

Fructose increases diabetes and heart disease - pg
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article6954603.ece

======
anigbrowl
If the conclusions of this study are validated, the food industry is going to
be hit by a wave of class-action lawsuits that'll make cigarette litigation
look like an amicable chit-chat.

If I was in the market I'd be shorting Archer Daniels Midland and a whole
bunch of end-product companies starting with Coke and Pepsi. And when you
consider how much of the meat industry has switched to feeding cattle on corn
instead of grass...yikes. It may take a few years, but governments beset by
rising medical care costs (many of which are obesity-related) are inevitably
going to try for some recovery.

~~~
nvasilak
Lawsuits? Who wouldn't want a nice, insulating layer of fat to protect their
heart? I use a Pepsi IV daily and haven't gotten sick in at least a week and a
half.

On a more serious note, the food industry has an immense amount of power in
Washington and I think change in just a few years is highly optimistic, but I
hope you're right.

~~~
jamesbritt
"On a more serious note, the food industry has an immense amount of power in
Washington and I think change in just a few years is highly optimistic,"

For sure. This is an industry that arranged so that they can sue you if you
diss them.

[http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/2009/11/burger-...](http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/2009/11/burger-
bashing-and-sirloin-slander-food-disparagement-laws-in-the-united-states/)
<http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1997Q2/eat.html>

------
jackchristopher
To steal a line, nutrition is younger than it seems. We screwed it up
fundamentally. This is just another example.

This study contradicts the glycemic index theory which claims glucose,
specifically rice and potatoes, are the worst carbohydrates sources because
they're high-GI. Truth is, we're better adapted to glucose. The body converts
all carbohydrates (except fiber) sources to glucose, and then to glycogen.
There's a reason blood sugar is glucose. The body prefers it.

Fructose - Glucose Study Showdown [1] _(a)13.9% increase in LDL cholesterol
but doubled Apoprotein B (b) 44.9% increase in small LDL_

[1] Dr. Davis is a cardiologist that has reversed atherosclerotic plaque in
thousands of patients. He recommends a diet where most calories come from fat.
Here's his analysis of studies relating fructose to heart disease:
<http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Fructose>

~~~
AlisdairO
The idea behind GI theory is not (I believe) that glucose is bad for you, but
that too much in one short hit is bad for you. Yes, the body converts all
carbohydrates to glucose, but it takes much longer for complex carbs to turn
into straight glucose than it does simpler ones, spreading out the absorption.
It isn't about fructose vs glucose, but rather fast absorption vs slow
absorption.

------
nkurz
This linked article is junk[1], but the study on which it is based is rather
interesting:

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2673878/>

The gave either fructose or glucose based to volunteers over a period of 10
weeks, and seem to have shown a clear statistical difference between the
reaction to the two. Although both produced similar total weight gains, there
were consistent differences in how the volunteers reacted to each:

"These data suggest that dietary fructose specifically increases DNL, promotes
dyslipidemia, decreases insulin sensitivity, and increases visceral adiposity
in overweight/obese adults."

[1] The "six times sweeter" claim is false, and indicates a lack of both fact
checking and logic. If it was 6x sweeter, you wouldn't need anywhere near as
much of it!

~~~
gregwebs
can we ban posting news article that are crappy summaries of studies?

~~~
anigbrowl
Yeah, posters like pg are really turning this place into reddit ;)

~~~
gregwebs
This is really just a specific instance of "Please submit the original
source". In this case there is often an assumption that readers cannot
understand the actual article and we need journalists who interview scientists
to summarize it for us. I almost always find that, as in this article, there
are errors in the news summary, and I have come to the opinion that you can't
learn anything about health by reading these kinds of health news summaries.

~~~
anigbrowl
Oh, I agree completely. I much prefer a link to a paper and a self-comment to
a confusing news item. I just couldn't resist the cheap laugh. Sorry!

------
ars
So it's time to get rid of the
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Sugar_Program> (tariff on sugar, making
fructose cheaper). That's going to make some growers and states really really
mad.

~~~
foulmouthboy
I suspect that we'll see a much bigger push towards biodiesel as high fructose
corn syrup continues to get attacked. Also, anybody capable of growing corn
should be capable of growing soybeans, which is something that's also added to
every type of food (if not an outright substitute). The corn growers will
adapt.

------
pmichaud
Wait, this title is misleading. There's a huge difference between the
crystalline fructose you can buy at good grocery stores and the High Fructose
Corn Syrup manufacturers shove into every food they can.

It's like saying water must be bad for you since we tried forcing someone to
drink 5 gallons at once and they got water poisoning.

------
xiaoma
_"Even some fruit drinks that sound healthy contain fructose._ "

Uh... _fruit_ has fructose. All of them do.

~~~
mtoledo
If anyone can help me understand: what is the difference between eating a food
with a certain fructose percentage on HFCS, and a fruit which has the same
amount of fructose?

And what is the difference on drinking some artificial drink with a fructose
percentage, and pure fruit juice, containing the same amount of fructose?

I saw a presentation once arguing that fruits come with "the poison and the
cure", in that the fibers counter the fructose. But that doesn't sound very
healthy under the perspective of the study, does it?

Also, does that mean that, again assuming what the study says, its better to
eat glucose based sugar foods than eating fruits, on the "sugar" perspective?

