The dark side of sugar

[Nancy LC]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/06/25/health/webmd/main2974870.shtml

Cane sugar has a dark side, a provocative new study shows.

The sweetener we call sugar is actually a double sugar. Half is the sugar called glucose, the body's most basic fuel. The other half is another sugar called fructose. Researchers have suspected that fructose is a bad actor, but the evidence so far has been circumstantial.

Can fructose really be worse for you than glucose? University of California, Davis researchers Peter J. Havel, PhD, Kimber Stanhope, and colleagues designed a clever study to find out.

First, they brought 23 overweight or obese adults, ranging in age from 43 to 70, into their clinical center. For two weeks, the volunteers' diets were strictly controlled. They got a high-carb (55%), moderate-fat (30%) diet that was balanced to give them no more energy than they spent in exercise. After measuring their heart disease risk factors, such as blood fats, cholesterol, and weight, the researchers set them free.

Then for eight weeks, the volunteers were allowed to eat whatever they wanted except for one thing. Each person had to drink three sweetened beverages every day -- which gave them 25% of their recommended daily energy intake.Half the subjects drank beverages sweetened with pure glucose. The other half got beverages sweetened with pure fructose. The researchers continued to test them for heart risk factors.

After the eight weeks, the volunteers again were confined to the clinical center, where they continued to drink their assigned beverages but had to return to an energy-balanced diet.

Just two weeks after they started drinking the beverages, the dark side of sugar became apparent. Those who drank fructose-sweetened beverages showed signs of increasing risk of heart disease. Those who drank glucose-sweetened beverages did not.

The fructose drinkers' LDL "bad" cholesterol, blood fats, and other signs of worsening heart risk all increased. And alarmingly, their insulin sensitivity decreased -- a sign that their diabetes risk was increasing, too.To add insult to injury, the fructose drinkers gained about 3 pounds, while the glucose drinkers didn't gain weight.

"Most people get the majority of the added sugars in their diet from beverages," Havel tells WebMD. "We saw a lot of changes happen in just two weeks of drinking these beverages -- and in real life, people don't do this just for two or 10 weeks but as a lifelong habit. They are potentially exposing themselves to cardiovascular risk."

The news may be worse. Stanhope says that preliminary data from new studies show that regular sugar and high-fructose corn syrup each seem to have the same effect as fructose alone -- even though both are only about half fructose and half glucose (normal corn syrup is 100% glucose).

It's still far too early to draw any conclusions from the new study. But Stanhope says it's unlikely anybody is going to apply the health-food label to sweetened soft drinks.

"It doesn't look like a good idea to drink a lot of soft drinks," Stanhope tells WebMD. "We were feeding people at the rate of three sodas a day. Some do drink that much, some people in real life do more, and some have only one a day. Give me two years, and we will know a lot more about the safe level."

Stanhope reported the findings at the American Diabetes Association's 67th
Annual Scientific Sessions, held June 22-26 in Chicago.

[Dodger]

The sweet fruits that the dietary establishment recommends people eat lots of are high in fructose. Fruits and vegetables are not the same thing.

[LC FP]

Stanhope's car probably will inexplicably blow up some morning.

[Nancy LC]

The "Sugar Mafia"? :)

[mike_d]

Modern fruits are indeed just candy:

http://wilstar.com/lowcarb/fruit.htm

People often ask me how they can improve on their health and I first tell them to "cut out the soda pop."

[PhoenixEav]

This is an article I found on WebMD. I found it interesting, considering they seemed to just now find out that fructose (the kind of sugar found in fruit) is really bad for you and for blood sugar, and that a ton of people on here think it's OK to eat the stuff (I NEVER touch it!!)

Basically, it says that it has worse effects as far as blood sugar/insulin than probably eating cookies or something. If you don't believe it, look it up on Google, I've found a lot of info about fructose and why it's bad...Anyways, here ya go:




Fructose: Sugar's Dark Side?
Study: Fructose Increases Heart Risk Factors -- and Weight
By Daniel J. DeNoon
WebMD Medical News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

June 25, 2007 (Chicago) -- Cane sugar has a dark side, a provocative new study shows.

