Health Longevity Secrets
A podcast to transform your health and longevity with evidence-based lifestyle modifications and other tools to prevent and even reverse the most disruptive diseases. We feature topics including longevity, fasting, ketosis, biohacking, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, stroke, cancer, consciousness, and much more so that you can find out the latest proven methods to optimize your life. It’s a mix of interviews, special co-hosts, and solo shows that you’re not going to want to miss. Hit subscribe and get ready to change your life. HLS is hosted by Robert Lufkin MD, a physician/medical school professor and New York Times Bestselling auhtor focusing on the applied science of health and longevity through lifestyle and other tools in order to cultivate consciousness, and live life to the fullest .
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Health Longevity Secrets
Junk Food Dangers with Robert Lustig
This week we unlock the secrets to a healthier, longer life with insights from Dr Robert Lustig as he unpacks the hidden dangers of junk food. Ever wondered how ultra-processed foods sabotage your body's natural functions? Discover how the fructose in these foods disrupts your mitochondria, leading to serious health issues like fatty liver disease and insulin resistance. Dr Lustig contrasts these effects with the benefits of whole fruits, which offer protective fibers to mitigate damage, equipping you with the knowledge to make smarter dietary choices.
Join us as we challenge outdated medical beliefs and shed light on the profound connection between sugar and hypertension. By understanding the role of insulin in sodium retention and how reducing sugar intake can better manage blood pressure, you'll gain a fresh perspective on effective dietary interventions. We'll also delve into the transformation of glucose to fructose via the polyol pathway, and how this contributes to increased uric acid levels and impacts blood pressure regulation by inhibiting nitric oxide formation, based on Richard Johnson’s research.
Explore the fascinating world of fats and fibers with us, as we reexamine the impacts of different lipids and introduce innovative solutions to modern dietary issues. We'll clarify misconceptions about saturated fats and highlight the benefits and risks of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. Dr. Lustig explains the importance of fiber in maintaining gut health and reducing inflammation, offering practical solutions to counteract the negative impacts of ultra-processed foods. Get ready to revolutionize your understanding of diet and its profound impact on your health.
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Welcome back everyone. Today, we're going to be talking about the role of food in chronic disease and longevity, and we're going to learn what exactly is junk food, why junk food is bad for you and what you can do to avoid it. And we have nobody better than our speaker today to talk about this, who is the great Robert Lustig. Dr Lustig is a professor emeritus of UCSF. He's also written a great book. I'm a fan of Metabolical and many other books also, but check it out, so let's go ahead and jump in. Welcome, Rob. Thanks for being on the program.
Speaker 2:Let's go ahead and jump in. Welcome Rob. Thanks for being on the program.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you very much, Bob. We've got two of people. There's a lot of disagreement of what good foods are, what bad foods are to eat. So what is junk food? How can we recognize a junk food?
Speaker 2:Right, there are a lot of different definitions. It depends on who you ask as to what junk food is, and I'm not even going to give you a definition because there are so many. Because there are so many, the you know famous Marion Nestle, I think, gave the best definition If you can't make it in your own kitchen, it's ultra-processed, and if it's ultra-processed, that makes it junk automatically. So the question is what is wrong with ultra-processed food? And is ultra-processed food even food? That's really the question. That's what it comes down to, Because if ultra-processed food is not food, you know we can cut through a lot of this stuff right now. You know park this, you know a lot quicker. So that's really the question. So, in order to answer the question, is ultra-processed food food? First, you have to know the definition of food. Well, I'm going to tell you the definition of food. What is it?
Speaker 1:In a dictionary yeah right.
Speaker 2:Okay, you know dictionaries are still in libraries, you know they haven't banned those yet, they're working on them. But the definition of food is substrate that contributes to either growth or burning of an organism. So anything you put between your lips that contributes to either growth or burning would qualify as food. Would qualify as food. So let's take burning Now. Burning happens at the mitochondria, so anything that interferes with mitochondrial function would therefore inhibit burning.
