Fructose Sweetener Spurs Obesity

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Question:

To a larger degree than I’d hope for, many things just seem to depend on whatever it is that you believe. Roberts published in Behaviorial and Brain Sciences, 2004 27:2 pp254-257 how drinking unflavored fructose solution led to sustained weight loss in individuals. He now has some people who have replicated his experiment and seen the same results. You can find his stuff with a web search. (It is a MUCH longer paper, I only mentioned the three pages that had his fructose result mentioned) The paper also cites other authors where rodents consuming fructose led to weight loss. It appears that he is now thinking that strong flavors we like when coupled with calories lead to weight gain. That is probably what we have experienced for a million years. And what he thinks he has stumbled onto is that if you take away all the flavor then you can somehow confuse the weight gain machinery. The experiment seems easy to do. The only question I had after reading the paper was whether he had used refrigerated or room temperature. If I can find that out I might try it just to see what happens.

Response:

Interestingly, this article just refers to "fructose" making it sound like the sugar in apples is going to make you fat (although I’m sure it can), but another article I read about the same study makes it clear that they’re talking about high fructose corn syrup. As far as I’m concerned, that stuff is just obesity in a bottle. Martha

Response:

Fructose Sweetener Spurs Obesity Jul 29 2005 FRIDAY, July 29 (HealthDay News) — Another study finds that high consumption of soft drinks and other sweetened beverages contributes to obesity. But this study, conducted in mice, suggests that one form of natural sweetener — fructose — may be especially likely to encourage weight gain. In the study, researchers at the University of Cincinnati allowed mice to freely consume either plain water or fructose-sweetened water and soft drinks. The mice that drank the fructose-sweetened water and soft drinks gained weight, even though they took in fewer calories from solid food. By the end of the study, the mice that consumed fructose-sweetened beverages had 90 percent more body fat than the mice that consumed water only. The findings suggest that the total amount of calories consumed when someone includes fructose in their diets may not be the only cause of weight gain. Consuming fructose may actually affect metabolism in a way that leads to more fat storage, at least in mice, the researchers said. "Our study shows how fat mass increases as a direct consequence of soft drink consumption," study author Dr. Matthias Tschop, associate professor in the University of Cincinnati’s psychiatry department and a member of the Obesity Research Center at the university’s Genome Research Institute, said in a prepared statement. "We were surprised to see that mice actually ate less when exposed to fructose-sweetened beverages, and therefore didn’t consume more overall calories. Nevertheless, they gained significantly more body fat within a few weeks," Tschop said. The study appears in the July issue of the journal Obesity Research.

Response:

Fructose Sweetener Spurs Obesity Jul 29 2005

Duh – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – FRIDAY, July 29 (HealthDay News) — Another study finds that high consumption of soft drinks and other sweetened beverages contributes to obesity. But this study, conducted in mice, suggests that one form of natural sweetener — fructose — may be especially likely to encourage weight gain. In the study, researchers at the University of Cincinnati allowed mice to freely consume either plain water or fructose-sweetened water and soft drinks. The mice that drank the fructose-sweetened water and soft drinks gained weight, even though they took in fewer calories from solid food. By the end of the study, the mice that consumed fructose-sweetened beverages had 90 percent more body fat than the mice that consumed water only. The findings suggest that the total amount of calories consumed when someone includes fructose in their diets may not be the only cause of weight gain. Consuming fructose may actually affect metabolism in a way that leads to more fat storage, at least in mice, the researchers said. "Our study shows how fat mass increases as a direct consequence of soft drink consumption," study author Dr. Matthias Tschop, associate professor in the University of Cincinnati’s psychiatry department and a member of the Obesity Research Center at the university’s Genome Research Institute, said in a prepared statement. "We were surprised to see that mice actually ate less when exposed to fructose-sweetened beverages, and therefore didn’t consume more overall calories. Nevertheless, they gained significantly more body fat within a few weeks," Tschop said. The study appears in the July issue of the journal Obesity Research.

Response:

I ‘ve been saying for years that high frustose corn syrup has led to our obesity problems. The stuff is in everything. Once, i looked at the ingredients on a package of sushi. Even it had hfcs. If I read correctly, it was added to our food supply during the Nixon administration to keep the cost of food cheap. That timeline, 30 years, would coincide with the the obesity epidemic. I really think the stuff is dangerous.

