Fructose: The Poison Index

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/21/fructose-poison-sugar-industry-pseudoscience

by JPKab • 13 years ago

101 106 13 years ago

anigbrowl• 13 years ago

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

tehSp0rk• 13 years 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• 13 years 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• 13 years 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.

smsm424• 13 years 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• 13 years ago

How on earth is it promoting sucrose? It's just saying that fructose alone is much worse than sucrose.

skylan_q• 13 years ago

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

wissler3• 13 years ago

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]"

icelancer2• 13 years 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-ab...

markbao• 13 years 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?

jwmerrill• 13 years ago

This rebuttal doesn't seem to say that much about Lustig's central claim: that fructose is metabolized in a very different way from glucose, that large amounts of fructose metabolism harms the liver, and that this harm may be associated with metabolic syndrome.

What it does say is that overall calorie consumption has increased since 1970 but the fraction of calories from added sugar has not (no claim about fructose consumption specifically?), that fructose is almost always found along with glucose, so the fact that fructose does not induce an insulin response doesn't mean that foods containing fructose aren't satiating, that the Japanese do eat some fruit, that most fruits have less fiber than sugarcane, and that dosage is relevant to toxicity.

Couldn't Aragon be right about every one of these points without refuting Lustig's central claim? Can't it simultaneously be true that consuming too many total calories is harmful, and that consuming too much fructose is also harmful?

dools• 13 years ago

Hmm that article seems to nitpick about the supporting data provided by Lustig (as well as some rather "rhetorical" devices) and does nothing to attack the information presented about how fructose is metabolised which, to me, was the most damning component of the talk.

The fundamental message is that the chronic effects of fructose are similar to the chronic effects of alcohol because they're metabolised almost identically in the liver.

Aragon's only argument against the biochemistry presented is that it's "all about dose and context" ... well if you chronically consume alcohol then you get pretty fucked up in the liver right? So if you're chronically consuming fructose in the same way you'll get fucked up, too.

Really, the article doesn't refute any of the core claims, it only says that we can eat some fructose just the same as we can eat some alcohol, big deal. That doesn't mean I'm going to start feeding my kids lollies, fizzy drinks, fruit juice and donuts now, does it?

specialist9• 13 years ago

What measure of proof do you require?

tezza2• 13 years ago

I saw Prof. Stephen O'Rahilly give a talk in 2010 at TEDxCAM.

His research defines a clear link between genetics and obesity, fructose or no fructose. Obviously less intake is better, but many people cannot stop themselves if there is available food. On the other hand, there are people who will stay lean no matter how much food is available.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2570383/

Human Obesity: A Heritable Neurobehavioral Disorder That Is Highly Sensitive to Environmental Conditions

DanBC5• 13 years 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• 13 years 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.

mberning3• 13 years 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• 13 years 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/

Detrus2• 13 years ago

You're wrong on the internet.

The fructose being talked about isn't the nice one in fruits. It's corn syrup or sugar in soda. Yes, obese people consume incredible amounts of it. A gallon a day. Those Texas sized doses of soda you can order with your meal actually get consumed.

It's very difficult to consume even 1000 extra calories from proper food, like potatoes. They fill you up. And I can barely get a layer of fat. With soda you won't even notice the consumption. And it screws with insulin in the blood like fruits and potatoes never could. Makes you absorb more.

Some powerlifters eat junk food precisely because it contains more calories per stomach stuffing material. Ruins bloodwork but gets results. So do steroids.

sliverstorm6• 13 years ago

It's very difficult to consume even 1000 extra calories from proper food, like potatoes

No shit, that's nearly 6 medium russet potatoes.

DanBC5• 13 years ago

Take that soda and replace the fructose with sucrose. You still get people drinking a gallon of it.

It's very difficult to consume even 1000 extra calories from proper food, like potatoes.

This is just not true. People find it easy to overeat. They add a little bit of butter here, some mayo there, have a drizzle of salad dressing, a nice snack. It all adds up.

smsm424• 13 years ago

Sugar has 50% fructose. HFCS has 42% to 55%, depending on variety. Are you sure the fructose in the corn syrup is the problem here?

agumonkey• 13 years ago

It's true that eating raw things pulls on all sorts of threshold triggering a strong stop reflex, whereas one can eat processed food for long periods without even half of this 'im fed up' sensation.

aantix• 13 years ago

Their problem is that they regularly eat thousands of extra calories

While I appreciate the response, you're not providing any reasoning as to why.

