Slashdot Mirror
Fructose Linked to Obesity, Diabetes
Engineer-Poet writes "Eurekalert announces that researchers at the University of Florida have demonstrated a link between fructose consumption and metabolic syndrome (a precursor of adult-onset diabetes). In part, it makes you feel hungrier than you should be. This is particularly bad for Americans, because sugar price supports have created a market for fructose as a substitute in almost everything.
Dr. Richard J. Johnson says, "If you feed fructose to animals they rapidly become obese, with all features of the metabolic syndrome, so there is this strong causal link. And a high-fructose intake has been shown to induce certain features of the metabolic syndrome pretty rapidly in people."
Eating fructose causes a rise in uric acid in the bloodstream. Uric acid in turn blocks the action of insulin, which regulates metabolism (including uptake by fat cells). Elevated uric acid levels can eventually cause features of metabolic syndrome, including high blood pressure, obesity and high cholesterol. The good news is that the action of uric acid can be blocked with drugs, and we can change what we eat. If enough of us boycott fructose and corn-syrup products, the market will respond."
That I welcome our Fructose Overlords.
(BTW, anyone else skeptical of getting info from a Dr. Dick Johnson?)
The opposite of progress is congress
Now if we could get the sugar lobbies to allow the lowering of cane sugar import tariffs, we might see healthier food.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
This is all just another reason that the free market should be left to do its job without politicians mucking in it. My dad used to run a few soft drink factories and he would've liked to use real sugar, but it would be impossible to do so because it's too damn expensive.
Go to the store (in the USA) and find a soft drink made with real sugar. Now look at the price tag. Odds are it costs twice as much as its corn-syrup and diet competitors, just for the cost of sugar alone! Where's the freedom, both for the business and the consumer?
I'd be interested to see how the prevelance of obesity and diabetes compares against the average intake of fructose in americans over the last few decades. Perhpas it would strengthen that "casual relationship" they've found.
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
Think about it: That's the same thing.
"Holy crap, I won't buy that!" is the same as "Holy crap, I'll buy something different!"
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Careful here, sucrose is broken down in the body to roughly equal parts of glucose and fructose.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"The good news is that the action of uric acid can be blocked with drugs
Shouldn't that read: now we know the cause of the problem is fructose, we can avoid consuming too much of it?
Christ, typical fucking Yanks. "I'm fat, but instead of eating fewer double-happy-McLard-cheeseburgers, I'll take diet pills and throw up after eating!"
You know 15 minutes a day using a pair of 5kg/10lb. dumbells in a series of exercises can give you tone and make you look much more solid. 30 minutes a day and you can definitely put on some muscle mass. Keep the reps low and do a circuit of different exercises several times. You don't even have to do the exercise all at once, you can get 2-3 cycles done during the commercial breaks of most network TV shows. Plus lean muscle mass is going to be alot healthier for you than flabby fat that puts you at risk of heart disease/stroke as well as the already mentioned diabetes.
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
Corrected Link:
Fructose facts. It seems that people who eat fructose should be careful that they get enough copper.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
I agree exactly. But the article linked by Slashdot and the second article to which I linked is saying that fructose is bad, period. The entire animal kingdom has a history of tens of millions of years of eating fruit. And now fruit is poisonous to some degree? Something is wrong somewhere.
The entire reason plants invented fruit is to encourage animals to eat it and drop the seeds somewhere where another fruit tree will grow. Is this alliance suspect?
News like that makes me want a coke (rum optional.)
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
You're far better of following the South Beach Diet or just a simple Mediterranean diet. Atkins is way too heavy on saturated fats and tells people to shun healthy carbohydrates like fruits and whole grains. He's right about reducing sugar, but all my low-carb cookbooks I bought when on the South Beach Diet contain way too many unhealthy recipes that are just loaded in saturated fat and calories. I couldn't use 90% of them.
Just use common sense and listen to what's been said by scientists for the past few years. Avoid saturated & trans fats but don't worry too much about unsaturated fats. Avoid sugars and refined starches. Eat more vegetables. Everything else is just marketing hype.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Probably helps that I've been practicing Tai Chi for years, but point is, it's not even difficult to find good food in mainstream areas. The problem is people are generally uneducated or completely undisciplined about placing their long-term health and well-being above the short-term return of "Oooooh, yummy num-nums!"
It's easier to blame lack of supply than it is to take responsibility for becoming educated about nutrition, eating correctly, and exercising regularly. Hence we have a ton of lardasses running around the U.S. On the other hand, there are a lot of beautiful fit healthy people, too. Which kind do you want to be? It's that simple.