The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains

by Robert H. Lustig

Overview

"Explores how industry has manipulated our most deep-seated survival instincts."—David Perlmutter, MD, Author, #1 New York Times bestseller, Grain Brain and Brain Maker

The New York Times–bestselling author of Fat Chance reveals the corporate scheme to sell pleasure, driving the international epidemic of addiction, depression, and chronic disease.
 
While researching the toxic and addictive properties of sugar for his New York Times bestseller Fat Chance, Robert Lustig made an alarming discovery—our pursuit of happiness is being subverted by a culture of addiction and depression from which we may never recover.
           
Dopamine is the “reward” neurotransmitter that tells our brains we want more; yet every substance or behavior that releases dopamine in the extreme leads to addiction. Serotonin is the “contentment” neurotransmitter that tells our brains we don’t need any more; yet its deficiency leads to depression. Ideally, both are in optimal supply. Yet dopamine evolved to overwhelm serotonin—because our ancestors were more likely to survive if they were constantly motivated—with the result that constant desire can chemically destroy our ability to feel happiness, while sending us down the slippery slope to addiction. In the last forty years, government legislation and subsidies have promoted ever-available temptation (sugar, drugs, social media, porn) combined with constant stress (work, home, money, Internet), with the end result of an unprecedented epidemic of addiction, anxiety, depression, and chronic disease. And with the advent of neuromarketing, corporate America has successfully imprisoned us in an endless loop of desire and consumption from which there is no obvious escape.
           
With his customary wit and incisiveness, Lustig not only reveals the science that drives these states of mind, he points his finger directly at the corporations that helped create this mess, and the government actors who facilitated it, and he offers solutions we can all use in the pursuit of happiness, even in the face of overwhelming opposition. Always fearless and provocative, Lustig marshals a call to action, with seminal implications for our health, our well-being, and our culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101982945
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/18/2018
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	139,216
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.94(d)

About the Author

Robert H. Lustig, M.D., MSL, is professor of pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology and a member of the Institute for Health Policy Studies at University of California, San Francisco. He has authored 120 peer-reviewed articles and 70 reviews, as well as Fat Chance, The Fat Chance Cookbook, and Metabolical. He has mentored 30 pediatric endocrine fellows and trained numerous other allied health professionals. He is the former chairman of the Obesity Task Force of the Pediatric Endocrine Society, a member of the Obesity Task Force of the Endocrine Society, and a member of the Pediatric Obesity Devices Committee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He is also the president of the nonprofit Institute for Responsible Nutrition, dedicated to reversing childhood obesity and Type 2 Diabetes. He consults for several childhood obesity advocacy groups and government agencies.

Read an Excerpt

Once upon a time we were happy. Then the snake showed up. And we've been miserable ever since. Hieronymus Bosch's painting Garden of Earthly Delights (circa 1500) is a triptych housed in the Prado in Madrid. It is an allegorical warning of what happens when we squander our birthright of happiness divined from God in one garden and move on to the pleasures of the flesh in the next garden, with the inevitable result of eternal damnation. Figures. Our most lauded goal in life-to be happy-is seemingly an illusion, out of reach for us common folk. Except the rich aren't any happier. Happiness seems to be a mirage, something to chase after, to keep us turning over rocks, kissing frogs, and trying to fit keys into the magic lock.
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Hacking of the American Mind"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Robert H. Lustig.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part I A Few Fries Short of a Happy Meal

1 The Garden of Earthly Delights 17

2 Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places 26

Part II Reward-The Agony of Ecstasy

3 Desire and Dopamine, Pleasure and Opioids 45

4 Killing Jiminy: Stress, Fear, and Cortisol 60

5 The Descent into Hades 69

6 The Purification of Addiction 84

Part III Contentment-The Bluebird of Happiness

7 Contentment and Serotonin 97

8 Picking the Lock to Nirvana 109

9 What You Eat in Private You Wear in Public 122

10 Self-Inflicted Misery: The Dopamine-Cortisol-Serotonin Connection 137

Part IV Slaves to the Machine: How Did We Get Hacked?

11 Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness? 151

12 Gross National Unhappiness 165

13 Extreme Makeover-Washington Edition 175

14 Are You "Lovin' It"? Or "Liking It"? 186

15 The Death Spiral 204

Part V Out of Our Minds-In Search of the Four Cs

16 Connect (Religion, Social Support, Conversation) 221

17 Contribute (Self-Worth, Altruism, Volunteerism, Philanthropy) 236

18 Cope (Sleep, Mindfulness, Exercise) 250

19 Cook (for Yourself, Your Friends, Your Family) 267

Epilogue 282

Acknowledgments 287

Glossary 293

Notes 299

Index 333

Editorial Reviews

"Our health, resistance to disease, and ability to function on a day-to-day basis have essentially been hijacked, all in the name of corporate profits. Dr. Lustig explores how industry has manipulated our most deep-seated survival instincts to motivate our food choices in a way that directly undermines our ability to survive. But more importantly, The Hacking of the American Mind eloquently reveals how we can disengage from this influence and re-establish ourselves on a path to wellness."
—David Perlmutter, MD, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, Grain Brain and Brain Maker

