Robert Lustig just announced that he’s launching a new initiative, responsiblefoods.org. This new non-profit is dedicated to raising awareness of the added sugar problem, and is looking for help. From his Facebook Post:
If you haven’t heard, we’re starting a non-profit dedicated toward raising awareness of the added sugar problem in our diets, as well as doing more research, and advocating for a reduction in these poisons in our foods. It’s called the Institute for Responsible Nutrition and it’s going to be world-changing.
Right now we’re on the look-out for social media experts who are passionate about this cause, and are willing to invest a few hours of their time to helping us improve our website, as well as to help drive more followers to the cause.
Interested? Contact us at info@responsiblefoods.org for more info (Or head over to www.responsiblefoods.org to see what might be improved)
Also, if you aren’t knowledgable in social media and want to help in some other way, via donations of monetary or professional value, please get a hold of us anyhow!
Yours in health,
Rob
Right now there’s not much to the site except for a MailChimp signup form to subscribe to their list and a News section. But given the cause and the man behind it, expect great things to come.
I’m speaking about the HFCS lawsuit at the Ancestral Health Society conference in Atlanta in two weeks.
Nice! Wish I could be there to see it? Interested in guest-posting when you return (or while you are there)?
-Michael
I have been following Prof Lustig work for a while and went to see him speak here in Lodon at the FAB symposium in March this year. He is a man on a mission and I trust him. He is also an effective public figure and a charismatic man and one has to count that into the equation as this is very important in our media world. I have read his book and there are some very interesting points and observation that I hope one day can be investigated further. Thumbs up I think he may have what it takes to take down the food industry.
From an evolutionary point of view I cannot see fructose as the all evilr since we have adapted to consume it in discrete and seasonal quantitites for millions of years. However I agree that the we are not adapted to eat it every day at every meal and in combination with other processed foods and trans fats. What we call metabolic syndrome and its manifestations may indeed be some form of slow chronic mass poisoning happening across the world wherever hig carb processed foods have reached.
Good luck to Prof Lustig and his Institute of Resposible Nutrition. I ahve already visited the new website and offered to help!
Thanks ketopia for the update :-)))
Yay! PaleoFastUK is here! (I’ve missed ya!)
Since you’re reluctant to link to your awesome coverage of that event, I’ll do it for you: Life’s Too Sweet for Sugar 😛
Yeah, nor do I. I’m not even sure Lustig does. I think the first problem is the huge quantities of refined carbs (sugars (including HFCS), flours) in everything. Let’s start with that problem (at the macro level), and see if we notice a change.
Also, I think we need to have a conversation about bioindividuality. Carbs affect people differently. I don’t see any way forward without acknowledging that.
Maybe that’s why I’m hopeful this new org will help chip away at some of these problems. I just hope they can work together with NuSi, and not have to compete with them for dollars.
-Michael
May Lustig’s science prevail. It is what the public needs to counter the nutrition establishment’s pseudoscience that is responsible for our current chronic disease epidemics. So all best wishes go to Responsible Foods for great success, BUT a seemingly offhand thought in one of the comments is of such great significance that it must not go without comment:
“Also, I think we need to have a conversation about bioindividuality. Carbs affect people differently. I don’t see any way forward without acknowledging that.”
Bioindividuality was a personal and professional passion for the late Roger Williams (Clayton Foundation for Biochemical Research, University of Texas, Austin). He wrote numerous books and papers documenting the many and amazing differences among normal people anatomically, physiologically, and biochemically. He was an enthusiastic student of the rapidly evolving discipline of genetics; however, much of his own research was centered on intraspecies variations. His thoughts are germane to the current critial need for understanding nutritional bioindividuality.
With regard to biochemical individuality, all animal species (with particular reference to humans) are governed by a general biochemical design that includes instructions for its metabolic energy control system. This design specifies the fuel (food) the species needs to operate at maximum efficiency (health). This general biochemical design is part of the overall master plan that defines a species. So we humans, as a species, are alike qualitatively. It is only the quantitative part of our bodies that makes each one of us an individual separate from all others of our species. We are not alike quantitatively.
What is this quantitative aspect of biochemical individuality that messes up the nice neat general instructions that aim for uniformity? Before examining differences, consider that the majority of people do respond similarly to each other in following the same general design. These are the people whose nutritional indiscretions inform us about what the adverse effects of unwise food choices are. They provide information that we use to determine what fuels (foods) are most healthful (unfortunately humans are not born with knowledge of what fuels will serve them best) and what are harmful.
Biochemical differences among humans are due primarily to minor genetic defects or the result of errors in some phase of one’s own metabolism. The large assortment of biochemical reactions that are required to satisfy the dictates of the general biochemical design provide plenty of opportunity for mistakes. Almost without exception all reactions require enzymes. Enzymes are proteins that are constantly being replenished and thus are subject to minor errors that could slightly change such properties as enzymatic activity. The sum of all small errors can result in significant differences.
Whatever the causes, the fact of the existence of nutritional bioindividuality dictates the direction nutritional science research should take. It is not a search for new, as yet undiscovered biochemical pathways that will suddenly solve chronic disease problems, but further and continued exploration of the impact of biochemical and genetic variations on the pathways about which we already know a great deal.
Ehii hello and thanks for posting the link!
YEs I agree entirely about bioindividuality. Prof Lustig and a few others including Taubes have mentioned this a few times and even jsut by looking around at family and friends it is an almost intuitive thing that we are all rather unique in teh way we respond to nutrients in food, although I guess some general types may be indentified.
Prof Lustig for example mentioned insulin hypersecretion in some individuals. for a given bolus of carbs/sugar some individuals secrete a larger than average amount of insulin. You can do a special glucose tolerance test and determine whether you are a hypersecretor. Prof Lustig at his clinic does that to obese children. These hypresecreting children are the ones most likely to benefit from a low carb approach. Funny enough Lustig classifies himself as one although he has neve tested himself. I think I am one too this is why i do so well on low carb.
Insuling hypersecretors may have more Beta cells in their pancreas. This may have come about when in the womb as a developmental response a high carb diet by the mother…This would also be part of the transgenerational feast and famine mechanism. If when in the womb the foetus is consistentlyexposed to high levels of sugar it thus prepares it self for an a high glucose environment. But jsut like too high a fever is an over-reaction to infection and can be fatal so insulin hypersecretion can set us up for a lifeltime of weight and metabolic problems and deisease if we continue to eat carbs.
This is mentioned in Taubes ‘Why we get fat’ although it is not referenced and I could not find the paper…but I am still looking. Perhaps I can email him about it.
Again not all mothers indulging in high carb diets whilst pregnant will give birth to hypersecreting babies. We do not know why or how.. so it is best to err on the side of caution I guess…
NuSi and IRN collaborating would be amazing…We await to see new developments! 😉
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