It may have led to your obesity. It didn’t lead to mine – we don’t use the stuff. Cheers Alan, T2, Australia. — Everything in Moderation – Except Laughter.

Response:

Fructose Sweetener Spurs Obesity FRIDAY, July 29 (HealthDay News) — Another study finds that high consumption of soft drinks and other sweetened beverages contributes to obesity. But this study, conducted in mice, suggests that one form of natural sweetener — fructose — may be especially likely to encourage weight gain. In the study, researchers at the University of Cincinnati allowed mice to freely consume either plain water or fructose-sweetened water and soft drinks. The mice that drank the fructose-sweetened water and soft drinks gained weight, even though they took in fewer calories from solid food.

I don’t see any claim that the mice getting the fructose did not take in more calories once you count the fructose. By the end of the study, the mice that consumed fructose-sweetened beverages had 90 percent more body fat than the mice that consumed water only. The findings suggest that the total amount of calories consumed when someone includes fructose in their diets may not be the only cause of weight gain. Consuming fructose may actually affect metabolism in a way that leads to more fat storage, at least in mice, the researchers said.

I don’t see any mention of fructose being compared to other sugars such as sucrose, so I don’t see how this study indicates fructose being worse than any other sugar. Also, with no claim that the mice getting the fructose did not take in more calories once you count all the fructose in their liquid intake, I don’t see how the weight gain is disproven to be from calories alone. Possible alternative conclusions given the data mentioned in the posting by "Lewis": Consuming more calories makes one gain weight, and drinking only sugary liquids and no unsugared water regardless of sugar type increases calorie consumption bigtime and could reduce appetite for actual food to partially offset the calories in the sugary liquids. I did just look at the label on a 20 ounce bottle of sugary fruit-flavor soda, and it came to 300 calories ("servings" per container 2.5, calories per serving 120) – about 15% of a typical 2,000 calorie "quota" for someone getting no extra exercise to not gain weight. The 20 ounce bottle has been the usual de-facto single-serving container of soda for the past few years. From the early or mid 1970’s to the late 1990’s, the usual de-facto single serving bottle of soda was 16 ounces. Back in the 1960’s or 1950’s or so, soda bottles were even smaller. There is also the 12 oz can – at 120 calories per 8 ounces, a can of the sugary stuff would be 180 calories. I had some other bottles of different sizes of different sugary fruit flavored sodas as well as root beer – 6 out of 7 came to 120-125 calories per 8 ounces, and one came to 110. I did just look at a different bottle, of sugary cola: 100 calories per 8 ounces. Fortunately I ride bicycles about 200-250 miles a week!

Response:

The problem is that the article was written by an amateur journalist and definitely not someone concerned about accuracy. Withthe language and statements he makes you can’t be certain WHAT the study says happened–which probably means the author couldn’t understand it himself and just regurgitated the few pieces he thought he understood, or was told it said. The article says they stored more body fat, but honestly, it leaves room for the fructose mice to have LOST weight. It just never says that fact. Like another poster said, they consumed less calories in solid food ONLY. But counting all the calories in the fructose they could have tripled caloric intake–they just don’t say. If they forced mice to consume sugar to prevent thrist, well then they likely would gain weight, duh. As aNother poster said, the same results probably would happen with glucose. They are artifically preventing the mice from drinking water. They will still crave food because there are other nutrients they need beside fructose. ANd the article NEVER says they feed them high-fructose corn syrup. Everyone is just assuming that because they already believe it. They only mention fructose, the stuff that is naturally in fruits. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – It may have led to your obesity. It didn’t lead to mine – we don’t use the stuff. So says my husband who also is from Austrailia. He always points out how sweets from Austrailia taste sooooo much better because they are real and not the cheap stuff you get here. The point I think many missed from the OP’s article is that the comparitive mice did not necessarily gain more *weight* than the other mice, they ended up with more stored BODYFAT. This then suggests that the fructose somehow changed the mices metabolism (ability to absorb or use calories as fuel) as they two groups ate about the same amount each day. I thought it was a very interesting article which just might in years to come change the beverage industry just as the the flood of info on transfats is currently slowly changing the processed food industry. joanne