“A provocative, persuasive plea to stop seeking the wrong kind of happiness. Take it from the neuroscientist/endocrinologist who sounded the alarm about sugar: chasing rewards is far less rewarding than finding contentment.”
—Adam Grant, author of New York Times bestsellers Originals and Give and Take, and coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Option B

"Robert Lustig takes on one of the greatest paradoxes of our time: how can it be that we have more sources of pleasure than ever before in human history, and yet are increasingly sick, broke, and unhappy? By deftly weaving together neuroscience, history, economics, and more, he provides a much-needed explanation of how the 'pernicious peddling of pleasure' causes real happiness to elude so many of us — and also provides a desperately needed roadmap for escaping the pleasure trap."
—Sharon Begley, coauthor of the New York Times best seller The Emotional Life of Your Brain

"Pleasure and happiness are not the same thing – as our addictions to everything from unhealthy food to cellphones show. In this book, Dr. Lustig unpacks the science of pleasure versus happiness to explain the true causes of the last 40 years of addiction, depression, and disease. The good news is that the solution is easy — well, maybe not so easy — put down your cellphone. And sleep. You’ll be happier, and you’ll live longer!"
—Arianna Huffington, author of the New York Times best seller The Sleep Revolution

"Dr. Robert Lustig examines our culture of illness, an industry-created fog that, despite our best efforts to cope, has left us stressed, isolated, addicted, and depressed. With The Hacking of the American Mind, he empowers us with the science of mind, brain, and love in a delightful, insightful, and humorous way. You can live by pursuing pleasure, sugar-coated as 'happiness,' or you can read this book."   
—Elissa Epel, coauthor of the New York Times best seller The Telomere Effect

From the Publisher

07/03/2017
Pediatric endocrinologist Lustig (The Fat Chance Cookbook, with Heather Millar) makes his unoriginal thesis very clear up front: Americans are miserable and suffer from addiction, depression, and illness because American culture, corporations, and pop psychology promote dopamine-based pleasure and reward over serotonin-mediated contentment and happiness. The result is a “death spiral” for physical and psychological health. Lustig’s strongest tool in making this argument is his ability to lucidly explain neuroscience, specifically regarding the neural pathways developed by pleasure-seeking behaviors and cortisol-driving chronic stress. He also reiterates ideas from his previous books, which share an obsession with a generalized “metabolic syndrome” as the core American affliction and sugar as the most obviously guilty culprit. Though his tone remains authoritative, Lustig’s reach here exceeds his expertise as he also points his finger at antagonists as varied as social media, Big Pharma’s and Big Food’s marketing strategies, and the federal government’s administration of Social Security. His “four Cs” solution—connect, contribute, cope, and cook—urges a return to a slowed-down style of life from before the rise of fast food and the internet. Lustig aims at big thinking but his exposé is mostly unshocking, his ideas rehashed rather than cutting-edge, and his advice curmudgeonly, albeit also humanistic and sensible. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

2017-07-03
I want my MTV—and my doughnuts and my meth. Thus the American mind, racing to attain rewards that entire industries are glad to supply.Lustig (Pediatric Endocrinology/Univ. of California, San Francisco; Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease, 2012, etc.), the chief officer of the nonprofit EatREAL, has written widely on the obesity epidemic, particularly among younger Americans. Here, branching out into realms such as neuroscience, sociology, and even theology, he looks at the reward system whereby the brain lives and dies via serotonin, cortisol, and dopamine, chemicals that drive us to have that one piece of cake too many—or to smoke, snort cocaine, stare into our cellphones, and watch game shows. Medical specialists treat effects, he argues, whereas we should be looking into root causes: not just the chemistry of the brain, driven to seek reward and vulnerable to falling into addiction, but also the economic machine that creates vast industries devoted to choking processed foods with reward-delivering sugar and putting an opioid-supplying pharmacy on every street corner. That economic machine is massively parasitic and spectacularly successful. Lustig leaves it to readers to connect the dots—as he writes, early on, "I'm not going to stick my neck so far out as to say that there has been a conspiracy between different industries and the government to purposefully inflict malice on the public"—and there are plenty of dots to connect. With so much to condemn, the argument is sometimes loose and scattershot, but there's a lot to write about in the vast subject of how the brain works and how capitalism aims to satisfy its every craving, no matter how harmful to body, mind, and society. At the edges where popular science and popular social criticism meet, with interesting if not always sharply limned arguments.

Kirkus Reviews