Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine, by Robert H. Lustig.

To be released May 4, 2021

Pre-orders being taken on Amazon. 

The New York Times bestselling author of Fat Chance explains the eight pathologies that underlie all chronic disease, documents how processed food has impacted them to ruin our health, economy, and environment over the past 50 years, and proposes an urgent manifesto and strategy to cure both us and the planet.

Dr. Lustig, a pediatric neuroendocrinologist who has long been on the cutting edge of medicine and science, challenges our current healthcare paradigm which has gone off the rails under the influence of Big Food, Big Pharma, and Big Government.

You can’t solve a problem if you don’t know what the problem is. One of Lustig’s singular gifts as a communicator is his ability to “connect the dots” for the general reader, in order to unpack the scientific data and concepts behind his arguments, as he tells the “real story of food” and “the story of real food”.

Metabolical will weave the interconnected strands of nutrition, health/disease, medicine, environment, and society into a completely new fabric by proving on a scientific basis a series of iconoclastic revelations, among them: 

• Medicine for chronic disease treats symptoms, not the disease itself
• You can diagnose your own biochemical profile
• Chronic diseases are not ‘druggable’, but they are ‘foodable’ 
• Processed food isn’t just toxic, it’s addictive
• The war between vegan and keto is a false war — the combatants are on the same side
• Big Food, Big Pharma, and Big Government are on the other side

Making the case that food is the only lever we have to effect biochemical change to improve our health, Lustig explains what to eat based on two novel criteria: protect the liver, and feed the gut. He insists that if we do not fix our food and change the way we eat, we will continue to court chronic disease, bankrupt healthcare, and threaten the planet. But there is hope: this book explains what’s needed to fix all three.

A double dose of sugar!

The Nature Metabolism paper explains why some people who eat high sugar diets get fatty liver and some don’t.

It has to do with “leaky gut”; those with leaky gut get NAFLD. Except that chronic fructose causes NAFLD!

The Cell Metabolism paper shows why fructose causes both liver fat AND oxidative stress.

Normally these are in different liver pathways. It turns out the cell has a switch called triose kinase, which directs fructose metabolites down one pathway or the other.

These two papers, taken together, drive home the assertion that fructose is the primary, and the most modifiable driver of fatty liver, insulin resistance, and metabolic syndrome.

It’s the processed food, D’oh!!

Fructose stimulated de novo lipogenesis is promoted by inflammation, Nature Metabolism

Triose Kinase Controls the Lipogenic Potential of Fructose and Dietary Tolerance, Cell Metabolism

Schematic summary from “Fructose stimulated de novo lipogenesis is promoted by inflammation.” In IEC, dietary fructose is converted to F1P by KHK. F1P inhibits protein N-glycosylation, triggering ER stress and intestinal inflammation to downregulate TJPs and trigger barrier deterioration and endotoxaemia. Endotoxin (LPS) reaches the liver via the portal vein and engages TLR4 on macrophages to activate nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) via the adaptor protein MyD88 and induce TNF expression and secretion. TNF engages TNFR1 on hepatocytes to induce caspase-2 (CASP2) mRNA, whose translation is stimulated by ER-stress-activated IRE-1. CASP2 activates SREBP1 to induce ACC1 and FAS, thereby priming the liver to convert KHK-generated F1P to FA (C:16, C:18), giving rise to hepatosteatosis. *P< 0.05; **P< 0.01; ***P< 0.001.

Celebrate August being National Wellness Month!

Join the UCSF office of Wellness and Community in a UCSF Wellness Bingo Challenge to prioritize your wellbeing and self-care.

Throughout the month of August, pick and complete at least five of the activities in the Wellness Bingo Grid in any order. No need to actually stick to a diagonal or the same row or column – wellness is about being flexible too.

Submit your results in the Qualtrics link on the Bingo Grid and be entered in a drawing for a chance to win a $25 gift card. 10 winners will be selected!

Wellness Bingo Grid: https://campuslifeservices.ucsf.edu/upload/wellnesscommunity/files/Wellness_Bingo_Challenge.pdf

Qualtrics Submission Form: https://ucsf.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eKikDNRPsBkgMn3

Click on the image below for the interactive (hyperlinked) PDF: