Freakonomics Duo Duped — Fructose Water Diet is Dangerous

Today’s New York Times Magazine "Freakonomics" article from Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt spotlights a potentially very dangerous, health-destroying "accidental diet" that includes drinking a few spoonfuls of sugar water a day using granulated fructose.

Taking many fructose-water beverage breaks while trying to lose weight is foolhardy, to say the least — that is, if you want to be healthy and live as long as you can.

In fact, considerable recent research shows that granulated fructose — which is not made from fruit but rather from corn — is the most dangerous of all sugars, especially if ingested in large quantities, as I’ve reported here previously. Please also see this subsequent post.

Unfortunately, Dubner and Levitt — two talented, imaginative, prolific authors, who’ve penned the fascinating Freakonomics: A Rogue-Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything — have been duped in a monstrous way into promoting an unscientific diet — from an unqualified psychology professor, no less — that could cause considerable harm.

Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt: Freakonomics The last thing I want to do is disparage Dubner and Levitt. In fact, I have considerable respect for the duo, whose Freakonomics has been the #1 bestselling business book on the Wall Street Journal list for 20 consecutive weeks and is #3 today on the the New York Times list.

Rather, I want to give New York Times readers and other folks the real scoop about Roberts’s foolhardy, fructose-laden diet.

Basically, obese University of California at Berkeley psychology professor Seth Roberts, Ph.D, 52, reportedly used his own body as a science laboratory for 12 years, all the while diligently recording data along the way.

Finally, after much self-experimentation, Roberts — who embraced the theory that our bodies are regulated by a "set point" — allegedly "discovered two agents capable of tricking the set-point system," Dubner and Levitt explain in their article.

In order to peel off the pounds, Roberts ultimately devised a dubious regime — he started drinking several ounces of sugar water using granulated fructose (instead of table sugar) and consuming a few tablespoonfuls of unflavored canola or extra light olive oil, doing both a few times a day.

He attributes these fructose and oil concoctions as helping him to lose 40 pounds and keep it off.

"He could eat pretty much whenever and whatever he wanted, but he was far less hungry than he had ever been," the Freakonomics duo note.

Roberts calls his weight-loss program the "Shangri-La Diet" and even enlisted friends and colleages to follow his perverted plan, and they usually had "similar results."

While I heartily applaud the idea of dispassionately studying yourself to help you lose weight and kick habits — in fact, I advise members of my online KickSugar group to "watch yourself like a lab rat" — this self-experimentation has to be tempered with informed nutritional choices. And this is where Roberts’s theories fail miserably.

To be blunt, Roberts — whose professed research interests include mood, weight and sleep — is completely clueless about the damning science research on fructose (and also canola oil).

Nationally known nutritionist and weight loss expert Jonny Bowden, who I was able to reach today at home, puts it succinctly. 

"Fructose is the most damaging of sugars. It raises triglycerides and creates insulin resistance using a different pathway than normal," he told me.

"Sure, fructose has a low-glycemic index, but every nutritionist worth his salt has learned that its glycemic index is irrelevant to the extensive damage that it causes," Bowden, who is the iVillage.com "Weight Loss Coach" and author of Living the Low Carb Life: Choosing the Diet that’s Right for You, from Atkins to the Zone.

Jonny Bowden: Living the Low Carb Life

Moreover, Bowden cautions that looking at weight loss as a measure of a person’s health is deceptive and misleading.

"There’s absolutely nothing in this regimen that anyone in the field of nutrition would consider a scientific theory.

"This is like models saying you can lose weight by having cocaine and aspirin in the morning or that if you ate food shaped like a heart, you’d have the heart of a lion," continues Bowden, who punched holes in every one of Roberts’ theories, including the one about the role of sweetness and appetite.

"The idea of sweetness not being a flavor to trigger appetite is pretty much contradicted by all the research….

"Every person who has ever tried to lose weight — not no mention every clinician in the world — know that sweetness triggers the desire for more food," he says. "After all, ever try to eat just one chocolate chip cookie?"

(Read the post Bowden put on his blog today, too, after talking with me. And see the link he provided to another fructose study.)

Russ Bianchi, CEO and managing director of the renowned global health formulation and product development firm Adept Solutions, Inc., dubs Roberts’s regime "the Bataan Death March Diet," referring to an infamous incident in 1942 during World War II.

