Metabolical by Robert H. Lustig

METABOLICAL by Robert H. Lustig (Fat Chance and The Hacking of the American Mind) is subtitled “The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine.” And the author, a trained physician and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco, refers to the text as “medical heresy” because of its strident appeal to the profession to focus more on nutrition, diet, and healthier eating. In fact, he offers an entire chapter titled “Assembling the Clues to Diagnose Yourself” which will likely add anxiety to those of us who are considered well within the “normal” range by our time-pressed physicians. Lustig argues that overly processed foods, particularly those with added sugars and salt, are contributing to disease (such as cancer, dementia, diabetes, hypertension or heart issues) in the United States. He points out that physicians should be spending greater effort promoting changes in lifestyle and eating habits, rather than waiting for disease symptoms to appear and need treatment. For added perspective and numerous relevant examples, he devotes a chapter each to What and How Adults Eat; What and How Children and Adolescents Eat; and What and How Fetuses, Infants, and Toddlers Eat. Subsequent sections discuss public policy, including educational campaigns, changes in law and economics (taxes, subsidies, etc.), and incentivizing real food. This thought-provoking book with certainly be of interest to student researchers. METABOLICAL received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.