Doctor told me fructose is worse than cane sugar

[pippo]

people,

 

Think this is true, or just suspect at this time? I mean, geez- fructose as in sugar found in an apple?? Worse at producing insulin than cane sugar??

[Ringer]

In what way did the doctor say it was worse? Fructose is probably absorbed faster than sucrose since sucrose is a glucose-fructose disaccharide, but there are a lot of ways something can be worse for you than something else. Context is important.

[pippo]

good point, ring. I take his comment as it is worse for your insulin "spike", or islets of Langerham "shock" to produce insulin. So, if like you say, fructose IS absorbed quicker, would make sense, right? Im kinda disappointed, as I was always a fan of more 'natural source sugar vs cane sugar refined at a factory assembly line.......

[EdEarl]

I am diabetic, and think you can have fruit, just in moderation, and you should be able to prevent glucose spikes by eating only a little fruit at a time, say 1/4 apple and wait an hour for the next 1/4. Use your monitor to determine how much and when.

[iNow]

Ringer hit the nail on the head with his response, and I think Ed is quite right. When you think about eating fruit, you must consider all of the other good stuff in it besides just sugar. It has vitamins, minerals, fiber, and it tastes freaking awesome, too. Try not to think just in terms of sugar.

 

However, there is a solid point that refined sugar is pretty bad for you, so much so that you might even call it toxic. I remember watching a special on 60 minutes about a year ago. It's a relatively short piece, worth the watch:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HezSlrJ1k7w

[CharonY]

It should also be added that the sugar found in e.g. apple is not purely fructose, though it reaches around 50% of the total (simple) sugar content. Other sugars do include gluclose, sorbitol and sucrose, for example.

[john5746]

good point, ring. I take his comment as it is worse for your insulin "spike", or islets of Langerham "shock" to produce insulin. So, if like you say, fructose IS absorbed quicker, would make sense, right? Im kinda disappointed, as I was always a fan of more 'natural source sugar vs cane sugar refined at a factory assembly line.......

I wouldn't be too dissapointed in nature, if you eat fruit, its better for you than sucking on a piece of cane, since you get the fiber. So yeah, concentrated fructose would be worse than concentrated sucrose, but nature doesn't create either.

[pippo]

Thanks, people. Good perspectives. yes, the added benefits of a more "complete" food source like a fruit picked from a tree is to be considered. Maybe he (the doc) was thinking about high FRUCTOSE corn syrups in all the trash food on the market. Not sure what HFCS is . Concentrated fructose??

 

Apparently, believe it or not, cane sugar is getting $$ for food manufacturers- they have switched to the way cheaper HFCS. Dont know exactly where cane sugar is still a "must" (breakfast cereals?). So, we now are getting junk fructose, supposedly, in our fruit juices, and all the other poisons sold at the super market......(?)

and that 60minutes video was very good. Wow. I didnt know.

[iRNAblogger]

Also, I'd like to add that I heard (I haven't actually read the literature on the matter, I just watched a lecture, so it may or may not be correct) that the liver is better equipped to metabolize fructose, while the rest of our body deals with glucose (comparing just these 2 hexoses: obviously there are more sugars in our bodies than just these two), so the metabolic waste/stress that results from a high-fructose diet is more likely to accumulate in the liver which has negative effects on the body. This observation does not mean that fructose is bad! The most common context (as mentioned by Ringer and iNow) of fructose in a natural diet is in fruits. The presence of fructose in fruits is not necessarily bad because there is lots of fiber which prevents some of the absorption of the fructose, and because of this, fruits do not cause a noticeable amount of metabolic stress on the liver. However, in a diet where the major source of sugar is a high-fructose corn syrup (which is a mixture of 50% fructose 50% glucose), there is typically not that much fiber and consequently absorption is elevated, leading to an increased amount of fructose metabolized in the liver, and a larger amount of metabolic stress to the liver.

 

Anyhow, this explanation is what I have heard. It would be great to actually see the data. Someone let me know if any of you have heard something similar!

Edited October 17, 2013 by iRNAblogger