"Crystalline fructose is no different from high fructose corn syrup in its metabolization and is NOT natural and NOT fruit sugar," explains Bianchi, referring to numerous studies fingering large consumption of HFCS as highly dangerous.

"I bet BIG MONEY that if you took a triglyceride and LDL cholesterol count on this guy, it’s higher than normal safety ranges. He’s doing considerable damage to his system." 

Rather, Bianchi recommends that people trying to lose weight eat a calorie-reduced diet that includes dark green leafy vegetables, fresh fruit, healthy oils such as olive oil, fish, poultry, eggs, and limited whole grains, as well as exercising, not smoking, limiting or restricting alcohol, and eating no processed junk food and drinks, particularly those containing fructose or high fructose corn syrup.

Please, Dr. Roberts, I implore you, stop your fructose-drinking habit! If you’re so big on self-experimentation, look into some legitimate studies about fructose and then reassess what you’re doing to your body and what you’re urging others to do. You might be slim now, but your fructose habit ultimately could lead to the reverse unwanted effect.

For your safety and well being, I urge you to confer with a fellow staffer at another University of California campus. Talk to Peter J. Havel, Ph.D., a nutrition and endocrinology researcher at UC Davis, who has done considerable research on fructose.

Dr. Havel, whom I interviewed a while back for my upcoming book, SUGAR SHOCK!, was the principal researcher for a study published last year in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, which suggests that there’s a hormonal mechanism by which consuming a diet high in chemically produced fructose could lead people to increase their caloric intake and gain weight.

In fact, Havel — who worked with researchers from the Monell Chemical Senses Center, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of British Columbia, the USDA and the University of Cincinnati — concluded that fructose fails to trigger the usual hormonal responses that turn down appetite and increase metabolic rate and that this could lead people to take in more calories and gain weight.

"We found that consuming fructose-sweetened beverages with meals resulted in decreased secretion of insulin and reduced production of leptin, and both of these hormones help regulate food intake and body weight," Dr. Havel told me.

In fact, Dr. Havel believes, as do some other researchers, that "when fructose is metabolized, it goes directly to the liver, where it is more prone to being metabolized and converted into fat than glucose and therefore raises triglyceride levels."

Still other studies have shown that consuming a lot of fructose over time could raise LDL (bad cholesterol) levels.

"These results," Dr. Havel notes, "suggest that long-term consumption of diets high in fructose could lead to an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease."

Please, savvy nutritionists and doctors, join me in getting out the truth about fructose, especially to Roberts.

  • For starters, enlighten Freakonomics authors Dubner and Levitt by writing to them on their blog.
  • Next, dash off an e-mail to Roberts, urging him to cut out the fructose and canola oil.
  • Contact psychologist Robert Rosenthal, who praises Roberts in the Times magazine piece.
  • Finally, spread the word to your friends and family by sending them the link to this blog entry.

Yeah, yeah, we’re all fully aware, as the media keep reminding us, that America is eager for the next diet craze.

But don’t down lots of sugar-water beverages, as Roberts suggests, because I highly doubt that following this diet will land you in the promised "Shangri-La."

The prof’s abyssmal diet is just as bad, if not worse, than that touted by actress Rachel McAdams ("Red Eye.")

In fact, I recently wrote about her maple syrup regimen (here "Big Boos…," here ("Experts Offer…") and here ("Nutritionist to the Stars…")

What gives? Why, within a couple of weeks, are we hearing such nutritional nonsense about sugary beverages being a "diet aid" from both an actress and then a pysch professor? So much for my end-of-summer fun.

Please, learn more about chemically derived fructose before you start a hazardous habit of slipping many spoonfuls of fructose sugar into your mouth to get rid of excess weight.