The sweetener we call sugar is actually a double sugar. Half is the sugar called glucose, the body's most basic fuel. The other half is another sugar called fructose. Researchers have suspected that fructose is a bad actor, but the evidence so far has been circumstantial.

Can fructose really be worse for you than glucose? University of California, Davis researchers Peter J. Havel, PhD, Kimber Stanhope, and colleagues designed a clever study to find out.

First, they brought 23 overweight or obese adults, ranging in age from 43 to 70, into their clinical center. For two weeks, the volunteers' diets were strictly controlled. They got a high-carb (55%), moderate-fat (30%) diet that was balanced to give them no more energy than they spent in exercise.

After measuring their heart disease risk factors, such as blood fats, cholesterol, and weight, the researchers set them free.

Then for eight weeks, the volunteers were allowed to eat whatever they wanted except for one thing. Each person had to drink three sweetened beverages every day -- which gave them 25% of their recommended daily energy intake.

Half the subjects drank beverages sweetened with pure glucose. The other half got beverages sweetened with pure fructose. The researchers continued to test them for heart risk factors.

After the eight weeks, the volunteers again were confined to the clinical center, where they continued to drink their assigned beverages but had to return to an energy-balanced diet.

Just two weeks after they started drinking the beverages, the dark side of sugar became apparent. Those who drank fructose-sweetened beverages showed signs of increasing risk of heart disease. Those who drank glucose-sweetened beverages did not.

The fructose drinkers' LDL "bad" cholesterol, blood fats, and other signs of worsening heart risk all increased. And alarmingly, their insulin sensitivity decreased -- a sign that their diabetes risk was increasing, too.

To add insult to injury, the fructose drinkers gained about 3 pounds, while the glucose drinkers didn't gain weight.

"Most people get the majority of the added sugars in their diet from beverages," Havel tells WebMD. "We saw a lot of changes happen in just two weeks of drinking these beverages -- and in real life, people don't do this just for two or 10 weeks but as a lifelong habit. They are potentially exposing themselves to cardiovascular risk."

The news may be worse. Stanhope says that preliminary data from new studies show that regular sugar and high-fructose corn syrup each seem to have the same effect as fructose alone -- even though both are only about half fructose and half glucose (normal corn syrup is 100% glucose).

It's still far too early to draw any conclusions from the new study. But Stanhope says it's unlikely anybody is going to apply the health-food label to sweetened soft drinks.

"It doesn't look like a good idea to drink a lot of soft drinks," Stanhope tells WebMD. "We were feeding people at the rate of three sodas a day. Some do drink that much, some people in real life do more, and some have only one a day. Give me two years, and we will know a lot more about the safe level."

Stanhope reported the findings at the American Diabetes Association's 67th Annual Scientific Sessions, held June 22-26 in Chicago.

* Can’t get moving without your daily dose of cola? If you knew that giving up that sweet addiction could ward off diabetes, could you do it? Tell us about it on WebMD's Health Cafe message board.

SOURCES: Stanhope, K. American Diabetes Association 67th Annual Scientific Sessions, Chicago, June 22-26, 2007. Kimber Stanhope, staff research associate, University of California, Davis. Peter Havel, PhD, DVM, associate researcher, University of California, Davis.
© 2007 WebMD, Inc. All rights reserved.

[2bthinner!]

Then for eight weeks, the volunteers were allowed to eat whatever they wanted except for one thing.

Each person had to drink three sweetened beverages every day -- which gave them 25% of their recommended daily energy intake.

Half the subjects drank beverages sweetened with pure glucose. The other half got beverages sweetened with pure fructose. The researchers continued to test them for heart risk factors.
Each person had to drink three sweetened beverages every day -- which gave them 25% of their recommended daily energy intake.

