Glucose, Fructose and Sucrose
- The Differences in these sugars and which is
worse for you and your health?
While the treats you eat all taste great, there is now
evidence that suggest they react very differently in your
body.
The three sugars that are most commonly eaten are
glucose, fructose and sucrose.
Sucrose is what is commonly called table sugar.
Glucose is made when your body breaks down starches
that you have eaten. And, fructose is the sugar
that is found naturally in fruits or in the often used
high-fructose corn syrup like is used in sodas.
Sucrose is half fructose and half glucose.
University of California researchers compared the
consumption of glucose and fructose
sweetened beverages in 32 overweight people and
found that the participants who had
fructose-sweetened beverages had unhealthy
side-effects besides their weight gain.
The beverages consisted of 25% of the participants daily
caloric intake for 12 weeks and both groups gained weight
comparably, but the fructose group had increase fat,
increased LDL cholesterol and triglycerides, a reduced
sensitivity to insulin, and more fat produced in the liver.
The participants who drank the glucose-sweetened
beverages had no adverse changes.
So, it appears that all sugars are not the same just as
all fats or carbohydrates are not the same.
Glucose appears to be converted by the body into energy
and causes the production of leptin which is a hormone that
helps to control fat storage and your appetite. The
production of a stomach hormone, ghrelin, is reduced.
Ghrelin reduction seems to help hunger go away.
Fructose does not increase insulin secretion or leptin
product. Nor does it suppress the production of
ghrelin. This leads to the belief that too much
fructose could cause weight gain plus the other side-effects
that appeared in the fructose group.
While you may begin a search for
glucose-sweetened desserts
and sodas, you are probably out of luck. Most
sweetened products are made with sucrose or fructose.
Most often it is the high-fructose corn syrup that is used.
This study indicates that the long-term consumption of
these fructose-sweetened drinks may actually double your
risk of obesity and may lead to diabetes.
What does this mean to you? Well, you should
drink less sugar-sweetened beverages! |