Fructose, the sugar naturally found in fruits, was once considered a good substitute for sucrose (table sugar). However, because fuctose is a form of simple sugar, just like sucrose, more and more studies are showing that too much fructose can be just as bad as too much sugar.
Excessive intake of fructose can prevent the appetite-controlling hormone leptin from doing its job and increase the risk of obesity, a University of Florida study of rats suggests. There is a proof that a little amount of fructose may help your body process glucose properly. However, excessive fructose at once may overwhelm the body's ability to process it.
Fructose is good if it is within the recommended dietary allowance. Most of the carbohydrates we eat are made up of chains of glucose. When glucose enters the bloodstream, the body releases insulin to help regulate it. Fructose, on the other hand, is processed in the liver. To greatly simplify the situation: When too much fructose enters the liver, the liver can't process it all fast enough for the body to use as sugar. Instead, it starts making fats from the fructose and sending them off into the bloodstream as triglycerides. It is really bad in our body with this three reasons:
• High blood triglycerides are a risk factor for heart disease.
• Fructose ends up circumventing the normal appetite signaling system, so appetite-regulating hormones aren't triggered--and you're left feeling unsatisfied. This is probably at least part of the reason why excess fructose consumption is associated with weight gain.
• There is growing evidence that excess fructose consumption may facilitate insulin resistance, and eventually type 2 diabetes. However, some of this effect may be from chemicals in soda which reacts with the high fructose corn syrup.
The study was published in the American Journal of Physiology -- Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology.
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