From: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/03/whats-really-making-us-fat/254087/?utm_source=atlfb


What's Really Making Us Fat?

Bruce Blumberg says that fructose itself is an obesogen. "Crystalline fructose doesn't exist in nature, we're making that," he says. 
"Fructose is not a food. People think fructose comes from fruit but it doesn't. The fructose that we eat is synthesized. 
Yes, it's derived from food. But cyanide is derived from food, too. Would you call it a food?"

Robert H. Lustig, a pediatric neuroendocrinologist and a professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, also believes that fructose is an obesogen. 
"I personally do lump fructose in with [obesogens]," he told me in an email. 
"There are those who don't, because fructose is a nutrient, and they want to think of an obesogen as a foreign chemical. 
But because fructose tricks the brain into eating more in a free-range situation, it has some properties consistent with an obesogen."

Lustig is another researcher and doctor who finds fault in the calories in, calories out model. 
"I don't believe in the energy balance model, which is calorie-centric," he says. 
"I believe in the fat deposition model, which is insulin-centric. The reason is that by altering insulin dynamics, 
you can alter both caloric consumption and physical activity behavior. This has been my research for the past 16 years." 
What Lustig means is that by increasing circulating insulin -- often as a result of consuming too much fructose -- 
people become hungrier and more fatigued, which results in overeating and little motivation to exercise.