This is yet another video with Dr. Robert H. Lustig, a paediatric endocrinologist.
Here he explains how the industrial global diet raises our insulin levels, leading to hunger, weight gain and metabolic disease.
One of the key driving forces behind this is elevated Insulin levels and how they lead to resistance to the hormone Leptin.
Leptin is a satiety hormone secreted by the fat cells and is supposed to tell the brain that you are full and do not need to eat.
If you’re leptin resistant, it means your brain doesn’t get the signal and thinks it is still hungry.
A Few Points From The Video:
- People can’t “eat less, exercise more”.
- There are biochemical reasons why this is not possible.
- Leptin is secreted by fat cells, and is supposed to tell our brain: “we’re full, no need to eat”.
- Obese people have high levels of Leptin, because they have many fat cells.
- The problem is that Leptin is not doing its job. This is called Leptin resistance.
- Chronically elevated Insulin levels lead to leptin resistance.
- The industrial global diet leads to elevated insulin levels.
- Elevated insulin shunts calories into fat cells, causing starvation at the cellular level and making us eat more.
The video is 8 minutes long:
I tend to agree with Lustig about the “eat less, exercise more” issue.
Metabolic dysfunction caused by the industrial diet makes us eat more. It is a “biochemical force” and isn’t caused by greed or lazyness.
Eating is a primal instinct that willpower has limited control over. That is why I don’t believe in calorie restricted diets, although they do work for some people.
The best way to lose weight, is to reverse the metabolic dysfunction by changing the things we eat, and then the weight goes down automatically.
Kris,
This is an excellent video. Very informative, thanks for sharing!
Alykhan
Kristjan – I have LOVED Dr. Lustig’s videos! I have spent the better part of the last 4 years studying medical literature and biochemistry journals and came a bunch of conclusion that seem to be in direct opposition of conventional wisdom.
It’s great to find another scientist who has come to scientific conclusions! You’ll see more of me here!
I actually decided not to become a physician because here, in American, doctors get absolutely no nutritional training and there is a culture of medicating instead of healing, and I don’t want to be a part of that.
I want to help people get to their healthiest through correct scientific choices on diet and nutrition. Keep it up!
Thanks, I agree. The science seems to suggest the exact opposite of conventional wisdom, it’s kind of crazy and people can be really hard to convince.
It’s not helping when even the health professionals themselves seem to promote conventional wisdom instead of the latest science.
We get almost no nutritional training here either, it’s a few lectures as part of another course, but I know the heads of the medical department are thinking about increasing it.
No idea insulin had that effect. Thank you for sharing this.
Excellent stuff, as always! Go Kristján!
Hi Kris,
Great video! Dr. Lustig does a great job explaining the role of insulin and leptin in metabolism.
For decades, I had followed the dietary guidelines of this country and at the same time incorporated exercise into my lifestyle. I used to eat a high carbohydrates diet, just like the food pyramid recommends, and was working out 4 to 5 times a week for one hour each workout. I even trained for several months and ran a half-marathon. I did all kinds of aerobics exercise at the moderate fat-burning-rate, but after decades of that type of eating and exercise, all that I accomplished was get heavier!
I was sick and tired of all that effort for nothing. My health deteriorated over that period of time and after a couple of decades my health was so affected that I had to have blood transfusion, two units of blood, due to anemia. Not only that, but my hormones were so out of balance that I ended up having a total hysterectomy last year. I am convinced that my poor health and lack of good nutrients in my diet negatively affected my fertility and I could only manage one full term pregnancy. I constantly suffered unexplained skin rashes, and the symptom that was the worst was my chronic low energy. My doctors were very happy because for years my cholesterol was very low (120), but I was anemic, vitamin D deficient (sunscreen all the time), hypothyroidism, and TIRED all the time. But my weight keep going up!!!!
I thought I was doing all the right things when it came to my way of eating, but for the last several months I have been eating whole natural foods and incorporating as much of the healthy fats (animal and coconut) as I can, and the difference in vitality is night and day. I continue to exercise, but I now exercise with a more gentle approach and for much less than one hour at a time. In just a short month and a half, I have lost one dress size. I don’t weight myself, so I don’t know how many pounds I have lost; I don’t care about the pounds. Loss of inches in the places that make an impact is more real to me. I now have ENERGY! I can exercise and not be depleted, and do chores, and go out, and do the shopping and take care of my family, and still have lots of energy left to make dinner and clean up. I go to bed healthy tired, and sleep all night and get up and do it all over again!!! :)
I eat healthy home-cooked meals and they consist of eggs (pastured), some sort of meats (grass-fed/pastured), some sort of low-starch veggy (organic), and homemade probiotic food/drink (full fat yogurt, kefir, water kefir, sauerkraut and fermented condiments). I have incorporated all the good healthy animal fats that I can like butter (grass-fed jersey cows), lard (pastured pigs), eggs, coconut oil, homemade ghee, sour cream (homemade), etc. I didn’t eat sweets before (don’t have a sweet tooth), but now I can eat sweets and when I do, I make it from scratch using whole ingredients and a bit of raw honey.
I have learned so much about nutrition by reading blogs like yours and by reading the articles on the Weston A. Price Foundation and other materials from reputable sources. So, I can definitely say that the Standard American Diet with its low-fat/high-carbs ratio made me fat AND sick, and I believe it was because of my insulin-leptin imbalance.
Thank you for posting such great information!
Gloria