Speaker 2:Turns out the molecule fructose, my favorite, you know the, you know sweet molecule of sugar, the molecule we all seek, the molecule that is addictive, but, you know, the molecule that gives great pleasure to, you know, way too many people. Turns out it inhibits three count them, three separate enzymes involved in normal mitochondrial functioning. It inhibits AMP kinase, the enzyme that basically is the fuel gauge of the liver cell, that tells the liver to make more mitochondria and, you know, burn better. It inhibits an enzyme called ACAD-L, acyl-coa dehydrogenase long chain, which is necessary to split fatty acids into two carbon fragments so that they can be burned in the mitochondria. And lastly, it inhibits CPT-1, carnitine palmitoyltransferase-1, which is the enzyme that regenerates carnitine, which is the shuttle mechanism by which the fatty acids even get into the mitochondria to be burned in the first place. So bottom line is those three enzymes are absolutely essential to normal mitochondrial function and normal burning, and sugar inhibits all of them.
Speaker 1:And let me interrupt you just for a sec. For our audience. Just a quick refresher Table. Sugar sucrose is made up of glucose plus fructose. High fructose corn syrup is a similar combination without a chemical bond, and fructose is the sugar that's found in fruits also and the sweetest sugar that's right.
Speaker 2:The sweetest sugar is. The reason why we like sugar is that fructose molecule, glucose, is not all that sweet. You know, you don't see people going around chugging K-Rose syrup, do you? Okay?
Speaker 2:You know, that's all right. Glucose is molasses. Right Now. Molasses might be okay in a cookie, but, you know, people don't go out of their way for it. And the reason is because glucose is not all that interesting when it comes right down to it. It's fructose that makes everything pop. You know, it's the reason why apple pies are, you know, apple pies really. And it is true that it is in fruit, but there's something else that's in fruit that's even more important, and it's called fiber. And it is true that it is in fruit, but there's something else that's in fruit that's even more important, and it's called fiber. And the problem is that ultra-processed food has no fiber, and we'll get to that in a minute. Bottom line is if a food does not contribute to burning, you know, then, is it a food? Well, turns out out. 73 of the items in the american grocery store are spiked with added sugar. They actually inhibit burning. So that's number one.
Speaker 1:Number two growth how do they inhibit burning particularly?
Speaker 2:because of because they're inhibiting those mitochondria.
Speaker 1:I see from the fructose correct records right. And fructose is interesting because it doesn't spike insulin, the hormone that takes care of glucose and does a lot of things. And the American Diabetic Association used to recommend fructose right for the diabetics.
Speaker 2:They said fructose was good for diabetics because it didn't spike the glucose. Well, what happens is it goes to the liver and the liver turns that fructose into fat, and then that fat lays down in the liver. Well, what happens is it goes to the liver and the liver turns that fructose into fat, and then that fat lays down in the liver. Now you've got fatty liver disease, and what that creates is something called insulin resistance. So it doesn't spike the insulin, it generates a high level of insulin all the time, even when you're sleeping, and that does its own damage, because insulin causes cellular growth.
Speaker 1:And you've done some great work on fructose metabolism in the liver compared to ethanol metabolism in the liver, and you've made comparisons. They both lead to fatty liver disease. They both have a hedonic response. Alcohol is. Most people would agree that it's a toxin for the liver. Fructose is only metabolized in the liver other than a small amount in the gut. So in the liver is the detoxification organ. Do you think it's safe to say that fructose is a toxin for us, or how do you characterize it?
Speaker 2:That's exactly what I would say. So can you name a substance and you already did so, it's kind of old already, but can you name a substance, okay, that has no biochemical relevance to the human body, that there is no biochemical reaction in the human body that requires it, that, when consumed in excess, causes cellular dysfunction, human dysfunction and ultimately death. And we love it and it's addictive? The answer is alcohol.
Speaker 2:Well, it turns out fructose also those exact same qualifications. And it makes sense. I mean because fructose and alcohol are handled virtually identically in cells, especially in the liver. So you know, we know that alcohol is a toxin, turns out fructose is a toxin for the exact same reasons.
Speaker 1:And we leave it to expense. It makes sense.
Speaker 2:It's true, because after after all, where do you get alcohol from? Fermentation of fructose is called wine. We do it every day in napa and sonoma. You even do it down there in san enes valley, you know. So you, you know what we're talking about here. The bottom line is this compound, this, this molecule, is not good for us. We like it, but it's not good for us. Can you name anything else that we like but is not good for us, like cocaine, heroin, nicotine? You know there are a whole lot of things we like that are not good for us. You mentioned go ahead. Yeah, sugar is right in there with them.
