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An ancient human foraging instinct, fueled by fructose production in the brain, may hold clues to the development and possible treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD), according to researchers. "We make the case that Alzheimer's disease is driven by diet," said Richard Johnson, MD. Johnson and his team suggest that AD is a harmful adaptation of an evolutionary survival pathway used in animals and our distant ancestors during times of scarcity. When threatened with the possibility of starvation, early humans developed a survival response which sent them foraging for food. Yet foraging is only effective if metabolism is inhibited in various...

Just because an artificial sweetener has zero or very few calories doesn't mean there are zero (or very few) health consequences to consuming the sachet. A randomized controlled trial recently found that regular consumption of sucralose (marketed as Splenda) and saccharin (marketed as Sweet'N Low) can alter microbes in the gut and elevate the body's response to sugar. These non-nutritive sweeteners are presumed to be chemically inert, but that may not actually be true. The findings of the recent trial, conducted among 120 participants who identified as strict abstainers from artificial sweeteners of any kind, suggest that regularly consuming some...

New research points to a novel way to prevent the death of insulin-producing beta cells A study led by researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has homed in on a newly discovered molecular mechanism that could prevent insulin resistance in type 2 diabetics. The research indicates disrupting the expression of a certain protein could protect beta cells and prevent patients from becoming insulin resistant. Type 2 diabetes can develop when insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas become dysfunctional, often following long-term high blood glucose levels. Eventually, those crucial beta cells begin to die, with the body...

Those who are habitually inclined to consume burgers, fries and soda may think twice about their dietary choices following scientists' latest findings about high-fat, high-fructose diets. A team discovered that a high-fat diet can increase fructose metabolism in the small intestine, leading to release of a fructose-specific metabolite called glycerate into circulation. Circulating glycerate can subsequently cause damage of the insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells, increasing the risk of glucose tolerance disorders, such as Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Past research has shown that fructose produces deleterious effects in the liver. However, additional research has shown that these effects are normally...

I’ve been saying for ages that the sugar composition of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is no different from that of table sugar (sucrose). Oops. A new study in the journal, Obesity, actually measured the amounts and kinds of sugars in 23 kinds of HFCS-sweetened drinks. The findings are summarized in a fact sheet: • The sugar content varied widely from amounts stated on labels. • Some drinks had 15% less sugar than labeled, but others had as much as 30% more. • On average, the drinks had 18% more fructose than expected. • Several brands of sodas seemed to...

Eating fructose appears to alter cells in the digestive tract in a way that enables it to take in more nutrients. These changes could help to explain the well-known link between rising fructose consumption around the world and increased rates of obesity and certain cancers. The research focused on the effect of a high-fructose diet on villi, the thin, hairlike structures that line the inside of the small intestine. Villi expand the surface area of the gut and help the body to absorb nutrients, including dietary fats, from food as it passes through the digestive tract. The study found that...

Many of us believe some kinds of sugar are somehow healthier. High-fructose corn syrup has been a scapegoat for American obesity for the past decade and a half, so you might be surprised to learn that sugar and honey both have more fructose than high-fructose corn syrup. Let’s break down the numbers here. Despite its misleading name, the most commonly used form of HFCS only has 42 percent fructose in comparison to table sugar’s 50 percent. Honey, the beloved natural sweetener, has 49 percent. Standard corn syrup doesn’t have any fructose because it’s 100 percent glucose, which explains how HFCS...

Researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine reported today that the cause of obesity and insulin resistance may be tied to the fructose your body makes in addition to the fructose you eat. In recent years the role of added sweeteners, such as high fructose corn syrup and table sugar (sucrose), has taken center stage as risk factors for obesity and insulin resistance. Numerous studies suggest that the risk from added sugars may be due to the fructose content. But in the study published in the Sept. 10 edition of Nature Communications, the team led by researchers at...

American eaters love a good villain. Diets that focus on one clear bad guy have gotten traction even as the bad guy has changed: fat, carbohydrates, animal products, cooked food, gluten. And now Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California at San Francisco, is adding sugar to the list. His book "Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease" makes the case that sugar is almost single-handedly responsible for Americans' excess weight and the illnesses that go with it. "Sugar is the biggest perpetrator of our current health crisis," says Lustig, blaming it...

Mice that could not make or metabolize the sugar gained less than normal mice. Mice lacking the ability to metabolize fructose don’t gain nearly as much weight as normal mice do, researchers report September 10 in Nature Communications. Fructose, which some people blame for the obesity epidemic and its related health crises (SN: 6/1/13, p. 22), shows up in high-fructose corn syrup and in table sugar, or sucrose. The body also makes home-grown fructose by modifying glucose in a process involving an enzyme called aldose reductase.

