Fructose contributes to health problems

Regarding the April 14 letter “Corn sweetener gets sour reputation”:

Scientists have proved that fructose, a cheap form of sugar used in thousands of food products and soft drinks, can damage human metabolism and is fueling the obesity crisis.

Over 10 weeks in a study - see http://smgs.us/mm5 - 16 volunteers on a controlled diet, including high levels of fructose, produced new fat cells around their heart, liver and other digestive organs. They showed signs of food-processing abnormalities linked to diabetes and heart disease.

Another group of volunteers on the same diet, but with glucose sugar replacing fructose, did not have these problems.

Fructose is a major contributor to insulin resistance and obesity, elevated blood pressure, elevated triglycerides and elevated LDL, depletion of vitamins and minerals, cardiovascular disease, lever disease, cancer, arthritis and even gout.

There are two reasons fructose is so damaging, according to this report: 1) Your body metabolizes fructose in a much different way than glucose. The entire burden of metabolizing fructose falls on the liver. 2) People are consuming fructose in enormous quantities, which has made the negative effects much worse.

Robert Larsen

Cedar Rapids