DiGiTAL_ViNYL (no email) 350/282/225 month-start: 281 monthly-goal: 0 since: 12/01/2004 Atkins since Jan 12, 2004 In Maintenance, not counting (CCLL=50-60)

Response:

The story is a bit more complicated than that. I don’t know the whole timeline or all of the factors, but some bits and pieces are outlined below: 1. Food Manufacturers used to use "high glucose" corn syrup as a cheap sweetener. It was added to many foods. It was essentially all glucose or a mixture of glucose and polymers of glucose which the body converted to glucose. 2. The enzyme, Glucose Isomerase, became available. It would convert "high glucose" corn syrup to a product which contained 42% Fructose and the remainder glucose and polymers of glucose. 3. Fructose tastes sweeter than glucose. The 42% fructose corn syrup product tastes better than the high glucose product and is nearly as cheap. 4. A process was developed which allowed an economical conversion of the 42% product to a 55% Fructose Product, i.e. the first "High Fructose Corn Syrup" I don’t know when this happened but the process became much cheaper and more efficient in the 1980’s. 5. High Fructose Corn Syrup "tastes better" than "low fructose" corn syrup. (Some folks also think the 55% product tastes sweeter than an equal amount of standard table sugar. On a sweetness basis, wholesale HFCS is cheaper than wholesale table sugar in the U.S.) 6. The original HFCS had about 55% Fructose, 45% Glucose. It is a current item of commerce 7. Some premium HFCS has about 65% Fructose, 35% Glucose 8. Surprise. . .standard table sugar is converted to 50% glucose, 50% fructose in our bodies. Therefore, HFCS puts more fructose into our bodies than standard table sugar but it is not a massive amount more. One example: A bottle of U.S. sugared soft drink often contains 28 grams of HFCS and supplies 15.4 gram of fructose. Standard sugar is expensive in the U.S. so the HFCS flavored soft drink is cheaper to make. In Europe and much of the rest of the world, sugar is cheaper than HFCS so that same bottle would often contain about 28 grams of standard table sugar and supply 14.0 gram of fructose to the consumer. . . .unless the manufacturer added more than 28 grams of standard table sugar in order to bring the taste of sweetness up to the HFCS level. If the manufacturer needed 29 or 30 grams of standard table sugar to make the product taste as sweet as the HFCS version, the standard table sugar-sweetened bottle would supply 14.5 to 15 gram of fructose or almost the same as the HFCS-sweetened bottle. 9. IOW, the real problem is "Too much sweetener added to too many foods because it makes them taste better and thus are more likely to be purchased" In the U.S., that sweetener is HFCS, in the rest of the world, that sweetener is more likely to be table sugar. BTW: I think the real danger from HFCS and table sugar is the effect the fructose has on cholesterol. It favors the production of triglycerides which end up doing all sorts of damage. It is particularly life-threatening to diabetics, including diabetics-to-be who don’t know that they are in the Standard Type 2 Diabetes Progression. Regards Old Al

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – It may have led to your obesity. It didn’t lead to mine – we don’t use the stuff.- So says my husband who also is from Austrailia. He always points out how sweets from Austrailia taste sooooo much better because they are real and not the cheap stuff you get here. The point I think many missed from the OP’s article is that the comparitive mice did not necessarily gain more *weight* than the other mice, they ended up with more stored BODYFAT. This then suggests that the fructose somehow changed the mices metabolism (ability to absorb or use calories as fuel) as they two groups ate about the same amount each day. I thought it was a very interesting article which just might in years to come change the beverage industry just as the the flood of info on transfats is currently slowly changing the processed food industry. joanne

If you should bite into something sweet – spit it out immediately – it is not going to be good for you. www.antiagingatlanta.com — rvsmithmd

Response:

Well that theory might work well for you but where I live we don’t use the stuff. There is a whole big world outside the US you know. Obesity is caused by excess calories. And we have similar levels of obesity here. What leads to obesity is the hand that shovels the food in the mouth. The extra calories have more to do with the girth spread than what the ingredients are.

Response:

It may have led to your obesity. It didn’t lead to mine – we don’t use the stuff.

