Kate Brown wrote:

Hi David,

Im studying a health/science degree so looked up the peter harvel study you mentioned in research on the uni database. It was great to see so many of the fructose issues you have brought up being backed up - eg. High LDL levels, increased visceral and abdominal fat etc.

One thing though which I found interesting, was that there was no signicant change in body weight between the glucose group and the fructose group after the 10 weeks. I would have thought there would have been a difference, your thoughts?

Cheers,

Kate 

Kate,

In that study, the participants were asked to eat their normal diet and also consume a drink which was calculated to contain 25% of the calories they normally had in a day.  So they were eating 125% of the calories they would normally eat.  If they normally ate up to 20% of their calories from sugar (as the average American does) then this diet did nothing to alter that, it just added a further 25% of calories from glucose or fructose.

Given this, its not surprising that both groups gained the same amount of weight.  They were consuming exactly the same number of calories and both groups still had broken appetite controls systems (both would still have been addicted to sugar).

As you say the really interesting bit is all the extra damage (besides weight gain) that happened to the fructose group.

This raises an important issue, which I think I have mentioned a few times, but this brings it into stark relief - Simply adding glucose sweetened food to a 'normal' diet WILL NOT result in weight loss.

To achieve weight-loss, you MUST eliminate fructose from your diet first.  ONLY once you've successfully broken the sugar addiction, retored your appetite control and no longer have fructose as part of your life, can you safely switch to glucose sweetened foods for the occassional treat.  Even then you must listen to you appetite.  If you are full you should not eat (don't worry, you really do get really full and you'd have to struggle to keep eating).

Does that help at all?

Cheers
David.