The Western Diet, consisting of ultraprocessed foods, has supplanted traditional diets globally, with an attendant global increase in obesity, diabetes, and most notably a new disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Ultraprocessed foods are extremely high in added sugar, which is converted by the liver via de novo lipogenesis into fat. Fatty liver occurs due to the detrimental effects of fructose on mitochondrial function, resulting in hepatic steatosis, insulin resistance, and hypetriglyceridemia. Insulin and triglyceride inhibit leptin signaling in the brain, which would normally extinguish the dopamine signal in the brain’s reward center; fomenting the drive to excess consumption and further insulin resistance and liver fat. Thus, fatty liver disease is an intermediate in a vicious cycle connecting sugar in processed foods to addiction.

In this webinar you will:

• To discern the criteria for food addiction.
• To differentiate between different foodstuffs and their addictive potential.
• To expose the tricks that the food industry uses to push addictive products.
  
  

Speaker:
Robert H. Lustig, M.D., M.S.L. is Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, and Member of the Institute for Health Policy Studies at UCSF. Dr. Lustig is a neuroendocrinologist, with expertise in obesity, diabetes, metabolism, and nutrition. He is one of the leaders of the current “anti-sugar” movement, and is trying to fix the food supply around a simple message: protect the liver, feed the gut, support the brain. Dr. Lustig graduated from MIT in 1976, and received his M.D. from Cornell University Medical College in 1980. He also received his Masters of Studies in Law (MSL) degree at University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 2013. He is the author of the popular books Fat Chance (2012), The Hacking of the American Mind (2017), and Metabolical (2021).