How have diet trends over the last couple of decades impacted health? Elizabeth Tracey reports
Podcast: Download (1.5MB)
Subscribe: RSS
The medical establishment took on fats as problematic in the 1960s, with the result that food manufacturers switched to sugars and refined carbs instead, and the obesity epidemic ensued. Johns Hopkins surgeon Marty Makary says obesity is just one result, in his new book called ‘Blind Spots.’
Makary: In order to get the fat out you have to pump food with refined carbohydrates and added sugar. That drives inflammation. We now recognize it's the refined carbohydrates, added sugar, the ultra processed foods, pesticides perhaps and maybe even the micro plastics that we consume now, not only do they perhaps alter the microbiome in our gut, microplastics have estrogen binding like properties. We've seen the age of puberty go down every year in the United States. We have the earliest age of puberty than in any other country in the world. :34
Makary says it’s incumbent on the medical world to advocate for changes in our food supply, in the name of health. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.