Fructose Isn't Just Sugar. It Acts More Like a Hormone (scienceblog.com)
- Reference: 0181744144
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/04/18/0444250/fructose-isnt-just-sugar-it-acts-more-like-a-hormone
- Source link: https://scienceblog.com/why-fructose-behaves-less-like-a-calorie-and-more-like-a-hormone/
> A [2]new review says we've had fructose wrong for decades. The nine authors, led by Richard Johnson at the University of Colorado Anschutz, argue that fructose " [3]is not just another calorie ." It is a signal. It tells the liver to make fat and brace for a famine that never comes. That made sense for a bear fattening up on autumn berries. It makes less sense for a person drinking soda in March.
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> The review reframes the WHO's sugar guideline, [4]argues ScienceBlog.com , as "less a recommendation about calories and more a warning about a signalling molecule we have been dosing ourselves with, several times a day, for most of a century."
[1] https://slashdot.org/~smazsyr
[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s42255-026-01506-y
[3] https://news.cuanschutz.edu/news-stories/new-report-highlights-fructose-as-a-key-driver-of-metabolic-disease
[4] https://scienceblog.com/why-fructose-behaves-less-like-a-calorie-and-more-like-a-hormone/
Who's "we"? (Score:3)
I've been hearing & reading similar things about fructose for decades, within about a decade of public awareness that school kids even relatively active ones were getting remarkably fatter very quickly
Re: (Score:2)
Willing to bet they're not giving "school kids" anything that resembles fruit.
Re: (Score:1)
Why not, they do! Note that the article is from the US, thus each pizza (but only frozen) is a serving of vegetables, and because tomato is a fruit, the frozen pizza also counts.
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doesn't matter. shakes, cakes and syrup are worse, but fructose in regular fruit is still bad in excess (obesity, diabetes, liver problems). the benefits of fruit are many: antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, etc. (excess of some of those can be bad too, mind) but mainly because of the high fructose content it should be consumed sparingly. like tfa points out we're not bears going into 6 months of hibernation, even though [-space reserved for obligatory joke-].
fruit today is overabundant, even already peeled
That's it (Score:5, Funny)
From now on, I'm only drinking soda in October.
BS (Score:3)
Article is paywalled, but from the abstract the assertion of hormonal action appears to be hype BS. Only the liver can metabolize fructose. That's the main issue with fructose.
Re:BS (Score:4, Informative)
Just get the Archive Page extension, then no paywalls anymore.
Re: (Score:2)
"...but from the abstract the assertion of hormonal action appears to be hype BS. "
The research paper is not what was cited for any "hormone" comment, the second link was. And it's not paywalled and says "like a hormone", not "hormonal". There is no claim that fructose IS a hormone or has hormonal action.
"Only the liver can metabolize fructose."
That has been recent conventional belief, but there is data that suggests otherwise.
"That's the main issue with fructose."
It is not, perhaps you should read the in
Re: BS (Score:2)
Everything is a poison if you injest too much of it, even water. The small amount of fructose in fruit is harmless, the ridiculous amounts in fizzy drinks etc, not so much.
Re: (Score:2)
See also Johnson, RJ [1]The fructose survival hypothesis for obesity [nih.gov].
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10363705/
Not just fructose, sucrose is also a problem (Score:2)
In humans and other mammals, sucrose is broken down into its constituent monosaccharides, glucose and fructose, by sucrase or isomaltase glycoside hydrolases, which are located in the membrane of the microvilli lining the duodenum. The resulting glucose and fructose molecules are then rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream.
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Sucrose is table sugar which links glucose and fructose molecules.
Glucose or dextrose enters the bloodstream quickly via mussels and other tissues, and its mmol/L can be measured.
Fructose is sweeter and doesn't enter directly but via the liver by overloading liver enzymes and converting excess into fat, hence the risk risks.
Re: (Score:2)
correction:
s/risk risks/health risks
Re: (Score:2)
correction2:
s/mussels/muscles
I'll shut up now. :(
Re: Not just fructose, sucrose is also a problem (Score:2)
Err, how exactly do you think biochemicals get from the gut to the liver if not via the bloodstream, pixie magic?
Re: (Score:2)
Your are right, via the bloodstream, and not very clear on my part.
Glucose is the body's primary energy source and most tissue can break it down with the help of insulin.
While for fructos insulin is not involved, just the liver (and kidneys i think) processes it.
Clearer perhaps?
Seems Suspicious (Score:2)
People like to say fructose is horrible, but it's in just about everything, even "natural" foods. For more information, listen tothis excellent podcast.
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it's all about the dose. and it appears you forgot the link.
It's an interesting hypothesis (Score:4, Insightful)
But it's important not to overreact until there have been more studies which confirm (or refute) it.
Jumping the gun, building your belief system based on single "out of left field" study results, gets you RFK Jr.
oh dear (Score:1)
Fucktarded: I'm gonna eat whatever and disregard evolution Evolution: I go both ways, and right now I'm the top.
Re: (Score:2)
No one said you had to change your diet; the authors are just presenting the information that they found. Use it or don't.
But I'm going to guess that you're the sort that sees a "road closed" sign and says, "Screw that, I'm gonna drive anyway!" Which is fine, too, so long as you're the only one in the car.
Re: oh dear (Score:2)
Send that guy the ambulance bill, we shouldn't have to pay for someone's willful ignorance.
Lo-carb: not panacea (Score:2)
Successful low-carb dieter here.
I would have agreed with this at some point but as my experience with nutrition grew and I got older I have a more complete understanding.
If your sole goal is to lose weight then eating nothing but meat works and it solves a lot of nutritional problems we tend to accumulate in modern living. Like fructose and high fructose corn syrup. Highly refined carbohydrates of all sorts. Trans-fats reduced to natural trace amounts. If you are on a meat-only diet you miss out on
Bad of the week (Score:3)
Since President Eisenhower's 1954 heart attack, activists found that attacking food can be done for profit, research funding and filling news articles.
Name a food group, food additive, type of diet, regional cultural spices, miracle berry of the year, processing method, packaging method, etc. and there have been one or more attacks/ warnings, for fun or profit, against it.
[1]https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/a... [nih.gov]
The saturated fat Controversy: Finding calmness in chaos
Reading: "Make Room, Make Room" [2]https://en.wikip [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6796611/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Room!_Make_Room
Re: (Score:1)
Not stuffing anything (usually). I eat a balanced diet and have other joys in my life. But life without carbs would suck. As would life without sunshine. Some things are simply not negotiable.
Re: Lo-carb: not panacea (Score:1)
What would suck is stretching the last years by going lo-carb. I plan to keep my pancreas going all the way.
Re: (Score:1)
Walmart has these little foil packages of butter garlic roles. You stick them in the oven for like 15 minutes before your main course is done and VIOLA. Highly refined carbs to go with your meal. Mmm.
Re: (Score:2)
That's what I used to tell my ex...
Re: (Score:2)
According to the article in scienceblog:
- The Body Makes Its Own [fructose]
- Does fruit cause the same metabolic damage as soda?
-- No, and the review is careful on this point. Whole fruit contains fructose, but it also contains fibre, flavanols, vitamin C and potassium, all of which slow fructose absorption or blunt its downstream effects. The dose is also lower and the delivery slower. Fizzy drinks, by contrast, deliver a concentrated fructose bolus fast enough to overwhelm the small intestine’s prot
Re: (Score:2)
I know several very healthy vegetarians would disagree with you. And I know of many more, including the Shaolin monks.
Maybe being omnivores gives us some options?