Fructose – It’s in lots of stuff and it’s terrible for you!

Firstly, if you have an hour, this talk by Robert Lustig, MD, of UCSF is pretty informative about the damage caused by fructose and why it is responsible for enormous weight-gain. I don’t entirely understand the chemistry, but it sounds like fructose makes a poison in your liver and messes with your insulin causing you to get fat.

Secondly, a study just came out about fructose apparently being a fantastic meal for cancer cells. This study was on pancreatic tumors. When given glucose and fructose, they could more readily metabolize fructose. Presumably, this will generalize to other cancer cells. It has major implications for cancer patients, but it also just adds to the reasons for healthy people to avoid fructose.

As a lover of anything with chocolate or cream cheese frosting, my self-control is being challenged — anything with sucrose in it (like white sugar) has fructose. Even agave syrup, which seems marketed as particularly healthy, has fructose. I’m sure you had the immediate reaction, “uh, doesn’t fruit have fructose?” Yes, fruit has fructose, but as Lustig points out, fruits are naturally packaged with fibers that impede and slow down fructose absorption; It’s better to eat the fruit than drink fruit juice. Brown rice syrup, and corn syrup (regular, non-high-fructose) are primarily glucose. They might work as sweeteners, except they’re not nearly as sweet as table sugar. Not that they’re great for you, but I recently discovered that twizzlers are primarily made from corn syrup, meaning that it’s mostly glucose. It’s such a relief to to find at least some movie theatre candy that doesn’t seem god awful.

Oh, and a note about Lustig’s talk: Gatorade (or at least some Gatorade beverage) does not seem to have high fructose corn syrup in it anymore.