Half the subjects drank beverages sweetened with pure glucose. The other half got beverages sweetened with pure fructose. The researchers continued to test them for heart risk factors.

After the eight weeks, the volunteers again were confined to the clinical center, where they continued to drink their assigned beverages but had to return to an energy-balanced diet.

Just two weeks after they started drinking the beverages, the dark side of sugar became apparent. Those who drank fructose-sweetened beverages showed signs of increasing risk of heart disease. Those who drank glucose-sweetened beverages did not. I don't doubt they found these problems, after all, they had to return to an "energy-balanced" diet. Would that be the 60% carb diet?

I don't think you can compare eating fruit, in its natural, fiber filled state with drinking a fructose sweetened beverage. It just isn't the same. I agree that if you're trying to lose weight you should stay with the lower ones, i.e. strawberries. But, if your weight is where you want it, and the fruit doesn't set you off, I don't see any problem with eating it.

ETA: It's kind of confusing. They ate "what they wanted for eight weeks, but had to drink the beverage". THEN, AFTER returning to a "energy-balanced" diet, they developed problems. That sounds more like the "energy-balanced" diet was the problem.

EETA: These drinks gave them 25% of their intake?!?!? I am SO not surprised they had problems.

[AimeeJoi]

Are you kidding me!? This is a ridiculous study and proves nothing about whether or not fruit is good for you. They separated out the fructose and gave it to people in unatural quantites without all of the protective factors found in whole fruit, like fiber and vitamins and minerals. Fruit is one of man's most natural and useful food sources, why do you think it looks, tastes and smells SOOO good to us...because our bodies know it is good for us! I really hate studies like this with misleading headlines that don't represent what was actually studied at all. They should have said "Effects of fructose in the absence of other protective elements found in fruit" but no, they wouldn't do that because most people would not be shocked to here that fructose isn't good for you in that way.

[Nancy LC]

It proves that fructose sweetened drinks that everyone is downing in enormous quantities these days are really bad for you. I think fruit in it's whole state is probably fine, if not eaten in excess.

BTW: I posted this earlier in the week.

[Angeline]

To be fair the article doesn't mention fruits either in the title nor the article. "Fructose Increases Heart Risk Factors -- and Weight". They warn against drinking fructose drinks. This actually seemed like a good study because they simply compared people drinking fructose-laced drinks to people drinking sugar-laced drinks, and tried to get everything else similar.

I believe you were all influenced by the poster's choice of title. That is actually an interesting fact all by itself. To see how people let themselves get distracted from the actual content of a article by an often contradictory or inflammatory headline. Journalists do it all the time. Effective isn't?

[Nancy LC]

Actually, it was fructose versus glucose, sugar is a mix of glucose and fructose 50/50.

[PhoenixEav]

I posted this this morning. I guess somebody must have deleted my thread. Funny how that works. The point: I'm really surprised how many people on here eat fruit and didn't know how bad fructose is. I mean, you could probably eat cookies and have less bad effects. Personally, I avoid fruit at all costs. Even if it's fresh, there's still way too much fructose.

[LStump]

I have NEVER eaten 25% of my daily energy of pure fruit LOL. Even though this article didn't mention fruit at all. What I'm wondering is this:

With all of the studies going on, we're soon going to run out of people to poke and prod.

[Samuel]

Fruit is one of man's most natural and useful food sources, why do you think it looks, tastes and smells SOOO good to us...because our bodies know it is good for us!
All species are made with the desire to multiply. Trees are stationary, therefore they can't spread their seeds by themselves, so they play a trick. They wrap their seeds with something which is appealing to most birds and animals (including humen) called fruits. The birds and animals pick the fruits, move them away and drop the seeds where they can grow into new trees.

So, we can say for sure that making fruits taste and smell so good has been for the purpose of persuading us; not for the purpose of improving our health.