Speaker 1:You mentioned. The downside of fructose is leading to fatty liver disease. Even though it doesn't spike insulin, it drives insulin resistance and inflammation. I've heard associations with fructose with hypertension and gout and nitric oxide function. Is that something we should worry about also?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. In fact, you know, everyone talks about salt being the big problem for high blood pressure. It's not, it's not. So here's the way to think about it. Right now, we have the American Hypertension Society, the American Heart Association, telling us that we should be cutting our salt consumption down to 1,500 milligrams per day in order to avoid hypertension. 1,500 milligrams a day Our current consumption, by the way, median is 6,900 milligrams a day. So to get down to 1,500, that would be basically cutting our salt consumption by three quarters.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's a lot of salt, but here's the problem with that. Our ancestors okay, before refrigeration used to go out onto schooners and to the Atlantic and fish, you know, and they'd be out for months at a time and they'd be, you know, getting the you know these really big, you know fish, the flounders and the, you know the, you know, I don't know big fish, you know, and they'd be out for a long time and they didn't have refrigeration OK, it was before refrigeration, but they were able to preserve the fish. How'd they do that? They salt cured it. They packed it in salt instead of packing it in ice. They packed it in salt. So our ancestors, who ate that salt cured fish, were getting on the order of about 15 grams of salt a day, which is like more than double what we're getting today, and they didn't have hypertension.
Speaker 2:So how come we have hypertension now, when double the dose didn't give us hypertension before? So this is a conundrum. Why is this? The answer is very simple because insulin, the hormone insulin, resorbs sodium from the kidney. You have to get the insulin down in order to excrete the excess sodium. So in the face of insulin resistance, in the face of a high insulin level which is what we have now that salt doesn't go out in the urine, stays in our bloodstream, raises our blood pressure. So, yes, we do have hypertension and it is because of salt, but it's not because of the salt. It's because our kidneys aren't excreting it and the reason they're not excreting is the insulin. And the reason for the high insulin is the sugar. So when you get sugar out of the diet, then your kidney can do the right thing get rid of the salt and your blood pressure goes down. So it turns out that sugar is more important to blood pressure reduction than salt reduction is.
Speaker 1:It's interesting we have an epidemic of hypertension. Almost half of adult Americans are hypertensive. I was diagnosed with hypertension a couple of years ago. I went to the best medical institutions available and I was given the advice cut out your sugar and take these prescription medicines, these and a hyper. Cut out your salt, rather, and take these, these hypertension, hypertensive medicines, hypertensive medicines. What I did was after I went home and basically, long story short, I I cut cut out the refined sugar and carbohydrates in my diet, like most people. Your blood pressure plummets. I'm on all medications and to your point, at least for me and I think for most people. That's, that's really. That's really the secret to it. That's really amazing.
Speaker 2:And it floors me.
Speaker 1:It floors me that the salt, that the hypertension people have not gotten on this bandwagon, but you're a medical school professor. Why, why don't your colleagues? I mean, this is obvious to you and me, and and it's in the literature. It's not a conspiracy, that's right. It's in the literature.
Speaker 2:But you know what? There's a lot in the literature that's ignored. You know. All I can say, bob, is you know there are these things in medicine called belief systems, and you know part of my job is to basically debunk belief systems, and this is one of the belief systems that needs to be debunked. But you know it's very hard because this is what you learned in medical school and you know, if you learned it in medical school, it's very, very difficult to turn it around. You know we also learned low fat was good for us. It turns out low fat is a disaster. It's an absolute, unmitigated disaster, and we have the data. But you know the American Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association they're still putting it out.
Speaker 1:So it's very very difficult Before we leave fructose. There's one other pathway that some of our audience may have heard about Richard Johnson's written about it and other people that is if we cut out the fructose out of our diet. You know that there's a pathway called the polyol pathway that can generate some fructose. Is that significant and what can we do to mitigate that?
Speaker 2:Right. So, first of all, rick gets all the credit for this and he's a friend, he's a colleague. You know, we're, we're, we're, we're you know, in the mutual admiration society.
Speaker 2:He's the one who showed that glucose at high dose can be converted to fructose in various organs, in particular in the brain, and also, by the way, and also by the way, in the eye. And it's possible I won't say probable, but possible that the reason that high glucose causes damage is not because the glucose causes damage but the conversion to fructose ends up causing the damage.