By your logic it's equivalent of saying "he's an alcoholic because he drinks too much."

DanBC5• 13 years ago

But that's the point.

Using the alcoholic analogy people are saying "alcoholism is caused by grain! Grain does X and that's really bad!" when really, while grain might be bad, it's the alcohol that's the real problem.

Fructose might be bad, but the real problem is the huge amount of over eating that people do. And people still get obese even in countries that do not use HFCS.

ahoge2• 13 years ago

Their problem is that they regularly eat thousands of extra calories.

Which is so much easier with fructose. It gets in the way of feeling full and it has lots of kcal.

Nowadays, we consume several times more fructose than we did 100 years ago. Our bodies still handle it very poorly.

If you want to lose weight, watching your fructose intake will make it a lot easier.

DanBC5• 13 years ago

Nowadays, we consume several times more fructose than we did 100 years ago.

Nowadays people consume very many more calories than we did 100 years ago, and people in countries where HFCS isn't used still get fat.

When someone says they stopped eating HFCS it's not stopping the fructose that helps them lose weight, it's stopping drinking all those extra empty calories that helps them lose weight.

smsm424• 13 years ago

Since fructose is sweeter, shouldn't it be harder with fructose - i.e., for the same sensation, you'd consume less fructose and thus less calories?

tezza2• 13 years ago

Eating too much is bad, and foodstuffs like Fructose clearly do not help. Fructose also has a link to cancer, which is separate to weight issues and should be the main focus of debate

However I agree with you that simply identifying Fructose as a smoking gun / evildoer for obesity is wrong.

There seem to be combination of special interest groups focussing on making Fructose an issue:

* Anti American bile - The school of thought that: American Big Business pushes this stuff, ergo it must be evil and manipulative

* Trying to sell diet books enriching the author. This Fructose issue is the fashionable kernel of truth that such books strive for; They hang snake-oil padding around such facts.

Research shows there is a strong genetic influence on obesity: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2570383/

thenomad• 13 years ago

I'd tend to partially agree with you: the amount of sugar added to almost all processed food is terrifying, and there's good evidence it's extremely bad for you.

And that's something we suffer from in the UK, too. I recall one particularly eye-opening moment in Sainsburys' when I checked a chilli to find out it was 5% sugar by weight. That's a lot of sugar in a savoury dish.

specialist9• 13 years ago

I sling code. I'm not a biologist. YMMV.

Not all calories are the same.

Doing the Four Hour Body, paleo, troglodiet (tm), I can't eat enough. In fact, the more I eat, the more body fat I lose. It's crazy. I even managed to convince my gf, who now eats with abandon, and she's lost 30lbs so far.

Ferriss warns in an early chapter that you will eat more than you've ever eaten before. Chomping thru 3 yummy kale salads (or equiv) per day, I stop eating when I'm tired of chewing. My salads are stuffed with calories, like bacon, turkey, avocado, tahini, craisins, etc.

Back to the fructose...

All I know comes from Lustig (sorry, I'm still not a biologist), why refined foods like HFCS are bad. The different metabolic pathway for fruit juice vs fruit. The sucrose splits into fructose and glucose. Body needs glucose whereas fructose is poison (just like alcohol). The fiber found in fruit et al blocks digestion of the fructose.

Sugar, the Bitter Truth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

I don't have any cites for how fructose is crack for cancers. I assume it's true. Diabetes, hypertension, and obesity are reason enough to avoid fructose.

(Further, I vote with my dollars. Screw the corn lobby and their market distorting subsidies.)

StavrosK2• 13 years ago

What's the HN-comment-summary of paleo? I.e. what do you eat/not eat?

praxeologist2• 13 years 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/

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-...

"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."

yetanotherphd5• 13 years ago

You can also get dietary advice from world renowned experts at Www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines

spartango• 13 years 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.

mberning3• 13 years ago

They have recommended a carbohydrate rich diet for years and it has gotten us what? Appeal to government authority is not compelling when it comes to dietary advice, especially when you consider the power of the food lobby and the well understood impact of lobbyists in American politics.

boothead• 13 years ago

A government in thrall to the "big food" lobby is the last place I'd go for dietary advice.

