Downside of your fructose sweets

What's wrong with fruits and why are fruit smoothies not ok.

"Sugar-free" and "With fructose"

We see this phrase on the labels of "healthy foods".

Sometimes a person eats several kilograms of fruit per day, drinks fruit smoothies or chooses sweets with fructose, thinking it's healthy eating. The person thinks they will only get benefits in the form of vitamins from this. But that's not true!

Let's go deeper and make it easier to understand.

Fructose is a form of sugar. It is one of the main "natural sources" of sweets, found in many fruits, some vegetables, and honey.

FRUCTOSE is an isomer of GLUCOSE. With the help of enzymes, glucose can turn into fructose and vice versa. It has a chemical conformation with an open chain and is therefore much more reactive than glucose. That's why the metabolism of FRUCTOSE is different from the metabolism of glucose.

Fructose is mainly metabolized in the liver, and its pathway is slightly different from glucose's path.

• If we eat a little fructose <0.5 g/kg body weight (snacking on an apple after a meal), it turns into glucose in the cells of the small intestine.

• If we eat a lot >1 g/kg - fructose first harms the intestines, then enters the systemic bloodstream (diffusely) and goes to the liver and cells.

Although there is already a lot of evidence of the harm of excess fructose, there are still MYTHS in society that:

• fructose is not sugar

• fructose is good for diabetics

• products with fructose are healthier than products with regular sugar. As a result, we see many sweets with fructose, honey, agave, Jerusalem artichoke, date, maple and other syrups.

Because of these myths, we do a lot of harm to ourselves.

Studies show that excess fructose is associated with increased risks of developing:

• obesity

• hypertension

• type 2 diabetes

• gout and hyperuricemia 

• cardiovascular diseases

• non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and liver cancer

• disruption of the body's immune homeostasis due to changes in the gut microbial community

• increased intestinal barrier permeability

The problem with fructose is that it is not regulated by insulin and can stimulate the production of fats in the liver.

So, to summarize the above:

1. Fructose is harmful only in excess. At a normal intake of 300-350 grams of fruits and berries per day, fructose is not harmful and of course, it is better to prefer berries, as they are more nutritionally valuable for us.

2. Excess fructose has been proven to be harmful and does not leave a chance to be healthy.

3. Fructose-based products are not healthier than products with regular sugar.

4. Fructose makes it harder to lose weight!

Let's look at the 4th conclusion in more detail.

Why does fructose make it harder to lose weight?

Almost everyone who wants to lose weight or watch their weight has the belief that fructose will not hinder this. They buy cookies, granola, or fructose-based bars when they crave something sweet.

Why shouldn't they do this?

It's not about the calories (by the way, fructose has the same calorie count as sugar), but about much more complicated hormonal regulation mechanisms.

Consuming fructose, unlike consuming glucose, leads to increased hunger and the desire to eat, because fructose:

• lowers leptin (the satiety hormone)

• lowers the hormone GLP-1/glucagon-like peptide 1 and consequently insulin secretion

• increases the hunger hormone ghrelin in the serum, which stimulates the activity of neuropeptide Y, increasing food intake

Increased fructose intake with food significantly accelerates the gastric half-emptying time compared to similar glucose intake, so we get hungry again faster.

In conclusion, fructose can be beneficial in moderate amounts in the form of whole fruits, berries, vegetables, and honey.

At the request of our subscribers who had problems downloading the carbs cheat sheet file we have fixed it, you can download it below 👇

Each mindful small step today will become a giant leap for your well-being tomorrow.

Warm regards,
Kos