Speaker 1:Because the fructose does the same damage. You mean glycation. Are we talking glucose?
Speaker 2:glycation damage. You mean glycation, Are we talking glucose glycation? Well, fructation, alterations in endothelial dysfunction in arteries and arterioles it does a lot of things that are not good for you. So he has demonstrated very clearly that you know, the higher the glucose goes, the more your body will turn glucose into fructose, and that there's an that you know the higher the glucose goes, the more your body will turn glucose into fructose, and that there's an actual, you know, evolutionary reason for that, having to do with previous species survival. You know, before we evolved to where we are and now that's maladaptive. So it's a very interesting and exciting this. He's just written up this whole thing in the Proceedings of the Royal Academy. So it's very, very likely that this is a big deal. And the other thing that's a big deal, which we sort of just barely touched on, is this uric acid issue. So you mentioned. Is there a relationship between sugar and uric acid issue? So you mentioned, you know, is there a relationship between sugar and uric acid? Absolutely so.
Speaker 2:When fructose comes into the liver, it has to be phosphorylated, so it goes from fructose to fructose one phosphate, and then it can be metabolized after that. Well, that means a phosphate has to be donated to the fructose molecule. It comes from ATP, and ATP, of course, is our energy source. So you're losing energy, you're depleting energy. Now, your mitochondria are supposed to recognize that and make more ATP. But what happens to the ADP that you just cut the phosphate off of? Well, it doesn't get recycled. It ends up going to uric acid, and then uric acid is released from the liver and hopefully will be excreted by the kidney.
Speaker 2:Okay, that sounds okay, but it turns out uric acid blocks nitric oxide formation in the vasculature, and nitric oxide is your endogenous blood pressure lower. So uric acid is an inhibitor of the enzyme endothelial nitric oxide synthase, or ENOS, and that is keeping your blood pressure down. And so that's another reason why sugar, aside from the insulin, okay, which is holding on to, you know, because of the insulin holding on to water at the kidney, okay the other reason is because of this uric acid being made from the ATP that's blocking nitric oxide. So your blood pressure goes up. So, every which way, you know, sugar is a problem, you know. I just want to emphasize to your audience. Please tell me something sugar does. That's good.
Speaker 1:There's absolutely no dietary requirement for carbohydrates and in fact there are some human species that or some human communities that exist without carbohydrates at all, absolutely. It's funny that people you know, given that carbohydrates drive type 2 diabetes and all these other things, it's a wonder people even eat them at all. But they are, like you say, a major component of these ultra-processed foods or junk foods. I wonder would you expand that to include other things? There's a lot of information about industrial oils, or seed oils, or as they're called, vegetable oils, as pro-inflammatory. Is that something you would consider as junk food to avoid? Also?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely so. There are. You know, basic, there's a whole panoply of different kinds of lipids that we can consume. Okay, there are seven classes of lipids, and some of them are good for us and some of them are bad for us. They are clearly not all the same, even though they're all nine calories per gram. Some will save your life, some will kill you, and you sort of need to know which ones are, which you know. A calorie is not a calorie, a sugar is not a sugar, a protein is not a protein and a fat is not a fat, oh, by the way. And a fiber is not a fiber either. Unfortunately, in order to understand nutrition, you have to kind of get granular with all of this, and, of course, the food industry doesn't want you to, because then, if you did, you wouldn't buy their stuff. So that's what it comes down to. So let's go there.
Speaker 2:In terms of the fatty acids, there are seven classes of fats. Best omega-3s, heart healthy, anti-alzheimer's. Save your life. Okay, they are anti-inflammatory. Okay, your brain needs them. Your heart needs them. Okay. And we are omega-3 deficient. Where do you get omega-3s from? You can get some omega-3s from vegetables, but really the place you get them is marine life. You get them from fish, but not just any old fish, fish who eat algae, wild fish Okay, farmed fish eat corn and that's filled with omega-6s. We're going to get to those at the end. All right, because they're not so good. All right, so omega-3s, second class monounsaturated fatty acids, so like oleic acid, like olive oil. Now, olive oil is very good and the reason is because it is the endogenous ligand for the PPAR alpha receptor in the liver, and the PPAR alpha receptor is the fuel gauge on that liver cell that basically tells it to burn energy efficiently properly. So keeping oleic acid levels up by consuming olive oil is good. Now, the problem with olive oil is not the olive oil. The problem with the olive oil is cooking in consuming olive oil is good. Now, the problem with olive oil is not the olive oil. The problem with the olive oil is cooking in the olive oil, because that double bond, that unsaturated double bond in olive oil can be flipped by heat and it's got a relatively low smoking point, so it's easy to flip, in which case now your olive oil, your oleic acid, is a trans-oleic acid. You've turned it into a trans fat and, of course, that's the number seven on this list of bad guys. Okay, so you can take a good fat and turn it into a bad fat by overheating it.
