The Formula Deception: Unmasking the Dangers of Infant Formula - AI Podcast

Dr. Joseph Mercola - Take Control of Your Health

Briana Mercola

Health & Fitness, Health, Alternative Health

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 11 April 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Story at-a-glance

The infant formula industry has almost 100 billion dollars in annual sales. This was accomplished by unscrupulous marketing that trained doctors and parents to discard breastfeeding and tricked them into believing infant formula is "safe and effective"
Infant formula is full of corn syrup and seed oils, which cause metabolic dysfunction and excessive weight gain. Remarkably, that weight gain has been normalized, making it possible to diagnose normal children as "underweight" and thereby push formula on them
Infant formula is full of seed oils due to a 1980 law requires infant formula to be full of seed oils (due to a 1963 study that concluded those fats were essential for infant development). Since then, a mountain of evidence has emerged showing they're quite harmful, but no one ever got around to updating the 1980 formula requirements. RFK Jr. is thus the first H.H.S. Secretary ever to attempt to address this colossal mistake
In contrast, breast milk (in conjunction with a nutritious maternal diet) is one of the healthiest substances an infant can consume, providing a myriad of benefits including developing the infant’s brain, gut, and immune system, decreasing many serious diseases, enhancing the critical mother-child bond, and reducing the mother's risk of many severe illnesses (e.g., cancer)
Before the introduction of infant formula, mothers would often supplement their children's diets with animal milks. If raw, these milks can yield significant benefits to children, while in contrast, when pasteurized, they have many issues (e.g., they frequently create allergies and asthma)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Dr. Mercola's Cellular Wisdom. Stay informed with quick, easy-to-listen
0:06.1	summaries of our latest articles, perfect for when you're on the go. No reading required. Subscribe
0:11.2	for free at Mercola.com for the latest health insights.
0:14.2	Hello and welcome to Dr. Mercola's Cellular Wisdom. I'm Ethan Foster, and today we're
0:20.4	going to discuss the powerful
0:21.9	forces behind the infant formula industry and why breastfeeding remains one of the most
0:26.9	effective ways to nurture a child. With me is my co-host, the Lara Sky. We'll be looking
0:33.1	at the history of formula, the inclusion of seed oils, and other controversial ingredients, and the
0:38.6	remarkable benefits of breast milk. Thank you, Ethan. I'm glad we're covering this topic
0:43.6	because many people may not realize just how large and influential the infant formula industry
0:48.4	has become. It's said to be approaching $100 billion in annual sales, and much of its growth was achieved through
0:55.5	aggressive marketing. Many of these tactics taught both doctors and parents to move away from
1:00.9	breastfeeding, believing that formula was automatically safe and effective.
1:06.2	That's an important starting point. One key factor is that infant formulas often contain ingredients like
1:12.6	corn syrup and seed oils, which can cause metabolic dysfunction and lead to excessive weight gain in children.
1:19.6	For decades, this weight gain was treated as the new normal, making naturally fed babies sometimes appear under weight by comparison.
1:26.6	It's a cycle that continues with pediatric
1:29.2	growth charts sometimes favoring the heavier weights of formula-fed infants. Precisely. Many people
1:35.3	are unaware that there's actually a regulation dating back to 1980, tied to a 1963 study,
1:41.8	which requires infant formula to be high in linoleic acid from seed oils.
1:46.4	These rules have never really been updated in line with newer research, which now indicates
1:51.2	that excessive seed oils can lead to inflammation and other health issues.
	...

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