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

sugarscience.ucsf.edu

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

#151

Post by teach »

dbcurtis wrote: post #93
teach wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything except red meat and dairy, honestly. But if you want to know what we believe to be true about which foods are healthy, there's probably no better starting point than Harvard's Healthy Eating Plate. - https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-...

so, not paleo. Does your wife have comments on the paleo diet thesis?

My bumper-sticker answer is basically that paleo proposes some of the right things but for the wrong reasons.

Avoiding processed foods and refined sugar is good. Avoiding dairy is good. But there's no reason in general to avoid cereal grains, legumes or potatoes unless you're sensitive/allergic.

And higher-quality meat is an improvement over the status quo but a vegetarian diet is likely to be healthier.

But all that is me talking, not my wife. I suspect she would say similar things but honestly we don't spend a lot of time discussing the random fad diet book du-jour.

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

#152

Post by nikolay »

kwoff wrote: post #148
nikolay wrote: post #146

Fructose has always been known to be metabolized just like alcohol, so, here's the news? The only type of fructose that's tolerable, in my view, is in moderate consumption of whole fruits (not juice or other processed versions), and unadulterated honey - still in moderation. When I see people eating huge amounts of fruits, I start feeling sorry about their pancreas and liver!

Why "unadulterated honey"?

Supermarket-quality honey is pasteurized and has added sugar, i.e., it has almost no benefits, but gives you all the negatives of glucose and fructose.

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

#153

Post by nikolay »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #111
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #63

Given the US uses HFCS a lot, whereas many other countries use other sugar, it would be interesting to compare liver disease rates since the 1980s in the US vs non-HFCS countries.

HFCS has roughly the same fructose:glucose ratio as table sugar, honey and other sugars that are claimed to be less unhealthy. HFCS alarmism is just that: Alarmism. The problem is not the composition of HFCS, it's that we in the western world are adding a hell of a lot more sugar to everything compared to 40-50 years ago.

But some claim that during the conversion of corn glucose to HFCS, a lot of contaminants end up in it, and explain some of its ill-effects to that.

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

#154

Post by nikolay »

swendoog wrote: post #95

Why is it that I can eat tons of sugar, including HFCS soda, and not gain any fat?

Depends on your age, metabolism, and lifestyle. By the way, just because you cannot see it, it doesn't mean that irreversible damage isn't being done on your pancreas beta cells. There's a diabetes epidemic among thin Asians.

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

#155

Post by Mz »

swendoog wrote: post #95

Why is it that I can eat tons of sugar, including HFCS soda, and not gain any fat?

I don't know the answer to your question about you in specific, but I have a genetic disorder that predisposes people to being super thin. One element of it is that fats are misprocessed.

I have made some headway on dealing with it. But, I mean, I wouldn't know where to begin to explain it and I have no idea how it relates to your experience. So, I mean, I don't know what pieces to even talk about. If I know someone has, for example, diabetes, I can come up with pertinent things to say, even though that isn't my condition.

There is a lot of info out there these days. You may be able to eventually hack this and find a means to put on weight.

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

#156

Post by Gibbon1 »

dl904 wrote: post #87
itchyouch wrote: post #81

>That excess fructose is broken down by the liver and transformed into fat globules (triglycerides) I believe this is not "that" accurate. Generally the presence of excess carbohydrates cause the body to prioritize sucrose/fructose/glucose to glycogen conversion and storage & usage. Dietary Lipids that are ingested are stored rather than used for energy. While, De novo lipogenesis (turning carbs to lipids) does occur…

Something that has been popularized in certain countries is the notion that there is a huge difference between different kinds of sugars, and that especially fructose is harmful to people. I wonder if there is any truth to that.

What I understand is the core structure of glucose and fructose differ enough that the metabolic pathways are different. And also while fructose tastes sweet it isn't under homeostatic control like glucose is. So I think it's important health-wise to distinguish the two.

There are other sugars that either differ only slightly from glucose or are dimer, etc. AKA lactose is a disaccharide sugar composed of galactose and glucose. Compare with sucrose which is disaccharide composed of glucose and fructose.

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

#157

Post by Gibbon1 »

hasenj wrote: post #76
vram22 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

What I've read everywhere is that enzymes in your stomach make short work of disaccharides.

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

#158

Post by Gibbon1 »

SigmundA wrote: post #9
teach wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect there's no good answer to that question. People vary widely. Some people drink lots of alcohol for years with relatively unscathed livers and others get cirrhosis pretty quickly. But your instinct is right that fructose that's bound up in real fruit isn't typically the problem. It's unbound fructose like you find in agave nectar or HFCS.

Why is real fruit not a problem but HFCS is? Dates sugar content is mostly sucrose which is broken down in the small intestine very rapidly into 50/50 glucose/fructose while HFCS is typically 45/55 glucose/fructose. Once one sucrose is metabolized by sucrase it hits the bloodstream as glucose and fructose no different than HFSC. Doesn't only matter in the end how much fructose you consume regardless of whether enters…

> Why is real fruit not a problem but HFCS

Two things, people just don't eat that much fruit, usually. And whole fruits/vegetables when eaten release glucose and fructose slowly as the digestive enzymes slowly break it down. I think the idea is not to force your body to deal with a big slug of glucose and fructose all at once.

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

#159

Post by KozmoNau7 »

nikolay wrote: post #153
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HFCS has roughly the same fructose:glucose ratio as table sugar, honey and other sugars that are claimed to be less unhealthy. HFCS alarmism is just that: Alarmism. The problem is not the composition of HFCS, it's that we in the western world are adding a hell of a lot more sugar to everything compared to 40-50 years ago.

But some claim that during the conversion of corn glucose to HFCS, a lot of contaminants end up in it, and explain some of its ill-effects to that.

Oddly enough, they don't seem able to actually back up those claims.

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

#160

Post by oicu812 »

nikolay wrote: post #145
will_brown wrote: post #16

>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…

Same with skim milk, which has always been used to fatten pigs. But some prefer it today thinking less fat and cholesterol is healthier and would make them lose weight over whole milk. If only the most complex system in the universe (the human body) was that simple! People and, unfortunately, scientists completely ignored the complexity of hormones, gene expressions, and many other factors when suggesting "healthier"…

False. Fructose != skim milk. Less fat and less calories in skim milk can cause weight loss.

The claim that skim milk was fed to pigs because it has some magical fattening properties is just another urban myth. Skim milk was fed to pigs because it was free/cheap and nutritional.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/food/2014/0...

http://northernplanets.blogspot.com/2007/07/milk-folklore.ht...

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