Big governments control more than just your pocketbook and basic freedoms. In the United States, the foods that our government subsidizes has a direct effect on YOUR health, and unfortunately, the effect is usually a negative one. It is no secret that the United States spends more on health care than any other country in the industrialized world, by a long shot. U.S. doctors treat diseases that are directly influenced by the diets of Americans. However, it might come as a surprise to know that the foods that our government subsidizes are direct contributors to the diseases that kill so...

Note: USC researcher Kathleen Page, MD, is an SC CTSI KL2 Alumnae. As part of the program, she recieved support and acquired skills needed to secure a subsequent K23 Career Training Award to continue this research. Feeling hungry after drinking something sweet? It could have something to do with the type of sugar you consumed, according to research at Yale University led by SC CTSI K Scholar Kathleen Page, principal investigator and assistant professor of medicine at the USC Keck School of Medicine.  Kathleen Page The research determined that fructose and glucose, the two forms of simple sugars, are processed differently in the...

The argument that sugar is a toxin depends on some technical details about the different ways the human body gets energy from different types of sugar. Today, Americans eat most of their sugar in two main forms: table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup. A molecule of table sugar, or sucrose, is a bond between one glucose molecule and one fructose molecule—two simple sugars with the same chemical formula, but slightly different atomic structures.

Our very first experience of exceptional sweetness—a dollop of buttercream frosting on a parent’s finger; a spoonful of strawberry ice cream instead of the usual puréed carrots—is a gustatory revelation that generally slips into the lacuna of early childhood. Sometimes, however, the moment of original sweetness is preserved. A YouTube video from February 2011 begins with baby Olivia staring at the camera, her face fixed in rapture and a trickle of vanilla ice cream on her cheek. When her brother Daniel brings the ice cream cone near her once more, she flaps her arms and arches her whole body to...

A Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center study on dietary fructose has provided more evidence of the potential for controversy when researchers target products affecting consumer spending and corporate profits. This time, researchers are on the receiving end of sharp criticism from the Corn Refiners Association after reporting that fructose rapidly caused liver damage even without weight gain with primates.The researchers acknowledged when they released the study results that the role of dietary fructose in the development of obesity and fatty liver diseases “remains controversial.” Researchers determined that over a six-week study period, liver damage more than doubled in the monkeys...

Tuesday June 25, 2013 (foodconsumer.org) -- A new report published in Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism suggests that eating foods or drinking beverages with fructose may increase risk of endothelial dysfunction, insulin resistance/diabetes mellitus type 2 and hypertension. Z. Khitan and D. H. Kim, the authors of the report, from Marshall University Joan Edwards School of Medicine in Huntington, WV, USA say that uric acid resulting from uncontrolled fructose metabolism is the risk factor for metabolic syndrome and diabetes mellitus. What happens, according to the report, after fructose is ingested is that the sugar in the liver bypasses two highly...

In the 1990s, excessive fat consumption was commonly believed to be the main cause of obesity. High sugar consumption was often considered to be innocuous and possibly protective against obesity by displacing dietary fat.1 A decade later, the American Heart Association linked intake of added sugars to weight gain and recommended substantial decreases in consumption to a daily maximum of 100 kcal for women and 150 kcal for men.2 Some experts now argue that sugar comprises the single most important cause of the worldwide epidemics of obesity and diabetes, primarily through the effects of fructose at prevailing levels of consumption.3...

This is your brain on sugar—for real. Scientists have used imaging tests to show for the first time that fructose, a sugar that saturates the American diet, can trigger brain changes that may lead to overeating. After drinking a fructose beverage, the brain doesn’t register the feeling of being full as it does when simple glucose is consumed, researchers found. It’s a small study and does not prove that fructose or its relative, high-fructose corn syrup, can cause obesity, but experts say it adds evidence they may play a role. These sugars often are added to processed foods and beverages,...

Countries using high-fructose corn syrup have diabetes rates 20 percent higher than countries that do not, a new international analysis finds. High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in national food supplies around the world might help explain the rising rates of type 2 diabetes around the world, researchers at the University of Southern California and the University of Oxford report in the journal Global Public Health. After studying 42 countries, researchers found that those that use HFCS in their food supply had a 20 percent higher prevalence of diabetes than those that did not use HFCS, suggesting an association with diabetes independent...

Researchers have just reported that among the list of bodily ills that fructose contributes to, it may also "make you dumb." Luckily, eating a diet rich in the healthy omega-3 fatty acids seems to counteract this phenomenon. The rats also had important differences in how their bodies - and brains - were metabolizing sugar and functioning overall. The rats who had eaten diets without omega-3s had higher triglyceride levels as well as higher glucose and insulin levels. In fact the rats seemed to enter a state of insulin resistance (a precursor to diabetes), but this too was reversed by the...