HWN Suggests

Fructose – The sweet nectar of body fat?

The liver is the major site of fructose metabolism. In the liver, fructose can be converted to glucose derivatives and stored as liver glycogen – which is good if you’re physically active.

However, the liver’s ability to do this is limited – which isn’t so good. Indeed, with very high single-serving doses of fructose, the fructose that arrives at the liver can easily be converted to fat. And this is very much more prominent in clients with high blood lipids, insulin resistance, or Type 2 diabetes.

read full article

Articles of Interest

Dietary Fructose and the Metabolic Syndrome

A large body of evidence associate consumption of fructose and other sugar-sweetened beverages with insulin resistance, intrahepatic lipid accumulation, and hypertriglyceridemia.

Fructose Consumption in the Development of Obesity and the Effects of Different Protocols of Physical Exercise on the Hepatic Metabolism

Studies indicate that fructose may be a carbohydrate with greater obesogenic potential than other sugars. In this context, the liver seems to be a key organ for understanding the deleterious health effects promoted by fructose consumption.

Fructose contributes to obesity by changing cells

Goncalves added that humans did not evolve to eat what they eat now. “Fructose is nearly ubiquitous in modern diets, whether it comes from high-fructose corn syrup, table sugar, or from natural foods like fruit,” he said. “Fructose itself is not harmful. It's a problem of overconsumption. Our bodies were not designed to eat as much of it as we do.”

Fructose: A Key Factor in the Development of Metabolic Syndrome and Hypertension

Several reviews have concluded that intake of both fructose and HFCS by children and adults was associated with an increased risk of obesity and metabolic syndrome. However, not all published meta-analyses have reported a statistically significant link.

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 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.

Research shows fructose increases body fat and decreases physical activity

Research in Justin Rhodes' laboratory found that, matched calorie for calorie with the simple sugar glucose, fructose causes significant weight gain, physical inactivity, and body fat deposition.

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.”

The Evils of Fructose

If you have a lot of fructose in your diet, it only has one place to go: your liver. If your liver glycogen levels are full, which is the case all times of the day except before you eat breakfast, then that fructose is turned into fat! Since your liver doesn’t want to store this new fat, it ships it to other parts of your body; places you don’t want it, like your abdomen or lower back.

The human brain makes fructose, researchers discover – here’s why that might be a big deal

This data is very exciting but does need to be approached with some caution. As only eight subjects were included in the study, it is difficult to apply the findings to larger populations. It would be interesting to repeat the experiment in people who have diabetes, to show if this effect also occurs due to normal fluctuations in blood-glucose levels.

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.