So says my husband who also is from Austrailia. He always points out how sweets from Austrailia taste sooooo much better because they are real and not the cheap stuff you get here. The point I think many missed from the OP’s article is that the comparitive mice did not necessarily gain more *weight* than the other mice, they ended up with more stored BODYFAT. This then suggests that the fructose somehow changed the mices metabolism (ability to absorb or use calories as fuel) as they two groups ate about the same amount each day. I thought it was a very interesting article which just might in years to come change the beverage industry just as the the flood of info on transfats is currently slowly changing the processed food industry. joanne

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – (**Around here, one learns not to drive behind a farm truck containing sugar-beets. They pile them as high as possible. If any fall off, they [land with] the same impact potential as a 2 kg piece of wood. You want to be careful following a gravel truck, also. … or meeting a tractor trailer carrying steel pipes going towards you and spilling pipes almost at your car. Happened to a lesbian friend of mine once. I’m curious as to what her sexual orientation had to do with it… Was she on her way to a potluck? ;-)

Do you mean that straight people don’t do potlucks? Then that means that my children’s friends’ parents… and all those teachers… AND THE MINISTER HIMSELF? Oh my god… — Cheers, Bev ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo "Few skills are so well rewarded as the ability to convince parasites that they are victims." –Thomas Sowell

Response:

lesbian

This was an unnecessary adjective.

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – (**Around here, one learns not to drive behind a farm truck containing sugar-beets. They pile them as high as possible. If any fall off, they the same impact potential as a 2 kg piece of wood. You want to be careful following a gravel truck, also. … or meeting a tractor trailer carrying steel pipes going towards you and spilling pipes almost at your car. Happened to a lesbian friend of mine once.

I’m curious as to what her sexual orientation had to do with it… Was she on her way to a potluck? ;-) Priscilla

Response:

|||| |||| (**Around here, one learns not to drive behind a farm |||| truck containing sugar-beets. They pile them as high as |||| possible. If any fall off, ||| they |||| the same impact potential as a 2 kg piece of wood. ||| ||| ||| You want to be careful following a gravel truck, also. ||| || || … or meeting a tractor trailer carrying steel pipes going || towards || you and spilling pipes almost at your car. Happened to a || lesbian || friend of mine once. || Probably a homophobic truck… BJ — — "Never underestimate the power of a moron with a conspiracy theory." — Unknown

Response:

(**Around here, one learns not to drive behind a farm truck containing sugar-beets. They pile them as high as possible. If any fall off, they the same impact potential as a 2 kg piece of wood.

You want to be careful following a gravel truck, also. — No Husband Has Ever Been Shot While Doing The Dishes

Response:

. . .(snip). . . It gets even murkier, involving world trade subsidies and barriers, support for US corn producers, sanctions against Cuba and so on. There is a lot of politics behind the US use of HFCS. We rarely see HFCS here, except in imported products. We see the history from a different viewpoint out here; I live in the heart of a sugar-cane producing area. Cheers Alan, T2, Australia.

I live in the heart of a sugar-beet producing area**. I know some of the farmers. Basically, trying to grow sugar this far North is a stupid business but for the import quotas on cane sugar. They’re not doing all that well even with the quotas. (**Around here, one learns not to drive behind a farm truck containing sugar-beets. They pile them as high as possible. If any fall off, they the same impact potential as a 2 kg piece of wood. Regards Old Al

Response:

<snip The story is a bit more complicated than that. I don’t know the whole timeline or all of the factors, but some bits and pieces are outlined below: It gets even murkier, involving world trade subsidies and barriers, support for US corn producers, sanctions against Cuba and so on. There is a lot of politics behind the US use of HFCS. We rarely see HFCS here, except in imported products.

The main reason reason is to protect the US Beet Sugar industry (which has been around for a long time), the price of sucrose in the USA is a multiple of the world price. That doesn’t have much to with the price of sugar in the rest of the world, or the fact that Cuba makes a lot of Cane Sugar. It has to do with the fact that Sugar beets can never produce sucrose at a price that it is at all competitive with Sugar Cane, and the US has a very large domestic Beet Sugar industry, and like much of US Agricultural has been extensively protected for a very long time. As a result HFCS is very attractive in the USA, but relatively unattractive in the rest of the world. It does cause some interesting things to happen. Pepsi and Coca Cola actually taste different outside the USA . When I was growing up in the 1950’s, one of my neighbors was a lobbyist for the Dominican Republic. He was paid for every ton he was able to get the import quota for the Dominican Republic Raised (and that was years before Castro came to power). It made him enough money to buy a rather nice home. When he died in the mid 1990’s, it had an assessed valuation of a mere $1.4 million – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -We see the history from a different viewpoint out here; I live in the heart of a sugar-cane producing area. The growth of HFCS use in the late twentieth century in the USA and the parallel restrictions and depression of the world cane-sugar market had significant economic implications here and in some Pacific economies such as Fiji. Some more recent implications are discussed here: http://www.card.iastate.edu/iowa_ag_review/spring_04/article2.aspx On obesity, HFCS has had little effect in the rest of the world. However, our importation of some lifestyle changes and global fast-food chains has. Cheers Alan, T2, Australia.