6 thoughts on “Freakonomics Duo Duped — Fructose Water Diet is Dangerous

  1. Hey Connie,
    Here are the comments I left at the blog of the authors of the New York Times story today:
    I cannot disagree more regarding a “diet” that urges people to drink sugar water to help them lose weight.
    As a 180-pound low-carb weight-loss success story in 2004, I credit overcoming my addiction to sugar as a major reason why I was so successful in my weight loss and my health has improved dramatically.
    Sugar is a lot more destructive to our bodies than people are willing to admit and any weight loss program that advocates consuming sugar as a major tenet causes me to become concerned.
    Please delve a little deeper into the science of this “diet” plan and see the long-term affects it will have on people who do it. I am disturbed by the potential harm that can and will be done to the people attempting to lose weight following the Roberts sugar diet. Hopefully you will find the error of your ways and write a follow-up article condemning it as it should be.
    THANKS for allowing me to share my thoughts!
    Jimmy Moore, “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Man”
    http://livinlavidalocarb.blogspot.com
    livinlowcarbman@charter.net
    Connie, I also blogged about your post at my blog to help spread the word about this terrible “diet.”
    It seems the more absurd a diet sounds, the better it looks in people’s eyes. They like to make fun of the Atkins diet for being strange — at least it is based on sound science and not some flim-flam diet scam like this one.
    THANKS for bringing this to our attention!
    Jimmy

  2. Surely there are two things which miss the point in this discussion–1) the argument about sugary things, ie cookies, making you want to have more. 2) Low carb dieting is both a way to loose weight and stop sugar cravings. Each in themselves are fine statements and worthy of heed. However, when applied to the problem of Robert’s Shangri-La Diet, fall on their own faces.
    Roberts is proposing a few tablespoons of sugar water a day. Sugar (fructose, sucrose, lactose–wouldn’t matter I suppose; honey + water might be better) and water–nothing else. Cookies have sugar, carbs, complex flavanoids and compounds which stimulate the brain in a myriad of ways. No wonder we have a hard time stopping at just one. However, how much of this sugar water is the average person likely to consume? One’s daily fix of coffee, or pop contain more than Roberts is suggesting consuming in a day.
    By tricking the brain with the amount of kilocalories contained in a bread roll, but without the carbs and other baggage of the roll–including sugars, the body is less likely to demand the carbs and sweets which is the usual case with consuming junk foods. Therefore the smallest amout of flavorless sugar water is actually preventing the vicious carb/sweet craving cycle. I don’t see why this should be so bothersome.
    As for canola oil in its standard form, Roberts is completely out of order. Standard Supermarket Canola oil is slow death. However, there are cold pressed, un-refined organic canola oils which lack the toxicity and heat-resistant properties of their cheaper, mass-market cousins. These unrefined oils also contain the un-destroyed omegas and anti-oxidnets which have been stripped from 90% of other canola oils with hexane.

  3. Bowden comes off looking pretty ignorant. Anyone who says, “After all, ever try to eat just one chocolate chip cookie?” so completely fails to understand Roberts’ theory that their opinion on it ceases to be valid.
    The study you link to about triglycerides had them consuming 17% of their calories from fructose; Roberts’ diet is less than 7%. The study also said the fructose diet had no effect on womens’ triglycerides.

  4. Here is a wonderful example of a scientist being attacked by a pseudo-science journalist.
    Problem is, you’re as terrible a journalist as you are scientist. Check your facts before you rant please. Fructose is naturally-occurring sugar found in fruits and starchy vegetables — not JUST corn. High-fructose CORN syrup is a culprit in many theories about obesity much the same way that hydrogenated oils are attributed to heart problems. They are both manufactured or altered from their natural state.
    You’re by far the most outspoken critic of Roberts’ ideology, and by far the least qualified to make such critiques.

  5. Jason, you are welcome to critique me, however, before you jump to do so, I suggest that you check your facts and see exactly what I said.
    As I stated previously, fructose is ONE of several sugars that naturally occur in fruit. However, the crystalline fructose such as that consumed by Roberts was not from fruit; it was chemically derived from corn.
    People do tend to get confused about the word “fructose,” as I’ve also noted previously.
    I am not faulting the naturally occurring fructose in fruit — in fact, I encourage people to eat some low-sugar fruits such as apples, strawberries, and grapefruit. (Just had an apple a little bit ago myself.)
    Also, before I spoke about this subject, I conferred with experts. I’m posting another item shortly about this subject to explain the matter further.
    Connie, Founder, http://www.SugarShockBlog.com

  6. Just read [the] Freakonomics [post] and started Googling about this [fructose] diet. I am wondering about trying it without fructose. Just olive oil. Any thoughts?
    Note from Connie: I’ll revisit this subject again. Stay tuned.

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