~~~
mtoledo
Also, in the case of the juice, if it doesn't have the fibers that the fruit
has, is it just as bad as soda then (assuming same fructose proportions, of
course)?

~~~
rarrrrrr
Although there are plenty of junk juices out there -- the other bad things in
soda give it an edge in nastiness over fruit juice.

For example: acidity. Typical pH ranges of colas are 2.5 - 4.2. It literally
causes your body to breath faster (exhaling CO2 makes you more alkaline) and
if necessary pull calcium out of your bones to maintain your body's pH between
7.35-7.45. If your pH drops below 7.35 you go into acidosis; much farther and
you die.

Drink excessive soda and avoid exercise if you want weak bones and
osteoporosis.

~~~
mtoledo
Right, but I dont mean junk juices. I mean natural fruit juices, the one just
out of the fruit. They are supposedly full of fructose and no fibers, right?
So are they just as bad, on a fructose point of view (as in supposedly has the
bad side effects the article lists) as a cola with the same amount of fructose
derived from HFCS in it?

~~~
rarrrrrr
Theoretically, maybe, but in practice, the food industry's HFCS sources are
typically of abysmally low quality. It's almost entirely from genetically
modified corn which has been reported to cause kidney problems for some
people.

There's also pesticides and other contaminants.

For example, mercury: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2009/01...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2009/01/26/AR2009012601831.html)

Most health food stores (Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, etc.) have a policy
against stocking products containing HFCS.

~~~
mtoledo
Thanks for the explanation. The effects of the fructose enumerated on the
article, tho, are the same.

I did read about the difference in proportions being the biggest propel fact
too, it was mentioning a cup of tomato had about 3g of fructose, whereas a
regular soft drink had +25g (don't recall the real numbers)

------
frankus
HFCS 55 is actually (according to Wikipedia, anyway), about as sweet as
sucrose. Even pure fructose "is generally regarded as being 1.73 times sweeter
than sucrose," so I'm not sure where they're getting the six times number.

~~~
tedunangst
Probably screwed up trying to say 6 times sweeter than glucose.

------
joe_the_user
Aside from the quality of the article, there seems to be a lesson about
speculatively changing one's basic diets to things that _appear_ to be safer.
Fructose was promoted as a substance which didn't have the high glycemic index
of sucrose. Low and behold the final results seem to be worse.

The effects of the indigestible fats that still taste appealing probably won't
be know for a bit but they could be scary. Who knows what final results will
occur with other speculative alterations of the diet (fortunately, calorie
restriction is very small fad).

~~~
carbocation
The indigestible fats are demonstrably non-absorbable, so they are less likely
to have subtle, sinister side-effects of which we are not yet aware. (By
demonstrably, I mean they are easily detected, both by the consumer of said
fats, and by lab tests looking for steatorrhea:
<http://www.annals.org/content/132/4/279.2.full> ).

There are risks, and they are fairly well-characterized: you risk
malabsorption of fat-soluble vitamins (K,A,D,E).

The fructose issue is far more terrifying, both because (a) it is absorbed,
and (b) the epidemiology and biochemistry are plausible.

You know a product is bad for you when it has to put out commercials claiming
that it's no worse for you than sugar...

~~~
joe_the_user
Mmm,

Well, I believe that one can prove that these chemicals aren't absorbed by the
human digestive tract.

I offer that one might INDEED experience "subtle, sinister side-effects" by
way of substances which "merely" pass through the digestive tract. I know that
eating fair quantities dirt or sawdust generally is rightly discouraged.

Of course, this isn't _certain_ ... bu, bu, but my point is that we moderns
haven't so far done well by offering ourselves for science's experimentation.

There might will likely be a tipping point, where this science finally
delivers more than it takes away. But we ought to take concerning whether
we've reached that point or not.

~~~
carbocation
I guess my point wasn't that Olestra has no important side effects, but
instead that it has very important side effects which are in plain view.

------
jrockway
Isn't sucrose just as bad as HFCS, though?

~~~
TNO
Sucrose can be regulated by your body with Sucrase, whereas HFCS cannot. Maybe
that's part of the reason why so many Americans are overweight? Hard to escape
HFCS in the average diet. Reference: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
fructose_corn_syrup#Cane_a...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
fructose_corn_syrup#Cane_and_beet_sugar)

~~~
pmorici
Some Good documentary films about food...

<http://www.hulu.com/watch/67878/the-future-of-food>

<http://www.foodincmovie.com/>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Corn_%28film%29>

(You can rent the last two on iTunes)

~~~
jseifer
For some good reading on the subject, check out Ray Peat's article "Glycemia,
starch, and sugar in context" at
<http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/glycemia.shtml>.

While not specifically about sugars, the Weston Price book is a good read
about traditional diets as well: [http://www.amazon.com/Nutrition-Physical-
Degeneration-Weston...](http://www.amazon.com/Nutrition-Physical-Degeneration-
Weston-Price/dp/0916764206/).

------
moron4hire
I know when I eat a fructose-free diet, I have a much more "tame" alimentary
canal, if you know what I mean.

------
sabat
"Just last week I cut out fructose." --Kramer