I'm not just talking about the US government here - but almost all western governments have got it wrong on nutrition for the last half century or so. It seems that Sweden is the first to buck the trend - I hope others catch on before they cost us more billions in health care spending trying to fix the symptoms of what they have caused.

nickpp• 13 years ago

Was anybody able to find the actual advice there?! It's all about meetings and secretaries but no guideline in sight...

praxeologist2• 13 years ago

The other go-to on why the USDA guidelines are faulty is Gary Taubes and his book Good Calories, Bad Calories which also covers the history of the so-called lipid hypothesis (that saturated fats are bad for you). I cook with only ghee, bacon grease and coconut oil. Some articles by Taubes:

Sugar - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.htm...

Fats - http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-...

konstruktor2• 13 years ago

The advice you get there is a political consensus, not a scientific one. Have a look at http://www.choosemyplate.gov/, linked directly from health.gov: You will have a hard time finding a recommendation against any food product. The non-obvious trick used to appease the food industry is basing the recommendations on nutrients and ingredients, allowing the industry to push their "Any food product can be part of a balanced diet" myth, and reengineer the processed food so that they can put whatever nutrient or ingredient is considered healthy right now on the labels.

Tichy• 13 years ago

Because they are totally not exposed to lobbying.

raverbashing• 13 years ago

Here's another thing about fructose:

Yes, glucose is needed and fabricated by the body, but one of the things the body does with glucose is synthesise glycogen.

Glycogen is stored in the muscles and liver. Now, glucose is good for replenishing both, fructose is bad at replenishing muscle glycogen.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3592616

gadders• 13 years ago

and have gone from 178 to 162 lbs

How tall are you though? If you're 6ft+ that's not a good look.

lawn• 13 years ago

I will chime in to that and add some references.

LCHF (Low Carb High Fat) has become popular in Sweden lately. You can read an introduction[1] and a page with references[2]. LCHF is basically a "paleo" approach.

I've had several overweight acquaintance who have tried it out and it has worked out great every single time. It is perhaps a bit extreme to disallow nearly all carbs, but on the other hand no other diet will let you eat as much (of the good stuff) you can - and still work.

Another blogger tried out what happens if you overeat calories[3], both eating carbs and eating low-fat. Quite amusing to see the results as nearly everyone is stuck in the calorie counting mindset.

[1] https://www.dietdoctor.com/lchf [2]: http://www.dietdoctor.com/science [3]: http://live.smashthefat.com/5000-calorie-carb-challenge-day-...

fusiongyro3• 13 years ago

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

nitrogen• 13 years 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.

fusiongyro3• 13 years 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?

specialist9• 13 years 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.

r0h1n2• 13 years 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.

yetanotherphd5• 13 years ago

I'm just as concerned about BigContrarianism and BigFadDiets.

fusiongyro3• 13 years ago

Yeah, I should check it out with my own research in my own lab. That's how I figured out the truth about vaccination and microbes on Mars.

nunb2• 13 years ago

yeah why is it always Glenn Greenwald?

Now don't say "conspiracy" because then you're just being faddist and contrarian.

anon1385• 13 years ago

You could've said, "Every time the "NSA is spying on everyone" comes up, it seems to be Glenn Greenwald talking about it".

Because Greenwald is in possession of a secret stash of documents leaked to him and only a few other people on the planet have access to those documents. Are you saying that Lustig has some secret data about fructose that only he knows about?

StavrosK2• 13 years ago

It conveys that the opinion you heard a hundred times isn't a hundred people having the same opinion; it's one person having the opinion a hundred times.

It's expert consensus vs a guy being loud.

aaron695• 13 years ago

This is true and it also worries me. I always go, good article that agrees with my belief system, who wrote it.... Dam the person who put me onto it in the first place.

icelancer2• 13 years ago

Primarily because Lustig is the champion of this banner for whatever reason. You can find numerous rebuttals of his psuedoscience from people like Alan Aragon, Lyle McDonald, Leigh Peele, Martin Berkhan, etc.

wyager• 13 years 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?

sliverstorm6• 13 years 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

yetanotherphd5• 13 years 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.

mberning3• 13 years 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.

guruz• 13 years 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/ ) 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• 13 years 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• 13 years 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.

Fructose: The Poison Index

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