May 16, 2025

Dr. Robert H. Lustig Confronts Sugar in These Five Talks

American pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Robert H. Lustig gained attention with his 2009 talk Sugar: The Bitter Truth that has been watched 25 million times in the past 15 years! Since then he’s given many more talks and published a number of books related diet, including Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease, Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine, and The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains. We’ve featured a number of Lustig’s talks over the years, and here are five that stand out:

1. Sugar: The Bitter Truth

Of course we must start with the most famous one! In this popular video from UCTV, Professor Robert H. Lustig attempts to explain the American obesity epidemic as being due to the rise of sugar and fructose consumption over the past 30 years. He examines the history of high-fructose corn syrup and how it has made its way into drinks like soda, fruit juice, and sports drinks, along with many foods. He goes into a detailed biochemistry explanation of how fructose is converted into fat, and why he feels fructose is a poison with many of the same effects of alcohol. Lustig links these findings to the childhood obesity epidemic since children are drinking more and more high-fructose corn syrup beverages. He closes by advocating the elimination of sugar beverages, the increase of fiber in the diet, and more exercise. The talk is available on online video on YouTube and on audio and video download on the UCTV website. Caution: After watching this video you might never drink soda again!

2. Fat Chance: Fructose 2.0

In the follow up talk to his viral video lecture Sugar: The Bitter Truth (now with over 25 million views), superstar endocrinologist Robert Lustig dives deeper into the physiological effects of sugar and high fructose corn syrup on the human body. Countering the argument that it is lack of willpower in eating less or working out enough, Dr. Lustig shows how excessive sugar hijacks the brain’s reward center and pushes humans to want to eat more and more. Lustig is skilled at presenting science-based research in a clear and impassioned manner in order to strongly convey his message to eat less sugar and to advocate getting high fructose corn syrup out of the Western diet in which it has been dominating in the last 40 years or so. If you want to lose weight, then cutting down on sugar consumption is a good place to start! This talk is available to watch on YouTube from the UCTV channel and on MP3 audio download from the UCTV website. It has a lot of visual aids from Dr. Lustig’s slides that accompany his talk so we recommend watching it.

3. The Skinny on Obesity

Watch this great new series from UCTV Prime called “The Skinny on Obesity”. This 7-episode series (lasting one hour total) features Dr. Robert Lustig and two of his UCSF colleagues who look at the obesity epidemic and what has been driving it in the last 30 years. Dr. Lustig’s previous UCTV video Sugar: The Bitter Truth went viral and has received over 25 million views to date.

In this new series Lustig’s message is presented in an even clearer and more powerful way with the help of animations and documentary footage. He presents the science of obesity, debunking the idea that “a calorie is a calorie” and showing how the massive increase in fructose and sugar into our daily diets has led to a skyrocketing obesity epidemic which contributes to our most common diseases such as heart disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and cancer. These short videos explain how sugar consumption and obesity have now become a major public health concern in the same way that drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol are through their unavoidability, toxicity, abuse, and negative impact on society. A must-watch from UCTV!

4. Robert Lustig on Sugar

Robert Lustig speaks at Google and gives us the history of the rise of the obesity epidemic as he attempts to debunk the idea that it is due to people being gluttonous and slothful. He goes into the history of the sugar and high fructose corn syrup industry, and how fat free processed foods have had sugar added to make them taste better and have longer shelf lives. He connects the rise of sugar consumption with the rise of obesity globally, and he shows that high sugar consumption has many of the same health effects as high alcohol consumption. He encourages political action in the face of a powerful sugar-based food industry, and on a personal level discourages eating foods high in sugar.

5. Dr. Robert Lustig on The Hacking of the American Mind

In this 30-minute interview from UCTV, Dr. Robert Lustig presents some of the ideas in his book The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains. Dr. Lustig is the famed endocrinologist behind the viral video Sugar: The Bitter Truth. In this interview he expands his ideas beyond food, discussing the many addictions in American life including gambling, opioids, cell phone usage, and much more. He differentiates pleasure from happiness which he boils down to the battle of the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin. Dr. Lustig outlines the four C’s for happiness which are: Contribution, Coping, Cooking, and Connection. It’s a wide ranging and engaging talk on many of America’s predicaments with addiction.