to this kind of organ damage. Lustig is grasping at straws to promote some unknown agenda. It is boggling that anyone with a basic understanding of human nutrition would give any credibility to what he says.
Fructose is essentially not a carb but actually is essentially a fat
If Lustig said this then you need to run fast and far from this guy. You shouldn't be listening to anything the guy says. It's all crap.
I can’t shed these excess 30 lbs despite well over a year on a low cal diet, (I quit smoking 6 years ago, went from 190lbs to 240lbs on a 6 foot frame) if you have any special knowledge or expertise that disputes these issues I am interested to hear it.
I'm no weight loss expert but I do understand the first law of thermodynamics -- you cannot get something from nothing. Therefore, if you burn more energy than you consume, you will lose weight. You may have to fight a stubborn metabolism, but if you exercise more, and eat less, you should be able to eliminate that 30 lbs.
People want to believe that weight gain/loss is more complicated than it is. People selling diet advice have learned that others will pay for their books if they complicate the issue by demonizing one macronutrient over another or confuse the biochemistry and physiology like Lustig does. They learned a long time ago that simply telling people that they should burn more calories than they consume to lose weight is not the kind of advice people willingly pay for.
It's clear, the fiber jumps out of your gut and floats over to the liver and gives it a good scrubbing. Then it jumps back into your gut.
Thank goodness for Lustig!
Pretty much covers the entire argument.
But sometimes, that extra piece of fried chicken just cannot be left alone!