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Too much fructose can damage your liver, just like too much alcohol

sugarscience.ucsf.edu

71–80 of 166 posts

Re: Too much fructose can damage your liver, just like too much alcohol

#71
post #70
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing, I think the parent is wrong or misspoke. The advice is usually "substitute bad processed sugar with fruit", which is what Dr Lustig has advocated for the last decade. Of course too much fruit is itself bad, since the fiber can only do so much.

Why would too much fruit be bad? This is sadly a myth that gets formed when “sugar is bad” is oversimplified.

A balanced diet is important. Fruit only covers certain parts. And yes it also has a bit much sugar. Replace 80% of your fruit with veggies and you will be better off.

Re: Too much fructose can damage your liver, just like too much alcohol

#72

>Scientific evidence on fructose and the liver is relatively new People have been force feeding animals to fatten them up (gavage) for about 5,000 years, but specifically feeding them sugars/grains for the purpose of fattening their liver. Ever hear of the French delicacy Foie Gras(1)? It literally means fat liver, and after 5,000 years of perfecting fattening liver what do we force feed the animals? Corn! The same f…

High fructose corn syrup is made by processing regular corn syrup (mostly glucose) with enzymes to convert some of the glucose to fructose, making it sweeter. Corn is not naturally high in fructose.

Re: Too much fructose can damage your liver, just like too much alcohol

#75
post #70
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing, I think the parent is wrong or misspoke. The advice is usually "substitute bad processed sugar with fruit", which is what Dr Lustig has advocated for the last decade. Of course too much fruit is itself bad, since the fiber can only do so much.

Why would too much fruit be bad? This is sadly a myth that gets formed when “sugar is bad” is oversimplified.

Too much of anything is bad, even exercise.

Re: Too much fructose can damage your liver, just like too much alcohol

#76
post #53
post #3

Just wanna say that my wife has a PhD in nutrition and this isn't news to us. We've "known" that unbound fructose is hard on the liver for years.

What is unbound fructose, and can you give some links about it?

I think he means fructose that is not bound to glucose ..

Re: Too much fructose can damage your liver, just like too much alcohol

#78
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Too much of everything is always bad. That's folk-wisdom, which is sort of a good heuristic but is not useful when we can actually test and demonstrate. Some things are bad even in small quantities, say poison. Somethings we can't get enough of, say fresh air. I've mostly cut out fructose (and most other forms of sugar) altogether from my diet and it's probably the single-most impactful change that I've made in my l…

> Somethings we can't get enough of, say fresh air. Well, if you get too much air, the pressure will probably kill you, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I would have gone with hyperventilation, though there's a cutoff there

Re: Too much fructose can damage your liver, just like too much alcohol

#79

Is it possible to buy processed foods that have no fructose. Certainly, fructose is sweeter and that's why it's used so much. But would be great to avoid it altogether. I know you can bake with dextrose. I wish I'd taken chemistry. I see a lot of conflicting statements about isomers of glucose.

There are – or should be - many foods that may meet the definition of "processed food" and contain no fructose. I can't name or confirm specific brands, but unsweetened bran flakes would be one such example. Some varieties of crackers would (or should) also contain no fructose.

There are of course many more processed foods that don't contain added sugars, and therefore would contain no added fructose. At least some of these could be considered relatively harmless in moderation.

I'm not a doctor, a dietician, nor am I a nutritionist, so take the following with the largest grain of salt you wish, but a diet entirely devoid of fructose doesn't seem like it would be particularly useful compared to a diet with moderate fructose intake, in the general case. On the other hand, I'm unsure whether avoiding it entirely would be particularly harmful, if you were so inclined (but again, I'll point out that I'm not a doctor and this is not to be taken as medical advice.)

Re: Too much fructose can damage your liver, just like too much alcohol

#80
post #3

Just wanna say that my wife has a PhD in nutrition and this isn't news to us. We've "known" that unbound fructose is hard on the liver for years.

Your wife is one of the few pedigreed nutrionists who “knows” that! Sadly most nutritionists are overweight themselves and continue to advocate people consume whole grains, low-fat dairy, and fruit to lose weight/be healthier. Kudos to your wife for ignoring the massive amount of BS most doctors and nutritionists are inculcated with!

FWIW, this could be because nutritionist : dietitian :: toothitian : dentist.
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