Robert Lustig: Study of Children with fatty liver, we kept their weight the same: cutting out sugar

We took the sugar out, we had to put something else back in that was calorically equivalent. We gave them extra starch. We did a starch for sugar exchange, isocaloric. So in the vernacular, we took the pastries out, we put the bagels in, we took the sweetened yogurt out, we put the baked potato chips in, we took the chicken teriyaki out, we put the turkey hot dogs in. Everybody got it. So we can give them good food. We gave them crappy food, we gave them processed food, we gave them Safeway food, we gave them kid food, food kids would eat, but it was no added sugar food. And we gave them a scale. And every day we call them up on the phone, would you weigh and if they were losing weight, eat more in order to keep their weight up for the 10 days. And then we studied them again. At the end of 10 days, every aspect of their metabolic health got better. Their liver fat went down 22%, their de novo lipogenesis rate went down 46%, their VLDL in their blood went down 49%. Their visceral fat went down 7%. And most importantly, their insulin kinetics came back to normal. We reversed their metabolic syndrome.