10 ms·

Fructose: The Poison Index

101 points by JPKab 13y ago

anigbrowl 13y ago
Awful headline, but well-written and well-sourced article.
tehSp0rk 13y ago
Horribly written. It is promoting sucrose, it says sucrose is fructose and glucose, then it says "if you're ... getting both fructose and glucose together ... then fructose gets converted to fat at a much higher rate, approximating 30%." which is a bad thing.
- acchow 13y ago
  > Horribly written. Indeed. FTA: "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)." It at least got one thing right - fructose is terrible for you. Therefore, sucrose is also terrible for you.
- Cogito 13y ago
  Sucrose is a molecule made by joining a glucose and a fructose molecule together. It is not the same thing as two separate molecules, though it is broken down rather quickly into its individual components. Additionally, the key point is that the sucrose would be replaced with just fructose, which if done by weight would mean roughly twice as much fructose in the food. With the position the article has on fructose this seems like an obviously worse position, however I would love to see sources on it.
  - smsm42 13y ago
    Given that fructose is 1.73 times sweeter, who'd do that by weight? Weight is not the primary quality people seek in the food, taste is.
- cpncrunch 13y ago
  How on earth is it promoting sucrose? It's just saying that fructose alone is much worse than sucrose.
skylan_q 13y ago
Fructose is digested/processed differently from glucose. So the issue isn't even glycemic load alone, either.
wissler 13y ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM "Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, explores the damage caused by sugary foods. He argues that fructose (too much) and fiber (not enough) appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic through their effects on insulin. Series: UCSF Mini Medical School for the Public [7/2009] [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 16717]"
- icelancer 13y ago
  Strongly recommend you read any of the numerous rebuttals to Lustig's psuedoscience, such as this one: http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/ http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-ab...
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - markbao 13y ago
    That was nearly four years ago; what's the current consensus on this issue? Has there been any new research that has come out in support of, or against, Lustig's conclusions?
    - lambda 13y ago
      Come on. He's a single-issue moralizing health crusader. I'm sure like everyone else who has focused on a single specific nutrient to blame, he's right in a few specifics, and massively overstating his case in a way that will ultimately be harmful to public health. Remember when fat was the mortal enemy? Cholesterol? Carbs of any sort? Salt? Now it's fructose. All of these things have, at one point or another, been singled out as one of the biggest threats to public health. And in all cases, while there has been some truth that in excess they can cause problems, it turns out that they aren't nearly as bad as some people made them out to be, and going on a crusade to eliminate them from diets has lead to either unhealthy elimination of necessary nutrients, or unhealthy substitution by something that's worse. And yes, if you want more evidence, there have been studies that have shown that at low dosages, fructose can be beneficial: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=6&fid=8655940&jid=BJN&volumeId=108&issueId=03&aid=8655939&bodyId=&membershipNumber=&societyETOCSession=&fulltextType=RV&fileId=S000711451200013X http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=6&... Basically, if you see someone singling out one single nutrient that has been a central part of our diet for thousands of years as being "toxic", you know you're being sold snake oil. Yes, almost anything can be consumed to excess. No, it is not "toxic". Any diet plan should be based on your whole diet, not eliminating a single thing. Reducing refined sugar in your diet is generally good. Avoiding a cookie now and then, or some honey on your toast, is excessive (unless you are actually diabetic). It can help a lot to cook yourself, and only prepare food from raw ingredients rather than processed foods or mixes, as then you see how much sugar and how much salt and how much fat goes into something. If you were to mix up a can of soda from scratch, you'd find it pretty gross how much sugar went in there; but many people are willing to grab a few and drink them throughout a day without thinking about it.
DanBC 13y ago