Speaker 2:Number three polyunsaturates. So that's like, you know, polyunsaturated fatty, like canola oil things. Okay, it's got multiple double bonds and that's okay too, and that can actually be heart healthy and beneficial. Except that because it's polyunsaturated, it's got even more double bonds to flip, so you have to be careful about that. The good news is that most of the smoking points are a lot higher, so it's not as bad. So in general it's okay. And if you overdo polyunsaturated it causes some immune problems. So you have to be a little bit careful about polyunsaturates.
Speaker 2:Number four saturated fat. Lord, now everybody thinks saturated fat's the worst because Ancel Keys, you know, back in the 1960s, said you know, saturated fat causes heart disease. Garbage, absolute, complete trash. We have completely debunked this 50 ways from Sunday. Okay, and anybody still thinks that saturated fat is bad for you. Okay, I will debate you till the cows come home and you will lose. Okay, saturated fat is neither good nor bad. Okay, I'm not saying it's good, but it's not bad. The good thing about saturated fat is it doesn't have any double bonds to flip, so it's actually. You can heat it to whatever you want to heat it to and it's not going to change because it is saturated and there's nothing you can do to it. So saturated fat will raise your LDL, that's true, but it will raise your large buoyant LDL, which is not the bad guy. The bad guy is these small vents and the thing, that causes the small vents.
Speaker 2:Ldls are actually the triglycerides and they're coming. Okay, we'll show you a minute why. So that's so it turns out, saturated fat's. Number four it's not, it's neutral, cardiovascularly neutral. Number five medium chain triglycerides. Now, medium chain triglycerides can be okay, like coconut oil, all right, and they can be. You know, they can have a high heating point, no problem, that's good. The problem with short chain fatty acids is, I mean, I'm sorry, medium chain triglycerides is that they can overwhelm your liver. So if you're eating high, large amounts of saturated fat plus medium chain triglycerides, your liver basically can't do both, and so you end up creating more triglycerides that will precipitate in the liver and possibly even lead to heart disease. So if you're only cooking with coconut oil, I mean, if you're basically substituting coconut oil for everything else and a lot of the paleo people do that's okay. But if you're adding it into an already stocked diet, then it can be a problem.
Speaker 2:Number six, and this is what you were asking omega-6s. So omega-6s are necessary because omega-6s are the precursor to arachidonic acid. Arachidonic acid is the precursor to all of the inflammatory agents. So thromboxanes, lupotrienes, eicosanoids, they all come from prostaglandins, they all come from arachidonic acid. So these are all pro-inflammatory agents. Now you need inflammation, or you would be eaten by the maggots. You have to be able to generate an inflammatory response, and so you need omega-6s in order to be able to do that. So not having any omega-6s is bad for you, but having too many omega-6s is also bad for you because you will be in a pro-inflammatory state. And that is an average shown also 50 ways from Sunday, and people guesstimate that we should have an omega-6 to an omega-3 ratio of about one to one, maybe maximum three or four to one tops. Our current omega-6 to omega-3 ratio is about 20 to 25 to 1 that's the reason is because our omega-3s are so low.
Speaker 2:So if we raised our omega-3s, we could probably manage our omega-6s better, wow. And then finally, number seven, the devil incarnate. Okay, I, you know. Satan's own trans fats.
Speaker 2:Okay, trans fats cannot be digested by bacteria. That's why the food industry used them, because if you make a baked good, for instance, like a hostess Twinkie with trans fats, okay, it won't go rancid, it won't. It'll still be there 10 years later. Okay, it will last on the shelf forever. Okay, the cell bite date can be 10 years from now. All right, a 10-year-old hamburger, the 10-year-old Twinkie, you know, I mean, there are YouTube videos of this stuff on.
