Lustig - Sugar has 56 names: a shoppers guide

The battlefield seems benign enough: the aisles and shelves of the local supermarket. The stakes are your tastebuds, your money, your well-being and happiness, and, most important, your health. Youre at war with the food industry, whether you like it or not. Their short-term goal is to dip into your pocket and relieve you of your cash, dangling the one thing you need for survivalfood. But the food they peddle is the food that costs them the least and pays them the most. Whats good for them is bad for you; whats good for you is bad for them.

There is no middle ground. Your long-term goal is to live a long, happy, and healthy life. Your short-term strategy is to survive the gauntlet of the local Safeway or Giant or Jewel or DAgostino or Kroger. And woe unto you who trips on the landmine of a 7-Eleven. You need all the help you can get, or youll be among the victims, strewn far and wide. My goal is to help you detoxify your food purchases for your better health and happiness.

This e-book is your survival guide. Part I is how to shop. Part II is what to shop. Im a physician, specifically a pediatrician. Our job is to give every kid a shot, to deliver our charges into adulthood free of chronic disease so that they can be valuable and productive members of society. Well, sadly my profession has been pretty ineffective.

In 1980, 5 percent of children were above the ninety-fifth percentile for BMI. Today 20 percent are above the ninety-fifth percentile. In 1980, adolescent type 2 diabetics cases were so rare they were reportable. Today there are forty thousand, and one-third of all adolescents diagnosed with diabetes are now type 2. And in adults, America is up to an obesity prevalence of 30 percent and a diabetes prevalence of 8.3 percent. The data dont lie, were losing the war.

Were up against a very powerful enemyone that masquerades as our friend. Worse yet, the entire country has been brainwashed. As in The Manchurian Candidate (1962), where Laurence Harvey lost all conscious will whenever he viewed the Queen of Spades, so it is with the rest of us, who get weak at the knees at the sight of a Mrs. Fields cookie. But heres the nugget of truth. Its not about obesity.

Twenty percent of obese people are completely metabolically normal. They will live a healthy, productive life, die at a normal age, not cost the taxpayer any extra, not contribute to the demise of Medicaretheyre just fat. Conversely, up to 40 percent of the normal-weight population suffers from the same metabolic diseases as do the obese. Because its not about obesity. It never was. Thats what the food industry would have you believe.

Because that way, they can point to other perpetrators, such as automobiles, televisions, video games, power mowers, white-collar occupations, and poor urban planning (no sidewalks, fear of crime) as reasons for our paucity of energy expenditure. So what is it really about? Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disease, one of many diseases within the scope of a cluster of diseases called metabolic syndrome. These are the diseases that travel with obesity. But they are not obesity. Because normal-weight patients get them, too. Metabolic syndrome includes high blood pressure, lipid disorders, heart disease, fatty liver disease, polycystic ovarian disease, cancer, and dementia.

Thats what its really aboutmetabolic syndrome. Because these are the diseases people die of. Because this is whats on the death certificate. Because thats where the money goespaying for disease treatment. And everyone is at risk. This is what my book Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease delineated, and offered real science to start the conversation to turn metabolic syndrome around.

All of these diseases are increased in prevalence due to energy overload and poor cellular energy processing. When your mitochondria (the energy-burning factories inside your cells) get overloaded, metabolic syndrome results. Metabolic syndrome is how cells stop working at optimal function, contributing to all of the degenerative diseases normally ascribed to aging. Metabolic syndrome is a mitochondrial disorder. Some call it mitochondrial overload, others call it mitochondrial constipation. It can happen to anyone, because any mitochondrion that gets overwhelmed by the plethora of energy it has to metabolize drives this process.