Maybe fructose really is a problem and we should be really careful with it. But when we look at people who are obese their problem is not that they eat fructose containing foods, or that they regularly eat a couple of hundred extra calories per day. Their problem is that they regularly eat thousands of extra calories. When you get 4,000 extra calories it doesn't matter whether it's glucose or sucrose or fructose - the person is going to gain weight and be harmed by the sugar. The reason that Americans are fatter than Europeans is not because the US uses more fructose, it is because Americans eat a lot more than Europeans. But Europe is catching up. The UK has plenty of obesity and we don't have nearly so much fructose use as the US.
- andy_ppp 13y ago
  Yeah, that's all well and good except that fructose make you really hungry which is a large part of why Americans CONSUME more. Avoid fructose unless you are building up your fat reserve for a fallow winter.
- mberning 13y ago
  If you care to do some research on the topic you will see that there is strong evidence pointing to chronic consumption of fructose damaging the metabolism in such a way that people no longer experience satiety the way a healthy person does. Over time this contributes to overconsumption as well as increased fat deposition which is a vicious cycle.
  - sandGorgon 13y ago
    actually, could you pass a study that shows that. On pubmed, I see a lot of studies between carbs and protein. On the fructose vs glucose side, I see most studies pointing out the bad effects of a high carb diet (where carbs = starch/glucose/fructose/sucrose), but nothing that compares fructose with glucose per se. In fact, I see there are a few studies that show fructose is better than glucose, but they are primarily funded by the ILSI [1] [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2682989/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2682989/
- Detrus 13y ago
praxeologist 13y ago
For those of you interested in paleo or other low-carb/non-sugar approaches, I suggest Dr. Kurt Harris' blog: http://www.archevore.com/get-started/ http://www.archevore.com/get-started/ I went off paleo for a year or so, now back on for a few months and have gone from 178 to 162 lbs. without doing much else than cutting out sugar, gluten grains and plant oils. It's strange this time; when I occasionally eat these things, I feel slightly, but noticeably ill for about a day afterwards. Anyhow if this type of diet interests you, I want you to check out his blog because it is a slightly different approach than other "paleo". You need not eat super low carb as long as it is the right type of carbs and you don't have a ton of weight to lose. He also suggests cream if you don't have leaky gut (I drink tons in coffee every day). These are a couple tidbits from his entry on glucose: http://www.archevore.com/panu-weblog/2011/2/5/no-such-thing-as-a-macronutrient-part-ii-carbohydrates-revis.html http://www.archevore.com/panu-weblog/2011/2/5/no-such-thing-... "Glucose is a necessary internal fuel source and metabolite and it is also a food and the building block of foods that have the longest evolutionary history of any food that mammals use. It is a fact that we do not require glucose in the diet, and that we can make it from amino acids if we don't eat it. However, rather than viewing this as evidence that glucose is not important, we should view this as evidence that glucose is so metabolically important that we have evolved way to make sure we always have it." ... "Like glucose, there is no dietary requirement for fructose, but unlike glucose, we do not require fructose for use as an internal fuel. There is no organ like the brain that has an absolute fructose requirement. In fact, our body has mechanisms that evolved specifically to keep most cells from being exposed to too much of it." ... "To keep fructose out of the general circulation, it must be immediately burned or stored as fat. Fructose is related to the spectrum of serious diseases known as NAFLD (non-alcoholic liver disease), including fatty liver and cirrhosis."
- yetanotherphd 13y ago
  You can also get dietary advice from world renowned experts at Www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines
  - spartango 13y ago
    Thank you for posting this. Yes, it's not fashionable to follow the updated HHS guidelines for healthy eating, but they are rooted in well-tested science. The USDA and HHS invest quite a bit into getting these guidelines right continuing to improve them as science advances. I have not seen a dietary platform as rigorously studied as the one provided by HHS.
fusiongyro 13y ago
Every time the "fructose is evil" thing gets brought up it seems to be this same scientist talking about it.
- nitrogen 13y ago
