#252: The Latest Science on How to Turn Your Body’s Fat Storage Switch Off with Dr. Richard Johnson

Dhru Purohit Show

Dhru Purohit

Alternative Health, Medicine, Health & Fitness

4.7 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2021

⏱️ 121 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode is brought to you by InsideTracker. Why do we get fat? As Americans have gotten heavier over the past century, and disease rates have skyrocketed, there have been many theories: We’re eating too much fat. Too many carbs. An excess of sugar. Is it our lifestyle or our diet that’s to blame? Or could there be a single common cause that explains the sharp increase in not only obesity, but conditions as disparate as heart disease, cancer, and dementia? This week on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru sat down with Dr. Richard Johnson to talk about his team’s discovery of the fructose-powered survival switch—a metabolic pathway that animals in nature turn on and off as needed, but that our modern diet has permanently fixed in the on position, becoming a fat switch—and how it has revolutionized the way we think about why we gain weight. Dr. Richard Johnson is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado in Denver and has been a practicing physician and clinical scientist for over 25 years. He is internationally recognized for his seminal work on the role of sugar and its component fructose, in obesity and diabetes. His work has also suggested a fundamental role for uric acid (which is generated during fructose metabolism) in metabolic syndrome. His new book is entitled Nature Wants Us to Be Fat and will be published on February 8, 2022. In this episode, we dive into: -Why nature wants us to get fat and why it’s important for survival (5:44) -What triggers the fat storage switch (9:05) -The central function of uric acid in the body (16:32) -How uric acid, previously thought of only in terms of gout, is actually playing a central role in metabolic disorders (20:54) -Understanding the difference between fructose and glucose (26:12) -Why obesity is not a calories in, calories out problem (29:38) -Why it’s fructose (not glucose) that drives insulin resistance and metabolic disease (49:51) -The survival switch: why humans become fat (1:10:38) -Alcohol consumption and obesity (1:33:54) -The surprising role salt and dehydration play in fat accumulation (1:48:45) Also mentioned in this episode: -Nature Wants Us to Be Fat: The Surprising Science Behind Why We Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent—and Reverse—It - https://benbellabooks.com/shop/nature-wants-us-to-be-fat/. For more on Dhru Purohit, follow him on Instagram @dhrupurohit, and on YouTube @dhrupurohit. You can also text Dhru at (302) 200-5643. This episode is brought to you by InsideTracker. InsideTracker looks at everything from metabolic and inflammatory markers to nutrients and hormones. Traditional lab tests can be hard to read on your own, but InsideTracker makes their results easy to understand and provides tips on how to use food first for optimal nutrition. Right now, they’re offering my podcast community 25% off. Just go to insidetracker.com/DHRU. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	So there's two major foods that are driving obesity. One is sugar and fruit dose generation
0:08.2	from like from high glycemic carbs. And the other is salt, which creates dehydration. And that
0:14.7	also stimulates fruit dose production and drives fat. Hi, Juan Drupurot here. Did you know that
0:22.4	nature actually designed us to get fat? It's part of a survival mechanism and it was a big part
0:31.2	of our evolutionary history. But now that survival mechanism has gotten out of control. And Dr. Rick
0:38.4	Johnson, who's the world's foremost expert in this area with over 700 publications written on this
0:44.6	topic, is going to teach us how to break out of it. So if you want to learn about the science of why
0:50.3	we get fat and why nature wanted us to be fat, but how it's gotten out of control, this episode is
0:56.7	for you. Have you ever gone to your doctor for your normal annual physical? And after sitting
1:03.6	with them for 10 minutes, they quickly look at your labs and tell you, Hey, everything looks normal.
1:10.0	Keep it up and I'll see you again next year. Maybe even give you a nice little pat on the back.
1:14.5	I can't tell you how many listeners the podcast have told me that they've had this exact experience
1:20.0	and how honestly how frustrating it can be. Now, we all know that normal isn't always optimal
1:27.3	just because some things are not wrong doesn't mean that we feel great. So traditional medicine is
1:34.1	great at finding out when something is blatantly wrong, but they don't always do the best job when
1:40.2	we need to highlight how we can do better. So what if you could get detailed nutritional and lifestyle
1:47.4	guidance based on your individual needs? That's what inside tracker does inside tracker was founded
1:55.5	in 2009 by top scientists from acclaimed universities in the field of aging genetics and biometrics.
2:03.2	It's mission is to help people live long healthy productive lives by optimizing their bodies from
2:09.2	the inside out inside tracker is cutting edge technology and it looks at your blood DNA lifestyle
2:16.7	and it has fitness tracker data and they give you science backed recommendations for positive
2:23.1	changes to your daily habits. It's all about the daily habits. With their app, you can track your
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