Dr Robert Lustig is a Professor emeritus of Paediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco, where he specialized in neuroendocrinology and childhood obesity. 

He is also a bestselling author of books including 'Fat Chance', 'Sugar has 56 Names', and 'The Hacking of the American Mind', and has just released a new book called 'Metabolical'.

In this video, Dr Lustig addresses the thorny question of whether and how sugar may be ‘addictive’:

• Sugar, Hormones and Addiction

From this accessible but in-depth presentation, listeners will gain an understanding of:
 

• How the brain’s ‘reward system’ reacts to dietary sugar

• The roles of the key hormones leptin and insulin in weight gain

• How neuroendocrinology (brain hormones) can influence energy balance – i.e. the balance between ‘calories in, and calories out’

• How chronic hyperinsulinemia promotes metabolic problems, including obesity

---