  Every time God plays dice with the universe, it seems to be that same scientist talking about it. Maybe it's always Robert Lustig because he's the name people already recognize. Maybe he's the one doing most of the research in the area. Sometimes, the public need a figurehead to keep explaining something to us until we get it.
  - fusiongyro 13y ago
    Sure. Like the guy who said smoking is bad for you, or the guys who said excessive fat and cholesterol are bad for you. They stood up to Big Agro and fought the good fight. Who were those guys again?
  - specialist 13y ago
    Attention economy, power law distribution of links. A simple googling of "fructose daily consumption" (or equiv) yields zillions of links. It's not like Lustig is a lone wolf.
- r0h1n 13y ago
  By itself, that fact conveys nothing. You could've said, "Every time the "NSA is spying on everyone" comes up, it seems to be Glenn Greenwald talking about it". When it comes to Big Food (or Big Pharma, Big Insurance etc.), I'd prefer - at the very minimum - taking any claims against them at face value instead of dismissing them outright. Of course, follow it up with your own research.
  - yetanotherphd 13y ago
    I'm just as concerned about BigContrarianism and BigFadDiets.
wyager 13y ago
More alarmism. >Fizzy drinks can have a 'serum fructose concentration of six micromolar, enough to do major arterial and pancreatic damage'. You're telling me that if I replace my blood with fizzy drinks, it could do major arterial and pancreatic damage? Wow, who knew?
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Your snip caught my attention, because "serum" usually refers to "blood serum". Indeed, if we read further: a 20oz soda RESULTS IN a serum fructose concentration of six micromolar
yetanotherphd 13y ago
"The industry points to meta-analyses of controlled isocaloric "fructose for glucose" exchange studies that demonstrate no effect from fructose on weight gain or other morbidities. Perhaps one reason for this is because crystalline fructose is incompletely absorbed." It seems like the author is really set on rejecting the conclusions of these meta-analyses.
- mberning 13y ago
  One thing that isocaloric studies do not show is how chronic consumption of one particular diet or another influences consumption patterns over time. This is by design and is a huge flaw IMO. Any diet that keeps you just above the limits of starvation is going to show no change in weight gain. A much more compelling study would be an overfeeding experiment between a high fructose diet, high glucose diet, high protein diet, high fat diet, etc.
anonemouscoward 13y ago
So, allegedly eating fruit causes "heart disease and diabetes, cancer and dementia"? No thanks, allow me to disbelieve.
guruz 13y ago
I agree that fructose (when eaten separately without the surrounding real fruit) is bad. But people should go some steps further: The whole composition of stuff most people eat is wrong (low fat, high carb). I recommend having a look at paleo-style diets (e.g. http://www.gnolls.org/1141/ http://www.gnolls.org/1141/ ) which mean high fat, mid protein, low carb. They provide more satiety, no after-lunch tiredness and a lot more. My own way was going from no fructose (thanks to Lustig's video) to now cutting grains too. Feels good. EDIT: And forget about counting calories or thinking that (eating fat == becoming fat). That's not how digestion works. Calories were afaik defined by burning (with an actual flame) the food. That's not how your organs, enymes, stomach, ..., bacteria work.
apunic 13y ago
> if you're obese, insulin resistant, well fed, and getting both fructose and glucose together (like a sizable percentage of the population), then fructose gets converted to fat at a much higher rate, approximating 30%. In other words, the toxicity of fructose depends on context. So, just don't eat glucose or white sugar together with fructose or just stop it. White sugar is the poison, not fructose.
erichmond 13y ago
Our bodies are designed to eat until we feel sated. Most people eat foods that do not allow themselves to feel fully sated, hence they overeat. Good proteins, healthy fats, and vegetables are the things that make us feel sated. Sugars and carbs in particular don't have a sating effect on people, hence you are prone to overeating, if you only eat those foods. This is why most fast food and convenience stores sell things that are comprised of sugar, carbs and fat. They're in the business of selling you more, not selling you "just enough". I don't think we should blame these companies btw, people have free will, and an occasional soda or candy bar won't kill you. It's just that too many people see these foods as a daily ritual. ------ Just an opinion from someone who has researched this space a bit due to my gluten intolerance.