Speaker 2:Do not, do not attempt this at home. The point is that the bacteria can't eat it because they don't have the enzyme to break that trans double bond. They don't have the desaturase to break the trans double bond. Well, so it is toxic to them, which is why they can't eat it. It's toxic to us. We can't metabolize it either. Now, the food industry didn't care, because what it did was it prolonged shelf life, increased their profit, didn't care that we couldn't metabolize it, care that we couldn't metabolize it. And it took until 2013 for the FDA to actually finally declare trans fats as poison and had to be cleared from our food supply. So trans fats are now gone. Unfortunately, you can make them at home, you know, by overheating, so that's why you have to be careful so obviously not every fat's the same.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so now with our ultra processed foods. We talked about sugars, especially fructose. We've talked about some of the pro-inflammatory seed oils and the problems there. Before we move on to the next topic, just one last quick point about junk foods. Before we move on to the next topic, just one last quick point about junk foods. Some people include grains in junk foods because of the pro-inflammatory aspects, the glyphosate, the herbicide that US grains are bathed in. What's your? Do you think obviously cereals are junk food when they're covered with sugar, but are grains themselves something we should think about as a junk food, or what's your position on that?
Speaker 2:Well, glyphosate can be in a lot of things. It doesn't have to be just in grains. Okay, it can be in meat, you know, because the cows eat the grains, that's right. So, glyphosate, glyphosate is a big issue and of course, the, you know, Bayer and Monsanto don't want you to know about it, but it is a big issue.
Speaker 2:So what is glyphosate? It is an analog of the amino acid glycine. Okay, that's what it is. It's an analog of glycine, and what it did was it would get incorporated into proteins and those proteins, because of the glyphosate, not the glycine couldn't be eaten by, you know, bugs and pests and whatever, because you know they couldn't incorporate the glyphosate into their protein structure and they couldn't turn the glycine into other things like amino or nucleic acids. Because of this, you know extra, you know thing hanging off of it. You know glyphosate. Well, the same thing's true for us. Okay, I mean, we can't do it either, and but it's being incorporated into our proteins and our DNA.
Speaker 2:And so it's now been shown very clearly to be a 2A carcinogen by the International Association of Research on Cancer from the WHO, and of course, this is why Monsanto, you know, has been paying out billions and billions of dollars in. You know lawsuits, you know, for people developing cancer, and why Bayer would want to purchase them is still beyond me. So, yes, glyphosate is a big issue, but it's not because of the grain per se, it's because of anything. Now, grain is an issue also. So the question is what's carbohydrate? Is carbohydrate good for you or bad for you? Well, you know, the vegans will tell you carbohydrate's good for you. The carnivore people tell you carbohydrate's bad for you. So what's the real story? And the answer is carbohydrate has an antidote, and if you consume the carbohydrate with the antidote, then it's fine.
Speaker 2:That antidote is called fiber. All carbohydrate comes with its inherent fiber. Carbohydrate out in the field means carbohydrate plus fiber, and the fiber mitigates the negative effects of carbohydrate on your body. And it does it through six different ways. It does it by number one fullness, because it takes up bulk in your stomach, gives you a feeling of fullness. Number two the soluble and insoluble fiber.
Speaker 2:Remember, fiber is not a fiber. There are two kinds of fiber. There's soluble fiber pectins and inulin, like what holds jelly together and there's insoluble fiber, like cellulose, like the stringy stuff in celery. And real food has both. Okay, processed food has sometimes soluble fiber added to it, but they don't have insoluble fiber, because insoluble fiber doesn't mix, it's not miscible, so you know it would be grainy whatever it is, and so it doesn't work. Okay.
Speaker 2:But if you had both, because real food has both the soluble and the insoluble fiber together form a gel on the inside of your intestine. Think of it like a fishnet okay, a lattice work. And then the Think of it like a fishnet okay, a latticework. And then the soluble fibers. They're globular, they plug the holes in the fishnet. Together they form this whitish gel. You can see it on electron microscopy coating the inside of your duodenum and thus preventing absorption of glucose, fructose, sucrose, simple starches, rendering them unavailable for early absorption.
