National estimates of dietary fructose intake increased from 1977 to 2004 in the United States.
Our purpose was to conduct a new analysis to update and extend previously published trends of fructose availability and estimated fructose intake and food sources of dietary fructose from the 1977-1978 Nationwide Food Consumption Survey (NFCS) data.
We estimated fructose usual intake with data from NHANES 1999-2004 for 25,165 individuals (1 y and older, excluding pregnant and lactating women and breast-fed infants) using the Iowa State C-SIDE software.
We applied food group-specific conversion factors to individual measures of sugar intakes following the earlier study.
Sweetener availability in the United States increased from 1978, peaked in 1999, and declined through 2005.
The high-fructose corn syrup percentage of sweeteners increased from 16% in 1978 to 42% in 1998 and then stabilized.
Since 1978, mean daily intakes of added and total fructose increased in all gender and age groups, whereas naturally occurring (N) fructose intake decreased or remained constant.
Total fructose intake as percentage of energy and as percentage of carbohydrate increased 1 and 1.2%, whereas daily energy and carbohydrate intakes increased 18 and 41%, respectively.
Similar to 1978 results, nonalcoholic beverages and grain products were the principal food sources of added fructose.
Fruits and fruit products were the main dietary sources of N fructose in 2004; in 1978, grain products and vegetables were more predominant food sources.
Although comparison of estimates of fructose intakes between data from the 1977-1978 NFCS and the NHANES 1999-2004 showed an increase, this increase was dwarfed by greater increases in total daily energy and carbohydrate intakes.

If you can get the full text the graphs and charts make it easier to understand. I've stopped buying/drinking fruit smoothies I think they make it too easy to overconsume fructose. I'm still eating fruit but avoid grapes and bananas. But the paper I've linked to shows it's not natural fructose from whole fruit that is driving obesity incidence but carbs and possibly high fructose corn syrup and it's derivatives.

Or maybe (perhaps this is what you were implying) our body deals with it today exactly like it always dealt with it. It's just that gaining a few fat cells from eating fruit (enormously LOWER in sugar than most of today's vegetables in previous eras) in late summer/fall before the winter was probably a great thing. Probably the better the body instantly gained fat from eating fructose, the better one was slightly padded for winter survival. It still works really well. But since the average fruit today has more sugar than an entire bagful of candy would have a couple hundred years ago, and the average bagel has twice the sugar of a hershey chocolate bar, it's just working TOO well it seems.

PJ

Sugar: The Bitter Truth Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Endocrinology explores the damage caused by sugary foods.
This You Tube video takes an hour and a half. He takes you through the biochemistry of fructose metabolism so it does get a bit technical at times but stick with it. It does get clearer in the end and there are some good summary slided.

This reminds me, in discussing with someone recently some outlier ideas as to why so many Americans are SO overweight (beyond and including some of the popular reasons), it occurred to me... what if it's that there's a reallllllly cold winter coming? Please let me know if you see any squirrels a lot fatter than usual!

But now I'm curious about what exactly prompts squirrels to pack in the food and/or pack on the ounces ahead of a particularly cold season, if they do. That's been the folklore anyway - the colder the season the thicker the fur and the fatter the little creatures, if I recall my folklore correctly.

(This is straying from the fructose topic, I realize.) There are also a lot of things different about, say, France, where there's been less of an obesity problem but that's of course grown recently too. A couple of the main things I notice are not so much air conditioning over there and really small, not so cold beverages. Makes me wonder a little if something about the temperatures could possibly have much influence over large populations and their energy intakes and metabolism... America is pretty iced and air conditioned as a whole. We also have much wider temperature variations (highs and lows in a given day), at least along our coasts, than along the west coast of Europe. (Along with so many other differences.)

These outlier questions I mentioned are things that I just wonder if they're additive to whatever the central reasons for American obesity are. I'd love to see more scientific studies about environmental factors.

I particularly enjoyed his put down of the food pyramid.... "The US has only 3 main exports the world wants, Entertainment, Weapons and Food. If the pyramid were to de-emphasize grains and (especially) HFCS, the Food exporters would take a big hit." (my paraphrasing)

I am listening to "The Bitter Truth" right now. Been listening off and on all day, like an all-day sucker. Good stuff!

But notice, he doesn't differentiate between natural fructose and HFCS. He says sugar is as bad as HFCS.

Very good video. Thank you for linking that. I probably will add potatoes and rice back into my family's diet, though not mine. However, HFCS is remaining cleared out, and I'll again ask my kids not to drink sodas. I'll keep on my husband about that one as well.

Fructose gets converted to fat only if you consume more than you need, right? It seems like the video is just saying that fructose always goes to fat no matter what.

Yes it's saying that. Fructose is handled differently by the body than glucose. Taubes's book talks about that as well.

The video was very interesting, thank you for linking to it. I felt ambivalent about his concepts on fiber, but since he considers fruits and vegetables important foods it makes sense he would consider fiber an important nutrient since without fiber they would be a bunch of nasty-er fructose. He didn't talk about that much, only mentioned it.

I was totally shocked by the breakdown on the content of baby formula and it being essentially equal to a coke, and by the chemical breakdown of soda and it being essentially equal to alcohol except since not processed by the brain, "without the buzz." The list of factors that both have which happened to include the addictive element was interesting as well.

You might be getting confused by two points:

1. Your body burns fat and stores fat every day. It's not a slow, one-or-the-other process, but a dynamic back-and-forth equilibrium. So even though fructose is all converted to triglycerides, your body can still use some of it for energy.

2. When the liver processes fructose, it also creates glucose. The glucose doesn't come from the fructose, but production of it is stimulated by fructose.

But yes, literally and simply, the body can do nothing with fructose but turn it to fat (triglycerides).

I thought it said it always gets converted to triglycerides, which is a fat.

I actually saw something on Food TV where they were showing how much "sugar" was in food. They showed you each food and how many tsp of sugar were in it. I believe they were counting fructose, sucrose and maybe even starches (although I doubt it). One demonstration was a salad dressing with like 3-4 tsp of sugar in it. He dished out the sugar over the salad to demonstrate how ridiculous that is.

I guess that I'm thinking that it is not that fructose is bad or any sugar for that matter but rather *too much* is bad. I've read on many low carb sites that a high fruit diet will make one gain weight. I have been following a diet that is based on fruits, egg yolks, and raw animal flesh. I eat no vegetables because the anti-nutrients and fiber are not something I want to consume. I started the diet four to five years ago and my weight has returned to my high school weight. I eat frequently and never feel food deprived and don't count calories. I feel like I need to make sure to eat enough. The diet I follow can be seen at waisays.com.

The wai diet seems to have a lot of success helping people with acne. I don't have acne and am not overweight, my main goal is optimum health.


A big thing with the wai diet is to eat many small meals to avoid insulin spikes.

According to this added fat consumption has been increasing:

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Fi...ation-potential


"However, current consumption levels see Americans getting about 32 percent of total calories from added fats alone"

I feel awful on fruit. Even one apple makes my appetitie go haywire. Worse than soda.