101 points by JPKab 13y ago

Awful headline, but well-written and well-sourced article.

Horribly written. It is promoting sucrose, it says sucrose is fructose and glucose, then it says "if you're ... getting both fructose and glucose together ... then fructose gets converted to fat at a much higher rate, approximating 30%." which is a bad thing.

acchow 13y ago
> Horribly written. Indeed. FTA: "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)." It at least got one thing right - fructose is terrible for you. Therefore, sucrose is also terrible for you.
Cogito 13y ago
Sucrose is a molecule made by joining a glucose and a fructose molecule together. It is not the same thing as two separate molecules, though it is broken down rather quickly into its individual components. Additionally, the key point is that the sucrose would be replaced with just fructose, which if done by weight would mean roughly twice as much fructose in the food. With the position the article has on fructose this seems like an obviously worse position, however I would love to see sources on it.
- smsm42 13y ago
  Given that fructose is 1.73 times sweeter, who'd do that by weight? Weight is not the primary quality people seek in the food, taste is.
cpncrunch 13y ago
How on earth is it promoting sucrose? It's just saying that fructose alone is much worse than sucrose.

skylan_q 13y ago

Fructose is digested/processed differently from glucose. So the issue isn't even glycemic load alone, either.

wissler 13y ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM "Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, explores the damage caused by sugary foods. He argues that fructose (too much) and fiber (not enough) appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic through their effects on insulin. Series: UCSF Mini Medical School for the Public [7/2009] [Health and Medicine] [Show ID: 16717]"

icelancer 13y ago
Strongly recommend you read any of the numerous rebuttals to Lustig's psuedoscience, such as this one: http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/ http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-ab...
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- markbao 13y ago
  That was nearly four years ago; what's the current consensus on this issue? Has there been any new research that has come out in support of, or against, Lustig's conclusions?
  - lambda 13y ago
    Come on. He's a single-issue moralizing health crusader. I'm sure like everyone else who has focused on a single specific nutrient to blame, he's right in a few specifics, and massively overstating his case in a way that will ultimately be harmful to public health. Remember when fat was the mortal enemy? Cholesterol? Carbs of any sort? Salt? Now it's fructose. All of these things have, at one point or another, been singled out as one of the biggest threats to public health. And in all cases, while there has been some truth that in excess they can cause problems, it turns out that they aren't nearly as bad as some people made them out to be, and going on a crusade to eliminate them from diets has lead to either unhealthy elimination of necessary nutrients, or unhealthy substitution by something that's worse. And yes, if you want more evidence, there have been studies that have shown that at low dosages, fructose can be beneficial: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=6&fid=8655940&jid=BJN&volumeId=108&issueId=03&aid=8655939&bodyId=&membershipNumber=&societyETOCSession=&fulltextType=RV&fileId=S000711451200013X http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=6&... Basically, if you see someone singling out one single nutrient that has been a central part of our diet for thousands of years as being "toxic", you know you're being sold snake oil. Yes, almost anything can be consumed to excess. No, it is not "toxic". Any diet plan should be based on your whole diet, not eliminating a single thing. Reducing refined sugar in your diet is generally good. Avoiding a cookie now and then, or some honey on your toast, is excessive (unless you are actually diabetic). It can help a lot to cook yourself, and only prepare food from raw ingredients rather than processed foods or mixes, as then you see how much sugar and how much salt and how much fat goes into something. If you were to mix up a can of soda from scratch, you'd find it pretty gross how much sugar went in there; but many people are willing to grab a few and drink them throughout a day without thinking about it.

