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  • Nature Wants Us to Be Fat

  • The Surprising Science Behind Why We Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent - and Reverse - It
  • By: Richard J. Johnson MD
  • Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
  • Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (33 ratings)
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Nature Wants Us to Be Fat

By: Richard J. Johnson MD
Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
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Summary

Nature puts a “survival switch” in our bodies to protect us from starvation. Stuck in the “on” position, it’s the hidden source of weight gain, heart disease, and many other common health struggles. But you can turn it off.

Dr. Richard Johnson has been on the cutting edge of research into the cause of obesity for more than a decade. 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, where it becomes a fat switch - revolutionized the way we think about why we gain weight. 

In Nature Wants Us to Be Fat, he details the mounting evidence on how this switch is responsible both for excess fat storage and for many of the major diseases endemic to the Western world, including heart disease, cancer, and dementia. Dr. Johnson also reveals the surprising link between the survival switch and health conditions such as gout, kidney disease, liver disease, stroke - and even behavioral issues like addiction and ADHD. And, most important, he shares a science-based plan to help listeners fight back against nature.

Guided by ongoing clinical research - plus fascinating observations from the animal kingdom, evolution, and history - Dr. Johnson takes you along on an eye-opening investigation into: 

  • What you can do to turn off your survival switch
  • What we have in common with hibernating bears, sperm whales, and the world’s fattest bird
  • Why it’s fructose (not glucose) that drives insulin resistance and metabolic disease
  • The foods we eat that trigger the body to make its own fructose
  • The surprising role salt and dehydration play in fat accumulation

Dr. Johnson not only provides new recommendations for how we can prevent or treat obesity, but also how we can use this information to reduce our risk of developing disease. Nature wants us to be fat, and when we understand why, we gain the tools we need to lose weight and optimize our health. 

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Richard Johnson (P)2022 Audible, Inc.

What listeners say about Nature Wants Us to Be Fat

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good but could have been better

The author clearly understands his area of research and the two sugar theory may help to understand the 2 compartment problem and this is the main takeaway for me.

However he strays into subject areas like salt’s impact on health and a cholesterol model from the mid 20th Century without the same rigour and this undermines the book as a whole.

What would be brilliant is for someone to do a meta analysis of all the research on mitrocondria, MToR, AMPK, survival switch, fat development, macro and micro nutrients etc and come up with a more complete model of health rather than do a bit of very focussed research which has some merit on its own but then just slam other models willy-nilly around it to give more gravitas.

I would also have preferred a English narrator…

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7 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

controversial theory not convincingly backed up

I understood the argument that getting fat is a survival process gone awry in the human context. I just didn't feel there's enough Rct or epidemiological evidence that fructose , dehydration etc I had already read The Fat Switch and wasn't sure this added to that given the ambiguous reasearch results

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4 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Mostly good new information

The material is very new and radical and if true will turn things on their head in the healthcare industry. However one concern, he talks about the long since debunked "LDL is bad cholesterol" theory. Many recent studies have concluded that LDL is health giving as a lipid. It's actually the damaged small dense LDL that's very harmful. The LDL is more likely to be damaged by a high GI diet than from eating cholesterol. Although a high fat diet boosts LDL levels the healthy LDL ratio is FAR greater than in a high GI diet.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Very informative. Worth reading.

Well narrated book with insights concerning metabolic syndrome. The book is based on scientifical studies comparing different types of diet and which one is more suited for people with diabetes type 2, overweight, sugar addiction, etc. The writer talks about the switch diet, keto diet, mediterranean diet and paleo and how to turn off the survival mode (based on carbs and retain them, galning weight) and how to turn on the burn mode (burning fat).

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Informative and detailed exploration of fat switch hypothesis

Most detailed exploration and expansion on uric acid impact on obesity. Uncovers some uncomfortable evidence that should be unnerving to the international sugar cartel if known by the public.

Most likely it will be suppressed, defunded or ridiculed,

A fair bit of repetition in the chapters though I think acceptable given the complexity of the topic. Recommend highly.

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

very useful Insights.

Book was really good and I finished it in a couple days!(which says a lot for me) Narrator was good and for a book based on science was easy to understand.

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Eye opener

Very interesting read! Highly recommended.
Opened my eyes on many aspects, which i had no idea about before reading this book.
Easy to listen to.

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