[Azlocarb]

If you look at Mike_D's link it shows that modern fruit is nothing like what our ancestors had available. From what it sounds like I would think our ancestors did not eat much fruit unless they were out of mastodon or sloth meat(yummy stuff I’m sure). Berries on the other hand where probably eaten when available and they are generally lower in fructose then modern fruits. Also our ancestors would have only had fruit available for a few weeks every year unlike today when you can always find fruit at the grocery. Same with honey(another source of fructose) that our ancestors probably consumed when they had a chance. Obviously it fructose was something our ancestors had eaten in large amounts we would have adapted to use it in a way that is less harmful then it is. Same with carbs in general, we evolved eating proteins and fat and only recently have we tried eating mostly carbs. We need another couple 100,000 years of evolution before we will be able to consume mostly carbs without making us sick.

[arc]

why do you think it looks, tastes and smells SOOO good to us...because our bodies know it is good for us!

Donuts look, smell and tastes soooo good, too. So does pizza. They must all be good for us!

[Nancy LC]

I think there are some fruits that are relatively the same. Dates for one, figs another. I saw a wonderful documentary on PBS about the African Queen Fig. It was feeding lots of species.

Yes, a given fruit tree only produces fruit once or twice a year, but there are trees that produce at various times of the year. In my climate some even produce in the winter, like citrus and avocados.

[2bthinner!]

I believe you were all influenced by the poster's choice of title. That is actually an interesting fact all by itself. To see how people let themselves get distracted from the actual content of a article by an often contradictory or inflammatory headline. Journalists do it all the time. Effective isn't?Actually, I was responding more to the poster than the article.

[2bthinner!]

I posted this this morning. I guess somebody must have deleted my thread. Funny how that works. The point: I'm really surprised how many people on here eat fruit and didn't know how bad fructose is. I mean, you could probably eat cookies and have less bad effects. Personally, I avoid fruit at all costs. Even if it's fresh, there's still way too much fructose. No, they merged it as it's the same article someone else (NancyLC?) posted.

[Dodger]

Yes, a given fruit tree only produces fruit once or twice a year, but there are trees that produce at various times of the year. In my climate some even produce in the winter, like citrus and avocados.Neither cirtrus trees or avocado trees are native to San Diego. Before human intervention, you wouldn't be eating either there.

[fetch]

The point: I'm really surprised how many people on here eat fruit and didn't know how bad fructose is. I mean, you could probably eat cookies and have less bad effects. Personally, I avoid fruit at all costs. Even if it's fresh, there's still way too much fructose.

Everything is bad for you. What matters is the dose. Toxicology 101.

Pardon my bluntness, but if fruit doesn't do anything for you personally, fine. But please remember - just because you believe it does not make it fact.

[tuscany]

so, if i were to add pure glucose to my food, it won't make me fat, but eating a few cherries will?
sounds a bit simplistic...

[Nancy LC]

Neither cirtrus trees or avocado trees are native to San Diego. Before human intervention, you wouldn't be eating either there.
Date palms aren't native to my backyard either but thanks to the crows (probably a crow) that drop the seeds on my back yard I'm constantly having to dig up small palm trees.

[colinjn]

Fruit is one of man's most natural and useful food sources, why do you think it looks, tastes and smells SOOO good to us...because our bodies know it is good for us!

Ever seen a bear in the fall?

[LC FP]

Ever seen a bear in the fall
Right. Fruit fattens us up, we spread the seeds. Win-win.

[LStump]

*just ate some raspberries*

All I gotta say is:

YUM!

Tomorrow, strawberries.

[Coryat]

Fruits do not contain fructose exclusively. For example, bluberries contain glucose and fructose in roughly equal proportion (http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ap/fs/1993/00000026/00000006/art01114;jsessionid=1ob62btjsxum.alice). Some fruits, such as dates, contain sucrose.

[Dodger]

Fruits do not contain fructose exclusively. For example, bluberries contain glucose and fructose in roughly equal proportion (http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ap/fs/1993/00000026/00000006/art01114;jsessionid=1ob62btjsxum.alice). Some fruits, such as dates, contain sucrose.The deglet noor variety of dates does have sucrose, but the medjool does not.