DanBC 13y ago

Maybe fructose really is a problem and we should be really careful with it. But when we look at people who are obese their problem is not that they eat fructose containing foods, or that they regularly eat a couple of hundred extra calories per day. Their problem is that they regularly eat thousands of extra calories. When you get 4,000 extra calories it doesn't matter whether it's glucose or sucrose or fructose - the person is going to gain weight and be harmed by the sugar. The reason that Americans are fatter than Europeans is not because the US uses more fructose, it is because Americans eat a lot more than Europeans. But Europe is catching up. The UK has plenty of obesity and we don't have nearly so much fructose use as the US.

andy_ppp 13y ago
Yeah, that's all well and good except that fructose make you really hungry which is a large part of why Americans CONSUME more. Avoid fructose unless you are building up your fat reserve for a fallow winter.
mberning 13y ago
If you care to do some research on the topic you will see that there is strong evidence pointing to chronic consumption of fructose damaging the metabolism in such a way that people no longer experience satiety the way a healthy person does. Over time this contributes to overconsumption as well as increased fat deposition which is a vicious cycle.
- sandGorgon 13y ago
  actually, could you pass a study that shows that. On pubmed, I see a lot of studies between carbs and protein. On the fructose vs glucose side, I see most studies pointing out the bad effects of a high carb diet (where carbs = starch/glucose/fructose/sucrose), but nothing that compares fructose with glucose per se. In fact, I see there are a few studies that show fructose is better than glucose, but they are primarily funded by the ILSI [1] [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2682989/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2682989/
Detrus 13y ago

praxeologist 13y ago

For those of you interested in paleo or other low-carb/non-sugar approaches, I suggest Dr. Kurt Harris' blog: http://www.archevore.com/get-started/ http://www.archevore.com/get-started/ I went off paleo for a year or so, now back on for a few months and have gone from 178 to 162 lbs. without doing much else than cutting out sugar, gluten grains and plant oils. It's strange this time; when I occasionally eat these things, I feel slightly, but noticeably ill for about a day afterwards. Anyhow if this type of diet interests you, I want you to check out his blog because it is a slightly different approach than other "paleo". You need not eat super low carb as long as it is the right type of carbs and you don't have a ton of weight to lose. He also suggests cream if you don't have leaky gut (I drink tons in coffee every day). These are a couple tidbits from his entry on glucose: http://www.archevore.com/panu-weblog/2011/2/5/no-such-thing-as-a-macronutrient-part-ii-carbohydrates-revis.html http://www.archevore.com/panu-weblog/2011/2/5/no-such-thing-... "Glucose is a necessary internal fuel source and metabolite and it is also a food and the building block of foods that have the longest evolutionary history of any food that mammals use. It is a fact that we do not require glucose in the diet, and that we can make it from amino acids if we don't eat it. However, rather than viewing this as evidence that glucose is not important, we should view this as evidence that glucose is so metabolically important that we have evolved way to make sure we always have it." ... "Like glucose, there is no dietary requirement for fructose, but unlike glucose, we do not require fructose for use as an internal fuel. There is no organ like the brain that has an absolute fructose requirement. In fact, our body has mechanisms that evolved specifically to keep most cells from being exposed to too much of it." ... "To keep fructose out of the general circulation, it must be immediately burned or stored as fat. Fructose is related to the spectrum of serious diseases known as NAFLD (non-alcoholic liver disease), including fatty liver and cirrhosis."

yetanotherphd 13y ago
You can also get dietary advice from world renowned experts at Www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines
- spartango 13y ago
  Thank you for posting this. Yes, it's not fashionable to follow the updated HHS guidelines for healthy eating, but they are rooted in well-tested science. The USDA and HHS invest quite a bit into getting these guidelines right continuing to improve them as science advances. I have not seen a dietary platform as rigorously studied as the one provided by HHS.

fusiongyro 13y ago

Every time the "fructose is evil" thing gets brought up it seems to be this same scientist talking about it.

