Robert H. Lustig

Dr. Robert Lustig is Professor of Pediatric Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Lustig has become a leading public health authority on the impact sugar has on fueling the diabetes, obesity and metabolic syndrome epidemics, and on addressing changes in the food environment to reverse these chronic diseases.

Dr. Lustig is a neuroendocrinologist, with basic and clinical training relative to hypothalamic development, anatomy, and function. In his New York Times best-selling book "Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processes Food, Obesity, and Disease," Dr. Lustig documents both the science and the politics that have led to the current pandemic of obesity and chronic disease. In the "Fat Chance Cookbook," Dr. Lustig provides practical examples for applying healthy eating principles with recipes by Cindy Gershen. His acclaimed YouTube video, “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” continues its popularity with the lay public.

A native of Brooklyn, New York, Dr. Lustig went to Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1976, and received his M.D. from Cornell University Medical College in 1980. He completed his pediatric residency at St. Louis Children’s Hospital in 1983, and his clinical fellowship at UCSF in 1984. From there, he spent six years as a post-doctoral fellow and research associate in neuroendocrinology at Rockefeller University. He has also been a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Tennessee, Memphis. In 2013, Dr. Lustig received his master's in the study of law from the University of California, Hastings, to enable him to impact the food industry through policy change.

Dr. Lustig has authored 125 peer-reviewed articles and 73 reviews. He has mentored 20 pediatric endocrine fellows and trained numerous other allied health professionals. He provides endocrinologic support to several protocols of the Children’s Oncology Group. He is the former Chairman of the Ad hoc Obesity Task Force of the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society, a member of the Pediatric Obesity Practice Guidelines Subcommittee of The Endocrine Society, a member of the Obesity Task Force of the Endocrine Society, a member of the Pediatric Obesity Devices Committee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a member of the Bay Area Board of Directors of the American Heart Association, and a member of the Steering Committee of Health Foods, Healthy Kids of the Culinary Institute of America. He also consults for several childhood obesity advocacy groups.