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Sweet Science: How Insights into Fructose Metabolism Are Helping to Fight Liver Disease

If you’re comparing calories, the two main types of dietary sugars — fructose and glucose — are exactly the same. (Sucrose, or table sugar, is a combination of fructose and glucose.) What makes fructose more harmful is the way the body metabolizes it. Unlike glucose, which is used by cells as an energy source, fructose is metabolized by the liver, where it promotes the synthesis of fat. In fact, some experts believe our bodies are not designed to handle this excess fructose. “In evolutionary history, it was a rare treat, where you might find fructose in a beehive or seasonal fruit, serving as an energy source when food was scarce. Now those with first-world diets have a constant onslaught...

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 Fructose: the poison index

Yes, fructose has a low glycaemic index of 19, because it doesn't increase blood glucose. It's fructose, for goodness sake. It increases blood fructose, which is way worse. Fructose causes seven times as much cell damage as does glucose, because it binds to cellular proteins seven times faster; and it releases 100 times the number of oxygen radicals (such as hydrogen peroxide, which kills everything in sight).

 How too much fructose may cause liver damage

FRUCTOSE is the sweetest of the natural sugars. As its name suggests, it is found mainly in fruits. Its job seems to be to appeal to the sweet tooths of the vertebrates these fruit have evolved to be eaten by, the better to scatter their seeds far and wide. Fructose is also, however, often added by manufacturers of food and drink, to sweeten their products and make them appeal to one species of vertebrate in particular, namely Homo sapiens. And that may be a problem, because too much fructose in the diet seems to be associated with liver disease and type 2 diabetes.

 Is fructose bad for you?

One of many controversies mixing up the field of nutrition is whether the use of high-fructose corn syrup in soft drinks and other foods is causing the paired epidemics of obesity and diabetes that are sweeping the United States and the world. I’ve ignored this debate because it never made sense to me—high-fructose corn syrup is virtually identical to the refined sugar it replaces. A presentation I heard yesterday warns that the real villain may be fructose—a form of sugar found in fruits, vegetables, and honey. It may not matter whether it’s in high-fructose corn syrup, refined sugar, or any other sweetener.

Articles of Interest

Being Happy With Sugar

The amount of sugar Americans consumed before the late twentieth century was trivial compared to what we eat today, Popkin noted. “We’re in a whole new world of sugar consumption. It’s not just beverages; it’s in all the foods. And we don’t really know what that means to our health. We know that we face an epidemic of things like fatty liver disease. Not just obesity, not just diabetes, but many other problems that could potentially be related to all the sugar. We think from some studies that fructose could be responsible, but we don’t have slam-dunk evidence on any of it.”

Even Fruit Might Be Ruining Your Diet

A recent study suggests that the sugar commonly found in fruit can increase cravings for unhealthy foods. Fructose-drinkers were even willing to forgo cold hard cash in exchange for the instantaneous prospect of tasting greasy grub.

Health implications of fructose consumption: A review of recent data

The issue of dietary fructose and health is linked to the quantity consumed, which is the same issue for any macro- or micro nutrients.

If sugar is so bad for us, why is the sugar in fruit OK?

But fructose is only harmful in excess amounts, and not when it comes from fruit. It would be incredibly difficult to consume excessive amounts of fructose by eating whole fruits. It’s much easier to consume excess sugar from foods and drinks that contain “free sugars”.

Is Fructose Actually Bad For You? 5 Truths You Need to Know

Based on most evidence, it appears that modest fructose intake (~0-80 grams per day) does not pose substantial health risks. However, typically, as fructose intake gets higher, it is associated with a higher intake of fructose from processed, energy-dense foods and not from fruit. It is also associated with other unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking, alcohol consumption, and low physical activity.

Let's Talk Fructose: Why Agave Nectar May Not Be Much Better Than High Fructose Corn Syrup

But more info is coming out on agave, and while it is a natural sweetener, and no, it's not going to kill you, there is something about it that bothers me--something I've been reading more about lately. Thing this is, much of the agave nectar on the market is loaded--and I mean loaded--with fructose. According to some experts, it's sort of like nature's high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

Risks: Fructose Intake Is Linked to Visceral Fat

“To just say ‘fructose is bad’ is incorrect,” said Norman K. Pollock, the lead author and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Georgia Health Sciences University. “But when calorie intake from fructose is greater than 16 percent of total intake, we’re seeing these risk factors appear.”

Study: Another Bad Thing About Fructose

Fructose appears to affect the brain differently than does glucose, failing to signal fullness and thus potentially contributing to overeating.

Sugar, not fat, exposed as deadly villain in obesity epidemic

Cutting calories is not the answer because "a calorie is not a calorie". The effect of a calorie in sugar is different from the effect of a calorie in lean grass-fed beef. And added sugar is often disguised in food labelling under carbohydrates and myriad different names, from glucose to diastatic malt and dextrose. Fructose – contained in many different types of sugar – is the biggest problem, and high-fructose corn syrup, used extensively by food manufacturers in the US, is the main source of it.

Teasing Out Fact From Hype In The War On Fructose

The nitty-gritty on sugar.

The Frenzy Over Fructose

Some critics of current fructose research question the usefulness of singling out fructose.

Vulnerability to Fructose Varies, Health Study Finds

“There’s no question that fructose is a sugar that promotes fat storage in the liver,” said Christopher B. Newgard, the director of the Sarah W. Stedman Nutrition and Metabolism Center at Duke University School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study. “In that sense, it’s a sugar that is a bad actor in the development of metabolic syndrome and Type 2 diabetes.”

What role does fructose have in weight gain?

So what are we to make of all this? At this relatively early stage in our attempts to elucidate the role fructose may play in the epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes, it’s probably safe to conclude that very high fructose intake can have serious and adverse metabolic effects in humans. But there’s no convincing evidence to support the claim that fructose is the sole cause of these epidemics, or that fructose intake at moderate doses is harmful.