Speaker 2:Keeping your liver safe, your glucose down, your insulin down, okay. So fiber is basically mitigating the metabolic risk of that carbohydrate. In addition, the fiber moves the food through the intestine faster, so you get the satiety signal sooner. Plus, the fiber serves as energy for the microbiome. The bacteria chew up the fiber and make this thing called short-chain fatty acids, like butyrate, which are anti-inflammatory and keep inflammation down. This is one of the things that went wrong in COVID, okay. And also, the insoluble fiber acts like little scrubbies on the inside of your colon, getting rid of the colon cancer cells. So people who consume high fiber have a much lower incidence of colon cancer. So fiber is basically taking care of all the bad things that carbohydrate could do, of all the bad things that carbohydrate could do, except that ultra-processed food is fiberless food.
Speaker 2:The food industry has taken the fiber away on purpose because you can't freeze fiber. I mean, I'll prove it to you Take an orange, put it in your freezer overnight, take it out in the morning, put it on the kitchen countertop, let it thaw, try to eat it. See what you get. You get mush. Why do you get mush? Because the ice crystals macerate the cell wall, let all the water rush in. Now food industry knows that. So what do they do? They squeeze it and freeze it. Now it lasts forever. Now it's frozen concentrated orange juice. So they have taken a food, an orange, and they've turned it into a commodity that you can sell on the commodities exchange because it doesn't go bad. And that's what the definition of commodity storable food. Well, it was the fiber that made that orange good. The juice is the worst part of the orange, the fiber was the best part of the orange. But the fiber is what ended up in the garbage can.
Speaker 1:Wow, I love that idea of the fiber taking the junk food and sort of making it less harmful. It sounds like it reminds me of the prescription, the diabetes drug, acarbose, which also is a longevity drug which extends life a lot. Is it similar to Acarbose there? It sort of interferes with carbohydrate absorption.
Speaker 2:No, it's not the same. I mean Acarbose. What it does is it prevents the enzymes that chew starch up into individual glucose molecules from being able to do it, and so the long glucose molecules go further down the intestine where the bacteria can then ferment it, and so that's why you get all of this bloating and gas. And you know, I mean I don't know why anybody would consume a carbose. I think it is a nasty, nasty drug. Okay, it is a bad idea. What makes it is a much better idea is fiber. Now, the problem is the food industry took the fiber away. So, like, where are you supposed to get your fiber? Well, the food industry can add back the pectins or the inulin or the psyllium, you know, like metamucil, but that's only soluble fiber. Remember, you need both in order to make that gel, in order to reduce the insulin and the glucose responses and or move the food through the intestine faster. You need both.
Speaker 2:We uh, I am the chief medical. There's full disclosure. You know, a little self-promotion here for a minute. I am the chief medical officer of a fiber company, and that fiber company is called biolumen, and we have a product and we have just released it. It has been on the market for about a month and a half now. It is called and I hate this name, but that's what the marketers gave it it is called Monch Monch M-O-N-C-H. M-o-n-c-h. You can find it online at monchmonchshop, okay, and you can buy it.
Speaker 2:And what it is and why it's so cool. I've been involved in this for about 14 years. Why it's so cool I've been involved in this for about 14 years, okay, what it is is it's a microcellulose sponge. It is seven microns in diameter, the size of a red blood cell, so it pours like a powder. Okay, it doesn't look like fiber at all. It pours like a powder.
Speaker 2:You can put it in food, you can put it in chocolate, you can put it in bean dip, you can put it in microwave lasagna. You can put it in anything that's not aqueous and it's colorless, odorless, tasteless, textureless. Your tongue can't tell it's there, okay, because it's too small. So you can put it in anything and you wouldn't know it's there. You swallow it with.
Speaker 2:The food starts expanding in your stomach. 70 fold over its original seven micron size. It gets big, okay, and that gives you a feeling of fullness. And when the sponge expands, the nooks and the crannies in the sponge become apparent, and embedded, impregnated into the nooks and the crannies, are a set of proprietary hydrogels, soluble fiber, okay, and I can't tell you which ones. If I told you I'd have to kill you. Okay, that's the IP. But what those hydrogels are doing is they're absorbing, they're sequestering glucose, fructose sucrose, simple starches, rendering them unavailable for early absorption in the intestine, thus keeping the glucose excursion down, keeping the insulin excursion down, protecting your liver and moving the food through the intestine faster, like fiber would, thus feeding the gut, okay, and it turns out, because of the insoluble fiber, the bacteria in your intestine will chew it up for its purposes, so the butyrate levels go up, so you are getting the anti-inflammatory properties of the fiber.