All are high in sugar.

[AimeeJoi]

To be fair the article doesn't mention fruits either in the title nor the article. "Fructose Increases Heart Risk Factors -- and Weight". They warn against drinking fructose drinks. This actually seemed like a good study because they simply compared people drinking fructose-laced drinks to people drinking sugar-laced drinks, and tried to get everything else similar.

I believe you were all influenced by the poster's choice of title. That is actually an interesting fact all by itself. To see how people let themselves get distracted from the actual content of a article by an often contradictory or inflammatory headline. Journalists do it all the time. Effective isn't?


Yeah you are right, I think I was just responding to the idea that seemed to be picking up in the thread that fruit is bad for you because it has fructose in it.


I mean, you could probably eat cookies and have less bad effects. Personally, I avoid fruit at all costs. Even if it's fresh, there's still way too much fructose.


sorry, this just doesn't make sense to me. How is something processed better than something natural?


I think fruit in it's whole state is probably fine, if not eaten in excess.


yep, I totally agree. And it seems in summer that you probably would be okay eating a majority of your diet from fruit as long as you move enough.


All species are made with the desire to multiply. Trees are stationary, therefore they can't spread their seeds by themselves, so they play a trick. They wrap their seeds with something which is appealing to most birds and animals (including humen) called fruits. The birds and animals pick the fruits, move them away and drop the seeds where they can grow into new trees.

So, we can say for sure that making fruits taste and smell so good has been for the purpose of persuading us; not for the purpose of improving our health.


It seems more like a synergistic relationship to me. I don't think the fruit is aware of what humans find appealing. It seems more likely to me that the human body would desire something that helps it have energy and survive long enough to raise their children. It's true that we help fruit reproduce but in the long run that is also helping us because more fruit trees grow and therefore we get more fruit! :D


modern fruit is nothing like what our ancestors had available. From what it sounds like I would think our ancestors did not eat much fruit unless they were out of mastodon or sloth meat(yummy stuff I’m sure). Berries on the other hand where probably eaten when available and they are generally lower in fructose then modern fruits. Also our ancestors would have only had fruit available for a few weeks every year unlike today when you can always find fruit at the grocery. Same with honey(another source of fructose) that our ancestors probably consumed when they had a chance. Obviously it fructose was something our ancestors had eaten in large amounts we would have adapted to use it in a way that is less harmful then it is. Same with carbs in general, we evolved eating proteins and fat and only recently have we tried eating mostly carbs. We need another couple 100,000 years of evolution before we will be able to consume mostly carbs without making us sick.


Yeah, I agree that modern fruit is most likely a lot sweeter than the original varieties but I still think that our ancestors, if they had the choice, would pick a banana or papaya off a tree and eat that before they would hunt down an animal. It seems to me meat was probably a once in awhile thing if they found a freshly killed carcass or some small animal they could trap easily. If it were me I would eat fruit over hunting any day if it was available. As for fruit only being available a few month a year I guess I am imagining people who lived in a more tropical climate were it is almost always available but I guess northern people probably didnt have that choice. I am paleo, not low carb so I am not against carbs in general but mostly just processed foods and grains. I think most of us can't tolerate carbs because we developed insulin resistance from a pre-low carb life of eating processed junk. If we grew up eating fresh fruit and veggies I don't think most of us would have the problems with carbs that we do.


Donuts look, smell and tastes soooo good, too. So does pizza. They must all be good for us!
Donuts and pizza are man made processed junk. But I can see why we like them, they are full of carbs and fats which when found in their natural forms are a humans best enrgy sources. Fruit and meat are probably they best things for us in a natural setting where we burn off the sugar and actually need the insulation from the fat.

[JL53563]

I have no doubt that our ancestors ate fruit when available. But I also think the purpose of eating that fruit for a few months in the summer may have been to fatten us up so we could survive the winter, when food may have been more scarce. We don't have that problem in today's world.