Dave Asprey and Dr. Robert Lufkin compare fructose and seed oils, arguing fructose is a more direct liver toxin linked to fatty liver disease and insulin resistance. They cite Robert Lustig and Richard Johnson's research, note the American Diabetes Association once endorsed fructose for diabetics, and describe industry tactics mirroring tobacco's playbook. Both avoid these substances now.
If you wanted to get rid of non alcoholic fatty liver disease and you were only willing to give up fructose or the seed oils, which one's worse?
It's a good question. The seed oils I'm getting more and more worried about for, for insulin resistance and inflammation, but the evidence is it's still not as strong as for carbohydrates and glucose for, for non alcoholic fatty liver disease. The, the evidence for fructose is very, very strong. You know, Robert Lustig we mentioned has.
Been on the show. He's great.
Dave Pter had a book drop acid about uric acid, but it's really about fructose. And then Richard Johnson, nature wants us to be fat is all about fructose. And he, that's his, his wheelhouse there. So if I had to, if you pin me down on those, I would say the, the fructose. But I avoid seed oils like the plague.
Also now I avoid both of them on, on a regular basis. And if I had to pick one, I think fructose is worse for the liver, but I think that the, I think the seed oils are worse overall metabolically, so you really don't want either one. And I remember back when I was doing keto and low carb for the very first time in the 90s, based on Robert Atkins work, I would buy fructose because it didn't raise insulin and you couldn't really find it commonly. So I ordered online and I take it, I just never felt good on it. So I quit taking it. I just wasn't worth it. And now I'm, I'm thankful I didn't because I was poisoning my metabolism, at least my liver with that stuff. It's, it's just not good for you.
Yeah. The American Diabetic association, which is funded by DaVita, which is a dialysis company, and the word cause of dialysis need is type 2 diabetes. But American Diabetes association used, and diabetic authorities used to recommend fructose for diabetic patients because it didn't raise the insulin directly. They didn't understand that it actually drove insulin resistance, which is the sine qua non of type 2 diabetes. So it was actually making it worse.
Do you think that there were some doctors, maybe researchers in the back halls of big food companies who knew that, like the tobacco industry knew it very well for years the tobacco was doing it. And the glyphosate companies like Monsanto, Bayer, they knew. Right. They suppressed it so they could sell more. Do you think there was a fructose thing going on with that as well?
Well, I think in my heart, I believe that most people get up and want to do good in the health industry and in all industries. They don't want to get up and say, I want to harm people. But having said that, in the book, we talk about some things that have come to light where people were paid, scientists were paid money to write articles discounting the effects of sugar. And. And it only came out years later and it was never disclosed. And I'm sure similar things are going on. I mean, famously, you mentioned the tobacco industry. Well, you know, as. As your audience probably knows, in the 1980s, when tobacco was being shut down, the tobacco industry pivoted and purchased the junk food companies and basically just moved into junk food. They use their same marketing strategies, their same approaches, but with the advantage they could market to children, with which they couldn't do as a tobacco company. And now we're seeing, you know, that if they lied about tobacco, they're probably going to. I mean, I hate to be that cynical, but there probably be people who will lie about the junk food effects, and fructose is certainly one of them.