Speaker 2:In other words, what Biolumine is doing, what Munch Munch is doing is it's turning apple juice back into apples in the intestine, so improving both metabolic health by keeping the glucose and insulin down, and improving gut health by basically feeding the microbiome and generating short-chain fatty acids and clearing the cancer cells from the cold wow.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it's kind of cool. I I love that. And, just to be clear, you don't need a doctor's prescription for this. People can order it themselves on the website and how expensive, is it uh? Just ballpark figures.
Speaker 2:Right. So the thing that your audience should know is that it is completely food. Okay, it's got several components, but all of them are food. All of them are designated grass generally recognized as safe by the FDA, so the combination of them is still grass. Okay, so it is food. Okay, it's fiber, it's you know. I mean, you know you eat fiber when you eat, you know real food. Well, this is real food because it's fiber, even though it's engineered. Real food.
Speaker 2:Cool, it is $1 per meal. So if you have it comes as a teaspoon in a sachet, okay, it's a little packet, okay, and you can add it to your own food, where you can ultimately mix it into food, you know, like yogurt or bean dip, like I said, or, you know, put it in your chocolate mousse if you want, and you won't even know it's there and each sachet costs $1. So, basically it would be, you know, 30 times three would be $90 a month. But ultimately, the goal is to get the cellulose from a source which will be a lot cheaper and so we can bring the price down. The cellulose from a source which will be a lot cheaper and so we can bring the price down. The cellulose right now comes from a Canadian fir tree and we don't want to be cutting down fir trees.
Speaker 2:We have a research project going on to harvest the cellulose from food waste.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, that's so we can kill two birds with one stone.
Speaker 2:We can, you know, contribute to the metabolic health of the planet and also the you know, society, the planetary health, you know environmental health as well.
Speaker 1:Wow, this has been such a great conversation, rob. How, maybe you could share how people could follow you on social media, your website or the website for BioLumen, even if you'd like.
Speaker 2:Sure, so I'm easy to find. Everyone seems to find me RobertLustigcom or profilesucsfedu slash RobertLustig. Either one is fine. Biolumen is BioLumentech is biolumentech. Munch, munch is munchmunchshop.
Speaker 1:I swear I you got calm on that what I know. Oh, that's funny.
Speaker 2:I can't make this stuff up, but it's very exciting and we're very happy with the results. We have two clinical trials, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials, both of which showed efficacy, one in India, one in Australia. We're going to be doing a bigger one shortly in Chicago. You know long-term durability and side effects study. But so far so good. And yeah, it's on the market and available.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's so exciting. I'm going to try it out. Well, thanks again, Rob, for being on this program and thank you so much for all the great work you're doing. I look forward to what's coming up in the future from you.
Speaker 2:Oh, thanks so much, rob. I mean, bottom line, this series is the reverse inflammation series. Okay, you got to get the inflammation down. Okay, the inflammation is coming from the gut. That's where it's coming from. Okay, because your gut is a sewer. All right, okay, what's a sewer? It's a pipe with you know what in it. All right, that's a sewer. Right, your gut is the sewer. So you have to do something to help your gut. You have to make your gut safe, okay, and the thing that makes your gut safe is fiber. That's the thing that protects your gut from the problems of carbohydrate. Well, either don't eat the carbohydrate or eat your carbohydrate with fiber. Those are your two choices. So that's-.
Speaker 1:Don't eat it by itself.
Speaker 2:Don't eat it by itself. That's the key to inflammation.
Speaker 1:Great. Thanks so much, rob. I appreciate it, my pleasure.
Speaker 1:I want to thank Dr Robert Lustig for joining us today and sharing his knowledge about ultra-processed junk foods and the role that sugars, especially fructose, seed oils and the grains with glyphosates, play in that, and also the interesting idea of using fiber replacement to kind of help mitigate the effects of these junk foods. If you still haven't claimed your VIP pass to access the recordings, transcripts and MP3s and our must-have bonus package, you can get it now by clicking the button on this page to upgrade before it's too late. Remember that when the event is over, the recordings and all the bonuses go away. So make sure you claim your VIP pass before it's too late.