Response:

<snip The story is a bit more complicated than that. I don’t know the whole timeline or all of the factors, but some bits and pieces are outlined below:

It gets even murkier, involving world trade subsidies and barriers, support for US corn producers, sanctions against Cuba and so on. There is a lot of politics behind the US use of HFCS. We rarely see HFCS here, except in imported products. We see the history from a different viewpoint out here; I live in the heart of a sugar-cane producing area. The growth of HFCS use in the late twentieth century in the USA and the parallel restrictions and depression of the world cane-sugar market had significant economic implications here and in some Pacific economies such as Fiji. Some more recent implications are discussed here: http://www.card.iastate.edu/iowa_ag_review/spring_04/article2.aspx On obesity, HFCS has had little effect in the rest of the world. However, our importation of some lifestyle changes and global fast-food chains has. Cheers Alan, T2, Australia. — Everything in Moderation – Except Laughter.

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – (**Around here, one learns not to drive behind a farm truck containing sugar-beets. They pile them as high as possible. If any fall off, they [land with] the same impact potential as a 2 kg piece of wood. You want to be careful following a gravel truck, also. … or meeting a tractor trailer carrying steel pipes going towards you and spilling pipes almost at your car. Happened to a lesbian friend of mine once. I’m curious as to what her sexual orientation had to do with it… Was she on her way to a potluck? ;-) Do you mean that straight people don’t do potlucks? Then that means that my children’s friends’ parents… and all those teachers… AND THE MINISTER HIMSELF? Oh my god…

Yes, maybe your god, too! ;-) Ain’t stereotypes grand? Priscilla

Response:

Geez, my whole family is gay, how did we ever manage to produce so many children! | | Not particularly, but I had never heard of potlucks being an | indicator of | homosexuality.

Response:

I used to buy the boxes of fructose for sweetening, since I thought a sweetener that was like the sugar in fruits must be a better choice. Oops

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Fructose Sweetener Spurs Obesity Jul 29 2005 FRIDAY, July 29 (HealthDay News) — Another study finds that high consumption of soft drinks and other sweetened beverages contributes to obesity. But this study, conducted in mice, suggests that one form of natural sweetener — fructose — may be especially likely to encourage weight gain. In the study, researchers at the University of Cincinnati allowed mice to freely consume either plain water or fructose-sweetened water and soft drinks. The mice that drank the fructose-sweetened water and soft drinks gained weight, even though they took in fewer calories from solid food. By the end of the study, the mice that consumed fructose-sweetened beverages had 90 percent more body fat than the mice that consumed water only. The findings suggest that the total amount of calories consumed when someone includes fructose in their diets may not be the only cause of weight gain. Consuming fructose may actually affect metabolism in a way that leads to more fat storage, at least in mice, the researchers said. "Our study shows how fat mass increases as a direct consequence of soft drink consumption," study author Dr. Matthias Tschop, associate professor in the University of Cincinnati’s psychiatry department and a member of the Obesity Research Center at the university’s Genome Research Institute, said in a prepared statement. "We were surprised to see that mice actually ate less when exposed to fructose-sweetened beverages, and therefore didn’t consume more overall calories. Nevertheless, they gained significantly more body fat within a few weeks," Tschop said. The study appears in the July issue of the journal Obesity Research.

Response:

Not particularly, but I had never heard of potlucks being an indicator of homosexuality. — Cheers, Bev Sign on restroom hand-dryer: "Push button for a message from your congressman."

Response:

"Few skills are so well rewarded as the ability to convince parasites that they are victims." –Thomas Sowell Nice. I like his columns. Marsha/Ohio

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