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If Fructose Is So Bad – Should I Eat Fruit?

With all the nuances of dietary recommendations from keto to paleo to vegan to who knows what else, one thing is clear: there is absolutely no need for added fructose, or any sugars for that matter, in the human diet. And there is an ever-expanding body of research that clearly points out the incredible threat that fructose poses to human metabolic health. Fortunately, many people are getting this message and doing what they can to almost eliminate, or at least substantially reduce the amount of fructose that they consume.

Among the highest sources of fructose in the human diet are sugar-sweetened soft drinks and fruit juices. Statistics are clearly demonstrating that consumption of these beverages, at least here in America, is declining, no doubt because of the increasing recognition of the health threat posed by fructose. Continue reading

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Another Reason to Avoid Fructose

Is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) really as much of a problem as people would like us to believe? And in fact, what about fructose in general? After all, the actual biochemistry of fructose metabolism does not activate insulin, and therefore it might not be as big of an issue in terms of representing a health threat compared to other sugars, like glucose or dextrose. Right?

Well, let’s dig into the science a little bit and see what we can learn. In a new study published in the Journal of Hepatology, researchers wanted to explore how fructose, sucrose (common table sugar, which is made up of 50% glucose and 50% fructose), or glucose affected the body in terms of some fairly important parameters like the generation of fat in the liver.

The study evaluated the effects of these sugars in 94 healthy young men over a seven-week period. The subjects consumed, on a daily basis, drinks containing fructose, sucrose, or glucose, 80g per day, or a drink that did not contain sugar. Continue reading