nitrogen 13y ago
Every time God plays dice with the universe, it seems to be that same scientist talking about it. Maybe it's always Robert Lustig because he's the name people already recognize. Maybe he's the one doing most of the research in the area. Sometimes, the public need a figurehead to keep explaining something to us until we get it.
- fusiongyro 13y ago
  Sure. Like the guy who said smoking is bad for you, or the guys who said excessive fat and cholesterol are bad for you. They stood up to Big Agro and fought the good fight. Who were those guys again?
- specialist 13y ago
  Attention economy, power law distribution of links. A simple googling of "fructose daily consumption" (or equiv) yields zillions of links. It's not like Lustig is a lone wolf.
r0h1n 13y ago
By itself, that fact conveys nothing. You could've said, "Every time the "NSA is spying on everyone" comes up, it seems to be Glenn Greenwald talking about it". When it comes to Big Food (or Big Pharma, Big Insurance etc.), I'd prefer - at the very minimum - taking any claims against them at face value instead of dismissing them outright. Of course, follow it up with your own research.
- yetanotherphd 13y ago
  I'm just as concerned about BigContrarianism and BigFadDiets.

wyager 13y ago

More alarmism. >Fizzy drinks can have a 'serum fructose concentration of six micromolar, enough to do major arterial and pancreatic damage'. You're telling me that if I replace my blood with fizzy drinks, it could do major arterial and pancreatic damage? Wow, who knew?

sliverstorm 13y ago
Your snip caught my attention, because "serum" usually refers to "blood serum". Indeed, if we read further: a 20oz soda RESULTS IN a serum fructose concentration of six micromolar

yetanotherphd 13y ago

"The industry points to meta-analyses of controlled isocaloric "fructose for glucose" exchange studies that demonstrate no effect from fructose on weight gain or other morbidities. Perhaps one reason for this is because crystalline fructose is incompletely absorbed." It seems like the author is really set on rejecting the conclusions of these meta-analyses.

mberning 13y ago
One thing that isocaloric studies do not show is how chronic consumption of one particular diet or another influences consumption patterns over time. This is by design and is a huge flaw IMO. Any diet that keeps you just above the limits of starvation is going to show no change in weight gain. A much more compelling study would be an overfeeding experiment between a high fructose diet, high glucose diet, high protein diet, high fat diet, etc.

anonemouscoward 13y ago

So, allegedly eating fruit causes "heart disease and diabetes, cancer and dementia"? No thanks, allow me to disbelieve.

guruz 13y ago

I agree that fructose (when eaten separately without the surrounding real fruit) is bad. But people should go some steps further: The whole composition of stuff most people eat is wrong (low fat, high carb). I recommend having a look at paleo-style diets (e.g. http://www.gnolls.org/1141/ http://www.gnolls.org/1141/ ) which mean high fat, mid protein, low carb. They provide more satiety, no after-lunch tiredness and a lot more. My own way was going from no fructose (thanks to Lustig's video) to now cutting grains too. Feels good. EDIT: And forget about counting calories or thinking that (eating fat == becoming fat). That's not how digestion works. Calories were afaik defined by burning (with an actual flame) the food. That's not how your organs, enymes, stomach, ..., bacteria work.

apunic 13y ago

> if you're obese, insulin resistant, well fed, and getting both fructose and glucose together (like a sizable percentage of the population), then fructose gets converted to fat at a much higher rate, approximating 30%. In other words, the toxicity of fructose depends on context. So, just don't eat glucose or white sugar together with fructose or just stop it. White sugar is the poison, not fructose.

erichmond 13y ago

Our bodies are designed to eat until we feel sated. Most people eat foods that do not allow themselves to feel fully sated, hence they overeat. Good proteins, healthy fats, and vegetables are the things that make us feel sated. Sugars and carbs in particular don't have a sating effect on people, hence you are prone to overeating, if you only eat those foods. This is why most fast food and convenience stores sell things that are comprised of sugar, carbs and fat. They're in the business of selling you more, not selling you "just enough". I don't think we should blame these companies btw, people have free will, and an occasional soda or candy bar won't kill you. It's just that too many people see these foods as a daily ritual. ------ Just an opinion from someone who has researched this space a bit due to my gluten intolerance.